Miriam awoke to the sound of a rope dragging across the ground. She was sleeping on the bench inside the wrecked plane, having draped a tarp over her as a blanket. Looking over the bench's edge, she saw a long length of rope sliding across the plane's floor, leading outside the open hatch. Rubbing the crust out of her eyes, she walked outside to question the culprit.
“What are you doing?” she asked the tiny soldier hauling the rope over his shoulder.
“Hunting.” Lanz was walking in the direction of the jungle, his sword of a knife strapped to his back.
“For what? Mice?” She trotted up to him, her tree-like legs catching up to him in seconds.
“For one of those pigs we heard yesterday,” he said, as he continued walking. He kept his gaze forward, resisting the urge to look at Miriam. She wasn't wearing pants, her bare, sturdy legs towering over the man beside them as sand filtered through her bare toes. “There's enough meat on one of them to last us a few days.”
“Those things are big enough to eat you. How do you expect to kill one with a rope and a scalpel?”
“Don't worry, I'm used to killing things bigger than me.” Miriam stopped in her tracks, perturbed by his remark. “I'll be back in an hour.”
“I'm coming with you.”
“Your lumbering ass will only scare them off.” She had a half a mind to flatten him under her “lumbering” ass. “Stay here and get some rest. Your wound isn't fully healed yet.”
“Like I told you yesterday, I can't trust you on your own. No matter what you say, you're still my prisoner, so I'm joining you, and that's final.” Lanz stopped and turned to face her, trying and failing to keep his gaze above her waist.
“Fine,” he sighed. “There’s some fruit in the plane I gathered earlier. Once you’re finished with breakfast, grab a bucket and meet me in the woods. And put some pants on.”
…
Lanz cringed with every step Miriam took as she trailed behind him through the thicket. When she wasn't snapping a branch underfoot, rustling a bush as she passed, or noshing through the skin of a juicy mango, she was finding some other way of producing an uproarious cacophony. Was she even trained in stealth? Lans thought. We might as well shout to every pig on the island that we're coming to kill them.
Miriam caught up to Lanz effortlessly, rolling up the rope he was dragging as she made her way through the dense jungle. She bent over and picked Lanz up by his chest, perching him on her shoulder as she continued trekking through the woods. Along with the bucket he requested, she also brought an M1 rifle slung around her other shoulder.
“You won't need that,” Lanz said, taking a quick glance back. “The bullet will taint the meat, and I'm not going to chase a bleeding pig across the island.”
“This is insurance. If your rope trick fails, then we’re doing it my way.” As she spoke, the butt of her gun knocked into the trunk of a palm tree, sending the birds roosting on into a squawking frenzy. Lanz rolled his eyes.
“Hold up. Stop,” he groaned. “If you’re going to keep making this much noise, we might as well give up now.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked, taking another loud bite of her mango. “I’m not making any noise.”
“This is why you bigs are so easy to ambush. Just because you can’t hear it, doesn’t mean the rest of the forest can’t. Animals can distinguish between different sounds; good soldiers can too. Those birds aren’t going to hide the sound of your footsteps from your prey, so you have to be careful about where you step and how your body impacts your surroundings.”
“Y’know, we’d make a lot less noise if you didn’t lecture so much.”
“And you’d have an easier time focusing if you worked on that attitude,” he grumbled. Miriam spurned his admonishment and resumed walking, putting a modicum of effort into quieting her gait. “Pick up some mushrooms along the way,” Lanz advised. “You can carry them in the bucket if you want.” There was a white mushroom with a bright, red cap sprouting next to Miriam’s foot. She plucked it out of the ground and almost tossed it into the bucket. “Er, not that one. That one’s poisonous.” The woman recoiled her fingers, dropping the fungus onto her boot before kicking it into the bushes. “Try sticking to the less colorful ones. Those tend to be safe.”
“Where do you learn all this stuff?” Miriam said in a huff.
“Books, mostly. Other times, the hard way.” The two continued hiking for a while. While the vibrant overgrowth shaded them from the tropical sun, the sweltering humidity kept their sweat from evaporating, making the trek all the more uncomfortable.
Eventually, they stumbled into a small, muddy clearing surrounded by trees and flora. “This’ll do,” Lanz decided. “Dump the mushrooms into a pile in the center here, and hand me the rope.” Miriam did as requested while Lanz circled a tree with the rope, tying it around the trunk. He led the rope past the shroom pile, worming it into a loose, open knot beside it before leading the rest of the rope into the thicket and tying the other end around a bush stem. Returning to the pile, Lanz directed Miriam to help him set up rocks and sticks around the rope and mushrooms, creating a clear path to lead pigs onto the noose he formed on the ground. Then, he laid down in the mud and started rolling around in it.
“Spread this around your body,” he advised. “It’ll mask your scent.” Miriam followed his lead, scooping up mud in her hands and coating her arms, face, and chest in it. She reached under her top and rubbed mud across her breasts and abs, as well as covering her shirt and pants with it. “Now, we crawl under that bush and wait.”
Underneath the dense leaves of the bush, Miriam laid on her stomach, Lanz mirroring her on the back of her right shoulder. “When a pig enters the clearing, on my signal,” Lanz tapped the exposed skin of her shoulder twice, “pull that rope and hold it tight. The trunk and stem will ease some of the burden, but I need you to hold it steady to maintain tension while I go in for the kill.”
“What would you have done if I hadn’t joined you?” she asked, peeking over her shoulder at the miniature man lying on her.
“The snare would have been more complex, suspended off one of those branches to lift the pig into the air. It would have taken a good chunk of daylight to set it all up, gathering the materials, carving a trigger hook and its base, tying everything together.” It was only after explaining the steps to her that Lanz realized how much time and effort his stubbornness would have cost him. “So, thanks.”
The two lied still for nearly an hour, silent as the ground beneath them. Even Miriam, who slunk as deftly as an elephant, could silence herself when she concentrated and remained motionless. On the battlefield, remaining hidden in one spot for long periods of time, focused on an unseen target, was imperative when dealing with enemy snipers or staking out hostile territory. In their element, the two soldiers melded into one, uniting in their shared need for food. Their breaths were deep and slow. Their heartbeats were practically nonexistent. They were as much of the forest as the bush they hid under. Ants and spiders crawled over them like they would any other mound of dirt. The cool mud helped suppress their body heat, especially for Lanz who had to contend with Miriam’s as much as his own. Miriam’s rifle rested at her side, a last resort for if their trap failed.
Awoken from their stasis, the soldier’s ears perked up at the snorting pig trotting into the clearing. Its nose quivered at the fragrant mushrooms piled before it. Avoiding the detritus as Lanz planned, the pig slowly approached the pile, its front leg inching ever nearer to the noose. Miriam steadied herself, banishing all thought from her mind as she awaited Lanz’s signal. His left hand hovered over her shoulder, above the skin exposed within her shirt’s collar; his right hand gripped the handle of his blade strapped to his back. The pig took a step forward and chomped into a mushroom.
Two taps. Miriam yanked at the rope, tightening it around the pig’s ankle. Lanz vaulted off her shoulder and sprinted like a lightning bolt into the clearing. The pig bucked and squealed, desperate to free itself from the snare, but Miriam held on with her incredible strength, the fibers of the rope digging into her palms. Within the second it took for Lanz to reach the pig’s bulbous neck, he unsheathed his knife and aimed its point at his target.
Tiny combat knives were forged with one purpose in mind: slitting giant throats. Sturdy and razor-sharp, the one-inch by one-third-inch blade was designed to slice through thick flesh like butter without shattering against the skin and muscle it was plunged into. The soldiers of Fidelphi were trained in the art of cleaving giant throats in as smooth a motion as it’d be to slit the throat of someone their size. Without losing momentum, Lanz plunged his knife into the pig’s neck and ran it across to the other side, dowsing himself in a crimson shower. As the pig collapsed to the ground, Miriam crawled out from the bush, no longer needing to hold onto the rope.
Lanz gripped his blade between his upper arm and forearm, wiping the blood off it before returning it to its sheath. He appeared in a trance, his eyes hollow. Miriam hesitated to approach him, reminded of the fear she felt the evening prior when he stared down the barrel of her gun with that very same look. He blinked a few times, and his regular disposition returned. The pig had died instantly, too quickly to have felt much beyond the initial prick, and now lied still beside the tiny.
“I’ll admit, I’m impressed,” Miriam commented. Lanz wiped the blood off his face with his arms. Though, with them too being stained red, he did little more than smear the sanguine fluid around. “I was afraid I’d was going to have to do all the heavy lifting around here.”
“I mean,” Lanz glanced at the pig’s jaw, large enough to swallow him whole, “you will have to carry it back. I couldn’t even budge this thing.” The tiny walked around to the pig’s belly, examining the succulent corpse. “You familiar with skinning wild game?”
“Only fish,” she responded. “I’ve never hunted before. Not animals, at least.”
“Well, the principle’s the same. I’ll guide you.”
…
Miriam and Lanz were back on the beach, the sun high in the cloudless sky. Their gutted prize was suspended a foot off the ground above a blazing fire pit of discarded branches and palm leaves. The two soldiers sat across from each other, chopping up pig guts on a palm leaf to be used as fish bait. It had been quite the sight, Miriam hoisting the pig carcass over one shoulder, carrying the bucket of guts in her other hand through the jungle. Lanz hoped to check the wound on her back at some point, worried the strain might have reopened the cut, but considering he was soaked in pig’s blood, he thought it best to wait until he could wash off before performing any medical examinations.
While they chopped, Miriam kept peeking at their slow cooking dinner. Her stomach rumbled like a revving engine as she watched the pig roast, juicy fat glistening on its crispening skin. Lanz shot a few nervous glances in the direction of her belly.
"What's up?" She asked, catching his wandering eye.
"N-nothing. I was just, uh… Do your people actually eat tinies?"
"Ew! No!" she said, recoiling. "That's disgusting. I'd rather eat a cockroach." Though somewhat comforting, Lanz also found that oddly insulting.
“Back home, we’d tell children stories of scary, man-eating giants. It’s how parents got kids to eat their vegetables.” He pointed one blood soaked finger in the air and waggled it like a lecturing parent. “‘If you gorge on nothing but sweets, then giants will gobble you up as their treats.’”
“That’s ridiculous,” Miriam scoffed, spurting blood onto her arm as she sliced through the pig’s heart. “Though, I suppose I shouldn’t judge. As kids, we were told nursery rhymes about how tinies would sneak into our homes at night and steal our food and valuables. They targeted kids who didn’t clean their rooms because it gave them more places to hide.” She pointed her sanguine finger skyward to mimic Lanz. “‘If it lacks the tail of a rat, or the wings of a bat, then do your part by stomping it flat.’” Lanz paused, grimacing at the thought.
“You tell that to your children?” he asked.
“Sort of. ‘Stomp them flat’ is a slogan for the war effort. They air it on commercials and hang posters on all the storefronts. It’s impossible not to hear it growing up.” Lanz’s moue didn’t waver. "Oh c'mon, don't tell me you guys don't have propaganda."
"Ours is a bit more tasteful. 'Study today for the fight tomorrow,' or, 'Do what's fair and eat your share.'"
"What's that one mean?"
"Fidelphi's been going through a food shortage since before the war began, so all our meal portions are regulated by the government. Those in charge are more concerned with enforcing love of country than stirring hatred for the enemy."
“How can you guys be having a food shortage?” Miriam turned to the roasting pig, a thick sliver of melted fat dripped into the fire “One of these things could feed a hundred of you.”
“Tell me about it,” Lanz huffed. “The official excuse is that our population rates are too high, and sure, there are a lot more mouths to feed than in Baltzimar, but that’s just the cover the elite hide behind.” Tinies had a much higher birthrate than their larger counterparts to make up for their lower average life expectancy. As such, even though the countries were roughly the same size geographically, Fidelphi had thirty times the amount of mouths as Baltzimar with the one caveat being that the former’s were a tenth the size. “It doesn’t explain how the top brass can have a banquet every week while a single mother of twelve gets by on stale crumbs alone.”
"So, why did you join the army?” Miriam asked. “Doesn’t sound like it was for 'love of country'?"
Lanz paused and thought carefully on how he wanted to answer the simple question. "I needed a job. The military offered one. That's all." Miriam furrowed her brow, unconvinced by his response. He was too disciplined to be a simple opportunist, but if a sense of duty wasn’t compelling him, then what was he fighting for? “That should be all of it,” Lanz said, dropping the subject as he looked over the diced entrails before him. “We can throw these back into the bucket and start using them tomorrow. We should cover it with a tarp, though. Keeps the smell in check and should stop any animals from getting at it.” Lanz hopped off the palm leaf onto the sand, the large grains coming up past his ankles. Lifting each edge of the leaf into a U-shape, Miriam poured the guts back into the bucket. “It’ll take a few hours before the pig’s done cooking. Let’s wash off, and then I want to check your wound.”
“Sounds good. I could use a bath,” Miriam mused, rubbing the back of her neck. “I’ll take the farther spring, so you don’t have to walk as far. We can meet back here.” They had found two freshwater springs near the crash site alongside a third a bit farther off. With the closest one set aside for drinking water, the further two, which both emptied into creeks, were used for bathing.
“Don’t you want me accompanying you?” Lanz teased. “Y’know, I’m still your prisoner after all.”
“Fuck off.” She flipped him the bird as she trudged towards the foliage. As he watched her lofty figure saunter into the woods, the gears in the tiny’s brain turned, a mischievous plot hatching in the depths of his twisted mind.
…
After ten minutes of walking, Miriam reached the far spring. The water was a vibrant blue and crystal clear, an enticing visage to the weary woman. She untied her boots, kicking them off a couple feet from the water’s edge, and placed her rolled up socks inside them. She grabbed her tank top from the bottom and pulled it upward, her sweaty abs scintillating in the sunlight. Dried mud from earlier in the day remained baked into the folds of her six-pack. As she lifted her shirt up past her chest, the tantalizing curvature of underboob further enamored the tiny eyes below her, the woman’s impressive musculature distracting them, for a moment, from their task.
Miriam tossed her top to the ground next to her boots, and then proceeded to undo her belt. As she slid out of her pants, the tiny eyes wandered up and down her herculean thighs and robust calves before returning to task. She set her holstered M1911 closer to the water, just in case she needed it at a moment’s notice. Finally, Miriam took off her underwear and dipped into the spring. Her body was sweltering from the tropical sun and sitting beside the open fire, but cool freshwater washed the heat away. Reclined against the basin wall, Miriam lost herself to tranquility. For the first time since crashing down, she felt relaxed, all her problems drowned out by the babbling waters of the nearby creek and the calls of animals amongst the trees. She closed her eyes, becoming one with nature, and took her time cleaning the blood and dirt off her skin.
A half-hour later, she awoke. Shit, she thought, how long have I been here? Lanz is probably waiting for me at the beach. Miriam turned around and found all her belongings missing. Her boots, shirt, pants, and her handgun, all gone without a trace. She pulled herself out of the water and scanned the area. No footprints. No drag marks in the grass. No trace of her clothing. The only thing that remained was a single bootlace, drawn across the grass to read: No Tail. “Bastard.”
“I’m starting to get why you don’t trust me on my own,” Lanz remarked. With hands resting behind his head, the tiny floated calmy on the spring’s surface, appreciating Miriam’s sopping wet body from afar. He was in his boxer shorts, white and blue striped, a shit-eating grin drawn across his face. “Looks like those nursery rhymes were onto something afterall.”
All went dark as the tiny's sun was blocked out by Miriam’s hulking frame, the woman lunging towards her enemy floating in the water. Like a heavenly pillar, Miriam's meteoric hand crashed into Lanz's puny body, plunging him into the depths. Pressed against her palm, he saw her fingers curl around him, pushing through the water with unmitigated ease. Lanz grabbed onto the space between her thumb and index finger, the largest opening left available to him, and propelled himself clear of his pursuer's tightening grip.
Miriam suffered a moment of disorientation upon entering the drink, her eyes quickly readjusting to see underwater. That brief moment was enough for Lanz to escape her sight, using her own body against her as he swam by her arm, her thick bicep and forearm blocking her line of sight. She swept the area in front of her and then turned around to see two legs pulling themselves out of the water.
"Get back here, lech!" Miriam shouted, exploding onto land. Lanz darted across the small clearing towards the dense foliage surrounding the spring, the giant woman on his trail as she pulled herself out of the spring. In a flat, open field, Lanz would have no chance of outrunning his adversary, and Miriam was hot in pursuit, the both of them all too skilled at sprinting. Fortunately, the jungle proved another story; where precision was more key than speed, trees, roots, shrubbery, and vines all served as hurdles to anyone taller than five inches. Lanz made it into the thicket just as he entered Miriam’s reach, disappearing into a blanket of ivy before Miriam could grab hold of him. "Fuck!"
Lanz's laughter echoed across the woods, giving the impression he was everywhere at once. Miriam was seething. She kicked through the ivy to no avail. She tore through bushes and banged her fists against trees, sending birds and other small animals scurrying away from her warpath. She grew blinded by rage, unable to tell a rustling branch from a slithering snake, her eyes training on any movement in her vicinity. Lanz taunted her all the while.
"Over here."
"Over here."
"Look over here."
"Come and get me."
“I’m over here.”
A sudden thought blinked into Miriam’s brain, a lesson she was taught in bootcamp and learned out in the field: a tiny's body was too small for its ego. Sure, they had the advantage when it came to espionage, and made far less noise than a big could hope to, but they weren't silent. Even mice leave a trail.
Miriam froze, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes, attuning herself to the world around her. The discord around her melted away, each noise becoming distinct to her mind’s ear. She sorted through the sounds, blocking out the chirping birds, buzzing flies, and croaking frogs. She noted the boa slithering up the tree, the capuchin picking fruit off a branch, and the pygmy marmoset scampering through the dirt. Each sound was locked away, taken out of focus as she searched for her target.
There was a slight twang. A twig swaying up and down as if something had just landed on it. Leaves swished as something pushed through them. There was another twang, leaping from one branch to another. Light as a feather and nimble as a rat, Lanz’s footsteps were barely perceptible, she gave him that, but barely perceptible was still perceptible.
Miriam opened her eyes and crept forward. She avoided the sticks littering the forest floor and inched forward with muted steps. Her gaze did not betray her target, showing no signs as to where her attention was truly focused as she stalked her prey. Like a striking cobra, Miriam jabbed the shrub beside her, wresting Lanz from his hiding spot. He writhed in her clutches, her stiff fingers squeezing the air out of his lungs. “I got you!” she declared, grinning from ear to ear. With her anger soothed, hubris now swelled in its stead.
“Hey, not bad,” Lanz conceded. “I didn’t thi-” Miriam’s grip tightened, shutting the tiny up.
“What’d you do with my stuff?” she demanded.
“Tracking that down is the second part of your training,” Lanz said, coughing between words. Her fingers hadn’t let up much, but there was just enough leeway for him to breathe.
“Training?”
“Your hunting skills needed work. Your situational awareness too; you should notice when someone hitches a ride on the back of your boot.”
So, that’s how he followed me out here so quickly. “You want me to find my clothes on my own? I could do that, but…” Miriam brough Lanz closer to her mouth, her musty breath enveloping the trapped tiny. “All this running around has made me hungry.” She opened her maw wide. It had been over a day since she had last seen a toothbrush, and Lanz became painfully aware of that as he peered into her warm, wet opening.
“What happened to rather eating a cockroach?” he pleaded. His arms were bound to his sides, preventing him from pushing her away or plugging his nose.
“Well, you did such a great job reenacting the stories my parents told me. It’s only fair that I return the favor.” She shoved Lanz in head first, stuffing him up to his abs into her mouth. Her tongue dragged across his face and chest, tastebuds bristling his body as they passed over it. Though the spring water washed most of it off, the tiny still had a lingering taste of blood glazing his skin. It made him taste surprisingly good, the rich and savory flavor awakening the woman’s predatory instincts long held dormant by epochs of evolution. She nibbled on his shoulders, her monumental molars biting down on his tender muscles. Nightmares that Lanz hadn’t thought about since he was a toddler resurfaced, unsure how far his enemy was willing to go for revenge. Before Lanz could really start panicking, Miriam pulled him out, a trail of spit connected his face to her lower lip. “Now, I’ll ask one last time: what did you do with my stuff?”
“They’re under the hibiscus bush near the spring.”
“Thank you.”
Miriam returned to the clearing, spotting the bright yellow hibiscus near the creek’s edge. She casually flung Lanz backwards into the spring, hurtling the tiny a couple yards into the drink, before checking the flower bush. As he had said, all her stuff was there concealed by the foliage. Her clothes were neatly folded and stacked in a uniform pile, her boots standing on either side. Her pistol sat on top, and right beside it rested Lanz’s miniature clothing, folded in just as neat of a pile. Miriam sighed, unsure if all the effort Lanz put into this was his way of being nice, or if he was simply teasing her.
Lanz surfaced, spitting out water. He never realized how much he could miss soap, the taint of Miriam’s breath still lingering on his body. As he started for the shore, a darkness encroached him, his sun once again blotted out by a mass of muscles and flesh. Miriam cannonballed into the spring, plunging Lanz into the depths under the weight of her ass. She damn near reached the water’s bed before kicking the ground and propelling herself back to the surface. While she leaned up against the basin wall, Lanz slowly floated to the top, his body aching from the repeated blows. Miriam leaned forward and picked him up, dangling his limp body a foot over the water.
“Want to check my wound now?” she asked, ignoring all the strain she put him through.
“Sure,” he sighed. Miriam turned around and hung over the coast’s edge, still submerged from the waist down. She plopped Lanz onto her shoulder as she leaned forward on her forearms, giving the tiny enough leverage to walk upright on her back. Her skin was wet and slippery, but the grooves of her muscular back made for decent footholds as he hiked alongside the stitched cut. Examining the injury was tough, not because of its size or the terrain Lanz stood on, but because he kept getting distracted by the twin peaks of Miriam’s tight glutes peeking out of the water.
“What’s taking so long?” Miriam asked, glancing over her shoulder.
“Nothing!” he said blushing, turning his view back to the wound. It was funny, she didn’t take him for the blushing type. “There’s no signs of infection, and the wounds healing nicely. I’d say we can remove the stitches in a couple days.”
“Sounds good.” Miriam pushed herself up from the coast, standing straight up at the edge of the spring. Lanz’s gentle slope turned into a steep drop, sending him falling back into the freshwater pool. As he surfaced, he noticed Miriam sitting on land, kicking her legs in the water before him. The currents she produced bobbed Lanz from side to side as he waded through them. “Now, its time for your punishment.”
“I thought you almost eating me was my punishment.”
“That was for stealing my clothes. I still need to punish you for following me out here in the first place.” Miriam lifted her right foot out of the water. The colossal appendage hung ominously over Lanz, water droplets raining down from her sole onto his head. “Chasing you through the woods got my feet all dirty. And after I got them all clean too. So, you’re going to scrub them clean. Underwater.” Her foot came crashing down, making a seismic splash as she sunk Lanz again. At this rate, he decided it wasn’t worth surfacing again.
Submerged beneath her overwhelming sole, Lanz rubbed off the dirt sandwiched in the folds of her skin. He kneaded the ball of her foot with his hands, scraping away mud stains with his dexterous fingers. The water not only helped remove the grime from her foot, but it also made it easier for Lanz to maneuver around it. In seconds, he could go from massaging the spaces between her toes to buffering her rotund heel. Never had Lanz expected that he’d use what he learned in specialized underwater mission training to rub a girl’s feet.
Not one for salons, Miriam was surprised at how much she enjoyed the pedicure. She had thought it up simply as a method of torturing Lanz, but with how well he was doing, she began to worry that he was actually enjoying himself down there. Four minutes had passed, and the tiny was still beneath her, not so much as an air bubble rising to the surface. If she couldn’t feel his small hands attending to her, she’d be convinced that he drowned. Miriam lifted her foot out of the water, Lanz hanging onto her middle and ring toes like monkey bars.
“You can come up to breathe, you know.”
“Don’t need to.” Lanz pointed at a scar that circled half of his neck. “I’ve got gills.” Miriam rolled her eyes.
“So, you’ve had some underwater training, big whoop,” she sneered. “Four minutes is nothing. I was just worried because I figured your lungs hold less air, that’s all.”
“Then how about a wager? See who can hold their breath the longest,” he suggested, dropping back into the water. Miriam raised a brow. “If I win, I get to spend the rest of the day in your underwear.” Lanz blurted that out without thinking through if that was even a good idea. Miriam was about to drown him underfoot, but then a devious ploy popped into her head.
“Fine, but if I win, you get to spend it in my boot.”
“Deal.” Miriam slipped back into the spring, sinking beneath the surface in tandem with Lanz. She stared at him through the water. Lanz curled up in a fetal position, his eyes closed shut. Four minutes passed in the blink of an eye. Neither soldier wavered. Back in basic training, Miriam held the record amongst her class in holding her breath. At the time, five minutes and eighteen seconds was an impressive feat, earning her respect and ire from her peers. But as five minutes passed here and now, Miriam felt the pressure in her lungs. Ten seconds passed, and her head started to hurt. Twenty seconds passed and black borders encompassed her vision. At five minutes and thirty-three seconds, Miriam couldn’t take it anymore and breached.
It took her a minute to catch her breath, but looking down into the clear blue water, Lanz remained motionless. It was as if his body had turned itself off, drifting lifelessly for seven minutes. Miriam wondered if he could tell he won, that he didn’t need to stay under any longer. In the very back of her mind, she thought to pull him out, afraid he may have already drowned. Eight minutes passed, and the man finally opened his eyes. He rocketed to the surface, gasping for sought-after air. Even through the heavy breathing, Miriam could make out the smug grin he wore.
“Show off,” she muttered.
“Eight minutes. That’s my record. I’ve never met anyone that could beat it.”
“Whatever. Let’s get back to camp. I’m fucking starving.” Miriam plucked Lanz out of the water and stepped back onto land. By this point, her fingertips were extra pruney. She walked over to her clothes and dug through them. “Oh right, it’s time for your prize.” She held up an unwashed, army green, wool sock to the tiny trapped in her grip.
“Hey! That’s not we agreed on!” he shouted.
“You said you wanted to be in my underwear. Well, I wear this sock under my boot, so it’s not my fault you weren’t more specific.” Opening up the sock below him, Miriam released hell itself upon the tiny. An odor as foul as a goose’s temper wafted up to his nose, sending a cold sweat running down the back of his neck. At the release of Miriam’s fingers, Lanz fell screaming into the wool prison. She laughed at his puny figure flailing against the fabric, clenching the sock’s rim shut in her hand. The small pores between the sock’s fibers gave Lanz enough air to breath, but it did little to alleviate the stifling atmosphere of his captor’s B.O.
Miriam kept a tight grip on her sock as she put the rest of her clothes on. She pocketed Lanz’s outfit along with her divorced bootlace and started back towards camp. She swung the sock around as she walked, twirling the tiny in circles like a never-ending carnival ride. If Lanz was capable of getting motion sick, he’d have hurled thrice over.
As Miriam jaunted through the jungle, her mind wandered. One thing still bothered her. Scars adorned every millimeter of Lanz’s body from the neck down, the pale remains of serrated cuts and bullet holes. But one in particular stood out to the woman. A single pale line, perfectly symmetrical and split along the collar bone, ran down the center of his chest all the way to his groin, dividing his torso in two. That was no battle scar, and Miriam couldn’t fathom a surgical procedure that’d require an incision that long. It had long been obvious that he was hiding something, though every hint seemed to raise more questions than answers. For now, all she could do was continue to perform her duty: keeping the enemy combatant alive and secured as she awaited rescue. As to why that was her duty, she had yet to understand.