Stand Alone

Chapter Four

The drive down was a long one. I waited until Daniel was asleep until I sped up cutting as much time of the journey time as possible. I had promised Daniel before he went to sleep that I would wake him when it was his turn to drive. I was driving for an hour and a half before pulling over for a rest. I got out and went for a very quick and short walk into the forest and then straight back to the car because my legs were starting to ache from being stationary for too long. When I went to wake him, I couldn't bring myself to do it. He looked so peaceful and I was wide awake anyway so I just left him to sleep in peace while I climbed back into the driver's side. I turned the radio on and played it with the volume turned right down so as not to wake him and continued the rest of the journey without stopping. There was only a few other cars out on the roads at this early time in the morning so I only encountered about three others on my way but they were all heading in the opposite direction. When I pulled up at the air base I parked the car in a far corner where it would be hidden by the trees while I was away until I could get back to pick it up. I retrieved both bags from the car boot heaving them onto my shoulders before waking Daniel. "Daniel." I gently shook his shoulder seeing his eyes begin to flutter open but he wasn't fully awake. "Daniel we're here." When he finally opened his eyes he looked around taking in his surroundings. Right now we were stood, well for him sat, in one of the many air base carparks which looked like it had been deserted long ago, that was why I had picked this one compared to all the other ones near air force personal homes where it the car would have been easily spotted and could have looked suspicious.

"You promised you'd wake me." He yawned stretching. His voice was low and raspy from just having woken up as he rubbed his eyes dragging his body out of the car to stand in the cold morning air. "How long left?" He mumbled as he took his bag from me rummaging through before pulling out a sandwich to eat. I checked my watch and it read 0410.

"Roughly two hours." I found us a place to sit where we were concealed by the trees as we ate our breakfast in silence. I found myself continuously yawning as I struggled to keep my mind active so I didn't feel tired but it wasn't working. Normally if my brain is active then my body feels wide awake but since I had nothing to do I was starting to feel drowsy. "Why don't you go to sleep for an hour and I'll wake you up when it's time to board." He suggested seeing me struggle to keep my eyelids open.

"No I'll be fine once I get moving, I always am." I shrugged, doing some quick sums in my head to keep myself going but that wasn't working either.

"Seriously just go to sleep. Nothing's going to happen." He reassured me. I pulled my back over to me using it as a pillow as I lay on the dirty, dusty ground falling asleep almost instantly. I don't know how long I was asleep but I was awoken when I heard a branch snap shooting up from my position and quickly surveying my surroundings seeing it was only Daniel who had stepped on a twig and broken it in half. "I only snapped a twig you know, no need to shoot me." He joked nodding his head at where my hand was hovering over my gun.

"Sorry force of habit. What time is it?" I got up and stretched my arms and legs feeling much more awake and refreshed than I did before.

"It's 0550 we should probably get going." I nodded my head in agreement dragging my bag up from the floor and slipping each strap onto one of my shoulders and wearing it like a backpack as I walked over to meet with one of the planes personnel. The guy we met with looked nothing like what I was expecting him to, he wasn't even in his damn uniform yet; he was in jeans and a hoody. "Right you two get on the plane and try not to disturb my crew, their tired and annoyed enough as it is okay?" He didn't sound too happy about having to transport two young civilians on one of his nice aircraft but he didn't get any choice in the matter, he had his orders just the same as we had ours.