Never said it was easy

After all of them go running off into the forest, I turn to Hawk, "let's get ready, in about three hours we gonna go searching for at least twenty or so to eliminate." His face twists a little bit, "wait we aren't waiting for them to just return on there own?" The thought of not hunting down at least some of them isn't fun, "we don't plan to eliminate all of them, just those who can't hide themselves from us hunting them down."

When we get back to base, I take a quick rest, and head to the mess hall for some quick breakfast. Once I finish I head to my room to get ready for the search of at least twenty recruits. When I get there, I start getting ready, but while getting ready I hear a nock on my door behind me, "so how many do you think aren't actually taking this seriously?" When Hawk says that, I truly don't actually know, but I shall find out once I get out there.

"They could all be taking it serious, or they could all be taking it chill, the forest itself is miles in size, so finding two or three in the first five to ten minutes will be hard, unless they aren't being serious about this."

The smile that goes across his face says it all, "well don't be to hard on them, they are only recruits, they don't have the experience that you clearly do have." After a bit more I finally had gotten ready to go, but as I'm heading out, I see four of the recruits coming back. While they pass I see they are cold, since it had been snowing last night the temperature hasn't really gone above thirty today.

When I arrive at the forest I see another three coming out of the forest, "it's only been five hours, and yet I've seen seven already returning to base, let me guess the cold got to you guys?" They all nod in agreement with what I had to say, unfortunately I still have a mission ahead of me, to get another twenty of them out of the picture. After entering the forest I set off, with my face pointing down looking for tracks in the snow of those who are about to be unfortunate to be found.

While searching I come across a river that's still raging, since it's not cold enough yet to freeze over. The part that scares me is that I see a pair of human boot tracks lead into the river but not come out the other side. "This isn't good, I need to radio this in to Hawk, and have him check down river to see if this river dragged anyone down it." Once on radio, I hear Hawk answer almost instantly, "what's the matter Daniel, why are you already calling in on radio?" After telling him the situation, he tells me to continue my search, and that he would take care of the search for a MIA recruit that took part in the training test, once everything is said he gets off the radio.

"This is gonna be great, I was expecting some to be reckless, but not completely stupid." When I get going again I decide to take a look upward, since I had been smelling somthing for a little bit of time now, sure enough I saw some smoke rising not to far in the distance from where I was. The walk there didn't take too long, and so quickly, I found what was a small group of at least eight people.

When the group sees me they all jumped a little bit, "your all out, you have all been spotted by an enemy soldier, the training ends here!" After hearing this they all get up, clearly disappointed in how they performed, "man they never said they would be coming to get us out, this is horse shit man, and your the instructor, so why give us this test, if your just gonna get us eliminated?"

The zero thoughts in his words, makes me suspect that he wasn't thinking when he sighed up. "Did I say I was coming, no, because the enemy once your facing them won't say they are coming will they, I also never said it was easy, so pack up, head back to base." The eight of them clearly were all disappointed in themselves, I on the other hand was more disappointed to find so many like that, so instead of finding more I called it a day on just finding those eight.

When I get back with the eight recruits I had gotten out I check in with Hawk, to see if they had found anyone down the river, "yeah Daniel bad news on that we search the hole area down river, we suspect they somehow made it across into that section of the forest." The idea of leaving a person out there with wet clothes on, in what will soon be night time cold conditions dosn't sit well with me. "Hawk I'm heading back out, I'm taking the radio, along with a head lamp, if I find them I'll radio in to you to hopefully get some more help."

"Wait Daniel I can't let you go alone, at least take one or two more people with you, we do have a search and rescue team, but they are hesitant to go deep into the forest at night since, I suggest taking at least one of them."

After I tell him I'll go check them out, he let out a small sigh, with everything done and ready I close the door. Once I reach the search and rescue department area, I see there are only currently fourty present. "Hello my name is Daniel, I'm new on base, however I'm also an instructor to the sniper training program, I currently have a test running for about five hundred or so of our recruits, currently one of them has gotten themselves into a problem and no one has found them, so is anyone here willing to help search for the missing recruit."

They all talk amongst one another, until one of th comes forward, "absolutely sir I'll take on the challenge!" The man looks young but I don't question him, "so what's your name," After the quick little question he salutes me, "my name is Bradley Knox, or you can just call me Bradley if you wish!" The energy he has is amazing so I decide to take him along with me on the search.

After we leave the base, and arrive at the forest I notice him start to shack a little, "you cold or something?" The look he gives me is one of fear, "no I'm not cold, it's just, we aren't heading into the haunted forest are we?" Forest, haunted, where does all of this come from, Hawk never said anything about the forest being a haunted one.

"The locals around these parts tell of a tail, where if your out in this forest at night you'll see red glowing eyes, along with spirits that haven't left, or those who have died in there and are trapped in the forest." The stories don't make me believe in ghosts or anything like that, the last time I believed in ghosts, was when I was in the forest with my grandfather seven years ago, and I heard the howling of wolf's, if anything I'm more scared of them since they become hungry during winter season.

After pressing into the forest a fair ways, we come to the river were the foot prints lead into the water, but don't appear again on the other side. "Well sir Daniel we can cross the river up stream a bit since there's a walking path up that way a bit." After getting back on my feet I nod my head to what he said then we proceeded forward.

Then after about a mile up the river, we came to a section where it was more calm, along with being shallow. "Alright we can cross this, but watch your step because we don't want to get swept into the water." Bradley nodded, as we made our way across the water I noticed eyes, glowing eyes. The eyes of something low to the ground but high enough that it wasn't a small creature.

Thoughts on what it could be filled my head, but eventually it left, "Bradley, keep your eyes open, something is watching us." When I tell him that he starts to get worried, I don't blame him im also a bit on edge as to what it might be as well.

When we finally get back to hiking through the snow, we spot some foot prints of boots, as we follow them we come across the recruit. Once we get up closer we notice she is still breathing, although it is light breathing she is still breathing. The moment I go to radio it in, that's when I hear it, the howl that would send chills down anyone's neck during the night.

The howl wasn't very far off either, I would suspect maybe five or so hundred yards to our left. "That's not good, we have to go, and fast." Trying to say it as lightly as possible so the wolves wouldn't hear us, "sir Daniel there isn't any other way across the river, other then the way we just came from, where the howl just came from."

The time is ticking, I know it will only be a matter of time until they find us, so I do the only thing I believe is the most feasible. When I tell him to get up the tree, I also have him take the girl as well, after that I tell him to kill the light, "are you crazy you won't be able to see them," I tell him again to kill it, and so he does.

After I kill my torch, I close my eyes for a few seconds, letting eyes adjust, the moon itself is giving off just enough light to illuminate anything withing a hundred yards of us. Also the semi auto rifle I brought with me is ready. The time ticks I feel the itch, it's cold, no scratch that it's freezing, I have a rescue team member up a tree along with a recruit, and I am now staring down the sights of a rifle in the direction of some very scary night hunters, well I never said it was going to be easy, or at least I was hoping it would have been.