I woke up to the sight of a woman standing over me. She held a wash clothe and was dipping it in water. When she turned to face me, I realized she was Korean. I remembered I had been fighting the Koreans in North Korea. I freaked out.

"Where's my cousin?!" I screamed out.

The woman tried to consol me, but a major headache prevented me from hearing what she said. I saw her approach me and I imagined her sticking something into my arm to make me go back to sleep. I would not be a prisoner. Where was Brent? We had to get out of here!

"Stay away from me!"

I caught her say the words 'don't move' and 'escaped' in Korean. I had taken Korean for my language class and spoke it farely well, but the rest of the words were jumbled up. My mind filled in the blanks and I realized that Brent had already escaped. I bolted out of the bed and found my way to the door. I ran outside and ran through a field and headed in the direction I hoped was south. Brent would have gone south for help and that's where I was going to go to.

(Brent's point of view)

I woke up to the sound of yelling and fighting. I tried to jump out of bed, but fell back as a wave of dizziness came over me. A few moments later, a woman came in looking sad and distressed. Seeing me awake, she said in broken english, "She left. Girl with you ran. Too sick. Chonsamnida."

Ayla had taught me a little Korean and I recognized 'chonsamnida' as 'I'm sorry' and my brain slowly processed what the situation was. Ayla had left. And there was no way to find her.

After a few days, I started feeling well again. To repay the woman who had nursed me back to health, Soojin, I helped work her fields and she helped me find a job to pay for a ticket back home. After several months, I finally saved enough and payed for my ticket to get back home. The South Korean government had informed the U.S. of my survival and my coming home. There had been no sign of Ayla anywhere and as the time passed, my hope of finding her alive became more of a wish and a dream. It soon seemed impossible to find even a body.

On the day I was supposed to leave, I thanked Soojin and promised to return to repay her in full. She had become as a mother to me. Once, she had asked me how I had arrived to her house, but all that happened when I tried to remember was a searing pain pushing through my brain. All I knew was I had been at war and something happened and I had escaped with Ayla and came here. I couldn't remember anything else except the sound of an explosion and the need to find safety.

When I arrived at the airport in Wyoming, I was met by a mob of reporters and questions. I had to be escorted by bodyguards to get to my family, who had had to wait in a car for me. We weren't able to talk or anything until we got home from all the mass caos and confusion.

When I finally got home and everything calmed down, I looked around at all the faces and found a mixture of emotions on each of their faces. They were all glad to see me, but they all wished Ayla was here too. There was pain and joy. My face must have had the same mixture, only my pain was more prominent. How could I have made it home safely and Ayla not? I had made a promise to myself to protect her and bring her home safely. I had worked hard to earn the title of Captain just to make sure I could protect her. Then, of all things, I lost her. We had survived the bombing and had made it to a safe place and just because I wasn't awake when she woke up and wasn't by her side, she had disappeared and because of me she is probably dead.

I had been asked by several people for an interview, but I refused each one. I gave comments to reporters, but whenever someone mentioned Ayla or the other soldiers I stopped talking. I didn't like the publicity and I didn't want anything from it. I wanted to try and forget the whole thing. Soon I began to disappear into a world of numbness and emptiness. My family finally got the questions to stop, but there was only one good thing that came out of it. The fan letters. Reading what people had to say, especially when they knew someone who had been there, kept me from making the horrible decision of ending my life. I had too many supporters out there, even if there were haters, and a family who still cared about me. But nothing could stop the numbness and emptiness. There was no way to avoid it. I tried, but nothing worked.