Night Watch - 00:00 hrs

· Another day in green hell… Midnight marked the start of what promised to be an eternal three-hour watch. Relief was a long way off, and to make matters worse, we were completely alone with Sergeant Taylor Parker.*

· Better just call her “Sergeant Parker,” I thought as I gazed at the green plain stretching out before us from the guard post. The nighttime view was beautiful, almost peaceful, with the base’s lights twinkling in the distance like fallen stars.*

· But the tranquility of the landscape was in brutal contrast to the atmosphere inside the guard post.*

· Sergeant Parker was not exactly in a good mood. In fact, she was a silent ball of fury. She’d been disciplined by some higher-ranking officer, stripped of her precious Sunday off, and sentenced to night watch. Her face bore that characteristic “don’t mess with me” expression we’d all learned to fear.*

· Every few minutes, she got up to do the mandatory patrol, her boots echoing against the concrete with tense, measured steps. Between rounds, she’d glance at her phone, probably reading messages from her guitarist boyfriend or watching something to distract her from her current misery.*

· And then, the most surreal thing of the night happened…*

· Brrrrr… brrrrr…

· The sound of a motorcycle approached the main gate. At 12:30 AM. At a military base.*

· “What the hell…?” Parker muttered, peering out the window.*

· It was a delivery guy. A scrawny dude on a beat-up motorcycle, with a thermal box strapped to the back, stopping right at the gate like it was the most normal thing in the world.*

· The Sergeant stormed out of the guard post with determined strides, and I could hear from inside:*

· “Yeah, that’s me! The seafood… did you bring the extra sweet shrimp?”*

· Seriously? Sergeant Parker had ordered seafood delivery? To a military base? In the middle of the night?

· Five minutes later, she returned with a bag of food that smelled gloriously of fried seafood and sweet-and-sour sauce. She sat in her chair, opened the bag with an almost ceremonial care, and…*

· “Not a word of this to anyone, recruit,” she said without even looking at me, pulling out the first golden shrimp. “And don’t even think about asking for one.”*

· The aroma filled the guard post as she ate in silence, her bad mood seemingly melting away with each shrimp. Outside, the night remained beautiful and serene. Inside, I had just witnessed the most human (and absurd) side of the most feared sergeant in the company.*

· Two and a half hours of watch still remained…*

Night Encounter - Barracks C, 21:00 hrs

· Finally… Nine o’clock marked the end of another endless watch. Exhaustion weighed on our eyelids like lead, but we’d gotten lucky. Or maybe we were just late, who knows.*

· The point is, Barracks C was practically empty. Our comrades had been sent off to nighttime cleaning duties, and the officer on duty had either forgotten about us… or simply didn’t care. Two hours of free sleep stretched out before us like an oasis in the military desert.*

· A paradise.

· Entering the barracks, dimly lit by the hallway’s security lights, I spotted a figure lying face-down on one of the beds. A sheet barely covered… well, let’s just say the silhouette was unmistakably curvy. I assumed it was one of the comrades who’d managed to dodge cleaning duty.*

· Without thinking twice, I approached and flopped onto the next bed.*

· “Hey, brother,” I whispered in the dim light, “aren’t we lucky? These officers don’t even know where their heads are at. Two free hours are like…”*

· I stopped. The figure hadn’t moved an inch, but something about its posture seemed off. Too still. Too tense.*

· “Know if the patrol sergeant’s been through yet?” I continued, oblivious to what was coming. “Because if not, we could take advantage and…”*

· That’s when the “sheet” shifted slightly, and I caught a glimpse of a blonde strand of hair escaping the edge. My blood ran cold.*

· The figure sat up slowly, very slowly, like a predator that had just spotted its prey. In the dim light, I could make out those green eyes glinting with a deadly mix of restrained fury and… sadistic amusement?*

· Sergeant Parker stared at me for what felt like an eternity. When she finally spoke, her voice was a lethal whisper that barely cut through the air:*

· “Recruit…” her tone was so low I had to strain to hear, “did you just mistake me for one of your ‘brothers’?”*

· She sat up fully, adjusting the sheet with deliberately slow movements, never breaking eye contact. The air had turned thick, dangerous.*

· “And did you just suggest that a sergeant,” she continued in that whispering tone far more terrifying than her usual shouts, “shouldn’t be ‘sleeping on duty’?”*

· A small, almost imperceptible smile curled the corner of her mouth. It wasn’t a kind smile.*

· “Because let me make one thing clear, little soldier…” she leaned slightly forward, “I’m not on duty. But you… you just got yourself into some very big trouble.”*

· The silence that followed was so tense you could cut it with a knife. In the distance, the footsteps of the duty officer echoed on their routine patrol. Sergeant Parker tilted her head slightly, as if calculating exactly how much time she had to decide my fate without alerting anyone else.*

· “Now the question is…” she whispered, that dangerous smile still on her face, “what am I going to do with you?”*