The Storm March

1. THE STORM RISES

The desert had a way of swallowing sound—of making even the loudest moments feel strangely distant. That morning had started like any other: routine patrol, routine heat, routine thoughts drifting between home and the mission.

Then the horizon darkened.

Sergeant Mason Hill was the first to notice the massive golden cloud rising in the distance, shifting like a living creature across the wasteland.

“Sandstorm incoming,” he muttered, lowering his binoculars.

Staff Sergeant Riley Torres leaned against the side of their MRAP, raising one eyebrow. “How bad?”

Hill handed him the binoculars.

Torres took one look. “Well, shit.”

The storm towered over the desert floor, rolling like an ocean wave ready to crash.

Private Gonzales—a lanky twenty-year-old whose helmet always seemed slightly too big—poked his head out of the turret. “Sir… are we turning back?”

Hill shook his head.

A call had come through thirty minutes earlier—barely audible through static. A civilian convoy, two trucks and a bus carrying women and children, had broken down somewhere in Sector Delta-9. The storm had already begun tearing apart their radios. They needed help.

And Hill’s squad was the closest.

Sandstorm or not, turning back wasn’t an option.

“Mount up!” Hill shouted. “We find them. No excuses.”

The squad scrambled into their vehicles as the first gusts of wind reached them.

The storm was coming fast.

Too fast.

2. INTO THE GOLDEN WALL

One mile later, visibility dropped to almost nothing.

Sand whipped through the air in sheets, clanging against their armored vehicles like hail. The storm roared so loudly that soldiers had to shout to hear one another even inside the cabin.

“Sir, instruments are glitching!” Specialist Monroe called out from the front. “GPS just died!”

“Switch to compass and dead reckoning,” Hill ordered. “We keep moving.”

But even he felt the unease crawling under his skin. A storm this strong could strip layers of paint from steel—what would it do to a stranded bus full of civilians?

As the MRAP lurched over a dune, the radio crackled with static.

“…Hill… come… in… convoy… trapped… can’t…”

Then nothing.

Hill slammed the radio. “We’re losing them!”

Riley Torres grabbed Hill’s arm. “We continue on foot. Vehicles will get buried.”

Hill nodded.

“Everyone out!” Torres bellowed. “Tie in with rope!”

They formed a rope line—each soldier clipping their harness to the thick cable running between them. The storm pushed at them with brutal force, nearly knocking Gonzales off his feet.

“Stay tight!” Hill yelled. “Eyes up! Let’s move!”

Together they marched into the storm, swallowed by gold.

3. SAND AND SHADOWS

The wind screamed around them, shredding visibility to a few feet. Sand stung their faces, wormed its way into their collars, and scraped across their goggles.

Each soldier leaned forward, forcing one heavy step after another.

Gonzales stumbled. Torres grabbed him. “Don’t look at the ground! Look ahead!”

“I—I can’t see ahead!”

“Then look at me!”

Riley Torres had a presence that felt grounding in any chaos. He wasn’t the loudest, or the toughest, but he never panicked—not even when everyone else did.

Hill checked the compass again.

“ETA three minutes to last known coordinates!” he shouted.

But as they crested a dune, the storm intensified, knocking them to their knees.

Monroe cursed angrily as he shielded his face. “Feels like the whole damn planet is attacking us!”

Hill’s foot struck something metal under the sand.

A vehicle.

“Here!” he shouted.

They brushed away layers of sand to reveal the top of a truck. It was half-buried—its windows shattered, its doors dented.

“No bodies!” Torres yelled through the storm. “They must’ve moved!”

Hill inspected the ground—barely visible under the swirling sand.

Footprints.

Dozens of them.

Heading north.

“Follow me! Rope tight!”

The squad advanced once more into the storm.

4. THE BUS

After what felt like an hour but was only ten minutes, the outline of a large vehicle slowly emerged from the sandstorm.

A bus.

Then figures.

Human silhouettes huddled against the frame, trying to protect one another from the rage of the storm.

“We found them!” Gonzales shouted.

The civilians—thirty-three in total—rushed toward the soldiers with fear and relief etched in their faces.

Women clutching young children. Elderly men shielding their eyes from the sand. Two teenagers helping a wounded driver.

Hill raised his voice. “Everyone stay close to us! We’ll get you out!”

A little girl cried loudly. Another child coughed violently. The bus doors had been ripped off their hinges by the storm, leaving them exposed.

“Monroe! Check injuries!” Hill commanded.

Torres moved beside Hill. “We can’t march back with all these people. Storm’s too strong.”

Hill nodded. “We dig in. Create a shelter.”

Torres blinked. “In the middle of a sandstorm?”

“Yeah.”

And so they did.

5. THE MAKESHIFT HAVEN

The squad positioned the civilians between the bus and the largest dune, using the vehicles as a natural barrier. They set up thermal blankets, dug trenches, and braced the area with tarps secured to rifles jammed into the sand like stakes.

The storm roared around them like a living, breathing beast.

Inside the makeshift shelter, it was only slightly better—but better was enough.

Hill knelt next to the wounded driver. “You’re gonna be okay.”

The man nodded weakly. “Thank you… soldier.”

Torres checked the perimeter. “Hill! We need water rotation. People are dehydrating fast.”

Hill nodded. “Start distributing.”

Meanwhile, Gonzales entertained two frightened kids with a flashlight, making animal shapes on the tarp wall.

“You’re good at that,” a civilian woman told him.

Gonzales shrugged. “I’ve got younger sisters. Lots of practice.”

Despite the storm, despite the danger, the squad moved with purpose and calm. They were trained for this—chaos didn’t break them, it sharpened them.

Hours passed.

The storm did not ease.

6. THE SECOND THREAT

Just after sunset, Torres stiffened.

“You hear that?”

Hill raised a hand for silence.

A low rumble—barely audible under the storm—crept across the desert.

Vehicles.

Powerful ones.

Hill’s heart tightened. Bandit groups sometimes used storms as cover to attack stranded civilians.

“Everyone quiet,” Hill said, voice cold.

The rumble grew louder.

Closer.

Then—

Headlights cut through the storm.

Three trucks.

Moving fast.

Torres hissed, “This is bad.”

Hill raised his rifle. “Positions!”

The squad formed around the civilians. Guns pointed outward.

The trucks skidded to a halt just thirty meters away.

Figures hopped out—armed men wearing mismatched gear. Not military. Not local security.

Raiders.

The kind who sold survivors instead of saving them.

Their leader stepped forward, face wrapped in cloth, voice muffled but confident.

“You have something we want,” he yelled over the storm. “Give us the civilians and we’ll let you walk away.”

Hill stepped forward, jaw clenched. “Not happening.”

The man laughed. “Then you die with them.”

A gun lifted.

Torres whispered, “Hill…”

“I see it,” Hill said.

But before the raider could shoot—

CRACK.

A sniper round echoed through the storm.

The raider dropped.

Then another shot.

Another raider fell.

Helicopter rotors suddenly roared overhead, slicing through the sandstorm like a blade.

Reinforcements.

QRF had found them.

Finally.

The raiders scrambled back into their trucks, driving off wildly as bullets and sand sprayed around them.

Torres exhaled hard. “About damn time.”

7. RESCUE

Two Black Hawks lowered through the storm, their downwash kicking up clouds of sand as medics jumped out, guiding civilians aboard.

Hill’s squad escorted each group carefully, shielding them from the wind.

Gonzales carried the youngest child in his arms, whispering, “You’re safe now. Almost there.”

Torres helped an elderly man into the helicopter. “Easy. Watch your step.”

Monroe assisted medics with the wounded.

One by one, the civilians boarded until only Hill’s squad remained.

Torres climbed aboard first. “Hill! Move!”

But Hill hesitated.

He looked around the storm-scarred battleground—the dunes they’d fought through, the bus they’d sheltered behind, the ropes they’d clung to.

Then he climbed aboard, Rox rotor blades blasting across his face.

The helicopter lifted into the night, leaving the storm behind them.

8. THE COST OF COURAGE

Hours later, back at base, Hill sat alone outside the medical tent. Sand still clung to his hair and uniform.

Torres approached, sitting beside him. “You good, Mason?”

Hill nodded slowly. “We almost lost them.”

“But we didn’t.”

Hill stared at his hands. “We were outnumbered. Outgunned. Out of visibility.”

“Yeah,” Torres agreed. “But not out of heart.”

Hill cracked a rare smile. “That’s the cheesiest thing you’ve ever said.”

“You love it,” Torres replied.

Around them, Gonzales played cards with Monroe. Medics moved in and out of the tent. Dawn began to glow on the horizon.

The storm was over.

But its memory would stay.

Not as fear.

Not as trauma.

But as proof.

Proof that when everything else is stripped away—visibility, certainty, even hope—good soldiers still stand together.

Because they never walk alone.