Operation by Tony Ruggiero

replaced with only the thought of wanting this woman.
    Then the sound of gunshots echoed in the cavern and as quickly as I had been sucked into this dream, it was shattered by the harshness of reality and imminent death.
    One of the men opened fire. I hadn’t thought about it at the time, about how he had escaped her illusion of attraction which had so easily immobilized me. Only after debriefing, I realized that he had taken communion this morning at a nearby church. I can only think that somehow his religious observance had perhaps saved us all from our deaths.
    I watched as the bullets hit her in several places. She had been struck enough times that it would have brought down the strongest man. But she just stood there looking at the holes they left behind. I watched as the wounds closed almost immediately. The rest of the men opened fire and continued to shoot until they emptied their weapons magazines. I thought my head was going to explode from all the noise. Yet, she just stood there.
    When the last shot had been fired and the echo died away, a deathly silenced enveloped the cavern. She raised her head and smiled and then I heard her laugh. It was in a tone that was both exhilarating and frightening. It reached into my chest and tore at my very soul.
    All during this incident, whether by the sudden change of events or the hypnotic effect she had on me, I had completely forgotten about the explosive device within her and the detonation device in my pocket. As I awoke from my stupor, I reached for it but before I could fully grasp it, things exploded again.
    The civilian splashed some holy water in her direction and she stopped and hissed at him baring large canine incisors. He screamed at me to look away from her. I felt his arms on mine as he shook me. As he did so I felt the remaining haze lift from my mind. I carefully returned my gaze to this creature, avoiding eye contact at all costs for I believe this was how she was able to obtain a hold over me. I realized she has a power to cause an unprotected man to lose his concentration in some way. For a brief period, I could think of nothing other than how desirable she was. And I am sure of one thing: She would have kept me thinking that as she slit my throat and drank her fill of my blood.
    I realize how crazy this must sound. I have not lost my mind or suffered any forms of delusion. I know what I saw and felt.
    What happened next shall remain vivid in my memory for the remainder of my life. I watched the creature slip its hand through its own flesh and probe the area where the device had been planted. Unlike before, when we inserted the device and had the constant problem of keeping the flesh opened, she had no problem at all. It was if her body allowed her own hand to probe her insides at will. When her hand stopped moving, she looked up at me with an expression that threw me. I expected to see a look of disdain or anger at what I had done. But instead I saw a look that I could only describe as a mix of curiosity and amusement.
    I found the creature’s straight forward approach unsettling and yet fascinating. I assumed she either accepted her situation, the explosive device within her, or she had a plan to counteract what we had done. I have never before felt so unsure of my actions at any moment in time.
    A strange sense of calm seemed to come over the creature. She stopped all forms of aggression and simply asked me to explain what I wanted. After a few minutes of conversation, she agreed to end hostilities so that she could learn more about us and what the world on the outside was like.
    It was during those few minutes that I got the feeling that she was not ignoring the bomb we had placed inside of her, but rather that she did not care about its presence one way or the other. This meant that she did not care if she would live or die and this made her truly dangerous.
    Even after what I saw—I still have the blood of my men upon my clothing—I am almost