[ RF ] A person living far , far away from home receives a package from his/her family .

As the sun rose over the horizon, the coldness of the desert night quickly evaporated into a dry heat, permeating even the shade that was supposed to provide such respite from the mid-day sun's relentless beating. Dan shifted uncomfortably in his seat, as week-old sweat continued to build up under his flak jacket. If his equipment, having suffered from a week of daily assault by the sun, could be juiced, he was sure it would probably form it's own sort of super-mutated organism capable of rivaling most comic-book villains in sheer reprehensibility. His seat in the back of the Humvee probably already contained bits of this organism squirming around, hiding under him out of fear of what the six soldiers in the truck would do to it if it revealed it's existence. And with the truck zooming down the desert highway at almost sixty miles per hour, there was no way it was going to make an escape anytime soon. 
 
 `` Glickstein!'' A voice shouted from above Dan. Dan looked up through the turret hole in the middle of the truck at the origin of the voice to see his gunner looking down at him from his post on the M2HB machine gun mounted atop the Humvee. 
 
 `` My'back's empty. Do we have anymore bottles back there?'' the voice asked once it noticed Dan looking up at him. 
 
 `` I think, lem me check,'' Dan responded, turning back to the bed of the truck. Lying across the bed was a stretcher with another soldier, fatigues spotted with blood across the lower abdomen, holding onto the sides of the stretcher with his only equipment being the IV hanging on the roll bar above him leading down to his arm. As Dan reached over the wounded soldier and dug through a box, he put a light hand on the soldier's shoulder. 
 
 `` How're you hangin' in there, Rocco?'' Dan asked the wounded man as he pulled a bottle of water out of the box. 
 
 `` Morphine's starting to wear off, but at least I'm getting used to the pain. So long as we do n't go offroading again,'' the soldier nicknamed Rocco responded weakly, reaching up with a free hand to pat the hand that Dan had put on his shoulder. 
 
 `` We're almost back at Camp Delta, man, they'll get you some of the good shit there,'' Dan said, turning back to his seat. 
 
 `` You better not let them give me any of that weak K shit man,'' Rocco joked, chuckling for a second before grabbing his wound in pain as he realized how much laughing was going to hurt him. 
 
 `` Mace!'' Dan called up to his gunner, reaching his hand with the bottle of water up through the turret hole. 
 
 `` Thanks man!'' the gunner responded taking it from him before leaning back. 
 
 Dan pulled his hand back into the truck and leaned towards the front of the truck to address the driver. 
 
 `` Hey Liao, how far out are we?'' Dan asked. 
 
 `` 3 minutes,'' the driver said, suddenly slowing down and pointing down a dirt road intersecting the highway, `` Camp's at the end of this road. Better hold on to our boy back there.'' 
 
 Dan sat back and reached a hand back to tap the shoulder of the wounded soldier behind him. 
 
 `` I heard him man. I ca n't believe we still have n't paved over this shit,'' Rocco said, grabbing Dan's hand. 
 
 As the Humvee pulled up to the gates of the Camp, the barriers blocking the road swung up as if to leap out of the way of the truck, and men standing in the gate started beckoning to the truck to move towards the giant corrugated metal building with a large red cross painted onto it's side. 
 
 Sliding to a halt in the dirt in front of the building, Dan and the rest of the men piled out of the truck, all moving to the rear bed and helping to open the hatch and pull the stretcher out. Dan reached in to grab the IV, and as he turned he was greeted by the sight of many men in scrubs pouring out of the entrance of the building, rushing to greet the truck. 
 
 As they passed off the stretcher and IV to the medical staff, each of the men from the truck patted Rocco on his shoulder before returning to unloading equipment from the truck, and the medical staff hurried back in with him as soon as the men were out of the way. 
 
 Dan pulled his rucksack out of the back of the truck, waved at the driver as he jumped back in to bring the truck to the motor pool, and walked towards the sea of tents with his gunner, equipment in hand. 
 
 `` Did you see Charlie Company lined up at the motor pool on the way in?'' the gunner asked, as they plodded along. 
 
 `` Nah,'' Dan responded, `` anything out of the ordinary?'' 
 
 `` Just a couple of chucklefucks mounting a TOW missile on top of the lead Humvee. As if that'd do them any good,'' the gunner said. 
 
 `` I'd watch how loudly you say that, Corporal Mason,'' a voice behind them called. 
 
 The two men spun around to the source of the voice. A tall, balding man stood before them, holding a clipboard and not really paying attention to the two of them as he flipped through pages on it. The two men dropped their equipment and saluted him with crisp motions, and he merely lifted a hand in a saluting gesture, his hand coming up just above the eagle on his collar before waving it at them. 
 
 `` At ease, gentlemen. The two of you did good work out at the OP this past week, you'd better enjoy having the racks to yourself tonight before the rest of Bravo company returns in the morning,'' the colonel said, still not looking up from his papers. 
 
 `` Thank you, Colonel Vickery,'' the two men said in unison. 
 
 `` Corporal Alex Mason, do n't let me catch you jawjackin other companies again,'' the colonel exasperated, finally looking up from his clipboard. 
 
 `` Yes, sir!,'' Alex responded stiffly. 
 
 `` Dismissed,'' Colonel Vickery said nonchalantly, looking back down at his clipboard and moving on. 
 
 The two men picked up their equipment and sauntered back to their barracks quietly, hoping to avoid any more attention before they had a chance to relax. 
 
 Entering the tent that they called their barracks, the two men made beelines for their cots and immediately sat down their equipment at their footlockers at the foot of the cots. Sitting on top of Dan's footlocker was a brown box, obviously dropped off during the weekly mail runs that they had missed that week. 
 
 `` Is that the turret shield you ordered?'' Alex asked, sitting on his own footlocker and shuffling through his mail. 
 
 `` Ca n't be, it's too light,'' Dan said, picking it up and reading the label on the top, `` Says it's from your girlfriend though.'' 
 
 Alex dropped his mail and scurried over to Dan. 
 
 `` What the hell, why is she sending you care packages and not me?'' Alex asked, grabbing the box out of Dan's hands. 
 
 `` I do n't know man, but there was a card with it,'' Dan said, picking up the card sitting on top of the pile of letters that had been next to the box. 
 
 `` Whatever dude, I swear to god if she's sending you more shit than I get I'm gon na kill her,'' Alex said, tearing apart the box. 
 
 Dan flipped open the card and started reading it, only to hear a pop ring out next to him and see a giant flash of light in the corner of his eye. 
 
 `` What the fuck?'' Dan said, looking up, finding his gunner covered in glitter. 
 
 Alex put the box down slowly and started laughing. 
 
 `` Damn, I shoulda let you open it! She put a damn camera in here!'' He said, reaching into the box and pulling out the Polaroid camera that was printing out a picture of him reacting to the glitter bomb. 
 
 Dan looked back down at the card and finished reading it. 
 
 `` Says here that we should send the photo back to her so she can find out who was stupid enough to open it without reading the card for safe handling instructions. Also there's a chocolate unicorn under the glitter bomb. And something else for you in the bottom?'' 
 
 Alex picked the box back up and started digging through it. He pulled out a plastic box that had melted chocolate dripping out of the sides, and laughed as he chucked it aside, and reached back into the box to grab his own gift. 
 
 Dan put down the card and picked up the plastic box that once housed a chocolate unicorn and took the lid off to start drinking what was left of the chocolate and looked over at Alex as he pulled out a smaller box. 
 
 `` Wha ee iiii?'' Dan asked, chugging the chocolate out of the box. 
 
 `` Dunno. It's heavy,'' Alex said, pulling the brown packaging off of it to reveal a metal block. 
 
 `` Looks cool,'' Dan said, putting down the now empty container of chocolate, `` How do you open it?'' 
 
 Alex tugged on one side of the block, revealing a compartment that pulled out, and the two watched as a revolver tumbled to the ground with a post-it note stuck on it. Alex reached down and picked it up. 
 
 `` Hope this'll come in handy winky face?'' Alex read, `` Holy shit she got me a fuckin forty-four magnum, dude!'' 
 
 `` Damn. I'm glad we opened this before the rest of the guys got here otherwise you'd never hear the end of it,'' Dan said, licking the container of chocolate clean, `` Thank Tiff for the chocolate by the way that shit is awesome.''
