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There was a sea in Central Asia, a vast oasis in between dry stints of land. The sea was a blessing for the surrounding nature, with a diverse ecosystem, and it also provided the people living around it with jobs and food through the fishing industry.
The Aral Sea, with all its salty water, was the fourth-largest inland body of water. It was. Because what was now nestled between the borders of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan isn’t a sea anymore. It’s a desert.
Almost 90 % of the Aral Sea’s surface is dried out, and it has been renamed the “Aralkum Desert”. What once was a location known for its nature and biodiversity, a paradise in its own right, has been erased from the map. Just like the parents he never got to keep. The only thing left was water, too salty to survive off, toxic dust storms that descend upon the local population and a devastated economy.
Bradley has a framed picture of it. He had no idea where he first saw it.
It could have been the background from one of his shitty laptops, or maybe just a picture he randomly found and downloaded without a second thought. He didn’t remember. The only thing he knew was that it sat on his dresser, the wooden frame sun-bleached on the left side from hanging too close to the nearby window. He remembers putting it in there, one of his childhood paintings was still right behind the photograph, a blue and green blob, maybe earth, in fingerpaint.
The photograph, of two boats in the middle of a desert, had snuck its way into his life and into the frame. It was just a fucking desert now, so he wasn’t sure why he was so fascinated by it at the beginning. Bradley didn’t pretend to know why the imagery of the decaying ships surrounded by sand and dust spoke to him in such a way.
One night, when he was too drunk or felt too poetic not to wallow in self-pity, he realised that his life was nothing more than that dried-up lake. He once had everything: an abundance of happiness, ambition and purpose. But now, nothing more than dust remained. Too toxic to live off. Unescapable.
And just like any other stupid and futile attempt to fill a desert with water to regain what was once lost, he drowned. Not in water but in gin. He never stopped at one bottle, even if the previous had left his throat with a fiery burn and his stomach with an uncomfortably radiating heat. After one drink always came another, because he chose to believe that each sip was filling up that aching hole in his chest swallow by swallow- and if he could convince himself that something else worked, he would try anything to make the emptiness disappear.
As long as he could pretend that he was more than just salt and dust, he could survive. Could get ready in the morning and go to work. Could manage not to cry even once while on a carrier, do his job, just to drown again the second he got home. The liquor didn’t even taste like anything anymore. But he needed the sting, the little escape he managed to build. To stare at the framed picture every night, enjoy the way it made the hours bleed away, to forget his mother’s laugh, his godfather’s harsh world in his ears, and he thought about how the wreckage of his life was no different from it.
When he eventually ended up hunched over the bathroom sink or the toilet, stomach acid burning in his throat instead of alcohol, he’d press his forehead to the cool porcelain and think about that desert. How his family had been stolen from him alongside his hopes and dreams, how Mav had gutted whatever had still been left of him. How the Aral had boiled down into nothing but poison.
That was him.
Months passed. And then a year did too.
Bradley realised that running from the pain was too tiring, there was no escape waiting at the bottom of his bottle. There was only silence left.
He accepted the fact that the only thing left to do was to walk through this desert, as endless and unbearable as it was. So he did.
And every day, he would wake up still breathing, put on his uniform, eat when he had to, and fly when he was allowed to. Bradley existed, even if it felt like dragging his tired and stiff body across hot ground with no shade or water in sight.
He wasn’t sure if this could even be considered grief anymore. It was just the weight of nothingness pressing down on him until he couldn’t feel the hours and days slipping away. He didn’t need to drown out his mom’s laugh anymore, he couldn’t even hear it in his head anymore. And he was too much of a coward to try remembering. There was no looming expectation of his father’s shoes that needed to be filled.
He once considered escaping this mechanical loop, stripped of meaning. Stripped of an actual life. But he stayed. Punishment, in its simplest form, is to keep breathing in a world that is torturing you, he thought. To keep living with smoke and acid in his lungs.
He thought he deserved it because he had forgotten everything he once loved so dearly. And now, in their place were just the endlessly blowing winds of sand, a hollow nothing he carried like a weight he couldn’t drop.
Deserts, no matter how empty, didn’t stay still forever. Sometimes a shape appeared on the horizon, impossible and out of place. Bradley didn’t know why he noticed it. But he did.
It wasn’t a shape at all, actually. It was a sound. One that cut through the stillness of his world.
Sharp.
Unmistakably alive.
Bradley didn’t know if he wanted to pay attention. Didn’t know if that was even an option.
It rang through his body like a ‘zzzziing’.
Something had arrived in his desert, and it didn’t belong.
“You worthless son of a bitch, get off your damn perch and get fucking moving, Rooster!”
It had been a routine flight. Not a mission. Nothing. Just another patrol over the coast, the sky was empty aside from them and their wingmen. But for Bradley, it felt as if it was just him. There was no chatter over the radio, and the only thing surrounding him was the rush of wind and the whirr of the engine.
And then he heard the alarmed, “Enemy aircraft at your six, Rooster!” Instinct took over. Bradley slammed the throttle forward, eyes locking on the old fighter jet appearing out of nowhere, carving through the misty blue.
Then the world exploded into sounds: alarms started blaring as bullets scraped his right wing, and alongside the Radio began screaming.
“That old thing has ammo? Fuck! Break right, Specs! Break right! Rooster! ”
He dodged barely, then he pressed the stick back, weaving, the G-force pushing him down into his seat. Bullets traced half-moon-shaped arcs in the sky, and the ocean glinted below them. He was aware of the enemy jet behind him, aware of the open sky stretching on for miles and endless miles, but what he was most aware of-
The fighter dipped in for a firing pass, targeting Bradley and then.
“You worthless son of a bitch, get off your damn perch and get fucking moving, Rooster!”
Hangman screamed over the radio, in a mixture of warning and anger. The words struck harder than any alarm or missile warning, and Bradley rolled downwards, his heart hammering. In an instant, Lt. Seresin was in his field of vision, trailing behind the threat, weapons locking.
A burst of fire lit the air, and then the enemy fighter burst into nothing but smoke and debris.
For a second, the radio was quiet, the only thing audible was the heavy breathing of the pilots and their WSOs. And then Hangman’s voice was still there, ragged, furious, and impossibly alive.
“Rooster, what the hell were you doing? Were you trying to get shot down?”
And Bradley knew he felt it again, that spark. His head wasn’t clear, and the weight on his shoulders still felt like he would collapse any second. And yet- He was awake now. An electrifying, undeniable effect that Hangman seemed to have had on him.
The desert inside him hadn’t disappeared, but that spark had reminded him: he was still alive.
Bradley was still on the carrier. His jet long towed away, his helmet loose in his hand, but his eyes glued to the sea that stretched out in every direction.
He had heard it earlier, the congratulations. First air-to-air kill for active duty personnel. Good for Hangman's career.
The water was choppy below him, restless in a way that reminded him of something he couldn’t place. He heard the waves crashing against the hull of the ship, and smelt the salt in the air, even tasted it on his lips.
Wondered why he hadn’t noticed it in the weeks prior.
Bradley had been on the carrier for almost a month, but it was now that he felt the wind tugging against his hair and flight suit. It was sharp, cold and refreshing, almost clean in a way.
“What the hell am I even doing?” he asked into the wind. He pretended that he couldn’t feel his voice breaking, or that he didn’t know that his question was more choked up than said. Prayed that the wind carried the words far enough away.
Bradley *needed* to enjoy the fresh air in his lungs and the adrenaline still thrumming through him. Because he felt like he hadn’t come up for air in months.
He remembered the way his voice had sounded after getting out of his jet, how raw it came out when he spoke up, “Thank you for that.” He had said.
Hangman’s reply was curt but seemingly sincere, “Anytime, Rooster.” Then Specs and Static had come over, their helmets abandoned on the tarmac as they clapped both of them on the back. It was a moment painted by their relief. He nodded along.
And now with the deck empty, he noticed how the sky slowly began to glow in a pale orange and how the ocean wasn’t asking him for anything, wasn’t reminding him of everything he had lost.
It just moved.
The sea would still be there tomorrow. For some reason, that felt important.
He seemed to have a thing for drowning.
Not in alcohol this time. No, he was over a year sober at this point. Proudly so. He went to a meeting every week, and on every bad day.
He had been worried when he came home again that he would fall back into his pattern. The picture in the wooden frame remained on his dresser.
Bradley tried, but he couldn’t put it away. Even if he could swear that every time he looked at it, the subtle smell of gin still lingered in his nose. Even if everything felt wrong from the way he put on his socks to the way he buttered his toast. And he quietly had to admit to himself that he seemed to have forgotten how to move through the world without work now that the autopilot button in his brain seemed to be broken.
At first, the TV was a welcome distraction, but one could only watch so many cooking shows before he felt his brain turn to mush. And as crazy as it sounded, he missed the familiar slapping of waves that he had become accustomed to on the carrier and sniping comments in his direction.
It was two in the morning when he found himself on the beach for the first time. He stayed in the Bronco, rolled one window down just enough to hear the familiar sound of the sea. He imagined himself sinking into it, letting the tide take him, moving alongside the waves in rhythmic motions and promptly fell asleep. When the sunrise woke him up the next morning, his neck was stiff.
Two days had passed when he felt the invisible string drawing him back to the sandy beach. This time, he didn’t stay in the Bronco. He walked until he began to sink into the cold, damp sand and felt the waves wash over his ankles.
He noticed the blue sky and bluer sea, the way the seagulls screamed high in the air. Small things, stupid things. Stupid things that reminded him that he could still feel.
He sat down on the sand, back to the rising sun, knees drawn to his chest. The ocean roared and whispered into his ears at the same time, and the lazy beams warmed his neck and ears. He let himself breathe into the clean morning air. He didn’t have to do anything, didn’t have to be anything.
Just existing. That alone felt like some kind of victory.
He still heard the blaring alarms of his jet in every loud noise. Bradley wasn’t sure what had happened that day in the air. But he knew that the spark he’d felt wasn’t gone. It couldn’t be. It had just…moved somewhere quiet, somewhere he could find it again.
Maybe back in his jet, up in the air. Maybe at the bottom of the ocean.
For now, standing at the edge of the tide and feeling the cold water bite at his ankles was enough. Letting himself notice the little things: the foam curling over his toes, the screaming seagulls, the sunlight breaking across the waves.
The third time he came back, it had been late in the evening. The sun had dipped below the horizon, leaving the sky a deep, bruised purple. He walked deeper into the water this time, letting the cold lap higher and higher on his shoes, his shins, then his knees. Before he knew it, he was swimming.
The tide and waves were stronger than expected, heavier than he had ever experienced before. The water was hitting his chest, and he couldn’t help but swallow a mouthful as he got sucked into deeper water. Heart hammering, Bradley tried to turn back, but the tide pulled stronger than he could struggle against, tugging at his legs, dragging him off.
With rising panic, he felt something like the old familiar hot and suffocating burn clawing into him. He tried to swim. He kicked and thrashed. Uselessly.
Bradley fought. The voice in the back of his head was telling him to stop moving and to sink, and finally, finally letting the water take him away. But his instincts were screaming to swim, to move to try and get out of the freezing water, to do something. Anything.
That spark was still gone. He hadn’t found it.
Nonetheless, he needed to make it back to the beach.
With arms clawing at the water’s surface, and burning lungs, he had managed to drag himself back toward the shore, tasting sand, water and victory in equal measures.
He collapsed onto the ground, chest heaving, waterlogged shoes making him feel heavy. For a long time, he couldn’t move. He couldn’t cry. Couldn’t laugh. He just stayed there, listening to the ocean roar over his own ragged breathing.
For someone who didn’t want to drown, stuck in a desert- he sure did it a lot.
The bar was tucked against the old dock, crammed in between towering rusty shipping containers.
Inside, it was a sticky-floored, smoke-stained shack. The kind of place where the jukebox always sounded out of tune, half the songs weren’t working and the pool table was missing a ball. The air was warm, heavy with the smell of salt, spilled beer, and too many bodies pressed together.
Seresin was at the centre of the chaos, laughing and shouting, drunk on celebration. Top Gun, that was where he was going next. Glasses clinked, the squad cheered, but Bradley felt nothing but the lack of air in the room.
He sat at the edge of the bar, fingers holding a fry, observing. Every motion, every shout, every flash of teeth, and flicker of Hangman’s grin was overwhelming, but impossible to look away from.
“Guess some people just aren’t cut out for the big leagues.”
The words hit Bradley like a gunshot, sharp and precise, aimed right where it hurt. He couldn’t stop his shoulders from stiffening, his fingers crushing the greasy fry in his hands until they were glistening in oil. But right behind the anger, he felt it again.
That zinging feeling that crawled from his neck all the way down to his toes.
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
Hangman hadn’t even bothered to look at him when he said it, just thrown it at him, grinning at the laugh it got from the people around them. Bradley should’ve been furious. He should’ve walked out.
But he stayed, because that burn in his chest didn’t feel hollow like it used to. And the goosebumps on his skin refused to go down.
“You’re staring,” Jake joked. Half amused, half annoyed. Bradley shrugged. Couldn’t explain it even if he tried.
He had been stupid enough to think that all of it had been adrenaline.
That spark he’d chased, thought he lost in the wind, or the waves and salt buried under miles of sand and empty bottles, stirred faintly. Hangman made no sense in this. Not in Bradley’s quiet, dead landscape. Not in the endless emptiness he dragged himself through every day. Hangman was too loud, too sharp, too alive- too annoying and infuriating.
But somehow, the barbs and the banter and even the fights… A ship in the desert, impossible and out of place, and yet somehow saving him from certain death.
“Fuck,” Bradley inhaled sharply.
It hadn’t been the adrenaline that made him wake up, not the danger. It was the sting of Seresin’s voice that cut through the static in his head. That made his blood feel hot, like something had finally unclogged in his veins.
It had been Hangman.
Jake smirked, oblivious to the recognition burning in Bradley’s chest. “You okay, Rooster?”
Bradley set his glass down and stood, pulse loud in his ears. He didn’t know if he could survive all of this, all the chaos and noise and Hangman’s insults, but seeing him standing there, ego and all, made it possible to imagine.
And for now, that was enough.
“Yeah,” he said and firmly patted the other guy’s shoulder. And for once, it didn’t feel like a lie.
It didn’t make sense, it didn’t have to.