As the sun disappears below the horizon, the moon slowly rises to take its place. Crickets begin to chirp at a more rapid and audible pace across the desert night. The last gleaming light of the sun fading away, being completely out shun by the towering moon over the barren desert. As the temperature begins to quickly fall, nocturnal animals begin to slowly come out of their dens, cracks, or holes to either feast on their nocturnal prey, or to simply enjoy being out and about, without the ruthlessness of the sun making them uncomfortable.

The crickets continued to chirp, and coyotes began to howl and yip across the desert, only to suddenly be either drowned out or silenced by a roaring-like sound, splitting throughout the calm, cold desert.

Down a makeshift dirt road, a green and white SUV with beaming headlights blazed through, almost hitting a frightened coyote, who quickly began to run the other direction.

You slow down a little bit as you drive down the dirt road, taking a quick bite of a half eaten chocolate energy bar before setting it down beside your phone, which was connected to the radio via aux cord, playing a familiar song your grandparents played almost daily when you were a child.

"Four days." You think to yourself, letting out a soft sigh, "Four days and I'll have worked here for two years. Then I'll get a shot at joining BORSTAR." You think to yourself, a smile forming on your face a little bit.

Joining the Border Patrol was never really the goal you put yourself for back when you were in college. But after spending one full year at your hometown's police department, you decided that you wanted something... more impactful. More interesting.

Or something along those lines.

You decided to give the Border Patrol a shot, and haven't looked back since.

Nothing is more impactful than patrolling the outskirts of Nogales in the middle of the night, all alone, with just you and your radio to keep you company.

You chuckle at yourself, shaking your head. At least the pay was good.

Well, as good as it got for patrolling one of the most heavily narco-trafficking areas in the world.

Your partner would usually be here, cracking shitty racist jokes or playing some overtly obnoxious music over the radio (kinda like what you're doing right now), ignoring check-ins by other colleagues, but he (fortunately) called in sick this week and wouldn't be back for a few days.

So driving alone through the calm, cool desert alone, without any sort of annoyance whatsoever, was quite relaxing. Almost a bit too relaxing, since your eyelids suddenly feel quite heavy.

You yawn softly and take another bite of your energy bar, taking off the wrapper and finishing the final piece. You take a turn to a different path. As you slowly drive, you pass a makeshift memorial on the side of the road, covered in burnt out candles and wreaths of flowers.

Your relaxed mood fades as you mind thinks back to the event that unfolded a couple months ago. An agent and his partner were ambushed by a couple of illegal immigrants. One of them was beaten to death, while the other barely managed to escape the bastards. God knows how.

The immigrants were able to get back into their truck and disappear back over the border before backup could arrive. Everyone and their mother wanted to cross over and hunt them down, but none of us could do a damn thing about that for obvious reasons.

After the events of that night, you took some time to think about whether you still wanted this job. Although the doubts kept on rearing its ugly head, you mustered up the courage to not let this get into your head. You used this tragedy to fuel you further, to make sure nothing like this happens again. Not while you're still here anyway.

You calm down quickly, saying a silent prayer in your mind for the fallen colleague. Although you didn't know him personally, he was still a brother. Like every other guy here.

Shaking away the memory and letting yourself relax a little once more, you turn up the volume of the radio and drive a little bit faster, thinking about how much better your life will be once you qualify for your future position in the Border Patrol. Finally achieve something greater than thi-

"Bra-... co-...-in...over?"

The music and static blurred out most of whoever was talking on the radio, so you quickly shut off the music and fixate the frequency and audio.

"This is Bravo 47, say again, over?"

You fixate the frequency a bit more and the message comes through loud and clear.

"...avo 47, do you copy, over?" The female voice from HQ spoke, sounding quite impatient.

"47 copies, send it Delta."

"Bravo 47, one of our drones have spotted a pickup truck crossing the border just now. We're sending you the feed directly onto your computer, over."

"Understood, checking now..." You quickly flip open the computer beside you, quickly getting access to the drone's feed. You can clearly see what looks to be a worn out pickup truck, with the back of it draped over, but still flapping a bit due to the truck's speed.

You look closer at the truck again, thinking as to why it looks so familiar.

Then it hits you.

It's the same truck from the incident several months ago.

Or... at least it looks like it?

Whatever, whether it is or not, you have to stop that truck from heading further into the desert before they disappeared.

"Alright Delta, what's the gameplan here?"

"You're the only agent close enough to stop them before they go any further. We'll have a chopper up in the skies in a few minutes. Keep trailing the truck and stop them if you can. Backup will be with you shortly."

"Understood, 47 out."

With that, you rev the tires hard as they pick up dust, before you begin to quickly speed off into the direction the truck is heading. Your mind flows with the events that happened months ago, and the thought of bringing justice to your colleague and his family only makes you more eager to catch up with them.

The road becomes more bumpy but you don't dare slow down. Especially not when you see a trail of dust blazing past you a couple yards away.

You take one look at the computer, the drone still on the truck. The drone camera then turns to a different direction, looking directly at your SUV.

With that confirmation, you quickly turn on the sirens and drive faster towards the truck, going off the path for a few seconds to catch up to them quicker. Although it made the ride significantly more bumpy, this SUV was made for this kind of terrain, and you couldn't care less about comfort right now.

The flashing lights and high beams were the only thing brightening up the area around you, since the driver of the truck was smart enough to not keep any sort of lights on. As you approached the truck, the headlights began having trouble penetrating through the extremely heavy dust cloud.

"God damn it..." You curse silently, then call in on your radio, "I'm on their tail, I say again, I'm right behind them!"

"Copy that Bravo 47, the chopper is almost there, just stay on them a little longer."

Before you could respond, you hear several loud snaps and cracks, instinctively ducking down as you barely see the flap of the truck being pushed out of the way and revealing two guys holding AK rifles and shooting directly at you. Although the bullets don't hit you, they do go through the windshield and hit the back of the SUV.

"FUCK!" You shout, gritting your teeth and raising your head a little. Despite you being shot at sporadically, you were not going to lose them anytime soon.

"Bravo 47, what's going on? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine! They're shooting at me with AK's, but I'm fine!" You respond back, loudly and angrily.

"Hold on tight 47, the chopper's almost there. You should be able to hear it now."

Beyond the sound of sirens, dirt and pebble hitting metal, roaring engines and occasional gunfire, you do hear the sound of helicopter rotors for a split second. You decide to end this once and for all and begin to drive even faster.

The front bumper of your van hits the side of the truck and you smile, having just performed a textbook pit maneuver. Though your smile fades instantly when you are suddenly hit in the shoulder by a bullet, making you yell out in both surprise and pain. You instantly clutch your shoulder with your hand, keeping your weakened and pained arm on the steering wheel.

"D-Delta, I'm hit! I'm hit!"

"Bravo 47 repeat your last, were you hit?"

Before you could respond, you look up and see the truck swerve to the right, before flipping over and falling down onto a cliff.

As you and your SUV quickly follow suit, driving right off the edge and beginning to plunge head first to the ground below.

Your eyes are as wide as dinnerplates, your heart raising up and daring to pump out of your chest, adrenaline filling your body to the point where all you can feel in your shoulder is a dull numb and nothing more.

You swear time seems to be going by so incredibly slow as you and your SUV fall, to the point where you're thinking that it'll just pause outright.

Hell, maybe reverse itself so you could do it all over again and avoid this mistake.

And then it all happens in a split second.

Right before the SUV collides head on with the ground, you pass out.

For better or worse.

Author's Note

I really hope you enjoyed this prologue. If you see any errors or see any way to help me improve, by all means, tell me in the comments.

Notes:
BORSTAR: The Border Patrol Search, Trauma, and Rescue Unit (BORSTAR) is a specialized unit of the United States Border Patrol trained in emergency search and rescue. BORSTAR is composed of volunteer agents from the U.S. Border Patrol. After serving two years, agents may apply to attend the five-week training course. BORSTAR members learn rescue techniques, land navigation, communications, teamwork, tactical medicine, swiftwater rescue, and air operations. They also obtain their basic-level certification as an Emergency Medical Technician. Some members receive additional specialized training which may include watercraft rescue, boat operations, cold weather operations, paramedic training, and SCUBA diving.