I opened my eyes and looked around.  The night was dark; the sky cloudy.  An eerie light that filtered through the clouds made it only possible to see the silhouette of the forest to my left.  On my right stood the remains of a shabby wooden shack surrounded by a large patch of tall prairie grass, in which I lay, hiding from something I could only feel.  Where was I?

            I wore the ghillie suit which I somehow knew I had constructed, but I couldn’t remember when.  I couldn’t remember much of anything prior to me entering my mind in this patch of weeds.  How did I come to be here?  And why?

            The clouds shrouding the moon parted.  The moon was full.  In the clearing which separated the shack from the woods that surrounded it, came a thin, misty fog.  It stalked in towards me like the agents of death that were lurking in the woods around me.  I could feel the immense silence of the night bearing down on my prone body, pressing me into the earth. 

            There was something terribly wrong. 

            I suddenly became aware that I was holding a rifle in my steady hands.  It was a bolt action rifle with a high-power telescopic scope.  The rifle felt familiar. Instinctively, I checked the safety.  It was off.  I somehow knew there was already a round in the chamber.  I slid my index finger inside the trigger guard and gently caressed the trigger.  It calmed my nerves.

            The silence was suddenly shattered by a single tiny crunch in the darkness.  Someone had stepped on a twig directly in front of me.  I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was about fifty yards away.  I immediately knew he was the threat I had been trained to detect.  When I had been trained, I didn’t know, but I knew I would have to act if I wanted to escape the fog of death. 

            The man’s head and shoulders materialized from the darkness and he became an extension of the horizon.  He was walking straight at me.  I could tell by the way his shoulders and head were positioned that he was carrying a rifle.  It was pointed just over my head, at some area behind me.  I brought my rifle’s scope to my eye.  I couldn’t see the crosshairs in the darkness, so I placed the black shadow of his face in the center of my scope.  There was no way I would miss at this range anyway.  I was hesitant to fire without knowing why I should send a bullet through this man. 

            The man suddenly began to speak to me through the darkness.  I could tell he didn’t know my position.  He was taunting me.  He was hunting me.  I was his prey.  He tried to convince me that everything would be okay if I just gave up and came out. 

            He was lying.

            I pulled the trigger.

            My rifle lurched and a sharp crack resounded through the night and echoed off into the distance.  I witnessed the man’s head explode through my scope.  His blood spread into a thin mist and twinkled in the moonlight like a cluster of stars as it drifted to the ground.  The man fell on his back and didn’t move.  The fog of death had found its victim this night. 

            I stood up from my hide and removed my head covering.  My hands were no longer steady.  They shook like leaves in a breeze.  Someone clasped a hand on my shoulder from behind me.  I hadn’t heard him approach, but I knew he wasn’t a threat to me.  My danger had passed.  I turned to look at the man behind me.  It was the man in charge of me.  I couldn’t remember his name. 

            “Good job son,” he said.  I knew his voice. 

            “Who was he?” I asked my mentor, wondering whose life I had ended.

            “It doesn’t matter,” he said, “You completed the test.  Congratulations, son.”

            My mind swam. 

            Who am I?