[Stingy Jack]

Yes, I think you could. I think the main problem here is that you begin both stories with a completely unnatural event to launch your tale (the soldier lost in Gloom, and the pinhole opening in the city). There just isn't enough blending between the natural and the unnatural to make it believable ... and all the blending that is done is told in a retrospective summary, which doesn't help. You can tell it in retrospect, but have the narrator limit his story to what he knows. When he begins to tell us how he got there, take us to him living his natural life to a few moments before he learns about the existence of the pinhole. Does he see it on the news? Does he not learn about it until the pre-mission briefing? Maybe he watches it unfold in the news, and knows that he will soon get the dreaded call to duty. Whatever ... but there needs to be more blending. You need to start off with natural events, and gradually introduce the unnatural. Show the narrator's struggle with accepting that this thing has really happened, and in this way you give the reader a crutch on which to base his own struggle with believing your story. You follow?