Something wet and warm splattered across my face.
I couldn't even bring my hand up to wipe it. Face, neck, my suit—they were all covered in thick, dark red blood and white chunks. Mark's body hit the floor with a weak thud. The neck which suddenly seperated with the head spurting a violent fountain of blood.
My breath caught in my throat. I couldn't breathe. My heart beating so hard against my ribs. Tt felt like it would burst, but my legs wouldn't move. I froze. Hands trembling, sweat buckled all over my body. Really can't take a breathe. Air... air. I needed air.
I force to look round me, the squad didn't even blink. Ben and Dimas dropped the drinks boxes with a loud crash and drew their respective shield and hammer. Nina shoved past me, her shoulder knocking me sideways, but I barely felt it.
It felt like I had just fallen deep into the water. Everything went completely silent and heavy. Their voices sounded muffled, like they were shouting from above the surface while I continued to drown, sinking straight to the bottom.
The image of Mark's head bursting kept spinning. Over... and over again.
My head spinning so wild. The sudden dizziness drained every ounce of strength left in my body. I fell to my knees, both hands stucked into the ground supporting me. A second later,
I vomited.
So much... so much that I puked up all the scrap left in my stomach. My eyes grew watery. Snot leaked from both nostrils.
"The head... Mark... brain... me..." I wheezed.
BANG! the sound of a random bullet hit the metal dustbin beside me.
I mustered whatever strength I had left just to raise my head and look forward.
Everyone had already engaged in a massive open fire. The giants projected as the team shields up front, and the rest of the members were shooting from behind. I couldn't even see the enemy. The entire view was hazy and grey. I just froze here, hoping for the battle to be over soon.
What do I do...
Chiuuu... stud. A stray piece of debris struck my left arm. Hot... What is this?
It was in that split second that my nerves flare back to life, hitting me with a massive wave of reality.
"Aarghh! Shittt!" It hurt. It fucking hurt!
I stared painfully at my left arm, where a bullet was now buried deep inside the flesh. Fuck me. To get shot by a random bullet out of nowhere. It was so painful—I could literally feel the heat burning my muscle the moment it hit. So this was what it felt like to get shot.
My hand frantically reached for the knife in my leg pouch. I sliced my sleeve open, ripping the fabric and warping it tightly just above the wound to tie off the bleeding. I didn't have the luxury to pull the bullet out. Every second I stood still here was a second closer to death. The next random bullet might not be so kind as to hit my arm. It could be my head.
I forced my legs to move again, using one hand as a support to drag myself into somewhat standing. But as I tried to stand, my eyes unconsciously locked onto Mark's headless corpse again, laying cold on the ground in a widening pool of blood.
I vomited... Again.
I hurriedly cover my mouth with my right hand to stop it, but the reflex was as instinctive as breathing. The liquid forced its way through my fingers—pure saliva and burning stomach acid. I didn't have anything else left to puke out.
I can't be like this. I need to move somehow.. somewhat. Fuck!
Just as I tried to stand for the third time, I felt someone grab my torso from behind, hauling me up.
"You need to move, Ed," a familiar voice whispered.
"Nina... I can't. Everything is spinning. I can't move my body." It was Nina. She dragged me back into the shadows of the building, keeping me behind her.
"It's the squad leader's order," Nina told me, her eyes locked on the battlefield up front. "I need your help. I have to flank the enemy to relieve the pressure on the squad leader. If we don't, we're going to turn into sitting ducks for all bullets they fired."
"But I ca—"
"Don't be a crybaby, Ed!" Nina shouted right in my face. It was the first time I had ever heard she raise her voice. The cheerful and soft Nina was completely gone. "Get back to your senses, or we all die! Nina took something in her pouch. Similiar to medical bottle for traveling. "Here, swallow this pill. It is adrenaline pill. It makes you feel a little better"
Before I could even process it, she shoved a pill deep into my mouth. It caught in my throat, choking me, but I forced myself to swallow it down.
"And take the earphone. You just need to tell me where the enemy is hiding and how many there are."
I looked down and saw Nina draw a small blade, long enough to be a machete.
"Where is the enemy currently firing at Squad Leader Prisma?" she asked. "I need to release the pressure on her."
My chest felt heavy, and the air wouldn't go down to my lungs. The image of Mark's head bursting open was stucked to the inside of my head. Every time I blinked, I saw the red fountain splurted from the neck. My brain was locking up again, sliding back down deep into the water again.
I can't. I can't do this. It was hard even just to move my body
"Edgar!" Nina shouted, her voice cutting through the muffled and strike directy into my ear. "Look at me! Where are they?" Nina keep shouting.
I looked down at my hands. They were trembling violently, colored with Mark's blood and white tissue. A wave of absolute horror and disgust washed over me, threatening to pull me under completely. My hand instinctively covered my mouth... Again.
No. Fuck this. Move.
With a raw, desperate cry, I brought my right hand up and slapped my own face with full force.
SLAP!!
The impact rocked my jaw. The sharp, stinging pain snapped the lingering trauma that kept hauting me. I did it again, harder this time, hitting myself until my skin burned and my vision cleared. I needed the pain. I needed anything to remind me that I was still alive, that I was still in control of my own head.
"I'm here," I gasped, wiping the sweat and blood from the lips with the back of my sleeve. "I'm fucking here."
I closed my eyes, blocked out the stench of the blood, and forced my focus outward. I threw every ounce of my willpower into activating the wavelength detection.
The feedback hit my brain like a lightning strike. The mental grid snapped into place, pinging furiously. I found them. Sixteen distinct signatures dug into positions just behind the wall.
"Be careful," I told her through the mic, my voice cracked and raw, but steady. "Ten people above the wall keep firing their rifle."
"Good job, Ed!. Now tell me which direction I need to go."
The moment the words left her mouth, Nina blurred under the shadows of the building, slowly approaching the wall.
"Right side of the wall, just before the gate," I spoke into the earphone, tracking the mental map. "Three people are keeping the squad leader pinned."
Nina moved like an acrobat, scaling the wall in one fluid motion before plunging into a fierce melee with her blade. Wow. So this was a real battlefield. The atmosphere was heavy and suffocating, the air thick with smoke and the metallic smell of gunpowder combined. It was hard to breathe under this sheer intensity
Fuck me. I had never learned a single piece of combat theory, and here I was, plunged directly into the massive battlefield I couldn't fathom.
Regardless, the adrenaline pill was working. I could feel my limbs again. I gripped and loosened my right hand. It obeyed. I reached down, checking the Glock 17 at my leg, grab it. And keeping my fingers close to the grip.
I focused back on the battle ahead. Prisma and the two giants were heavily occupied, using their shields to tank every incoming bullets while the remaining four members shot back at the wall. Everyone was completely tensed up under the deafening rhythm of gunfire.
I shifted my detection back to Nina. She was struggling, engaging three targets at once above the wall. Worse, the remaining six guards below had just spotted her and two of them were sprinting toward her position.
I immediately run, running closer to the main squad, and screamed at the top of my lungs to Prisma.
"Leader! Help! Nina is flanking the right but she's getting surrounded! She needs cover, NOW!"
Prisma shot a glance toward me, then looked away instantly. "Joel, go with Nina. We need to breach the gate."
With that command, Joel broke from the line and sprinted toward Nina's position, while keep flaring his rifle to disrupt the enemy focus on Nina.
For a few agonizing minutes, I could do nothing but track the chaotic spikes in my mind as the two groups clashed. Joel's arrival completely shifted the rhythm of the right flank. I couldn't see the blood or the blades through the dark. But the brainwave feedback told the entire story.
The high-frequency waves of the three enemies suddenly went wild, fracturing into panic as Joel's suppressive fire pinned them down, giving Nina the split second she needed to close the distance.
Her signature blurred into theirs. Two seconds of violent, erratic spikes followed—and then, a sudden, chilling silence from three positions.
The three guards near Joel had gone completely dark, their alpha waves flattening out—Nina and Joel had successfully eliminated the first wave. Now, Joel was trading heavy fire with the three shooters on the far right, occasionally providing cover for Nina, who was already trading blows in close-quarters combat with the two enemies who had arrived earlier.
With the pressure relieved, Prisma made her move. She charged toward the center of the gate, the two giants trailing right behind her. That left only three members behind to cover the wall from the left.
"Listen up!" Prisma's voice boomed over the comms. "I'm taking down the gate. Cover me. No need to hold back anymore. We storm in!"
She ran with full, terrifying force, slamming her massive body directly into the thick metallic gate. Just before I heard the sound of the impact.
Chiuuu... stud.
Another bullet tore through the air and pierced my flesh.
"Arrghh! Damn it!"
The pain from my right arm still throbbing without the intention of stopping, and now a fresh bullet had pierced straight into my left shoulder. The impact shocked me. I could barely lift my arm before, and now, with a bullet inside the shouler, it was almost impossible to move. Damn it, damn it! Why did the shields follow Prisma instead of staying back to cover the line? Who was supposed to protect us from the bullets they fired?
While the thoughts raged inside my head, a thunderous crack shattered the thought of mine.
BOOMMM!
The massive metallic gate pulverized under the sheer, brutal force of Prisma's impact. The iron gate gave away, tearing open from the center.
"All units!" Prisma roared through the smoke. "INSIDE!!"