Scars That Time Can't Erase
The mattress was plush far plusher than what she had grown accustomed to.
But tiredness swept over her like an old buddy.
Rina settled on her back, looking at the ceiling, inhaling steady… until it wasn't.
It did not go smoothly down under not for someone who lived five thousand years.
Not for Hunterrina.
Her eyelids drifted shut… and the past crept in.
Gunfire. Explosions. Screams.
The sky was black with smoke, the ground painted with blood.
World War.
One of them. They all blurred together now.
But this one stuck.
Because this one almost broke her.
She had battled with soldiers brave men, with no lives to lose, fighting to defend what was left of their nation.They thought she was one of them. Just another girl in uniform.
Until the bullets came.
Too many. Too fast.
Her body jerked back one bullet, then two, then five.
Her chest burned, her side tore open, her leg collapsed under her.
She fell.
Face down in the mud.
Breath shallow. Eyes flickering.
The soldiers around her screamed.
"Hunter's down! Medic!"
They thought she was dying.
They thought she was human.
Her vision blurred darkness closing in
Until she heard his voice.
A soldier she fought beside for months his final scream before the enemy's bayonet silenced him.
Something inside her snapped.
Ancient. Primal. Hunterrina.
Her heart thundered faster than any mortal's.
The pain vanished.
Her eyes shot open glowing like molten gold.
Before anyone could react
The ground beneath her trembled.
Her battered soldier uniform began to shift, fabric dissolving into silver threads melding, weaving into armor that glowed faintly in the smoke-filled battlefield.
Her Immortal Suit.
The armor that had concealed her for all those centuries.
Her boots departed the ground she floated.
The soldier foe halted in his tracks starving before her as if beholding a god.
But not a god, no.
She was rage. She was war.
The silver sword, her venerable