Chapter 2 - Across the Ocean, Part 2

Beth's PoV

What the fuck is this?!

Miguel kept resisting under my firm grip, that pinned him down the floor. Bullets rained down, trapping us in the hideout - Macaw was sobbing, Spider was panicking and Blanca was frantically checking the equipment in search of any bullets - but the truth was harsh. There weren't enough left for us to keep the formation - and that was clear as day. 

Tenth, can you hear us? - another male but gentler voice asked

Not now, I'm kind of busy! I would appreciate for you to be quiet, since I'm preoccupied with the war crap. So just please, shut up. 

A rain bullets came with another wave of enemy troops. I glanced back quickly, seeing the soldiers dragging civilians on the front, followed by multiple but small tanks. The people were different age - elders, pregnant women and primary school children. If you think about it, I never attended a real school anyways. I didn't have time nor resources to be properly educated.

I heard a wipsy quiet gasp in the back of my mind. It was promply followed by a series of half muttered cursings under the man's breath - something about shitty people being everywhere and then some ramblings about same old shit from the Dawn of Quirks. I wondered what 'Quirk' meant.

I swallowed a curse in my mouth and started dragging Miguel out through crawling. Others started doing the same very soon, when they saw another wave of enemy soldiers incoming that used the same tactic of civilian meatshields. I took a shaky but deep breath and when we reached the corridor, the group was in a state of shock and disarray. 

Macaw was silently sobbing into the sleeve of her shirt, constantly muttering about Albatros and true love. She crouched in the corner, not even coming to terms that we cannot stop moving. We needed to leave the hideout, fast. We couldn't afford to weep the departed and at least propelry mourn them for just a second. 

Spider gripped his weapon tight and moved to another room, on the opposite side of the building. When we turned around to check on him, I saw his eyes that lost the spark. That spark earned him the title of a leader of the squad. 

Blanca stood up from the floor, with disheveled hair and bloodstained jumpsuit. She used CPR on Albatros but it was way too late. In his last moments, he ended up coughing up some blood onto her uniform. She searched for Miguel with hazy look, but the man was absent to her misery. He and Monica were related, they were raised together.

"Bloody idiots, we cannot afford to wait! Move or die!" - I snapped with my hands clutched into fists

I wasn't long enough with those people to get to know them - but I knew deep inside my heart that I couldn't allow them to die just by staying put. Keeping them alive and make a run for the river was a completely different story.

I ran to the other side of the building, where I heard some shouting that didn't come from the enemy. When I got to the room, I saw Spider preparing to make a white flag while ugly crying. He had his red armband torned out from it's spot, lying on the cool concrete floor. In the meantime, another Resistance soldier had enough of Spider's wailing and punched him in the face.

I reacted instantly and grabbed the attacker by the collar of his military jacket and janked him onto the dirt painted wall. He sneared, mumbling something about highly agressive children and how the Resistance low had fallen. 

-"If you're so willing to surrender, Spider, so what was all that for, huh?!" - the soldier screamed while I kept him pinned down to the wall -"What was all that sacrifice and death for, huh?!"

-"I DON'T WANT TO BE TORTURED AND KILLED, Y'HEAR ME?!" - Spider shouted back with tears running down his dust covered cheeks -"I DON'T WANT ANY OF IT! I DON'T WANT TO END UP BEING KILLED BY THE ENEMY!"

-"Enough, both of you!" - I cut in with a razor blade tone of voice -"Get ahold of yourself, Spider! Make a plan for us to escape this situation ALIVE! You're a leader for fuck sake!"

The door opened with a loud crack - the higher ups stepped in, with few new recruits following the men. The bald newcomer only sighed irritated, when he saw sobbing Spider. 

He dropped a bag with guns - his eyes were telling an indirect order. Keep the formation, defend the building or die trying. But I knew it was absolutely pointless by that point, because the team was left in shambles following Albatros and Monica's deaths. We didn't even have the means for the old positioning going.

After that, he left the room with a salute and came down to the left side of battlefield, along with the fresh recruits - basically it was like leading lambs for the slaughter.

"Damn right, you are"- the sharp male voice agreed

-"Spider, c'mon let's get out of this place and go to the river. The rescue boats for the civilians are out there" - I said firmly -"I'll get the rest of the squad"

I left the room and got to the teammates who were still crying and mourning. I didn't understand my emotions well and that also extended onto others. By making empty promises I was able to get them moving, even though I felt terribly conflicted. Making empty promises was worse than lying and spitting onto someone's face.

Then I heard Macaw's gasp when she looked behind me - I turned around and saw Spider with a gun pointed directly into his forehead. Before I could say anything or move, he quickly saluted and pulled the trigger. Macaw and Blanca started to scream in horror and agony. Some of the blood sprayed onto my face, hair and my oversized military uniform. I tugged my fingers into the strands of my hair and dig out a piece of brain from my head.

While I saw many terrible, brutal and truly horrifying things, I still barely could restrain myself from vomiting right here and there. Miguel came back to his previous state and he began to scream out Spider's name. Blanca puked onto the floor her entire dinner and Macaw started to sob uncontrollably.

Tenth...oh my god - the gentler male voice muttered in shock, horror and sadness

Not now, whoever you are - I whispered back

-"Guys, we need to move, now!" - I ordered, trying to control the emotions flooding me

It felt weird - an underweight 13 year old, shouting orders, covered in blood of her deceased team members. I never liked being a leader and I knew that I would never get what it takes to be a one. Not that I desired to be - not after another squad leader committed suicide right in front of me.

I can't look at this...another war, another casualty. Do you often see this?

Godammit, not now! When I get to the river, then we can talk, whoever you are

Our squad was shaken pretty badly but we moved down to the ground floor. I noticed Macaw carrying the bag with so called weaponary - it was reduced to a one M16, one M14 and one granade. Not enough to keep everyone there alive - that realisation hit me like a truck. Whoever decided to hand out so few weapons, it was basically like signing up to your own death sentence.

-"Alright guys, let's do this" - unexpectedly Miguel said and gribbed tight the first blunt weapon his eyes could reach. It ended up on a rusty dusty old shovel. Macaw and Blanca nodded hesitantly. I just continued to stare silently - were they knew what they were doing? Marching towards certain death?

That's probably what it is, Tenth

But I wasn't careful and keen enough - Miguel assaulted at the first soldier that he could find. Blanca aimed the rifle and shot the enemy in the back. But then another men charged in, his eyes burning with hatred and rage. Miguel tried to block the gun with the stick of his shovel, so he pulled out a grenade that we found in the bag.

Blanca screamed at him to stop but her cries fell on deaf ears. He pulled the pin and shoved it to the soldier's face. The explosion took Miguel and two other soldiers out - when the smoke cleared, all that was left from him to salvage was headless corpse with a burned meat mush instead of organs. I could say that about the enemy soldiers as well.

By pure instinct, I grabbed Blanca's and Macaw's hands and started to make a way through ruins. I forced myself to swallow the bitter feeling inside my heart - I just lost another comrade. Again.

Then I noticed…a small tank in the shade of sandstone, covered in soothe, smoke and dust. A slow screeching pierced the air, and a rifle was directed towards where Blanca was standing. It made it's way through the unsteady road made from rubble and ruins.

I was desperately yelling at her to get the fuck out of there but she wasn't moving an inch. The moment the gunpoint was directed at her, my instinct screamed to hide and seek cover. I gave in to those feelings and ran towards the opposite direction, to the right. Few steps before Blanca, I saw Macaw having a panic attack, when standing in front of the corpses of the civilians burned alive. Their skin black and red, their eyeballs melted out their skulls and legs mangled beyond recognition.

Macaw quickly snapped her head up, when crouching and sobbing for the dead. She hears the sounds of the tank. I jumped in my right, falling to the ground and hastily covering my eyes with my dusty hands.

The tanks bullet caused a small explosion - a cloud of dust obscured my vision. Muffled sounds and voices were mixed with ringing inside my ears - my whole body was covered in thick layers of dust, soothe and dirt. I coughed a bit, started making way through the smoke - then I noticed something (or rather someone).

Few steps away from lied Blanca with a hole in her back, dark blood covering the rubble she was lying on. Her hair were disheveled and her ripped out right arm was few meters away from it's owner. Blanca was violently coughing up blood, shaking and silently sobbing - I ran towards her, not caring that the enemy could notice me.

I took her left arm, and placed my palm on her hand. Through the dust and blood, I could see the red armband still remaining on her sleeve. I couldn't help but remember my old mentor's words - that the red in those bands, symbolised how much blood was spilled in the name of change, freedom and revolution.

Blanca's took out her hand from palm and touched my cheek, leaving behind a bloody handprint. She smiled through the pain and looked me in the eye - through her coughing, I could hear her last words to me.

-"Never stop moving forward...n-never give up...*cough*....d-don't s-stop...f-for...a-all...o-of...us...B-Beth" - Blanca whispered her last words

I felt her last breath on my skin and then she stopped moving. Her warm caramel eyes had gone cold in an instant and skin lost any warmth that remained. I yelped quietly and took a peak on Macaw. Enemy soldiers were approaching her - she smirked, even when she was about to face a cruel fate. I took the weapon out of Blanca's hand and I was about to shoot, when I realised that I had only one bullet left.

Macaw noticed that - she grabbed two stones and threw them against the ground. A signal that was popular amongst civilans and Resistance fighters - run and don't look back. I held the gun even tighter but for the first time during the course of this day, I felt tears streaming down my cheeks. Macaw gave the same signal again, staring into the sky with a pleading face.

I started running, without looking back. I swallowed the sobbing and crying when the full force of what happened just hit me. Spider committed suicide, Blanca was blown up by the tank, Monica & Albatros both dead, Miguel sacrificed himself to took out those soldiers. And Macaw was about face the same fate as those before her.

When I was running, I heard the noises of struggle. Macaw was fighting and defending herself fiercely with the same fire, even in the face of cruel death. 

-"I WON'T BE RAPED LIKE THOSE POOR WOMEN BEFORE ME! I WON'T!" - she screamed at the top of her lungs, before a series of gunshots came 

Despite myself, I looked back - Macaw was lying on the bare ground with two shots directly in her forehead. Her body was losing it's warmth and vigor in her own pool of blood. I held back a scream by biting my tongue, so much that it started bleeding. 

One soldier left but the another stayed - he dropped his pants. Some kind of power forced to look in a completely another direction. Something (or someone) just couldn't bare to witness this level of brutality.

When my legs started to give out, I started looking for a place to sit. Then I noticed a ruined cafe with still standing chairs and a bench. My mind was numb from the horror, grief and pain - I sat down and started looking at the unreachable point in the sky, painted with orange and pink (due to sunset).

My whole squad was dead...and they were never coming back.