[Issue 60] [Story] Memory Pt.4

[tweezers 1,034]

 

Memory Pt.1

Memory Pt.2

Memory Pt.3

 

I shoulder my way past a bush, its leaves stretching out in the darkness and tearing at the black of my uniform. Max is two steps ahead of me, taking point as we make our way through the bushes and trees in our way. The rest of our unit is behind and around us, slowly moving shadows and the gentle noise of the occasionally disturbed branch the only sign of our progress.

 

It wasn’t the hardest task to escape from our base, but then no one had planned for the eventuality that people would be leaving it secretly rather than breaking in, much less for those people to be their own crack unit trained thoroughly in how to get in and out of basically any location.

 

Suddenly, there is light.

 

I look behind me, sensing Max mirroring me and bringing his gun around. Karl is right behind me, his eyes wide open and staring straight into the brightness. The light seems to come from multiple points behind us, casting deep shadows as it shines around the trees and the silhouettes of our frozen team.

 

And then the shooting begins.

 

Screams. From all around me they come, mixed with the chatter of guns as we return fire, scrambling backward frantically as we do. I see silhouettes collapse, the holes stitched across them grotesquely illuminated. A hand yanks me by my collar and suddenly I am facing away from the light and into the darkness. ‘Go, GO!’, Max yells, staring wild-eyed at me and freeing his hand from my collar to grab at something hooked into his belt. A grenade. I turn and run, clutching my right hand with my left as I go, covering a sleek, evil surface. The weapon.

 

The screams fade slowly behind me, replaced by the constant thud of my boots against the ground. I push on, not knowing where I am, the fear for everyone I left behind driving daggers of ice into me. Suddenly, there is another set of boots matching my steps, pounding into the earth. I know who it is, even as I turn my head and see a familiar shadowy profile.

 

One shake of a head is enough to tell me that the situation that we left behind has gone hopelessly wrong. Damn it! How did the - No. There’s no time for thinking of any of that. Get the weapon away, get away from them. This is what matters. Nothing else.

 

We keep moving forward, smashing through anything in our path. Finally, Max stops, catching hold of my sleeve to make me do the same. He looks quickly at the quiet reflection of metal on my hand and breaks the silence.

 

‘They won’t be far behind. We took some of them out, but then Karl told me to go after you. They’ll all be dead by now, and they’ll have noticed that we’re not lying dead with the rest of them,’ he says bluntly. I take a deep breath and then ask the inevitable question.

 

‘So what do we do?’

 

‘Hide that damned thing. We did all this to save ourselves, and now that everyone’s dead, we might as well make sure that when we die, we make sure that they don’t get it.’

 

I look at him in the weak moonlight, marveling at his ability to talk about our death in such a detached manner. Or maybe he’s just accepted the inevitable.

 

We continue moving, looking for somewhere to hide the weapon that is growing heavier on my wrist by the minute. Suddenly, a large shape looms ahead of us, resolving itself into a pile of boulders as we creep towards it. Max moves forward and puts his hand into a gap between them. It keeps going in until his entire arm is encased in the darkness. Mutely, we both look at each other and nod. I slide it off carefully and proceed to put my hand into it as far as can go, noting that the gap widened out as it went further in. Wide enough to admit a body. I set it down, and extract myself.

 

The lights come surprisingly soon, blossoming out of the darkness in front of us as we wait for them, having gone further into the forest in a vain attempt to throw them off. For a long moment, we stand in the shadows, watching, and then Max turns and says something that throws me completely.

 

‘I’m sorry.’

 

Even as I open my mouth to ask him what he means, the butt of his rifle descends onto my head, and everything disappears.

 

***

 

Hayley rested her head on the stone behind her, becoming conscious of something pressing against her thigh her at the same time. Her hand came into contact with a familiar smooth metal surface, and when she lifted it, she recognizes the sleek black surface in the light filtering through the gap in front of her.

 

She sat there for a few minutes more, and then, crawling forward slowly and cautiously, came back out into the clearing.

 

‘Vangenberg’.

 

Hauss stood before her, a pistol pointed directly at her, so that she could see all the way down the blackness of its barrel. He was in flanked by more uniformed soldiers, pointing their own guns at her as well.

 

And staring up at her from his kneeling position in front of them all, his face considerably bloodier, was Max.

 

Memory Pt.5

 

[TTK_229 1,080]

¿¡

[Destrod 2,634]

* slow clap *

[ToHoYoNTaDa 1,147]

*very fast claps*

 

 

Well done, high quality tweezers!

 

[bc200214_777 582]

*whistles*

[NERF836 202]

Where's the other parts?

[tweezers 1,034]

Where's the other parts?

You'll have to dig them out of the archives, I'm afraid. Being the mult that I am, I forgot to link them  :blush:

[NERF836 202]

You'll have to dig them out of the archives, I'm afraid. Being the mult that I am, I forgot to link them  :blush:

I found em' nooblaggermult