Hello everyone, before I begin I'd like to thank those of you have given support and criticism to my MS novella, "Death", before. Although most of what you said was long ago, I've kept it in mind and my writing- whether it be posting on MSW or writing something for school or on my myriad of stories- has improved drastically. I hope everyone enjoys my writing thus far, and I appreciate comments and criticism a lot!
This thread will be all of the chapters in Part 1 of my story. I'll be writing chapter four sometime soon, which I'll add to here. Chapter Four will be the final chapter in Part 1, and in Part 2 the story's title will truly come to life. I'm excited, and I can't wait to finish this so you can all enjoy it in it's entirety. It will be truly amazing, and I'll have all of you to thank for it.
So, here's chapters 1-3, Chapter three is my newer one, it's short and strays from the overall picture of a great war for a minute- but I feel it's needed, trying to set up the characters for future development.
Enjoy =)
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Chapter one:
I could hear the screams nearly a mile away. The rebels had taken to torturing us. Most of us were lowly grunts, we didn't know anything. If someone didn't have any information to offer, they'd gather soldiers up, pour gasoline on everyone, and throw a match on them. The executioners would laugh manically as they all burned to death. I began to cry, I could remember the terrified face of my close friend Alex, as the gasoline was poured over him.
"Please, excuse me. I need a break." I choked out.
"Of course"
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The first day was supposed to be easy; our squad was deployed in the western side of the city, to clear up the last of the remaining rebels there. Of course, in the eastern side of the city, fighting was still heavy. We could see the flames rising just above the skyline, nearly three miles away. However, the closest fighting to us was about a mile away. Our sergeant said we'd be okay. Oh, he couldn't of been more wrong.
Our eight-man squad was made up of four infantrymen, Alex, Laurance, Daniel, and myself. There were also two snipers, Jordan and Katrina. I used to have a relationship with Katrina, but as of late we've been a bit bitter towards each other. Jordan and Alex had a relationship going, but I didn't like her too much. Although I didn't like either too much, I was very grateful for them. They never traveled with us in our group; they usually stayed 200-300 yards behind us, with their scopes searching around us, ready to obliterate any enemy threat around us. Our final two members were our engineers, Zac, our sergeant was specialized in EMP blasts and deactivating bombs and mines. Our other engineer, Connick, specialized in anti-vehicle operations and explosives.
We spotted a squad down the street. The Rebels standard squad size was ten men, but we only saw five.
"Kat and Jordan, fire when ready." Zac ordered over the radio.
"Copy that." They both replied.
Two of them instantly disappeared. Their remains were nearly 25 feet away from the other three in the squad. The remaining rebels took cover and our firefight began. One of the enemy soldiers peaked around a corner. Almost instantly his head exploded, and his body was lying on the other side of the street.
Jordan yelled over the radio, "I call that kill!"
Bullets were being exchanged over our two positions. Connick began setting up a mortar position. We saw one running across the street, probably going for backup. Everyone began shooting at him, but none of us could hit him. Finally, a few bullets somehow made contact with him and his body ended up a bloody shred of skin and guts.
We still had one man left, we had lost him.
Zac yelled over the radio, "Where is he!? One of you two snipers, find that son of a bitch!"
Everything was quiet for nearly three minutes, when Katrina finally replied,
"I've spotted the barrel of his gun, at least I think. I'm going to try and shoot it, advance and when you hear me take a shot. After that rush in, and take him captive. He's about 100 yards on your left, just around a corner"
We started to advance to his position with speed. When we were about 30 yards away, we heard the shot and we saw some sparks ahead. We rushed around the corner to find the worst sight one could see in a war like this.
End of chapter one
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Chapter Two
“How could you describe your feelings as you saw the Pliigian troops?”
“I was scared shitless”
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As we rounded the corner, we quickly disposed of the lone soldier, but then… we saw what seemed to be at least three battalions of Pliigian infantry and five… Zen manufactured tanks, only eighty yards away! My brain was rushing a thousand miles an hour… I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing. Somehow… none of them saw us.
Zac told us to get down and get around the corner. We ran for about 100 yards then sat down for a rest.
“What the hell are the Pliigi doing here?!” he whispered into his headset.
“I have no idea... and Zen tanks? Zen is a human company! How did those bastards get OUR tanks?” I said.
“I have no idea, but we need to get the hell out of here, NOW” Jordan yelled over the radio.
Just as she said that, we saw a squad round the corner. They stood there for a minute… their bodies damn near motionless. Then they turned and saw us…
The firefight began immediately; we ducked for cover quickly as a hailstorm of bullets rained on our previous positions.
“Were pinned down here, a sniper has us locked down!” Katrina yelled into her headset.
“Oh damn, oh damn! What are we going to do!?” Alex yelled with panic in his voice.
“Connick, can you get a lock on some of them with your mortar?” Zac asked.
“Maybe…”
As he said that we heard the mortar fire. We didn’t know if it hit or not, but it didn’t matter. Hopefully it provided a distraction for us. We rushed out with guns blazing but I knew we were pretty screwed from the beginning.
I saw two Pliigian bodies. I figured we had about four more to go. I saw Daniel rush out, being the hero he…was.
Zac immediately yelled, “Get the fuck back over here!”
He just kept running, with his gun firing. Surprisingly, he got two of the enemy soldiers before… his head disappeared…
Things were feeling pretty grim. Connicks mortar was completely destroyed. We were locked down by the remaining soldiers and their sniper back-ups. Just when we thought things wouldn’t get any worse, I saw three tanks round the corner, followed by another five squads.
Zac yelled emotionlessly, “Retreat!”
We scrambled down the street with bullets blazing by us. Somehow… none of them made contact as we rounded a corner. Around that corner, Katrina and Jordan were waiting for us, and then they joined us on our mad dash.
“Oh God... oh God… oh God…” Alex kept puffing out.
We kept running, knowing we were being chased closely behind. Connick set a few mines down to slow them down, but their numbers were so large… it would barely make a difference.
We turned around another street corner and saw an open building. We ran in there… and closed the door behind us and locked it despite us knowing it wouldn’t do any good if they figured we went in there. We saw a cellar and jumped down the stairs and closed the door at the bottom behind us.
Even though we were a story below the ground, we heard the loud rumble as the Pliigian troops and tanks went by. We waited in silence, none of us daring to take a breath.
They didn’t come barging in… and I finally took a breath. We laid there exhausted from the events that had just transpired. We didn’t know what we were going to do next; we just needed rest and sleep. It had been sixteen hours since our deployment. About twenty hours without sleep. We agreed to our watch schedules; Alex was the first one to stay up for watch, while rest of us drifted off into a very deep sleep.
End of chapter two
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Chapter 3
I felt something nudging on me, and for a second I thought it was a rebellion soldier about to blow my head off. I was instantly awake and alert, ready to fight for my life. When I opened my eyes, even in the dim light I recognized Alex.
“Wakey, wakey; it’s time for your watchy, watchy.” he whispered in a childish voice.
Despite the grave situation we were in, I couldn’t help but chuckle a little bit. I needed some humor to help clam my nerves.
“I haven’t heard anything for the last two hours, and hopefully, you won’t either.”
“Mmmkay,” I said drowsily. Even after my little scare, I couldn’t help but feel completely exhausted.
Alex went to sleep within five minutes, and I was the only one awake. I clenched my rifle tightly, ready to kill any enemy soldiers ready to ambush my slumbering friends.
I drifted into my thoughts. I mainly wondered how the hell I got myself into a situation this bad. All I wanted was to help my nation win a civil war. I wanted to get into a few skirmishes, and be done with it all. But now… now I realized that naïve dream was not to be. I was in some deep shit, and I knew that I’d be in that shit for a while.
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It had finally been two hours, and I got up to go and wake up Katrina. I started shaking her awake, and she must've thought the same about me, as I initially thought about Alex when I woke up.
“Katrina! It’s me! It’s time for your watch, now.” I whispered harshly.
She sheepishly got up and thanked me for waking her up.
I laid down on the cold, hard floor, but it was extremely comfortable nonetheless. As I was about to drift off, Katrina came and sat down next to me and asked if I was still awake.
“Yes, why?” I asked with a bit of bitterness, annoyed that she was preventing me to go to asleep..
“Ethan… we used to be such good friends… we even dated… what happened…?”
The question hit me hard and made me think. We had never really had a falling out, the only reason we really stopped dating was due to our military assignments. It was putting strains on our relationship, but we still… loved each other. Even now, I still felt some affection towards her.
“I really… don’t know. If we ever get out of this shit, do you want to… possibly hook up again?”
“I doubt we’ll ever get out of this alive… but… if we do, I’d like that.”
I looked up at her and smiled, and despite the dim light and horrid situation we were all in, she smiled too.
“Now get to sleep, we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”
She couldn’t of been more right, but tomorrow would come sooner than she thought.
End of Chapter Three
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Chapter Four
I woke up to a series of rapid explosions upstairs. Everyone one else in my squad was jumping up, wondering what was going on.
“What the hell is going on out there?!” Zac yelled.
“Sounds like an artillery strike to me, sir.” I replied quickly.
The explosions never stopped, never slowed down, for half an hour straight. ‘It must be hell up there’ I thought. We all sat down in the basement, glad that we were somewhat safe from what was occurring up there. After about half-an-hour the consistent explosions stopped.
“We should go check out the surface.” Connick suggested.
“No, we’ll stay down here for another half-an-hour, then go back up, in case they’re hiding a surprise up there for us.”
We just sat there in the almost complete darkness. We could still somewhat make out each other’s faces. Fear was spread across each person’s countenance. We all longed to go back to our homes before this. Before all of this… death… destruction… fear.
“Let’s go up and see what’s going on up there.” Zac commanded.
We all climbed up the stairs and into the morning sun. The building which housed the basement we were in was completely eradicated. There was almost nothing left of it. I’m surprised that we could still get out of the staircase. There were craters all over the place. No buildings were left standing, all that was left was the piles of rubble spread across the once grand city.
“Who did this…? Was it the rebels, or our own Empire?” Alex wondered aloud.
We began walking towards the surrounding forest. The outskirts of the forest, which once surrounded the city tightly, was also gone. We had to walk nearly a mile to enter the closest forest. Zac spotted a faint game trail, and we all decided to walk along that for a while.
We were just walking up the trail, when gun fire sprung up around us. Jordan’s body, which was riddled with bullet holes, was blown twenty feet away. Connick’s head was gone and his body laid lifeless on the ground, with a somewhat steady stream of blood coming out of it. The rest of us: Zac, myself, Katrina, Laurence, and Alex dove for cover. Unfortunately, Laurence had taken a bullet just in front of our cover. He laid there screaming- the enemy was letting him suffer! We couldn’t go out, for risk of us getting shot also. We could only sit there as he screamed, until his dying breaths came. We heard some faint laughter from behind the boulder we were hiding behind.
“I hate to do this…” Zac whispered, “Whoever is attacking us! We surrender! We give!”
“Stand up and throw your weapons down the trail!” a commanding voice yelled. We complied with him. After we had done that, ten heavily armed men surrounded us. Four of them came up behind each of us and tied our hands very tightly, with coarse rope.
“Start walking!” yelled the squad leader. Once again, we obeyed the order, only left to wonder what had gone wrong, and what our fate ahead was…
End of Chapter Four
End of Part 1
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Like I said before, all (constructive) criticisms and comments are welcomed.
And yes, I do realize the names are horrid and I plan on changing that in the near future... just not now.