• 1. Blood Out

    I wake to a very dusty darkened sky. My ears are ringing and it feels like someone is pinning me to the ground. I shift my head slightly and my hearing returns, though, I rather wish it had not. Men screaming and dying, grenades blowing, and orders being yelled. I feel a force on my collar and I am pulled to my feet. Dust and debris fall off my uniform and hair. “Get into cover!” My savior yells as he throws me into a concrete block. My memory slowly returns and I look at him. Its sergeant Collins. I say “Thanks” and turn my attention elsewhere. I look to back where I had fell and saw my helmet, mask, and my carbine lying on the ground “s**t!” I curse and rush over to pick them up. Several rounds with green tints hit around me and fly past my head. “Move!” Collins yells and two soldiers jump from a cover they were behind and a green stream hits where they were and melts the entire area they had been in.
    I slam back into cover and put my helmet and mask back on and check my clip “twenty” I say under my breath. I pat myself down to find my other clips. I pull one out as a precaution and placed it next to me. I look over the cover and start firing with the rest of the men.
    I finish off my clip and put in a fresh one when two soldiers rush up next to us. They introduce themselves as privates Nell and Black. “Sarg. We have lost half of company C from a flank on the west.” he looks away from his shooting for a split second his face darker then usual. “s**t!” he turns and looks over the cover again. Checking the enemy count and he turns back to then dust flying off the cover from bullets hitting. He looks like he’s thinking hard about this decision. “******** umm… send half of D and F over there and tell the commander on the western flank to get his a** in gear we can lose a lot if that flank isn’t held.” they both look at each other and back to him. “MOVE!” he yells. “We don’t have the time to waste!” he turns back to his firing “YES, SIR!” they both echo and run off down the destroyed street.
    Collins looks at me and says, “Hey boy you look dazed that blast must have done a number on you.” I look at him and it floods back slowly. We’re defending outpost Omega from a Morder raid. They are trying to get closer to Last Hope. I was in a squad with Collins, Franks, Mkellen, Ports, Allen, Quin, and Kents. I look around and I can’t see any of my squad. The only one I can remember dying was Quin he was a second from throwing a grenade when a blast a….a…the name evades me but never mind the blast tore his head right off. The grenade fell blowing apart the cover I was on and knocking me down and out.
    “Gauss tanks!!” Collins yells. A gauss blast ripped off his head that it. Wait… tank?! “s**t!” I yell and get down and a gauss blast flairs over my head and decimates the building wall behind me. “Lets go.” Collins says grabbing me and dragging me to my feet running us to a different cover. Just then, the tank melted down the area we were just at.
    Soldiers all around were yelling and screaming “Retreat!” Collins runs us to another cover then to an alleyway. The tank slowly rolls past and melts down a soldier with a rocket. “s**t!” I say in amazement. I look over to Collins and he is digging at his vest. “Sir, what are you doing?” he pull’s out the tags of our squad. “Give these to Rodren.,” he says pulling off his own and pulling off his grenade belt and running out of the cover. “Sir, NO!” I yell trying to grab him, but I miss his vest by an inch. I look and pull up my carbine shooting two Morder infantrymen. Trying to give Collins as much cover as possible. He jumps onto the spiked back of the tank, rips open the hatch, and jumps in. there is a hiss of “No! Get him…” the tank implodes. I watch as flames and bits of the tank fly all over.
    “They’re retreating!” a soldier yells running past firing. There is a renew of gunfire from the human side and the Morder start to backing off.
    I hear another hiss and I wince from the high pitch of it. I pull out my blade and swing around. Their’s nothing there.
    “Rodren to all squads.” my vox squeaks “Rodren to all squads the Morder have retreated from the area everyone return for a head count and to be debriefed. I take one last look behind me and start walking down the destroyed street back to Omega.
    About halfway back, I hear yelling, “s**t. s**t. s**t. Keep Running!” a soldier yells. I turn and look. The soldier stops and cover his buddy. I recognize them as Nell and Black. I look the way they are and see two hellions running up to them, I pull up my carbine and fire with black, but they are too quick. They both slam into him shoving their muzzles into his gut instantly killing him. “Damn dog… things…” I say trying to think what the hell they were. I pull up my carbine and put six shots into them but then hearing the horrible clicking noise. “Aw ********!” I yell looking at my empty carbine. I let it drop and swing at my waist and pull out my combat knife. One of the dogs look up its blood red eyes piercing into my soul. It growls and starts running at me I get into a stance and the hellion jumps. I swing my knife at an angle slamming it into the things lower jaw. I put my hand on the top of its head and doing a counterclockwise twist wile it is still in the air. It falls to the ground in a pathetic heap blood leaking from its mouth.
    I look over to Nell and he stares at me in amazement. Then he shifts his vision to his right and pulls up his carbine and fires. I look and see the second hellion running full speed at me. It jumps, aiming for my head. I duck stab my arm up and brace it with the other arm. The blade makes contact almost instantly into the chest of the beast. Because of shear weight the blade is pulled out of my hand and the hellion slams face first into a pile of concrete, rebar smashes through its abdomen. It writhes around and I slam my foot onto its head grabbing the blade. I put pressure on my foot and I feel the bones crunching under my foot. I pull the blade out and clean it off with the things fur. I slip the blade back into its case and walk over to Nell who had walked over to black. He was collecting his tags. “Thanks” he says not looking up. I assumed he was upset about Black being lost. He gets up and puts out his hand and I shake it. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced,” he says trying to think of my name.,” no I don’t think so either. Name’s Bloodz. Matt Bloodz.” I say “nice job with the hellions.” He says smiling and starts heading down the blown street towards Omega. “Thanks.” I say joining him.
    I see the main gates of Omega in the distance and I see I few soldiers moving in. maybe five or six more.
    We walk up to the gate and the soldiers were packing up “ahem.” they look up. “O s**t!” one says obviously startled. He talks into an earpiece. “Count Fifty six.” he sits then nods his head. “Ok you’re free to go in.” “Thanks.” I say walking towards the door. “Hey” I say turning. “What’s fifty six stand for?” he turns to me continuing his cleaning duty. “That’s the number of soldiers left in this compound.” my eyes widen “are you serious?! We sent out over a hundred” “one hundred and thirty three to be exact. “The other soldier says. I shake my head “damn. Way too many to lose.” I turn and walk through the double doors.
    I take off my helmet and gasmask and look over at Nell. He just stares at me and smiles. “man you should go clean yourself up.”
    “really?” I ask and I turn towards a bathroom and walk in.
    I walk over to one of the sinks and mirrors and look in. All you can really see of my face is my blue eyes shining through dust and my short brown hair was also darkened from the dust. I take a paper towel, wet it, and wash my face off.
    I throw it away and look back in the mirror. My 5 o’clock shadow was really starting to get dark and I found I now have a scratch under my left eye. I shrug and go back out, Nell is still waiting for me.
    “is it better?” I ask and he nods as we continue on our way to the briefing room.
    As we get close to the doors I can hear someone yelling obviously pretty pissed off about something. I open the doors to find the general yelling at a sergeant. All eyes turn on me and Nell, except the general, as we take a seat.
    “What the ******** happened out there sergeant?!”
    “sir, I…’ the sergeant was cut off almost immediately.
    “ Don’t give me this ‘Sir, I’ BULLSHIT!”
    “But….” the general slammed his fists into the table .
    “but NOTHING! You were given a DIRECT order to move up and cover E company, but YOU DIDN‘T which cost the lives of at least twenty good souls.” he turns around then turns back and upholsters his pistol and aims it directly at the sergeant. “I should execute you right now!” he yells then he slowly lowers it. “but we cant afford the loss.” he holsters the pistol and puts his face in his hand. Its very apparent he is annoyed.
    After a few minutes of silence he looks up. “does anyone have good news?” Nell slowly raises his hand “sir, I have some.” he says timidly. “go for it son speak your mind I wont bite.” Nell gets up and clears his throat. “sir, Bloodz over here well he.. he..” Nell trails off. “spit it out son!” the general yells and there is a few snickers. “he killed two hellions sir” the room got quiet really fast and the general lowered his hand to his side. He looked at the soldiers next to him and looked at Nell and then to me. He slowly walked over to me. “Is this true soldier?” I stood up. “yes, sir.” he walks around me looking me up and down. After awhile he spoke. “well damn! You’re so damn small I’m surprised they didn’t rip you apart. Hell I want to know how you got into the core” the entire room starts to laugh. The first bit of humor I had seen all day. “thanks sir.” I say half smiling. “no problem Bloodz.” he walks away from me and to the other end of the room and pulls over a slid shower. “Ok! Everyone face here we have to debrief.” everyone turns their attention to the slide show as he started. “As everyone knows around 2020 the Morder decided they were going to land their ugly asses in Germany. Thank god it wasn’t us first.” he says with a smile and there were a few laughs in agreement. He hit a slide and it showed a building being knocked over by a Morder carrier ship.” over the course of time the Morder slowly took over the European and Asian continents. All refugees were sent to the U.S. but we had to leave them at the coastal cities. Around 2030 the inner U.S. was all that was left of this world.” he flipped a slide and it showed a map showing human controlled cities and Morder controlled in the U.S. just the edges had been taken at that point. “our plan was to destroy a chuck of Morder in Europe by using Big Black and Red, but the Morder captured the cities that contained them.” I looked over at Nell for a second and he was watching intently at the slideshow only writing down the plans we had. I shrug and turn my attention back to Rodren. “so high command decided to put up outposts surrounding a 500 mile radius. This outpost and outpost Delta are the closes to the silos and we have been told our first duty is to hold this line and second is to push back the Morder to get to the silos so we can fire them off. We have lost smaller forward posts so we are sending a team of 20 guys to attempt to regain the lost land and get a little farther. Any volunteers?” a few raise their hands. I feel dizzy and I start to black out a little.
    “they aren’t paying attention you are clear to move in.” a hiss says. I grip my head. It feels like someone is splitting it open. I look over and Nell is looking intently at the slides then he snaps out of it looks at me and looks at the side wall. I close my eyes for a split second and for the 1 second a lot happened. The wall Nell looked at exploded and chunks fell all over. “Morder!” a guy yells picking up his carbine. I pick my head up and look around bullets and gauss blast are flying all over.
    I look to my left just in time to see a soldier get his head blasted off. The guy drops and his carbine lands in front of me. I put my hand around the handle and the trigger, but I’m too weak to pick it up. I shift it over a little bit and pull the trigger the sound is distorted like I was under water. Everything went white and I feel my head slam onto the table then it went black.
    I wake up to a dusty room, silent room. I shake my head and my hearing returns I hear far away shots from carbines and pistols. I look around and see all the destruction the Morder had created. Four soldiers lay all over with burns and holes in various spots. But our forces took down some troops too. Three Morder foot soldiers lay with at least ten bullet holes in them. I walk over to the carbine I had left on the table and I pick it up and head out the blown out wall.
    The outside hit me like a speeding car. The light was so bright and the air cold. I notice soldiers running forward getting into positions and I walk for ward a little And a sleek black ship flies over head. I duck behind a huge piece of concrete as a shocker jump out of the ship and slides down the side of a building “landfall.” I hear in a hiss. It turns around and starts walking towards the soldiers in the cover about ten feet away. “s**t!” I mutter under my breath and I pull out my blade and sneak over to him.
    I walk slowly up behind him and raise the knife above his head and bring it down swift and fast. It lodges itself almost right in the middle of its head. I keep one hand on the blade and pull out my pistol. I slam it the back of its head. Dragging the knife down towards me and I pull the trigger. Blood splatters on the wall in front of the shocked and its legs go limp. The blade slips out cleanly as it falls in a heap. I run over to the soldiers I just saved and slam into the cover next to them.
    “hello sleepy head.” the sergeant who had been scolded says.
    “hey” I say and I look over the cover. Gauss rounds fly past my head and I fall back into cover. Dust falls onto my head as more rounds hit. I look over again and notice around twenty or thirty dead soldiers bodies littering the ground. I look at the srgt. And the two soldiers at my side. ‘how did we lose so many?” I ask to no one in particular, the three of them pop up and start firing. I get up too, watching three, four, seven, eleven Enemies go down. I pull up my carbine and fire with them and my emotions start to take over. I start firing without a target. The sarg, puts his hand on my should and I stop firing and look at him. “Bloodz chill ok you need to….” his head explodes off and the two soldiers look up at me as his body drops “SIR, we need leader ship!” one says. The other is rocking back and forth. He is repeating “we’re gunna die we’re gunna die.” over and over to himself. “SIR! We need a leader!” the soldier yells at me and I tell them both “stand up.” they both obey and one asks “what do we do now?” then his mouth starts dripping blood. The other soldiers eyes get big. I look down and my hand is now a blade and there is a deep gash in one soldiers gut. I look at the other grab the back of his head and smash his face threw the blade. He flops onto his knees and I put my foot onto his chest. I kick him off the blade. His body flops over into a heap as blood slowly pours out of the two slits in his head.
    I watch as the blade slowly morphs back into my hand. I feel renewed. I feel I have power. Right then a Morder general walks over and looks at me. He’s very skinny. He has no apparent weapons and I look trying to find out if he’s harmless. I notice on his forearms that there looks to be two blades.
    I look up to him and give a short bow. He looks at me. Wait’s a second or two and flips out the blades I saw and stabs me through the heart. I look down And the general pulls the blades out of my sides. I fall over in half and I look up everything starts to get dark and I feel my head slam into the concrete. Everything goes black.