Brink

Chapter 3: Endless Rain

Chapter 3

Chausiku

02-12-2021

Chausiku sat on the firm and thick branch, balancing by wrapping her legs around it. She looked up at the clear night sky. The moon was the only thing she found staring back at her. The silhouettes of a few birds hovered by. It was a cool night. It had been warm all day, but now she could finally feel the cool breeze of the night air on her skin, especially because she was this high from the ground.

Why was she even doing this? It was to protect her family, that’s why. Her baby brother and her parents. They could fight the battle, so she had to. That was how she contributed to the tribe. By protecting all of those who could not protect themselves.

Chausiku threw her gaze to Ranya, who sat in the tree next to her. Ranya signalled her to be silent. Chausiku held her gun tightly, barrel pointing down. Some 6 metres below them, scattered soldiers wandered around. The flashlights on the side of their helmets threw rays of bright light across the ground, creating large shadows which danced, every time they passed a large plant. They spoke inaudible words into the comms built into their helmets.

Chausiku checked the silencer on the barrel of her assault rifle. She unclicked the metal cylinder and clicked it in again. She then adjusted her head-band, which kept her long hair out of her eyes. She looked at Ranya, who was already looking at her. She had a finger on her earpiece, receiving orders through it. She nodded and whispered a confirmation, after which her eyes went back to Chausiku, and nodded to her as well.

Chausiku looked into the scope, into the direction of one of the soldiers below them, and then looked over the scope in the same direction. As far as she could see, the soldier, who walked through the high vegetation, was not in the sight of any of the others. A straggler from the group. She looked through the scope and aimed until the crosshairs aligned with the head of the man. She pulled her trigger. The cylinder silenced her shot as well as she had hoped, producing almost no sound, a splatter of blood shot through the air. The dark liquid glistened brightly in the moonlight, but then disappeared into the dark again. The soldier’s corpse fell to the ground with a soft thud. There was no shout or warning, or anything else which would indicate that the death had been noticed. They had somewhat another minute before the others would wonder why he didn’t say anything anymore. Chausiku moved backwards over the thick branch to grab her mask, which she had put at the centre of the tree. Suddenly, right below her, there was a voice.

The words were in a language she didn’t understand. She stopped moving on the branch and looked down. The man was right below her, at the foot of the tree. She tried reaching for her mask. The branch creaked, loudly. Chausiku threw her gaze at the man, who gasped and looked up at her. Chausiku was half-blinded by the bright flashlight.

‘Hey!’ The man’s shrill but deep voice sounded in the silence of the night.

There only followed a fast streak of faint tugs from a silencer, and the thump of the man’s corpse falling against the tree. Ranya looked at Chausiku. Both women knew that the shout had been loud enough for the other soldiers to hear. In a split-second, Chausiku shoved herself the necessary extra half-metre up the branch and took a hold of her mask. As she did this, another shout sounded in the foreign language.

Chausiku caught one last glimpse of Ranya’s face, before the branch which Ranya was sitting on and the overhanging leafs and branches erupted into a cloud and blast of chipped wood and pieces of torn leafs. Bullets flew past Chausiku’s ears, and some even hit the tree, only half a metre away from where she sat. She screamed and put on her mask as quickly as she could. It had a filter in the mouthpiece, and night vision in the eyes. She threw her rifle to the ground and then tilted herself sideways, holding on tightly to the branch. She let go with her legs, so she hung onto the branch only with her hands, which slipped off by themselves anyways. She dropped to the densely vegetated ground in an unprofessional way, and fell backwards as she landed.