Ashes in the Darkness

Cherry

Alejandro breached the door to the village, screaming for his men to follow through. I tried to put on a brave face, but my blood was boiling with anxiety underneath my skin. Placed behind Soap and in front of Ghost, which gave me a sense of protection. I had spent most of the rest of the drive preparing my mind for the idea that I would most likely be in the presence of men dying today, many of them. Looking at my hands for a long time, imagining that they would be the reason that someone may lose their life. Someone might die. Ghost and Soap did this with ease, erasing those feelings around life and death, good and evil was easy for them. Maybe it had not been at the beginning of their careers, it wouldn't be easy for me either.

The team stopped in front of one of the village gates. I could hear the movement inside the building, this was it. Flashes of blood covering my helicopter, the sound of bullets hitting the glass of the window ringing in my ears. Shots rang out from the window of the house, I ducked with the rest of the line of men. "Returning Fire!" Soap called.

I raised my weapon, pushing it hard into my shoulder, finger on the trigger. There were three distinct pops before the building went silent. Ghost raised himself from his haunches with a grunt and swung around me before slowly opening the door next to the window. I stood and leaned against the opposite wall, reminding myself to breathe, breathe through the fear. Ghost's gun went off once, I heard the thump behind the wall.

"There are no civilians here?" Soap said into the comms.

"Gone, the cartel took over," I heard Alejandro's voice answer.

"Push up," Ghost's gruff voice was nothing more than a whisper through the comms. I followed Soap, tracking his movements as he went around. Following along the perimeter, I hit another few houses that had been abandoned before finding ourselves in an alleyway with cargo boxes stacked throughout the middle. All was quiet. And then it wasn't.

I saw the cartel member launch himself from behind one of the cargo boxes, rifle pointed directly at Soap. My finger twitched but Ghost's rifle sparked and dropped the enemy with ease, for some reason this made me angry. I had him.

It was the sound of four other guns going off around me that caused my heart to drop to my ass again, I raised my gun trying to mark a target "contact!" I heard Ghost scream. The air around me was filled with the smell of gunpowder and blood, causing my body to freeze where it was. My eyes skipped from enemy to enemy, PULL THE FUCKING TRIGGER! My consciousness was screaming at me, but each time I aimed my finger on the trigger stayed put, they are just deer, imagine they are just deer! Ghost was next to me now, crouching against the wall I was taking cover under. His eyes scanned mine for only a moment before his focus returned, but the look did the job of getting the message across, I needed to pull my shit together now.

I pulled my rifle back up and squeezed it against my shoulder, but it was too late to prove myself, Ghost's rifle had stopped, and the village was silent again. "Clear!" I heard Soap's voice say through the comms. I stood before Ghost could say anything and pushed forward to Alejandro and Soap who were already rounding the corner to the next building. I followed closely like I remembered in the training facility, scanning up and down the windows and doors.

"Balcony," Alejandro said, Soap was quick to drop the man who had taken up a sniper position on the floor above us. I watched the pink mist that exploded from the headshot, heart skipping a beat as I watched the blood begin to drop from the white paint onto the brown grass below. I was deeply disturbed, feeling my hand clasp over my mouth to keep myself from screaming. My breath was not pulling in enough oxygen, I could see the black dots beginning to filter into my vision.

It was Ghost's hand on the small of my back that brought my back into focus, "eyes on, Ash." His words were silky, he knew what I was going through in that moment, and he made an effort to pull me from the edge of insanity without alerting the rest of the team that I was standing on that edge, looking down at the flames of hell. I snapped in that moment, those flames were hot, but my flame was hotter, and Ghost could feel it on his hand, burning through his glove, sparking the tattoos of his wrist, and filtering all the way up his arm.