What needs to be done for a better world

Chapter 5

Bloodied, with ears ringing from the explosion, Ray was the first to regain his bearings. He scanned his surroundings, trying to assess the situation. Ernst was nowhere to be seen. Given his distance from the explosion, he should have been the first to recover, which left Ray wondering about his whereabouts.

Turning his head slightly, he saw Julie on the ground, bleeding profusely, likely from grenade fragments. Reacting instinctively, he crawled to her and grabbed her bag of medicines. After assessing her injuries, he found she was bleeding from her right leg but nowhere else. He quickly started the treatment of her leg, knowing their assailants would be upon them soon.

As he worked on Julie, his eyes scanned the area until they landed on a gruesome sight. Irina lay on the ground, her body torn in multiple places, her left leg severed. Ray's heart nearly stopped as he noticed something else: she wasn't bleeding anymore. It could only mean one thing—she had already passed away.

He didn't dwell on the thought as he knew that every second was crucial. On cue, he started to hear hurried steps descending the metal stairs. He guessed that those who threw the grenade did it from one of the upper floors and were now coming to finish their work. From what he could hear, there were around five people currently coming down, and possibly even more upstairs.

He hurried with his treatment, making sure to keep the bandage tight to staunch the bleeding, knowing the TXA alone wouldn't be enough to stop it. With a sense of urgency, Ray gently placed Julie inside the case, activating her beacon as a precautionary measure. It was a grim acknowledgment of their dire circumstances, a silent plea for aid amidst the chaos unfolding around them. With Julie hidden from sight, Ray braced himself behind a nearby wall, his heart heavy with grief for Irina, the one member of the team who had shown him genuine acceptance.

As the sound of a door being forcefully thrown open reverberated through the hangar, Ray's senses sharpened, his focus zeroing in on the approaching threat. Behind the relative safety of his cover, he steeled himself for the inevitable confrontation, his thoughts consumed by a mixture of frustration and regret for the loss of a comrade who had treated him as an equal.

She saved both Julie and himself by pushing them away from the explosion radius. Julie wasn't out of the danger zone yet, though. Irina sacrificed herself for them, and he couldn't help but feel guilty about it. If he wasn't on this team, perhaps none of this would have happened.

As he lamented, he caught sight of their targets. As he had heard, there were five of them. They approached the pit cautiously, checking every corner. Ray readied his HK417 and took aim. As they drew closer to the area where the explosion occurred, he could hear some of them talking and laughing.

"Heh, you got this fur-fag good Cap."

"Meh, could have been better. I was hoping to see the others there. They should be around somewhere. Look over there, there's a pool of blood. They're injured," the obvious leader answered with disgust, showing his loathing for anthros.

"Do we split up to chase the others?"

"No, look at this freak's gear, they're an elite squad, we need to be cau..."

He was interrupted as his head recoiled and exploded, sending brain matter flying onto the others. The rest froze in place with fear, and before anyone could react, another muffled shot resounded, taking down another of them.

"Fuck! Take cover!" one of them shouted before being silenced with another clean shot to the head.

'Three down, two to go,' Ray thought to himself. But the cry from the other had a negative effect from his standpoint; the others woke up from their fear-induced trance and took cover while shooting towards the sound of the shots. Being targeted, Ray needed to take cover once again behind his wall. 'At least, I got their attention. They won't search the area for Julie for the time being. But what the hell is Ernst doing?' He took a few seconds to breathe and calm down once more before making up his mind about having to clear this situation by himself.