Begonia | A Ukranada Countryhumans Fic

7: Whac-A-Mole

[POV - Ukraine]

Nesch had fallen straight into a pit of punji sticks... He was dead.

"Fuck" I whispered under my breath, as I took in what was before me. He had fallen directly into their trap. He had a punji stick go straight through his chest and leg. It probably hit his heart. The pit was made to be unnoticeable with a camouflaged cover over the top of it, and a deep drop with a group of sharp bamboo cushions. I shined my flashlight at his face, it was filled with a mix of fear and shock. He may have been an asshole, but he didn't deserve that...

I decided that I would have to keep moving, to survive. I methodically manoeuvred myself over the pit. I felt nervous that what happened to him could happen to me at any point, but I had to keep going. I began crawling again, slower this time... maybe he was right? I kept telling him to speed up, to go faster, and look at what happened to him.

I crept forward at a slow pace, examining every centimetre of the tunnel before moving. It felt like I was suffocating; I was hyperventilating to the point where it felt like I was running out of oxygen. The walls wrapped around me like a boa constrictor squeezing its prey until it pops. My arms pressed against my chest, pushing my ribcage into my lungs. The smell of dirt and soot filled the tunnels, every step weaker than the last, every corner was another chance for death. All I had now was a flashlight, a knife, and myself.

While crawling, I eventually found a deep hole that seemed to have no bottom, at least that I could see with my flashlight. At the top, there was a small pail with a rope attached. It seemed to be a well, so I decided to destroy it. I cut off the rope and dropped the bucket down; it took about three seconds to drop, meaning the well had to be at least 20 metres deep. Fuck, now I have to go over it.

I first threw my flashlight and knife over to make sure nothing got in the way. I then shimmied to the edge of the pit, throwing my arms over to the other side. I ended up in a plank-like position, with my stomach hanging over my guaranteed death. I could feel my feet slipping further down as my stomach dipped closer to eternal darkness. My feet gave out and slipped down off the edge.

"Fuck! FUCK!" I cried, my hands gripped widely on the edge of the pit as I looked down to the bottomless pit below me. Shit! My mind was running 100 kilometres per hour as I felt my grip begin to slip on the loose dirt above. "This- this is not how this ends!" I called out as I reached up with all my strength I had left and gripped onto the end of the rope I had just cut a few moments ago.

I now had both hands on the rope with my whole body dangling below me. I was still in such peril, but I felt a push in my body. It felt as if I had gained sudden strength throughout myself, like someone was helping me pull my body up. I used that extra strength to lift myself up the rope hand by hand until I was able to push off the wall to the other side. I laid on my back, my heart beating faster than light; I watched the ceiling as an endless stream of thoughts spilled through my brain. After a solid ten minutes, I felt the life return to my legs as I began crawling again. I picked up my knife and flashlight and kept moving.

It has to have been at least three hours since I've gotten down here. My whole body felt weak as a sacrificial lamb. I shined my light down the hallway, as I moved closer to a corner. At this point, I was so tired I barely even looked through each corner because every single one I had looked at so far had been barren. I approached the corner and peeked around it, shining my light down it, and staring right back at me was a Vietcong soldier.

We both stared at each other for a second, wide-eyed and frozen. I was the first to react, jumping at him; trying to grab his gun. He screamed something in Vietnamese loudly and a deafening bang went off, and everything went dark. I thought I had died, but after a second I realized that he had just narrowly missed my head and shot my flashlight. I couldn't see him anymore, but I knew he was still there. I ploughed my knife down at him, feeling it hit a soft spongy surface. He cried in pain as another gunshot went off, illuminating the whole tunnel, and I saw him, my knife plunged deep into his stomach. Everything went dark again as I pulled my knife up and thrusted my knife back down into him over and over again; each stab bringing another gunshot allowing me to watch as his shirt slowly became redder and redder as his cries became weaker. Eventually, when I swung down, I heard a sickening crunch and the screaming and gunshots stopped. I had sunk the knife deep into his skull, straight into the brain, killing him instantly.