Chapter 1 small pops
I sat there in the dark. Alone. It’s funny, I’ve been what I assumed was alone before but, this is different. I feel as though if I walked outside the small crumbling building I’d sought shelter in, there would be no one, not a sound. However, that is not the case here. In the distance I can hear the booms and bangs of explosives, and the small pops of assault rifles in a repetitive pattern. Every so often I will hear the footsteps of soldiers outside talking to each other about the fight going on in the distance. I am over encumbered and exhausted. The invasion was a complete failure, we took so much fire that I’ve had to seek shelter. I’ve been here since noon, my watch was hit by enemy fire (lucky huh) so I have no idea what time it is now, all I know is that it is dark.
I’m out of ammo, my M4 carbine assault rifle lays next to me cold and dead. I used up the ammo in my m1911 on enemy soldiers who had seen me. Their ammo fits the ammo needed for my M4 but I am too nervous to crawl out into the open to grab it. However, that appears to be my only option. I drew my combat knife on my hip and crawled out into the open to grab the ammo. As I worked my way across the ground light kept catching my knife and shinning in my eyes. I turned the knife in my hand and kept crawling. I was about a foot away from the dead soldier’s rifle when I heard, “Enemy spotted! Engaging!”
My heart sank and the ground in front of and around me was ripped to shreds by bullets. I grabbed the ammo, scrambled back into cover and jammed the magazine into my weapon. I leaned out into the open and pulled the trigger. The rifle remained silent; I had forgotten to chamber a round. I leaned back into cover, chambered a round, took a breath, leaned back out and started shooting. My ears were ringing and I bit down so hard I swear I heard one of my teeth break.
In an instant (or what seemed like an instant) it was over. The two enemy soldiers lay dead on the asphalt. I got up and walked over to them. They were NFUS rangers, I was lucky to be alive. I grabbed their ammo and dog tags. I put the magazines in my vest pocket and I put the dog tags in the pouch on my hip. I also grabbed one of their helmets and took the camouflage cover off of it. It will be the replacement for the old Vietnam helmet I got when I was young. I grabbed both of their rifles and slung them onto my back. I tucked both of their side arms into my pack. Their side arms were berretta 9mms so I had no use for their ammo.
From there I headed back to base. The walk back is always a difficult one. The streets are riddled with dead bodies and pieces of the world that was once here. Buildings had collapsed where they once stood leaving only a pile of rubble and charred bodies. I passed the carcass of an individual impaled on a piece of rebar with 3 bullet holes in their chest. Their skin was charred to a maroon-red color, eyes and lips were gone. I had cottonmouth as I walked past it, trying not to look but, no matter where I look, there is something to evoke tears. War had ripped this city to shreds. The New Founded United States military is incredibly strong so fighting them can be often very difficult. The fights get incredibly heated and end up tearing the city apart. Denver looks nothing like its former self.
Skyscrapers stood above the buildings like giant skeletons lurking in a graveyard. the windows on the buildings were all shattered. Corpses hung out from windows or layed burned on the ground. Corpses of men, women, children; corpses of people who had lives, jobs, and families that were taken in the blink of an eye. Echos could still be heard of the life that once occupied this city. they could be heard on the breeze that rolled through the chunks of concrete and through the barren streets. Even through the cars that many died inside of, trying to escape the chaos.
As I was walking through an artillery crater, bombs fell from the sky with an ear-piercing whistle and released a deadly gas called CHEM-9. It causes your skin and eyes to melt and your lungs shrink and shrivel into nothing. Although it is incredibly flammable, it clears out in about 5 minutes. One bomb landed about 30ft from my position. It opened and released the gas. I quickly pulled my old WWII gas mask out of my pack and pulled it over my face. I held my hand over the filter and breathed in to check the pressure. My mask was air tight and I could smell the bitterness of the filter. It smelled of urine and mothballs. I then pulled my hood up and slid some gloves on.
The gas was slowly making its way towards me. The blood red mist made its way across the earth, creeping along, long swirling tendrils stretched out in front of it. In an instant, it was all around me, I could feel it brush past and engulf me. It smelled bitter, like ammonia which took my mind off of the urine smell. I took short, small breaths as I walked through the cloud of CHEM-9. All of a sudden I heard the muffled sounds of people somewhere in the cloud. I dove into the nearest pot hole and slung my assault rifle around.
I glanced out of the hole to see 6 silhouettes making their way through the cloud. I called out the rebel call sign, “Che!” expecting them to return with “freedom”. There however, was no answer, only targeting lasers searching the area around me. I quickly popped up and started shooting. I never understood why rifles didn’t ignite the gas but I figured why waste time trying to figure it out. I know I hit one of them because he doubled over and fell. They returned fire, tearing up the street in front of me. I pulled one of the frags off of my vest and threw it at them. I counted the five second fuse in my head as I jumped out of the hole and darted out of the cloud. Overhead I heard the snaps and pops of bullets, and I could see them whizz past me through the smoke. They left trails in it that, at first were very clear, but faded quickly. The grenade exploded with tremendous force igniting the air around them. I dove out of the cloud and landed on a piece of cement lying on the ground. I clenched in pain and rolled off it watching the inferno build and consume the oxygen and CHEM-9 around it. When the fire cleared, all that was left was the charred corpses of what used to be soldiers.
Their bodies were badly burned and most of their equipment was damaged so there wasn’t much to scavenge. I did however find an undamaged ACOG sight on one of the assault rifles so I figured I would help myself to that. I was able to get 3 dog tags but most of them were melted to the charred bodies and I didn’t feel like scraping dead, burned skin off the dog tags just to add to the number of tags I had previously collected. One of the bodies was strewn about all over the ground. This leads me to believe he was carrying explosives that had gone off in the fireball.
As the gas cleared I saw that one soldier was still alive. Half of his body was still intact and unburned but his legs were charred and mutilated. He was attempting to crawl away as I walked up to him. He began to hack as he lost muscle strength in his arms and fell to the earth. I walked over to him and took off his mask, his eyes were virtually gone and blood ran down his face from the holes were his eyes had been. He was young, maybe 19 at the most. I set down my assault rifle and drew my side arm. I pointed the gun at his face and pulled back the hammer. He put his hand up and pushed my gun away. I pointed it back at him and he repeated the process. I pointed the gun at him again but this time put the gun at the center of his palm. It took a second but when he hacked up a small puddle of blood I pulled the trigger. The bullet went through his hand and into one of his eye sockets, passing through the back of his head and into the street. Blood splattered all over the ground and he fell back. His hand fell next to him and shook for a second but then went still.
