Bathed Silver in Mercury

II. Elerie

The insurgents held her prisoner in an inner room of the village they had surrounded. A bunch patrolled the outskirts while a few stood guard of her inside, hands on their weapons and chattering in Arabic.

They had positioned themselves and their weapons between her and the doorway, and had knotted her hands in front of herself and a dirty cloth over her mouth. They ignored her squirms and squeals of protest. She had already tried conversing with them in Arabic, but they had quickly decided they didn't like what she had to say, just as much as they didn't like her snooping around.

The rubbing of the rope against her skin was making it raw, but slowly but surely she was managing to slip her wrists from their bindings. Just a little more...

Everyone jumped when two men in robes suddenly burst through the door. This began a whole lot of shouting and guns blazing. Elerie threw herself down, hopefully out of the way of any stray bullets.

"Hey! Hey!" Suddenly, the two newcomers were standing over her, hauling her to her feet. "We've got you!" His accent was American - these were definitely not locals.

One quickly drew a knife and sliced at the ropes binding her wrists. She then snatched off the cloth from over her mouth. "Cheers, mate!"

Then the three were tearing out of the building and winding through the narrow streets, all the while gunfire and shouts from the insurgents pursuing them followed hot on their heels.

"You son of a bitch!" screamed one of the guys. "'Slip in and slip out?!' This is not like we always do!"

"Oh my god!" The three dove into a corner while the two guys scrambled with their robes revealing two guys in military dress - two familiar guys.

Elerie gawked at them. "Oh you've got to be shitting me-"

A grenade blast spurred them onward, up onto the rooftops of the buildings.

"GET DOWN!" ordered Nick.

The three hit the ground, taking cover from another dangerously close blast.

Chris was hollering into the radio.

"You did not just call in an air strike!" Nick cried.

"Yes! I! Did!"

"You're going to get us all killed!" Elerie shouted.

"We're here to rescue you!"

"Yeah, and we're going to wind up dead anyway!"

BLAST!

A whirring from overhead was quickly followed by a missile strike - right in the centre of the town. This caused the remaining insurgents to flee, leaving the town deserted once again, all except for the three huddled on the rooftop of one of the central buildings.

Their relief was short-lived however, for the building they were atop quickly began to crumble, its foundation ruined by the blast from the airstrike. In a cloud of dust they were swallowed up into the sand, sucked into a deep hole in the ground thanks to Chris's missile.

"AH!"

"Ellie! I got you! I got you!" Nick, on the edge of the hole, reached in, grabbing her arm before she could plunge any further.

"Thanks a lot!" called Chris from further down.

"Get off me!" Elerie batted Nick's hands away from her arm and hauled herself to her feet, brushing off the sand from her clothes and hair. Then she stopped, dead, and peered down into the hole, watching as the sand cloud cleared to reveal what was inside. "Oh my god..."