“What are you talking about! What is this?”
“Maybe you’re right Soul. So many Bodies are lost to their own dimension they forget there are still two others.”
“It is natural, they are the weakest. That is why the Souls are first to leave. We can tell when the Body ceases to be what the Mind and I want, and we depart in order to not be corrupted. It’s funny that the Body believes it is still operating even when it’s void of me. Then when it realizes what it’s lost, it can only wish where I went.”
My ears sting with the horrible ring of shellshock, my body aching. The whole world is a sound of numbing buzzes. I look across the street to see the Leader yelling something at me, but every word is a deep drawled out jumbled sound. My vision zooms in on the dead paratrooper in the middle of the street. His back is a ripped open cavity and his internals pour out to the side. Plaster and gore cover me as my visor wiper slashes back and forth relentlessly to clear it. The paratrooper wielding the AT is a mess of mutilated parts around the explosion. I frantically begin wiping myself off of the gore even though every motion sends a string of pain waves throughout my body.
“Hey!” says a man who is dragging me back towards the alleyway. His words are muffled and barely understandable. I lean back to see him, the words slowly make sense again. “Hey!” says the paratrooper again. “Are you hit?”
I crawl over and lie against the low wall with him. I pat myself down to check for injuries. Nothing besides a shit ton of scratches and an aching body. “No, I think I’m fine.”
“Men!” says the Leader across the street. We look over at him. “I need you to take that launcher and finish the job! I’ll try to hold their attention!”
The paratrooper next to me is the injured one from earlier. “I can’t do anything. I was hit on the belly, can’t stand.”
Well I guess that just leaves me.
I look at the AT launcher that has rolled out into the open. Fuck right I’m going to grab that. I don’t want to expose myself again to the Herculeans. Look what happened to the last guy.
“Today mate!” says the Leader. “Bloody grab it!”
C’mon, c’mon, they need you. I finally reach out for the AT and retrieve it quickly. A plasma bolt scorches the pavement where my hand just was.
“Good job lad,” says the Leader. “Now I’ll do my part again.” He begins throwing grenades down the lane to draw attention as he also fires periodically from his corner. Another explosive projectile screams forward at the Leader’s spot, blowing apart the roof on top of him.
I can’t aim out the side if I want to live. I glance at the low wall next to me where the paratrooper was firing from earlier.
Maybe.
Don’t, that’s the dumbest idea yet—you’ll die.
I press the dosage tab on my forearm and feel new strength and power course through me. But it is only a feint return to my warrior state. Instead I feel a brutal headache kick in.
Kill them all. Look what they have done to your comrades around you.
No. It’s wrong, remember Julian.
Fuck! Go away. Let me do my job. Just let me fight, it’s why I’m here.
I tab the dosage key again.
This is war and only the strongest survive. Peter is a part of it. It pumps through his veins replacing his blood. Peter’s grinds his teeth. This is more like it. He should overdose more often.
Ready to kill, he climbs on top of the low wall, but he’s still too short to accurately aim at the bunker from there. “Hey!” shouts Peter over to where the Leader was last. To Peter’s surprise he rises from behind a pile of rubble, his red beret singed and dangling off to the side. “I need one last distraction! I am going to get on top of the roof and hit them!”
“You Americans are crazy! I’ll do something!” He hurls a phosphorus grenade out towards the Herculeans, and a fiery cloud falls meters before the bunker catching the adjacent rooftops on fire.
“Okay now,” Peter tells himself. He tosses the AT onto the roof, lifting himself up next. He scrambles about getting there and soon Peter is prone on the roof with the launcher.
“Fuck.” He only has one round on him. “Why didn’t I grab the bandolier too?”
It has to be perfect then. He will have to get closer.
He runs across the roof tops to get as close as possible. The Herculeans are busy with the Leader’s grenade show and don’t see him. As he hops to the next roof his boot breaks into a damaged shingle and he collapse through. “Fucking god,” he moans from the fall. His body takes another beating from rolling about on the caved in floor. He picks himself up and crouches to the blown out storefront. Right before him lies the alien bunker. It is a hastily assembled low structure with multiple vision ports for weapon mounts.
“Close as ever.”
He rests the AT on top of his shoulder in preparation for the glorious shot, but then lower its. He ponders the possibility of dropping a grenade through one of the ports instead. It would do more damage with the explosion being in a confined place. Peter grins at the thought of exploding Herculean, and hops over the window pane landing against the side of the alien bunker.
The Herculeans communicate frantically inside.
“Shit, shit, shit,” whispers Peter. Do they know he is there? He lifts himself over the jagged side of the structure and climbs to the top. He lies down on the roof and unhooks a grenade from his belt and pulls the pin. He finds an opening and drops the grenade through it, and distances himself as far away as possible on the small roof away from the hole.
The bunker shakes as fiery sparks and dark smoke shoot through the gun ports from the explosion—such a delicious offering! A door to the bunker flies open as the Herculeans inside scream and the survivors run and crawl out.
“Shit!” He didn’t think about this part. He unfastens his XM and poorly aims at the first Herculean. He fires an uncontrolled burst that completely misses the alien but startles it of his presence.
“Fuck me!”
The Herculean looks up, yelling a disturbing roar and begins to raise its weapon.
“Hurry the fuck up Peter!” He drops his empty magazine and loads another one as quickly as possible. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
He aims through the scope, and both creatures fire at each other. Peter’s visor goes dim as it tries to adjust the blinding light of the plasma bolt. His face feels warm and burnt.
“Oh god! I’m hit!”
The world is visible again. He discovers that his burst has ripped through the Herculean’s body, and it lies on its stomach trying to crawl away.
Peter laughs. “I’m alive!” The plasma bolt had struck the metal lining below him and simply showered him in a blow over of hot air.
He finishes off the hit Herculean.
“Yeah bitch! Get some!”
A few more Herculeans escape the bunker, scrambling over their dead comrade. Peter fires again, knocking down the stragglers as they fall atop each other in a bloody mess. One Herculean that’s maimed tries to reach for a weapon. Peter fires a single round this time that strikes it directly through the face shield and its ugly head. The bullet exits out the back of its head splattering gore against the pavement, and sending one of its tails twirling into the air. That was a pretty awesome, he applauds himself.
One last Herculean crawls out from the smoking bunker. Its legs crippled and exuding blood as it drags itself away. The alien turns over and glances at Peter. It has no mask on and it trembles as it tries to look at him. It raises its arms in mercy, crying out in its intangible tongue in what appears pleading.