Why the fuck had I fallen asleep!?
I coughed as I waved my hand in front of my face. Fucking hell, I needed a mask or something. The grit of the sand caught in between my teeth. It was twinged with the taste of metal. It clogged the back of my throat, threatening to drown my lungs. I heard someone calling out to retreat. I heard footsteps and gunfire being shot into the air. Random bullets rained down around me, and somehow, despite the bile creeping up the back of my throat, I managed to crawl my way back to Davie.
“I’m not leaving you behind,” I grunted.
I scooped my arms underneath him and dragged him back into the bomb shelter. I closed the door and looked back at my cameras. All of them were staticky. I had no more eyes around base.
How the fuck had I fallen asleep!?
I never fell asleep at my post.
“I’m so sorry,” I said breathlessly as I reached for the weapons on Davie’s hips.
I forced myself to pay attention through the tilting of the world. As long as I had a focal point, everything else stayed in relatively the same position that my brain required. I stumbled back toward the door. Blood followed me in a trail in my wake.I pulled the guns off my hips, checking their magazines to make sure they were full.
I cocked them and whipped the door open.
“Raaaaaa-AAAAAAAH!”
Bullets. It was all I knew. Bullets and blood. I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t know who I was pursuing. But if they didn’t have a United States Marine Corps uniform on, they were toast. I didn’t allow anyone to announce themselves. I took no mercy as I popped bullets into the chests of the people who ran down our gate and exploded their way into our ranks.
Every single last one of them would die for what they had done.
“Lieu—ten—nant?—”
I whipped around at the sound of the voice. I recognized that voice. “Lonnie! Where are you!?”
“L—ieu?—”
I felt fingertips at my ankle and I looked down. I heard someone charging me, and I lifted my gun, pulling the trigger without even looking. The sound of a body dropping to the ground had nothing on the sound that happened inside of my body when I dropped to my knees and scooped up the private’s hand.
Just a private.
Just a kid.
“Hutchins,” I said breathlessly. “I’m right here. Hey. Focus on me.”
He coughed up blood, looking up at me with those fearful brown eyes of his. “The… the bomb. At… at the… the… the gate.”
“I know,” I said as I whipped my head around, trying to find a good place to tug him for safety. “I know. They took down the gate. I know that’s how they got in.”
“No,” he said before he coughed.
His lips twinged with blood as I stood and hefted him over my shoulder. “Keep that blood inside, soldier. You hear me?”
“Ghost,” he squeaked out.
“I’ve gotcha. Just hang on.”
“Div…er…sion,” he choked out. “It was… just… a… there… on your… cameras… if…”
“Hush now,” I commanded as I rushed back to the bomb shelter that served as the surveillance room I was in. “I’ve got you and everything is just fine.”
“So—rry.”
“No apologies, soldier. Let’s go.”
I had no idea that he was apologizing for bleeding all over the back of my uniform. I had no way of knowing that turning him upside down over my shoulder like that would have only made things worse.
