The city was in ruins. Nearly everything had been reduced to rubble, ash, and flames. Gunfire sounded in the distance, but the battle was already over. The war had already been won. It had all ended in such a drastic contrast to how Hans had pictured things for so many decades. He had always imagined glorious battle, bloodlust, and eventually a warrior's death.
But, instead he now lay wounded on the battle field. He wasn't supposed to live through this thing, this hell. The Major had always made it very clear that this was a suicide mission. And one by pitiful one all of his comrades had died.
Hans took a deep breath, but sharp pain cut it short. His body was broken, his purpose stolen, and the silver burning next to his heart kept him that way. The tiny piece of metal lodged deep within his chest cavity sent poisonous, pulsating pain through his body. Yet, it wasn't large enough to kill him. Instead it simply lay burning away at his flesh at just a slow enough pace that his body healed enough not to bleed out. When he lost his battle and had failed to serve his sole purpose, the Major had activated the fail safe destruction of evidence that he had implanted in all of his soldiers. The FREAK chip in his body had burst into flame, yet fire had never been a deadly thing for him. No doubt that silver fragment had been assumed to pierce his heart.
For that brief moment that he lay dying, engulfed in searing hot blue flame… Hans had been so happy. He had smiled and embraced his death, yet death did return that embrace. No, it had left him to writhe in agony in the ruins of the battle field. The gore he thrashed about in was a mixture of his own along with his enemies and his comrades.
Was this his punishment?
Yes, that must be why this was happening. All these years he had blindly followed the Major's orders, committing atrocities which still haunted his dreams. It all felt like a bad dream. His vision was nearly gone, everything around him blurs of flame and dark shapes moving about him. His ears were ringing from the explosion when the blimp had crashed to the earth. That damned silver kept him suspended in a horrible limbo between life and death. It slowed his body's natural healing ability just enough to keep him alive and slow the loss of blood, yet not enough to heal the shattered bones or soothe his burnt skin. His clothing had long since been consumed by the fire, now the flames seemed to be taunting him as every few moments they burnt across his body in the wake of a new explosion. Would this be his eternal doom? Forever broken and dying, but never taking that final breath? Would he spend eternity like this?
Opening his singed eyelids, Hans tried to make sense of the shapes moving about within the shadows of his vision. He felt like there might be people moving around him, yet his eyes and ears told him so very little. Attempting to sniff the air, his nostrils could only detect the stench of his own smoldering flesh.
Then something soft touched his cheek, just one single delicate finger. Was this death, finally come to relieve him of this torment? Oh he prayed that this was so. He longed for death, for an end.
But, instead he felt someone grabbing his wrists and ankles. Those hands lifted him up and he screamed as his burnt skin came lose and tore at the movement caused by those hands. No sound came from his mouth other than a terrible gurgle as he finally passed out from the pain.