Hello again everyone - I tried a bit of a different style with this one, a more of a 'stream of consciousness' style. It started that way, but I edited it a bit more to make sense. It shows a deeper facet to the unassuming engineer. And the poor soldier, dear thing... Again, I am trying out descriptions, heavy handed things. Enjoy, please critique away.
He pushed the muzzle of the gun deeper into his chest, pushing up the uniform, deeper into the sick skin of the enemy. Leering above he closed in. Weakness and death dribbled from the soldier, just a soldier, from the blue stock standard issue uniform every soldier wore, pointed shoulders, bright buttons, thick chest. The gun he pushed up his throat, dragging the skin with the blunt metal edge, pushing it under his chin, watching the fine movements of the last breaths. Old and haggard in his war daze legs aflame with tire and exhaustion, the soldier, eyes a mess. The engineer, just an engineer, the team has thousands was fast in his youth and strength. He got him, the wrench a blunt tool to the fleeing enemy. The soldier the one of thousands bled from his wounds, inflicted with an object that was not a weapon, something that did not destroy but create. This one engineer was fierce. Through the dark windows the soldier knew the eyes were only hate and detest, anger and rage, mouth pulled down for a dog snarl of get out get out of this world. Unfit to live. The engineer placed a foot on the soldiers rib cage, leaning down and in on it, the soldier, the blu, struggling, trying to free his arms, held by the engineers own creations. The strong arm from building swept its wrench across the face clinking a thud to the cheekbone, one of thousands loved by no one. Perhaps the blu cried. Gun forward, up the lips and nose, resting before the eyes. No fight no screams only shaking fear, a deep understanding that everything he was doing was the last. The lips parted. Nostrils flared. Eyes looked and hid and creaked open. The engineer one of thousands took his razor and cut slowly one at a time to the soldier's neck. Thin red against the white one after another above up and down, leaving the soldier with fine gills. The blu the dirty blu struggled once more, such a human instinct to live, struggled against the machines. Such strange whining sounds, such beauty. The lines began a pink then a red as blood was brought to the surface and trickled forth. Racking sobs rose from the soldier. Death, confinement, a gun and a knife and no free hands. He wailed quietly, shaking in a cold sweat. The simple engineer and the simple red lines. He looked at the blu. Pained face on a flat angle. He raised his goggles and stared eye to eye a centimeter from the soldier. Fear and anguish faced pure awe. The engineer drew the razor down the face of the soldier as he leant back. Atop he clambered to crush; he raised the gun pointing and pushing at the face. Mashing the cheek into the lines of teeth behind, leaving a red ring. Tears streaked down the side of the strong soldier's face, such power held helpless. The engineer snarled, hiding the remorse he already felt. Pull the trigger as you have before. The soldier cringed keeping his eyes affix the metal barrel hovered above. He shivered, forgot to breath. All movements echoed to the engineer atop, all the fear and terror from such a brave man, ribs and tendons expanding and contracting, such pride alive with terror in its shivers. The engineer laid one hand on the blu's shoulder, one caress of comfort. A pair of shut eyes, a glove to the trigger. The final glimpse at the weakened face, clinging to every moment. Slowly, still time to turn back. No. Loud black sound, receding away. Half a face. Red traced the snow, traced the engineers clothes, eyes. The body beneath him, once so full of strength, quiet and still, free from its terror existence. The engineers face, the quiet, unassuming engineer, so strong, fell instantly to the soldier's own terror, the sorrow. The sobs now racked him, the shivering took him. He dropped his weapons, tools, torture devices. Whatever they all were. Gloved hands held his face. The tears would not stop. He had lost control again. Just a human, just another life to join the others in the great void. What had he done. What had he let himself do. The consequences were all his own.
Slowly, the snow began again, a fine white, covering the latest victim and the latest mourner. The engineer's apologies were heard around the battlefield long into the night, long into the day, forever in his sleep.
