He could see them, huge flying behemoths, dropping like flies.
Explosions, like grotesque bug spray, knocking them down. Dead.
Bullets hazed past his head, a deadly rain from a steel sky.
Everything was screaming; his men, the enemy, the fires, even the metal was screaming as it hurtled toward the ground, a cacophony of destruction orchestrated by demons and men. He wanted to get out of there, he needed to get out. They all did, so they ran. They ran and ran, 'till the world was blurred and hazy, and all there was left was the running, just the running. Running and running and they couldn't stop, not ever, never stop, too dangerous, too scary, just keep running. He gave a cracked laugh and, through dry lips began to sing, an old song his Gramma learned him as a wee lad. "Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run. Here comes the farmer with his gun, gun, gun. Bang, bang, bang, bang goes the farmer's gun, so run rabbit, run ra…!" He cut himself off abruptly, this was no laughing matter, they had to keep running, get away from 'Charlie'. He hmmed slightly, he never did understand quite why they referred to the enemy as 'Charlie', though he'd never bothered to ask. It hardly mattered now, It was probably something along the lines of why the Germans were called Huns in WW2, regardless of the fact few of them were descended from Attila and his army. Another cracked laugh tore from his throat, because that's what he was, wasn't it? Cracked. That summed him up perfectly, cracked. Minds were like mirrors, or panes of glass, showing off the nicer thoughts, the ones that make sense and can be rationalized. Only his glass had cracked, and was falling apart, letting through those nasty, dark thoughts, the ones that oozed, the ones that spoke what needed to be said even though no one was brave enough to. Those awful thoughts, that made too much sense, those horrible little realizations that everyone dies and what you do in the meantime doesn't really matter in the long run. They called this 'crazy', he called it sensible. Again the almost painful sounding laugh forced itself free, because that was right, after all, nothing really mattered, not anymore, because they had stopped running, they were caught, he had gotten them caught, and someone was calling for him, blaming him probably, for being foolish enough to think he could get them out, but who would be foolish enough to trust a cracked man?
"!" He turned his head, noticing that 'Charlie' had just shot one of his men, his apprentice, to be precise, the young man wasn't strictly speaking his 'apprentice' per se, just a young recruit he was supposed to be showing the ropes. The dying boy turned, and with his dying breath whispered, "…."

"…Murdock!"

The pilot was pulled roughly back to the present, Face was giving him a worried look from the co-pilots chair, Hannibal was stooped between the two, also looking concerned. "Everything alright, Captain?" Murdock plastered his twisted, fake grin onto his face; idly musing as to why no one else noticed how terribly wrong it looked, before replying in his usual drawl.
"All quiet on the western front, muchacho."


AN: This has been sitting on my harddrive for literally years. I kept flubbing the end, but I'm pretty happy with this.
R&R plz.