The Young and Stupid
Chapter 4 – Prisoners of War
AN: The material of Grand Theft Auto, including the characters of this story, is not mine, I didn't create it, I don't own Rockstar property, etc.
It had taken an additional two days to completely take the town of Bisrid, as Niko had learned it was named. Niko's unit, with a wounded captain, one dead, and two wounded soldiers, had reached a low capacity, and was not deployed again during the taking of the city.
Florian had struggled the night he had taken the bullet, but had pulled through, and was recovering well already. Mita, who had taken a bullet to the thigh during the unit's additional charge, was still in rough condition, but the bullet had narrowly missed his femoral artery. Thus far, only Solovic had lost his life- miraculous considering the intensity of their virgin battle.
The captain was also recovering, but struggled to move. He was losing the unit's perception of him as their commander, as much of the unit now looked to Josef Mogadanastavic as their leader. This was due to the fact that the captain had remained behind while Mogadanastavic lead the team fearlessly as they braved the storm.
As such, they had little to do, and were tasked with defending the main outpost in the city. But the outpost had not come under direct attack, so the unit more or less loafed endlessly, scared into alertness occasionally by lone mortar rounds which would give a sharp whistle as warning, and explode nearby.
They were fed with an endless supply of propagandized news material: stories a bit too glamorous to take at face value: tales of unprecedented victories against huge odds. However, the stories coming down through the grapevine were equally incredible: stories of savage brutality by Serbian soldiers. Niko knew how war was, he had seen that first-hand- he found it hard to believe that the Serbians were committing war crimes; they were simply fighting a war.
"Standby!" Someone called from the north point of the outpost, it sounded like Darko. Niko jolted out of his reflective stupor, and looked to the north. A man in Serbian uniform had turned onto the street aligned with the outpost, and was walking towards them.
"One of ours," Darko said, and lowered his rifle.
"Get down!" Josef called, and ducked behind the divider. The rest of the unit, dispersed along the walls of the garrison, took cover.
"What if he's a Bosnian in Serb uniform, eh?" Josef asked of Darko. "Nice distraction to get us all killed, huh?" Josef peered over the barrier and leveled his rifle on the newcomer, who had stopped upon seeing the activity of the garrison defenders.
"Announce yourself soldier!" Josef called. A moment's hesitation passed, but the soldier replied, raising his hands up.
"Sgt. Olovar Sivnic!" he called. "We've captured a group of rebels and we need you to keep guard!"
"Come closer, keep your hands up!" their captain called from behind. The sergeant entered the garrison. The captain patted him down and found his identification, which he judged to be correct. The captain nodded and the garrison defenders relaxed their guard.
"You can bring these prisoners," The captain said. The sergeant leaned in and whispered something to the captain while passing him a folded sheet of paper. The captain nodded stoically and dismissed the soldier who ran back from where he came. A minute later, a straight row of Bosnian rebels, hands tied behind them, filed into the street and towards the garrison. There were about 15 of them, ranging in age. A handful of Serbs ambled alongside them, rifles held in the crook of their arms, inattentive.
They marched the prisoners into the middle of the garrison and instructed them to kneel in a cluster.
"Good, we can handle it," the captain said. The new coming soldiers, irritated, marched back the way they came, having pawned off their assignment to Niko's group. Once the soldiers were well out of sight, the captain addressed the garrison defenders.
"Men, we've been given orders to execute these prisoners. We have no facilities to accommodate them, and on top of the fact that they outnumber us, they now know the location of our garrison. If one were to escape…" he trailed off. Niko's heart was pounding in his chest. He'd killed a man in combat, but execution was completely different. Killing in battle was… acceptable. Execution was murder. The captain continued to blather, but Niko was not listening. He was looking at the prisoners, and the sound of his pulse dominated his hearing. Two of Niko's comrades stepped forward and poked soldiers in the back with their rifles. The prisoners stood. The captain motioned down the alley, saying something. The soldiers and the prisoners began to move, Niko followed.
They didn't go far- only to an adjacent, but less visible street. The captain began distributing orders. He counted out five prisoners and instructed them to kneel in front of a city wall, facing away from the wall into the open street. Niko's shock subsided a degree, allowing him to hear and comprehend the captain's orders.
"Line up here," The captain said to the soldiers, scratching a line with his toe in the loose gravel. "Mogadanastavic, Bellic, here next to me." Josef and Niko stood side by side and three others lined up beside them while the other two kept guard over the other prisoners.
"Mogadanastavic," the captain said. With a pistol, he pointed at the first prisoner, a hairy middle-aged man with a graying beard. "Kill this man. Shoot him." Josef hesitated. The captain waited expectantly.
"Captain," Josef said. "This man is unarmed, he-" The captain whipped him in the face with the pistol, breaking Josef's nose. He fell down, clutching his face, which began to bleed heavily. The prisoner got to his feet and ran. His balance was thrown off by the binding of his hands, and he stumbled. The captain watched him nonchalantly for a moment before raising his pistol and shooting the man in the back. The prisoner fell mid-stride. His legs cycled slowly.
Svijo, guarding the other prisoners, bashed one in the face as he began to protest. It seemed the lot were on the verge of attempting to fight their captors, but order was restored. The captain walked to the wriggling man and raised his pistol. Niko looked away. One, two, three, four shots. He heard the captain's steps as he returned.
"I am your captain," he said. "Not this fuck!" he kicked Josef back to the ground as he was rising to his feet.
"You do not question my orders," he continued. "And you always address me with 'sir.'" He turned his attention back to the prisoners.
"Niko," he said. Niko tensed, waiting. "Kill that man." Niko raised his rifle, placing the sights over the face of the prisoner. The prisoner was probably ten years older than Niko, his eyes were dark. Niko placed his finger on the trigger and began to pull. The man looked up into Niko's eyes, and Niko froze. His eyes were not defiant, but not submissive.
"Will you fail me too, Nikolai?" the captain asked. Niko continued to hesitate, trying to will himself to pull the trigger. He heard a click behind him, and a hot piece of metal pressed against the back of his skull.
"Kill him, Bellic, or you die," the captain said. Niko looked again at the man. His expression was difficult to read, but it seemed resigned. He looked at Niko, understanding what Niko had to do, and accepting it. This somehow made it harder for Niko to kill him. His finger hesitated still.
He heard the faint clicking of the gun against his head, and realized the captain was pulling the trigger slowly, raising the hammer partially. Niko was a centimeter from death. The muscles in his torso seized. He shut his eyes and fired, firing five rounds. The gun lifted from his head. Niko opened his eyes slowly.
The prisoner was slumped against the wall behind him. Only one bullet had hit him, in the neck, it gushed violently. The prisoner gurgled, his eyes bulging towards the dreary sky, seemingly about to explode from his head. His tongue flailed as his jaw worked up and down. He struggled for a full minute, before releasing a gurgled moan, and lying still. Everything was silent. Niko could not even hear distant gunfire or explosions. He could no longer hear his heart, or his breath, or that of his companions. It was as if all sound had been purged from the Earth. Finally, the captain spoke.
"Good, Niko. Now raise your rifles. The remaining three men raised their rifles, frightened but unwilling to show any opposition.
"Fire," the captain said. Three more prisoners slumped to the Earth, bleeding out or dying on the spot. The captain called over another five prisoners. He told them to kneel on the bodies of the previous prisoners. One was praying in panic, babbling incoherently. On the captain's order, Niko put a bullet through the man's forehead. Arterial spray splattered across the wall behind him, he gasped, and fell sideways onto the man Josef had killed.
The final group, teary-eyed but less panicked than the second, kneeled before the wall. A final order from the captain, and the final prisoners died. They left the bodies where they were, heaped in front of a blood-splattered wall, and walked back to the garrison. Nothing left remained to be said, the captain had re-established his authority, and the boys had killed in cold-blood.
Once they manned the garrison once again, they remained silent the rest of the day, until night fell. Niko was posted with the first watch. He was glad, he wouldn't have fallen asleep anyway.
Seated on a stack of sandbags, he looked skyward. Ringed in a halo of stars, a new moon loomed, visible only by its exaggerated absence, marked by a perfect circle of black. Niko empathized with the new moon. He felt as if his heart had been erased, the only evidence of its having ever existed marked by a defined outline, an imprint of what had previously been there.