Chapter II: Fall into Darkness

Olaf had left the battle a changed man. He thought back to the old life he had, one of work and family. It seemed so distant now, having seen men die on the battlefield. He would never go back to what he had before.

Prior to the battle, he thought about what happened to his family. He thought about what would happen to his little sister. To his mother. To his father, and his brothers. But those thoughts left his mind. He didn't know those people anymore.

He left his bunk and walked over to the mess hall. He joined the other men in the line for whatever Orange Star was serving them. Bread. For all their fighting, for all their sacrifice, they got a slice of bread.

But they were not complaining. They took that bread as if it were the greatest meal in the world. They knew that the next day they might not have the luxury of food.

Olaf took his bread, and sat down at the table. Vlad sat down across from him.

"Hey, Olaf," Vlad said, with a weak, trembling voice. He was trying to hold on to some sense of normalcy.

"Vlad," Olaf answered back.

"We sure beat those yellas good. Shot down fifteen of them." He made a small laugh.

Olaf just stared at his bread.

"Yeah, I wonder how many Alek shot. He did pretty good out there, killing those damn yellas," He said again, this time louder. He laughed again, louder and stronger.

"How many did you kill, Olaf? Huh?" Vlad said, this time shouting. The rest of the men looked at him.

"Kill a lot of them? Did you see the way they fell down as you blew their heads off?" Vlad was laughing hysterically now. The laughter slowly made way for crying. He fell to the floor.

Olaf showed no emotion. He wanted to laugh and cry, just like Vlad. But nothing came out of him.

Vlad looked up at Olaf, tears streaming down his face. "Did you ever think, Olaf, while you were loading lead into their bodies, about their families? They were some lady's son. They had fathers and mothers and brothers, and sisters! They were just like us, and we killed them!"

Alek sat down nearby. There was a presence around Alek, the presence of a leader. The men looked up to him as he walked down the aisle. It seemed as if the very table he sat down at was imbued with some sort of holiness.

"Hey Alek! Me and Olaf were just discussing what happened out there! How many did you kill?"

Alek stared at Vlad. "I don't keep count."

"Don't keep count of each of the lives you destroyed?" Vlad asked, almost angry now.

Alek stood up and walked over to Vlad. He laid his fist into Vlad's skull.

"No, I don't keep track of each of the people I destroy. I know they are men like us. I know what it means each and every time I fire my gun." Alek answered.

"How do you live with it?" Vlad asked. "Knowing what you've done?"

"I live with it by knowing that this is my life. The old days are gone. You are not a boy, or even a man anymore, Vlad. You are a soldier. We all are. We fight for survival, we fight to see the next horrible day. We fight for our food and our own pointless existence, because this is what we are." Alek said, then sat back down, and took a bite from his bread.

Vlad had no response to this. He merely turned back to his bread, and ate.

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It was no more than a day later that Orange Star had sent the militia into battle once again. They named Alek the commander of fourty men, fourty men that would be sent through the mountains to hold off a Yellow Comet advance.

Alek, of course, knew that they were sending the militia off to throw their bodies in the way so that Orange Star would have more time to prepare. There was little chance of this small group of soldiers holding off an entire brigade of the Yellow Comet army.

He accepted the command, however. There was no option other than to follow orders.

They were only a few minutes until the militia reached it's destination, an abandoned arms factory. But this was no peaceful march. Olaf knew that Yellow Comet was on their trail. He had not seen them, but he could feel the presence of someone. He thought that maybe he had caught one in the corner of his eye, simply not reigistering the fact in his brain.

His fears were not unfounded. Just as he saw the base on the horizon, the first shots were fired.

Five soldiers were taken out before anyone could react. But this was their second battle. They knew what to do. Everyone took cover immediately, and fired into the mounds of rock hidden by fog.

"Continue firing. Draw them out." Alek whispered to the men nearest to him after the mountains were silent.

One after the other, the men fired into the mountains. Rock shattered, and the Yellow Comet army began moving out of hiding. They shot, again and again, now aiming for the hearts of the enemy. They were successful.

Their success, however, would last only for a time. The well trained Yellow Comet army wasted no time manuevering around the mountains. Within seconds, they were being fired on from all sides. More of the militia died, and the men began to scatter, attempting to take cover. But the men had no concept of where the enemy was firing from. It seemed as if they would die right there, as the Yellow Comet army ripped apart their soldiers by the dozens.

Alek quickly directed the men to run towards the base. If they made it, they would have more cover and better ability to fight off the enemy soldiers. By now, only about thirty militia were left. That number would be halved before any of them reached the base.

Olaf ran quickly, strafing every once and awhile to throw off the aim of his hunter. He moved behind trees, hoping to block their view. In time, they could not simply aim at the militia. They ran out of hiding and gave chase.

This was precisely the moment Alek had been waiting for. Soon as the first soldier gave away his cover, Alek fired his rifle. He quickly moved behind a tree, sniping each enemy as they came to chase. Olaf saw this too, and stayed to fight with Alek. The feeling was the same with every man. They fired on the emboldened enemy.

But these soldiers would not be defeated so easily. Soon as they realized what was happening, they took up their own positions of defense. And in the distance, more soldiers could be seen running to the site of the battle.

"Let's move around. There should be a bunker around back." Alek said, loud enough that the his men could hear him over the gunfire, but not loud enough for the enemy to hear.

The militia quickly moved, again being torn apart by the gunfire. There were only about six more men left as they moved behind the base. Alek, however, took up position at the corner of the building.

"Get over there! Don't let them see where you went! I'll fight them for now." He shouted.

"We aren't going to leave you to them. There are at least thirty of them out here!" Vlad shouted at Alek.

"You know I know that damn well. Get back there, save yourselves. I'm not letting you fail the mission because you want to be some idiot heros. Get out of here."

The others were in no position to argue. They moved quickly into the underground bunker. Olaf came first, and pryed open the door with his hands. Everyone fled inside.

A gunshot just barely missed Olaf as he pulled into the bunker. He grabbed his gun and pulled in. More gunfire as the enemy came down the stairs into the bunker. Olaf fired, his gun splitting the soldier in half. Olaf shut the door and vomited in the corner.

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The following days were cold and miserable. The Yellow Comet Army, though powerful, had given up on attempting to attack the heavily defended bunker. They were well fortified, and even if they got in, there were five soldiers perfectly capable of removing them. Olaf assumed that they had backed off, and were merely waiting for the heavy artillery to arrive and blow them up while they slept.

"I wonder if there's any food in here," Vlad said, wandering about the dark room. There was no sunlight, only candles lit the room.

"I told you, there is none. This bunker was probably abandonded long ago, no reason to leave food in here," It was Erik, a red-haired, very young looking man. It almost seemed more appropriate to call him a boy, because of his relative size compared to the others.

"Yeah, well we haven't looked hard enough!" Vlad shouted, and started searching the room frantically.

"Just stop. There's nothing here," Olaf said quietly.

Vlad heard nothing. He was still searching.

"Vlad," Olaf said, this time more assertive.

"What?"

"There is no food. We already looked."

"But we might not have looked everywhere!"

"Look around you. There are no hiding spots. This is a wide and open room. There is no where for the food to be," Olaf said, trying to reason.

Vlad looked on at Olaf, defeated. He sat down.

Erik looked up from the ground. "Maybe we should go out and look for food."

Ivan, a bald, skinny man that spoke rarely, spoke for the first time in days. "Who's going to go out there and get shot? I'm not."

Reidar, a long-haired man with jet black hair, was the next to make a suggestion. "We need to go outside sometime. We stay in here and we'll die."

"Alek wouldn't have wanted us to come all this way just to be killed," Erik noted.

"Sounds like a volunteer to me," Vlad said to Erik, his words coated with loathing.

"Quiet. All of you," Olaf ordered. The others seemed shocked by this. When they came in to the bunker, there was no leader. It was five men who had lost their only guide. It was only now that they realized that someone would have to replace Alek.

Olaf walked over to the door as the others stared at him. He opened it, hoping not to be shot down the moment he was open.

There was no kiss of lead on his neck, however. Only the cold wind that blew against his body, and the flakes of snow that quickly filled the room. Olaf waited.

"Are they gone?" Vlad whispered.

Olaf put his finger to his mouth. Everyone was quiet. Only the howling of the winter winds could be heard.

"It's getting dark. You shouldn't go out," Reidar said.

"That's exactly the point, Reidar," Olaf said, looking out into the unforgiving sky above him, "Wait for me here. Don't open the door unless I give three knocks, a pause, and then a tap." Olaf demonstrated on the door, and closed it.

He was alone now. Nothing would save him if he was caught. Nothing garunteed that he would live to see the next day.

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"What would you have me do, Alek?" Olaf asked, whispering to the dark blue sky. "What can we do?"

There was of course, no answer. Olaf stood there, in the middle of the dark forest, unsure of his next step. Something inside him, however, told him he had to move on.

"Alek would have wanted us to survive. He won't die in vain."

This black night was brutal. Olaf could see nothing except for the vague silhouettes of branches just inches from his face. He moved through the forest, knowing that if he stepped in the wrong spot, he might notify Yellow Comet that he was there.

He heard a loud explosion off in the distance, and it startled him. He fell to the ground, and looked to the direction of the noise. A blaze lit up the night sky for a brief moment.

Gunshots could be heard in the distance as well, and Olaf knew that this was a battle. He looked back to the horrors of his first two battles, but then thought it over. If there was a battle, that meant there was someone else in these woods. Allies.

He ignored the trees infront of his face, ignored the loud noise he was making. It didn't matter if they heard someone running through the bushes anymore. If there was a fight, they probably couldn't even hear him.

However, that was a miscalculation on his part. A gun fired, and a nearby tree was hit. Someone was in the forest with him.

He stopped moving, and readied his rifle. He looked closely at the bullethole in the tree, and looked towards where the gun should have fired. He waited for the next explosion to light up the forest so that he could kill his adversary.

The fire lit the sky again, and he squeezed the trigger, just before he realized that he was shooting at Orange Star.

Miss.

"Wait!" Olaf shouted at the top of his lungs. There were bullets firing all over the place, and they seemed in no hurry to halt their firing.

"I'm on your side! I'm a militia!"

The gunshots stopped, and he heard the soldiers moving towards him. He set his rifle on the ground, making sure that they did not perceive him as a threat.

"Why did you shoot?" The officer, a rather young man, asked. He seemed almost around Olaf's age. He didn't seem very experienced.

"I thought you were Yellow Comet," Olaf responded.

"Is the militia unit still here? Where is Commander Alek?" The officer demanded.

"Alek is dead, sir. There are only four others left in my unit."

"Dead. How did he die?"

"We were ambushed. He told us to flee into an underground bunker while he distracted them."

"Underground bunker... where? Show me."

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The sky became darker and darker as they wandered through the woods, but it was occassionally lit by an explosion. Olaf barely knew the direction that the bunker was in, or what direction they were going in. He knew only his instincts, and hoped that those would be sufficient to deliver him to him comrades.

"Thirty-five men died?" The officer asked Olaf after a somewhat long silence.

"Yes. It happened very fast."

"Was there food in the bunker?"

"No. That's why I left, I was going to look for something to eat. Or find help. A little of both, I guess," Olaf responded. He felt almost like a child now, despite the youth of the officer.

"Are there enemy soldiers at the bunker?"

"Possibly. I don't know when they left, we couldn't hear anything. I assume they left to join the battle."

"No attacks when you left the bunker?" The officer asked.

"None. However, they may have moved into that factory. They might not have been guarding us, since we were only five men, inexperienced at that. Stupid mistake on their part."

The officer looked over at Olaf, intrigued. "You aren't an officer of any sort?"

"No. Alek was the only commander of our unit."

"I'm going to ask you a question, and I don't want you to think too much into it. If we were attacking a factory, and there were enemies inside, would you perform a frontal assault or would you suggest we go around through the back?"

"I wouldn't do either. I'd lure them out using a few gunshots from the woods. Make them move out to attack us. Then move a portion of our forces to attack their flank, and move the rest to the back, take out the weakened defenses, and fire on them from all sides."

"That's a very elaborate plan for a militia soldier," The officer smiled. "Let's see if it works."