Blood Gulch was a boring place, there was no denying it. But maybe that was the charm it had. The countless game of "I spy" showed that the canyon was just two bases with grass, but what mattered was that I could live here with nothing bugging me. No rent, no lousy neighbours, no job problems or even paying taxes. All I had were a bunch of partners who were just as incompetent as I was.
I always found it funny that the military accepted people like Grif and I. Simmons makes sense, he's smart and can handle himself, and Sarge has actual military experience. I think his file mentioned something about being an ODST.
Grif and I weren't really fit to be soldiers. While each of us has something that makes us who we are, we aren't really what you'd call soldier material.
Grif was sneaky and had a penchant for getting out of work, while I was a coward who'd rather run than fight. But we were often the voices of logic within the group so it all balanced out.
"Man, if the rookie dies, Sarge is going to kill us." Simmons said.
"What? You're not the one who has to write a letter to his family if he dies." I retorted.
"Wait, you do that?" Grif asked.
"Yeah, It's something someone has to do for every team and it's bullshit."
The big reason I didn't like it was because of the responses. I had to write letters to families who had their children die in a pointless war. I had to be the one to take the brunt of the horrible phone calls and letters addressed to me personally. I didn't really care most of the time; they needed someone to take their anger out on someone and I was just the unfortunate messenger.
"Sounds tough. Anyway, we have to make sure the quality of the base is at it's highest when Sarge isn't here. That also means no dead teammates." Simmons reminded.
"Why are we worrying, the rookie will just see the blue base and come back. He can't have gone far, he'll just be walking around the cliffs and he'll get bored." Grif reassured.
"I doubt anything'll happen, but we seriously need to stop hazing people. It'll bite us in the ass next time." I warned.
"Yeah don't worry about it killjoy." Grif muttered.
Am I boring? Grif in particular used the word quite a lot when talking to me, but I've never thought it to be true. Maybe it's because I don't really have any interests or personality traits that make me stand out. I wasn't much compared to Grif who was lazy incarnate or Simmons who awkwardness made manifest. Maybe I was just free. Free from their problems which made them who they were, or maybe I was just a shell that hadn't been filled yet.
That sounded weird but every human does essentially start off as a shell and over time their experiences and hardships make them who they are and that makes their personality and their traits.
"Hey Grif, how much do you wanna bet the rookie dies?" I heard Simmons ask Grif.
"10 dollars, No offense Friedrich, I'd ask you but you only deal in Euros." Grif said.
"None taken. Stupid planet, doesn't know over one currency exists."
"Tell me about it, this planet sucks. Two canyons in-"Simmons began before we cut him off.
"A box canyon." Grif and I said.
"Yeah, we know it sucks. This whole war sucks and to top it off the orders we get are so vague and even the people who are at the top of this war do not know what the fuck they are doing." Grif complained.
"Man, I left my job for this." I also complained.
"Oh, you never told us you had a job, what did you do?" Simmons asked.
"Yeah it was a nice job. I worked with all sorts of animals as a zookeeper. Only for a year and I ended up here." I explained.
"Is that why you cared so much about the narwhal thing?" Grif asked.
"No, you were just being an idiot."
"That sounds like the dream." Simmons said.
Before the conversation could progress, 4 gunshots came from across the canyon, they weren't loud but it definitely happened.
Surprisingly, it was Grif who took action first and took out his sniper rifle to scout the canyon. Simmons however seemed to have no idea what was going on.
"Grif, what the hell are you doing. Don't take that thing out of nowhere."
"How did you not hear that? It was 4 bams. Bam bam bam."
What an idiot, that was 3 bams.
"Wait that's only 3 bams." Simmons noted.
"Bam. Hold on a second, ah crap it's Donut. And he's got the," He paused for some reason. "Simmons get the Warthog."
"You mean the puma?" Simmons joked.
"What did he do? Is he dead?" I asked nervously.
I'd feel bad if the kid died on his first day. He seemed very innocent and looked like he was genuinely looking forward to be in the military, though his experience would be nothing like he'd think.
But this was bad for different reasons, we'd never actually started an offensive on the blues. Ever. This was the first time a "conflict" has actually arisen. What if this sets off a chain of battle where we actually have to fight and do soldiery things? Which would mean that my life is in danger. I can't let that happen.
"What does he have?" I asked.
"The flag" was the plain answer I received.
"Ok that is bad news. We are fucked. What the hell are we going to do without Sarge?" Simmons panicked.
"Calm down. We're gonna have to save him, of course." I said weakly.
"Yeah, you sound like your about to shit yourself." Grif said. "Real comforting."
Just calm down, Friedrich. We'll get by this. Things can't get that bad. There's no way.
Authors Note:
Had fun writing this chapter. Friedrich is a coward who wants to be as far away from the fighting as possible yet he still pretends that he's brave.
Anyways I hope you enjoyed it, if there's anything you didn't like about the chapter whether it be character interactions or grammar errors. I'm open to criticism since this is a learning curve for me.
Anything you'd like to see in particular just comment it.
See ya!