A/N:
AU prompt challenge from Tumblr - Edge of Tomorrow. Requested by Focusas.
- Repeat -
It was painful just to breathe. He clung to life by the shredded tendons of his lungs, the heavy plasti-steel chest piece punctured and torn to bloody shreds, lying motionless in the crater.
Sokka peered up toward the sky through the fractured steel visor of his helmet. The relentless sun was filtered through a red and black haze as his vision blurred in and out of focus. Shapes lost their form and the world slowly became untethered.
Blood pooled in his mouth, the slick copper taste heavy on his slack tongue. Weakly, he attempted to breathe through his clotted nose, the smell of his inevitable death looming closer, mixed with the scent of smoke and burning palm leaves.
Slow and numbing. He wanted to cry. He would never see home again.
He gurgled, blinked. Red tracer fire screamed over his head. Pillars of dirt and sand lifted into the air around him, the ground shaking ceaselessly. He felt his tattered body and bones crack within his own armor.
And then she came. Just a lumbering armored shadow that blotted out the sun, hunched over him as the tracers raced overhead.
Her voice was like a whisper from a half-remembered dream as she leaned down and touched his helmet with an steel, automotive hand.
"Hey. There's something I've been wanting ask you."
He wheezed as he choked on his blood. Sokka willed his arms to move, trying to make the actuators in his metal exoskeleton come to life. Static warning signals screeched in his headphones. His very blood seemed to slow. He felt so numb, so useless.
"Is it true what they say? About the green tea they serve in Japan at the end of the year?"
A blinding flash. The earth shook. Chunks of dirt pattered his armor and visor, getting in his glossy eyes. She'd be buried in this grave with him if she didn't move.
She breathed, as calmly as she could, "Do you really get the tea for free?"
It was surreal. His mind desperately wandered from the pain, grasping at anything that would take it away.
Tea. He never liked it.
A beer out on the porch, watching the sun set over the sea, the stars coming out. That was his drink.
But the earthy taste of green tea... warm on his tongue, soul soothing, bundled up in a nice cozy shop as he watched the snow fall through foggy glass, couples out in the cold waiting for the bells to welcome the beginning of the year.
If she'd only stayed that night…
"… hfff… hfff… yffs…"
Yes.
His eyes felt as if they would rend apart, torn by the sheer pain as he struggled to look at the shadowy figure leaning above him. Her armored exoskeleton was black. She clutched the handle of something massive behind her - an axe, a sword, Sokka couldn't tell.
She was a hard steel beast. A gunmetal demon with a voice like an angel, filtered through a helmet radio.
"I'm Azula Sakhalin, soldier. I'll stay with you until you die."
He could have sworn he saw gold eyes through her visor.
Gold. Huh.
There was a white light. And then there was nothing.
]|||[
Death number three.
Shit.
He had died three times. And every death seemed more gruesome, more futile, and more stark than the last. He had died twice on the battlefield, and once as he tried to desert. He ran as fast as he could, away from his inevitable death, if only to stall it for a little longer. He didn't even get far enough from the base before they shot him in the back.
He was stuck, unable to escape, suffering death after agonizing death.
And there she would be. Hovering over him, patient, like the grim reaper.
As Sokka sat up in his cot, body shuddering from the shock of another death, he couldn't help but wonder…
Who was that girl?
The cot above him stirred and a hand reached down beside his face. It held a paper.
"Yo, Sokka, sign this for me, yeah? Everyone's got to."
Deja vu all over again. He hardly glanced at the paper as he took it.
"Sure. Thanks Haru."
He set it aside on his cot. It was a confession slip. The whole squad was in on it. Jet had the idea of stealing beer from the PX and having a little party with a couple of nurses from the base hospital. A last hurrah before the battle. If any of them came back alive they'd turn in the dead man's confession slip, saying he did it.
It was a cocky thing to do. They were so sure they were going to live. After his third death, Sokka had the foresight of knowing that his whole squad would be slaughtered. The whole gesture was futile, just like escaping from the horrible cycle of death he found himself in.
But he finally got it. Every time he died, time looped, his memories fully intact. He didn't know why this was happening, but he couldn't get out of it. No matter where he was or how he died, he always ended up back at the base on his cot.
Seemed liked those were the rules in this world. He could waste his time, maybe go to the party Jet put together and spend the night with people he hardly knew. He'd only be stalling.
He could run again and get himself shot. A bullet to the back was good as a mimic's bone javelin.
Either way, he was screwed.
Sokka hunched forward in his seat on the cot, clutching his stomach. He'd been staring at the opposite wall of barracks for some time, trying not to think of the queasiness he felt upon this horrible revelation. He didn't even know if he was only one in stuck this loop.
It didn't matter. If he was the only one, then he had no choice but to fight, to kill his fear of dying.
Fine. If staying alive was the only way to get back at the world, then he'd fight. He'd become as calm as the girl with the golden eyes. Unflinching in the heat of battle. He hoped to see her again, fighting like a real soldier.
This is where his war would really begin.
A/N:
Happy 4th of July!
So, you may have noticed things are different here. I've never actually seen Tom Cruise's "Edge of Tomorrow", but I have read the manga it was inspired by - Takeshi Obata's "All You Need is Kill". I'd really like to delve into this one more and may come back with another installment to this little piece in the future. I believe this is prime Sokkla territory.
Hope you liked this new installment! I'll see you all for the next one!