5 Second Countdown
by. Poisoned Scarlet
02: Hostage
02 weeks, 01 day, 012 hours, 59 seconds ago
She tried to contact Alphonse by using public telephone lines but they refused to pass her through. They stated she needed to wait in order for her call to be passed or, usually, that they couldn't allow regular civilians to contact active military officers.
Even though he technically wasn't in the military – not from what she'd heard – they still wouldn't pass her calls through and it annoyed her for better part of the day when it happened.
The same happened with Ed though she had only tried three times to call him. She did not want to deal with his explosive, over-protective, nature because she knew that the instant he said "you're not going" she would submit to the fear inside her and not join the armed forces.
Alphonse was easier to deal with: he would understand, no matter how much he would try and convince her not to go. He'd also help her cope with the fear and anxiety wrecking havoc in her body.
He could also keep secrets.
Edward would shout it out to anyone within a 1-mile radius.
Needless to say, Al was her favourite in this case.
She put the phone down and sighed, kicking her feet back and forth. She sunk into her chair, the phone was tempting her again. She looked away, to her bed, and quickly flashed her eyes to the floor when she caught sight of that offending piece of clothing...
She had been handed her medical uniform a few hours after recruitment. The pants were blue and it came with the standard white gloves, a simple, medic-ranked, blue military coat along with a brand new set of boots. With her attire came an optional plain white coat with her last-name sewed nicely on her right breast.
It was mocking to look at so she tried to avoid contact with it as much as possible.
It was the coat, however, that compelled her to call her grandmother once and for all.
She had left angry and hurt and didn't say goodbye...she just pulled an Ed, to her horror, and waved as she walked away.
At least... she thought, as she waited for her grandmother to pick up. It's the least I can do...call her and say goodbye...
She had rented out a simple lodging close by HQ. It was the same building Ed and Al would usually rent whenever they were in Central during their quest. It felt nostalgic, something which killed her at night because she knew she would not be able to sleep in such luxuries for a long, long time.
"Granny? It's Winry..."
The very next day she was due to leave to North City and would be appointed to one of the three hospitals in the city for a few hours for orientation. Then she would head out to the closest hospital to the battle field to heal wounded soldiers, which was technically a mile or so away from the great Briggs wall. And from the news she had heard, Briggs was having a difficult time subduing Drachmian forces as their low numbers from the coup d'etat had them in a tight wedge.
The new soldiers never fully learned the way of Briggs and Eastern soldiers weren't used to the harsh climate, so they were vulnerable to many of the elite soldiers Drachma never failed to dispatch when the moment was right.
There were also rumors that enemy had infiltrated North City under civilian guises...
"I...just called to, um, say g-good bye granny," Winry whispered, listening to her grandmother's voice reprimand harshly "this isn't goodbye, you idiot girl!" when they both knew with sickening clarity that she just might not make it back from where she was going.
She just might not survive the frigid, unforgiving, land which was the North.
Survival of the fittest.
Did she have the strength to survive in a stone-cold, barren, landscape?
"Those who show mercy shall not survive the harshness of Briggs."
She tried not to think about.
She smiled a bit, her hands still clutching the phone as she placed it back on the receiver.
She had been telling herself that a lot, hadn't she?
Just try not to think about it...
01 week, 01 day, 010 hours, 35 seconds ago
She had rode in a stuffy, state-owned, vehicle with a dozen other rather snobby doctors.
Their equipment had been shipped days previous to their arrival and they had been given strict orders of conduct during their ride to North City by a commanding officer who scared the living out of her with his booming voice.
Arrival had been prompt and unexciting after that.
Orientation had been dull.
Getting to know the staff she would be working with for the next few weeks was a bit interesting, even though many didn't seem to like her. Some said she was too young to be working in such a dangerous place and others stated she didn't have enough experience to take the stress of the job.
Winry ignored them.
She made a few friends that didn't judge her by her age at all. They seemed very surprised and pleased that someone her age had managed such an accomplishment, even though the pain of knowing she would put her skills to the test in such a harsh environment dampened their joy.
Melanie had been one of them.
She was a middle-aged woman with kind green eyes and a motherly smile. She had come from Reole and they had met accidentally, while going to the bathroom actually, but it only took one small smile and a simple "hello" to forge a strong bond.
She had also been the one to calm Winry down when her first patient rolled in. The amount of soldiers that she saw come in and out of the hospital was staggering and frightening. Winry couldn't believe how utterly gory this line of duty actually was, too, nor how loud a human could scream when they were in pain.
She wondered how her parents did it.
"Cheryl, get over here! I need disinfectant and bandages stat! He's loosing too much blood, oh, no..." Winry tried to snip off the soldier sleeve so she could get a better visual of the gaping bullet wound. He gasped and clutched her hand, digging his blunt nails into her tender skin as he strove for breath. "Shit," she had nearly chopped off his finger. "Cheryl NOW!"
"Ma'am!" the nurse – Cheryl – shouted, wheeling in a trolley packed full of the supplies she would need. She glimpsed the pandemonium behind her – the moaning soldiers and doctors shouting calm orders over their pained cries – but focused on her own patient as more soldiers wheeled into the emergency room.
Winry tried her best to inspect the man for any more wounds but it was hard when he kept writhing under her hold and calling out for a person she assumed was his comrade.
"Calm down," Winry ordered, in a controlled voice, and flinched when the man managed to twist her hand the wrong way. "Sir, please—Cheryl, help me!"
The adrenaline that made her heart pound as hard as it did made her face pale, eyes wide, and hands shaky. She often found herself not thinking and simply relying on her instincts but this time she couldn't afford to not think. This soldier was loosing too much blood, the wound was much too big to be properly bandaged and she couldn't sew him up as they had run out of anesthesia and were expecting refills in a few hours time.
It was too dangerous to stick a piece of wood between his teeth, preform minor surgery, sew him up, and call it even.
Until then this soldier would have to endure.
"Hold him down!" Winry demanded, flinching when he released a loud, savage, roar and forced himself up. Blood gushed from his bullet wound the more he moved his shoulder, splattering her white coat red. "Sir, stop! Stop, you're bleeding too much! You can't move just—"
"Those bastards!" he screamed, obsidian eyes scorching and unfocused as he reached for something that was not there. "They killed him! They took him! They killed him!"
"SEDATE HIM!" Winry shrieked. The nurse looked worried as she struggled to hold him down.
"Ma'am, we don't have enough vials to use so recklessly!" She shouted over the soldiers words of vengeance. "We were ordered to use those only on severe cases!"
This is severe! Winry thought, irritated.
"We have to! He can hurt those around him so its too risky to leave him awake." Winry bit her lip, as she tried to hold him down on the table. He was too panicked; she couldn't calm him down. "Go! Hurry! Before he gets more agitated and looses more blood!"
"But... r-right!" the nurse hesitated before sprinting out of the emergency room, leaving Winry to deal with the delusional man crying out for his fallen comrade.
It was times like these that she wished she was at home, under her covers, reading silly romance novels and daydreaming about silly girly things involving a certain Elric.
Normal things for girls her age.
"Rockbell! Finish up and get over here!" a fellow doctor called, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his white coat. "I've got a good one for you right here: leg chopped off!"
"I'll be right there!" she shouted over her shoulder, a sheen of sweat on her forehead. "Just hold up! I have to stitch this guy up!"
But now, as the nurse came back and stabbed a needle into the mans arm shakily, knocking him out enough for Winry to quickly cut off the shirt to properly mend the wound as more and more soldiers wheeled into the room, Winry didn't have time for dreaming.
She needed to get a hold of herself and do her job.
The man gasped for breath, chest heaving, fingers trembling as the sedatives kicked in a few minutes later. He opened one eye lazily, lids fluttering. Oddly, a thick ooze of blood trickled from the corner of his lip...
What?
That was when she noticed the jagged hole in his lower abdomen, once the shirt had been completely removed.
How...why didn't I notice that before?
The bottom part of the shirt was soaked in his blood. That should have tipped her off, but...
He twitched on the table, opened his mouth wide to show blood-stained teeth and white gums. His eyes rolled to the back of his head. He arched up on the table, groaning as he gasped his last breaths.
Winry paled.
Too much sedative, she realized. The nurse miscalculated the dosage!
He was loosing too much blood—the sedative was causing him more harm than good—he was going to die if she didn't do something—
"Winry! Come here! We have more wounded! I have a guy here with a leg blown off! WINRY!" a woman shouted, antsy.
"Rockbell! I thought you said you were done with him! Get your ass over here, ASAP!" the same man from before shouted, annoyed. "His legs fucking mutilated, man..."
The soldier gasped in a deep, wheezing, breath.
Winry was bolted to the floor.
She stared at the sudden halt of his chest, the loss of light in his eyes. As the blood stilled in his veins, it continued to pour from the openings in his body...pooling on the table, dripping off the edge and getting all over her boots.
He died.
She couldn't even muster up enough nerve to shake properly.
All because you weren't fast enough to save him.
"WINRY!"
All because of one dumb mistake.
"Rockbell! Hurry the fuck up – aren't you an automail surgeon or something? This man doesn't have a fucking leg!"
"Winry, please, hurry," Cheryl urged, glancing at the soldier and freezing. She smiled tightly and waved over someone standing at the entrance of the emergency room: the special doctors who wheeled away the unfortunate ones...
"Right...right, I'm coming," she rasped. She mechanically moved away, stunned by the death.
She quickly went over to the legless soldier, who clutched it as he howled in pain and tried to retain his dignity by not crying even though she could see beads of tears accumulate in the corner of his eyes.
At least be fast enough to save this one, Winry, she told herself as she got to work.
That night was spent tossing and turning, crazed eyes and pained cries haunting her dreams.
Every single time she awoke it was to the same accusatory glare that made her chest ache as she strove for breath. Her heart would thud in her ears, drowning out all other noise. She tried to keep her whimpers and crying down to whispers but ultimately failed since her cries would get out of control the more she thought about that soldiers dead eyes; that soldier who most likely had a family...with children and a loving wife who would never, ever, see him again because of one stupid mistake.
It was all her fault he died and she didn't know how to handle it; not yet, not ever.
The guilt only festered when Melanie shushed her and rocked her back to sleep.
It's all my fault.
The worst part was, Melanie never denied it.
07 days, 05 hours, 01 second ago
Winry paused, the lounge losing its peaceful silence. She could hear something happening outside; a different sort of noise than the screams of victims and strict orders of doctors. She tied her hair back into a low ponytail and glanced at the clock: 5 am in the morning...
It's so early to be receiving soldiers, Winry frowned. Then again we've gotten a whole lot of them at 3 am last time... She was on her 15 minute break as other doctors handled the recovering soldiers in bed-rest. Their hospital was nearly packed, as it was the closest to the battleground, and they would eventually have to relocate several moderately hurt and gravely injured soldiers to another hospital farther away to be able to continue receiving the wounded.
She nearly dropped her cup when she heard a gunshot.
What the heck is happening out here? Winry rushed into the hall, closing the door of the lounge behind her, a coffee cup held tightly in her hands. "Hey! What's—"
She'd just taken a small break to refill her coffee cup. This was what happened during her absence..?
There was utter chaos abounding the hospital room: patients out of their beds and limping away from their rooms, terror etched onto their faces. Some wounded soldiers were shouting with vicious conviction, trying to subdue the enemy she just glimpsed as doctors and soldiers alike mixed together so perfectly Winry could no longer tell which was which. They all blurred past her.
But when the swarm of bodies thinned out, she felt her heart skip a beat.
She dropped her cup, ignoring the sting of scalding hot coffee as it splashed on her pants, and stared at the foreign attire of Drachmian soldiers. There were dozens of them, their guns out and threatening; their eyes bent on havoc as they marched through the hospital and shot limping soldiers down.
How... how did they penetrate the Briggs wall? She thought with horror, backing away. How could this have happened?It's impossible – there's no way they could've...
Their large, furred, hats; the navy blue, nearly black, uniform; the severe expressions; the eyes that spoke of years of hard training. The arms they held in their hands, gleaming under the fluorescent lights of the hospital, merely enhanced their dangerous allure. There was no mistaking it: they were Drachmian. They had, somehow, managed to get past the menacing fort...
Their precence kept her rooted to the spot long enough for them to notice her. One of them caught her eye and she was too frightened to do anything else but run in the opposite direction like a headless chicken as bullets tore through the air.
One by one screams began to cease and Winry's heart threatened to burst in her chest.
She shoved past people, tears welling in her eyes the father in the hospital she ran. She dashed up a stairwell, nearly tripping on a step as she reached the top, and ran into the second floor, where doctors were shouting questions at her. Her foot caught on a trolley and she clumsily tried to fix the bottles and vials of medicine that clattered all over the metal and to the floor.
"Hey, Rockbell, what's happening?" someone asked.
"They—soldiers—they're here!" she mumbled, tremulously, slipping on a vial and falling on her backside painfully. "It's Drachmian soldiers! They've infiltrated the hospital!" she gasped, holding her leg as a pain shot up it.
"Drachmian soldiers?" the middle-aged doctor repeated beside her on a louder tone. "Th-they're inside? Dear lord they've—!"
A shot was fired.
"N..no..." Winry sucked in a sharp breath, staring at the doctors lifeless body.
She was glad he had fallen backward and not facing her.
She didn't think she could handle staring into another pair of dead eyes.
Screams followed soon after.
The second floor was officially in chaos now and she struggled to stand up.
The fall had bruised her knee and the sharp corner of the trolley had sunk into her thigh, tearing skin open.
But that wasn't why she cried harder.
No one bothered to help her. They merely ran past her without a glance.
It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, she convinced herself. Just—keep going! She was about to continue her mad run when she caught sight of the fellow nurse who had helped her through so many cases in the past few days, on the floor and holding her head; she must've bumped it on the ground when she slipped...
She bolted to her before her mind caught up with what she was doing.
She tried not to think of the soldiers that were closing in on her from behind.
Just don't think about it!
"Stand up!" Winry urged, grabbing her by the wrist and tugging her up. Her thigh was bleeding a lot but the pain hadn't really registered yet; not with the amount of adrenaline coursing through her veins.
She needed to help her, that was all she was thinking, she needed to help her. She needed to get out. She needed to run, sprint, bolt out of the place that had now became a battleground.
More gunshots.
More screams.
Glass shattered.
A light fixture fell from behind her and Winry glanced over her shoulder, to the Drachmian soldier who hooted in thrill as he shot the ceiling; as if he enjoyed riling them up and watching them run away...he probably did, Winry thought resentfully.
"Winry, run away!" Melanie pushed her away, eye shut in pain. She must've head her head hard. "You don't have time to help me! I'll be right behind you— just go!"
"Just stand up!" Winry pleaded, shaking her head. She refused to leave her. "Come on, we're gonna' make it together! Mel—"
Sounds crashed together to form a horrific melody of fractured screams and broken words.
There was an explosion of pain in the back of her head.
A gush of air wheezed through constricted lungs.
Her knee's hit the tiles, bruising under her weight, as her skull cracked against the floor. A foot lodged itself firmly on her back. She felt the barrel of a gun stab into her head.
The last thing she saw were Melanie's stricken eyes, as the woman was pulled up by her chestnut hair and slowly faded along with the shouts and screams and bullets that Winry would never forget; even as her eyes closed and darkness consumed her.
07 days, 01 hour, 37 seconds ago
Her cheek felt wet. Actually, she felt frozen as she slowly came to.
There was a disgusting aroma filtering through her lungs. She tried to cough it out but it only made it worse.
Her body had felt better days, as she groaned and tried to regain her bearings. She couldn't remember what happened...her head ached like nothing else and her back felt sore...but soon it all came back to her in the form of watering green eyes.
The hospital! Melanie! Her eyes snapped open and a scream stuck in her throat when she saw that she was lying in a pool of frosty blood. She backpedaled hastily against the slushy, blood-painted, snow that soaked into her clothing.
Why was there so much blood?
Something bumped against her and when she looked, she saw it was a head; a person. Relief flooded through her as she touched him.
She wasn't alone.
"Hey. Hey, are you ok—"
He was heavy, heavier than usual, and she gave the body a tentative push, freezing when it fell limply forward and splashed into the slush of red; his neck twisting the wrong way.
"Please, please be alive," she whispered. She didn't think about the slosh, the pond of life she was bathing in, as she tremulously touched the artery on his crooked neck.
She felt no pulse.
His skin felt pasty and cold.
Suddenly, the smell of death was so overpowering she wondered how she hadn't notice it before.
"O-oh God," Winry choked, her body shaking when she saw that she was in a room littered with bodies. "Oh God.. oh God.. oh God... no.. no—this—this can't be happening... please..." She shut her eyes, bile rising. "Please." She took deep breaths, trying to calm her rapidly beating heart, and she succeeded enough to gaze around her; to digest the bloodshed that made her stomach turn.
She saw more bodies lined up against the walls with clean holes in their foreheads. They were sat nicely, each one cuffed crudely with rope, and the despair and rage on their faces was still very much alive despite the dead glare in their eyes.
It looked recent.
There was still blood trickling out of the holes in their bodies.
That was where all the blood had come from...
Some bodies were shot so many times body parts were severed or hanging by a sinew of muscle. Those weren't in such a neat line – those were thrust into the wood wall by the force of the bullets; some slumped forward, some twisted to the side; their insides very visible.
A door crashed open, the persons words deafened by the sound of her own crying, and Winry glimpsed the outline of a woman before her stomach won against her logic.
That was the first time she had vomited so badly that she was sure the acid in her stomach burned blisters in her throat.
06 days, 07 hours, 34 seconds ago
Winry discovered that the place she had come to in was actually a small, derelict, house abandoned in the barren land outside Fort Briggs. She had been kept there for a little while, cold and starving, with many others by her side.
The reason she had been inside the house was because they had figured she'd die along with the rest in due time. She was grateful Melanie had saved her from becoming another number in their book.
But...I could escape, she thought, staring longingly at the beautiful mountain tops ahead. I could just—run away and never look back. But she knew the bullets would reach her before she did and send her off to a different kind of freedom.
If the bullets don't finish me off, the cold will.
But they were so close to help, Winry could almost taste freedom as they shoved her along the blinding white terrain. The Fort was becoming a distant wall in the chalky horizon the farther they walked.
Soon it disappeared when a cloud of white blew in.
And there goes freedom, she thought dully. There goes...everything...
"Keep moving, Winry," Melanie said through chattering teeth.
"I can't feel my feet," she whispered back.
"Just keep going, okay? Don't fall behind."
Winry nodded jerkily. Her hands were stiff and the circulation was cutting off from the thick rope binds on her wrists. The tips of her fingers were starting to become completely numb and Winry feared frostbite. She no longer felt her face and every time she moved her lips they cracked and blood would begin to well. But these were things that were ignorable compared to the pounding of her head and the emptiness of her stomach. It didn't help that her body felt weak and heavy from the vomiting fit a day ago...
"Where..where are we going?" Winry asked, cautiously glancing at the soldiers that marched forward with deep scowls.
"To Drachma, obviously," Melanie replied, a little dryly. "We're probably going to their base...or some camp...we are technically war hostages now."
"Oh." She was shaking but it wasn't from the cold. Strangely, it was from the fear and despair that had meshed nicely with the hope inside her heart. She liked to let everyone else think that it was the cold that had her quivering...but she was pretty sure everyone else who shivered wasn't shivering from the cold, either.
"War hostages," Winry repeated bitterly, closing her eyes when a strong gust of air slapped her face. "Do you think they'll kill us?"
"Maybe," Melanie sighed softly. "I-I don't know...I've never been a war hostage before..."
"Well, um, there's a first time for everything, right?" she smiled tiredly, hoping to at least bring a little light to the endless tunnel of darkness they had descended in.
"Walk faster," Melanie murmured, quietly supporting Winry's weight when she noticed the girl's suddenly sluggish steps. "You can't fall behind. You'll catch their attention if you do."
"Yeah..." I only had coffee, she thought, a little deliriously. I knew not eating would come back and bite me in the ass. Her foot caught in a ditch of snow and she fell onto Melanie, who had to stop completely so she could break her fall.
It didn't work.
A soldier saw this and scowled.
"What's the hold up here?" he demanded. "Get moving."
But Winry's foot hurt and she thought, with rising panic, that maybe she had sprained it? The numb feeling from the ice made it hard to decide.
"I said, move!"
"Hey, what's the hold up?" another officer called, his voice rugged. "Move it!"
Winry desperately pushed Melanie out of the way, as she struggled to stand when a particularly rough gust of wind shoved her back down.
"Don't come near me," Winry hissed, through chattering teeth. "They'll hurt you if you do! I-I can stand up by myself, don't worry!"
Melanie looked torn.
"Move it!" a harsh voice commanded, sending her into the snow again when his foot connected with her back. "Stand up, you filthy Amestrian! I SAID STAND UP!" His foot pushed harder into her back.
"I-I can't!" she gasped. "Please—just get your foot off—!"
Pain exploded in her stomach.
She hacked something out. It wasn't blood but it was something acidic and nasty.
She heard laughter.
"STAND UP!"
Her arms sunk deeper into the snow, froze further as the ice slowly began to damage the already burned tissue of her fingers. Her body had sunken two feet into the ditch and she could not, for the life in her, stand up on her own. The kick made everything worse; she was sure he'd bruised her ribs.
Her arms gave out and she whimpered in the snow, the ice like fire against her skin.
The Drachmian soldier frowned. He pulled her up by her ponytail, a hoarse cry escaping her lips as he set her on her feet again. She felt his hands grip the front of her shirt, his other hand brush against her breast.
She desperately pushed away but he held her there.
Her eyes widened when he grabbed her breast.
"N...NO! Let me go—let me go, you bastard!" She pushed away, only to be clutched by the neck and shoved around; his hand still cupping her breast. He was cruel, she admitted, to flip her around and show everyone the vulgarity of his actions.
"Be still," the man murmured into her ear. She felt disgusted by his breath against her ear.
"Hey! Save it for later!" another soldier called, sounding amused. "It's fucking cold out here!"
"Shut up!" the man snapped, his hand tightening around her breast. It hurt, she thought with watering eyes, it hurt so badly the more he gripped her. It hurt both emotionally and physically. She wished he would just stop; she wished she could do something but the gun in their hands scared her too much to try something.
"St..stop it," she choked, teeth clenched in rage. "Stop it!" She caught Melanie's watering eyes and looked away instantly. She struggled against him, dark thoughts running circles in her head as she resisted a choke of pain from how hard he was gripping her breast. He's just-just touching my breast, she tried to rationalize, bringing forth that Rockbell tough attitude her grandmother always praised. It's nothing. It's nothing. It's nothing...
His lips touched the crown of her head and she couldn't suck up the shuddering sob that wracked her body.
A-at least I'm alive, she shut her eyes. I—I'm...alive...just—just don't think about it!
His hand slid from her breast and he pushed her forward without warning. Melanie rushed to her and tried to hold her up with her shoulder, her green eyes hatefully glaring at the satisfied soldier with his hands on his hips.
The other surviving doctors and few Amestrian soldiers in their wake allowed Winry a few moments to regain her dignity.
"Break time's over!" a soldier shouted, getting his gun out and stabbing the barrel into the backs of lagging hostages. "Come on! Move it along! Move it along!"
Winry tremulously glanced at the soldier who'd touched her, at his lewd smile and the frightening promise that glowed in his black eyes.
"There we go," he drawled, when Winry shakily took a step and then another. She walked past him, his eyes roving her body in a way that made her feel dirty. "I've got special plans for you, girl. Don't die on me just yet, you Amestrian slag."
"Don't listen to him," Melanie breathed into her ear. She helped her forward with her shoulder. "Don't listen to him – I won't let anything happen to you. I promise you."
She heard his chuckles from behind her.
Winry felt like vomiting again.
At least you know they won't let you die – not yet.