Guns

I was about to jump but contained myself when I heard someone appear right next to me. I barely moved my head and out of the corner of my eye, I saw it was Mike. He leaned down and whispered in my ear, "We're about to get contacted."

"Shit." I moved up and behind a tree, making sure I was covered. I put myself against a tree but between two large rocks.

I peer over the rocks and raise my gun once more. I look around until I spot something. I look and see someone standing behind a tree, raising their own gun and aiming. I didn't know who it was aimed at but I knew it was aimed at one of my boys. I cocked my gun and made sure I got a good aim. The second I was sure of it and the man came out just a little further away from the tree, I fired. The bullet shot him in the head, making him drop instantly to the ground.

I was breathing so lightly, I couldn't even hear myself breathe. I heard two other snipe shots in the distance, not far from me. I quickly look and see Marcus shot another man down. It was silent for a moment in the woods when out of nowhere, a loud gun sounded, bullets flying.

I got up from my hiding spot and pushed forward, making sure I kept myself hidden. I heard more bullets being shot and some yells from men who were shot. Thankfully, I didn't hear any of the yells coming from my own men. I drop to the ground and crawl behind a stump, getting good aim. I look and see someone running towards me. I aim for the chest and shoot, and then the man drops dead.

"Moving!" Mike orders all of us.

I get up again and go behind a large boulder as the guys go behind trees, branches, or other rocks. I take a deep breath before coming over the rock and shooting any man I can out there, making sure they're dead. I see the guys going forward and I follow them. I have my gun ready as they do also and push forward.

I see someone coming toward us out of the corner of my eye and I quickly turn to shoot. The second I shoot at them, they shoot at me. Suddenly, I felt a searing pain in my face and I dropped to my knees, letting out a yell, clutching the side of my face. "Chris!"

I was about to get up when a pair of arms pull me up and make me look at the person. Mike looks at me with concern and when we hear another bullet fly past us, he pushes me back to the ground. "Are you alright?!"

"Fine! Just got a graze!"

He nods and gets back up, helping me to my feet. I wipe my cheek and see a bunch of blood on my sleeve. I growl and try to ignore it, going back to the fight. I hear some yelling and saw a man on top of Marcus, trying to reach his gun. I grab my gun, aim and try to not hit my teammate. They both kept moving so much and I didn't want to hit Marcus. The second I got a clear shot, I fired, hitting the man in the head.

Marcus pushed him off and quickly turned around to find the source of who saved him. He spotted me lowering my gun down and he gave me a slight nod in thanks. I do the same and turn around to find Danny shot in the hand. I quickly make my way over to him and grab an extra cloth out of my pocket. I take his hand in mine and wrap it around; making sure it was tight and would lessen the bleeding.

I run back over to the others and see Axe, Mike, and Marcus in a small group behind a large rock. I join them and try to catch my breath for a moment. Marcus looks over at me and his eyes widen. "What the fuck happened to you?!"

"It's just a graze, don't freak out."

Marcus faces forward and peeks over the edge of the rock. "Mikey. Left is good. I say again, left is good." The very second he finishes talking, a machine guns come out from the left side. We all take cover and slide further behind the rock, not taking any chances. "Mikey! Left is not good! I say again, left is not good!"

"Roger that! Push right!"

I look to the right while we are still taking cover and see nobody on the right side. I turn back to my team and call out, "We're good right!"

Mike goes on the radio and tell the others, "We are good right. Push right. Push right. Push right."

Mike stands up but out of nowhere, a gunshot goes off and hits him in the side. Marcus quickly pulls him down next to him, taking cover. After that, I hear Mike on the radio. "Right is no good. Right is no good."

I start running through the woods, dodging trees and jumping over rocks. A sudden impact smashes into me, throwing me on the ground. I look up and see a man on top of me, raising a knife. I quickly grab his arm and try to restrain it from coming down on me and killing me. The man got his second wind and brought the knife down, hard and deep into my shoulder.

I let out a loud, long yell, unable to contain it. I punch the man in the face, making him bleed. He yanked the knife out of my shoulder and was about to stab me again but I grip his arm and try to stop it from doing me any more harm. I heard two or three gunshots near me and the man stopped fighting me, his eyes wide.

He dropped on top of me and I pushed his body off me. I grip my shoulder and felt the blood seeping through my hand, the pain growing. Footsteps ran my way and when I looked up, I saw Marcus crouching next to me, looking at my shoulder as Axe helped me sit up. I grunted as I held my shoulder, the pain officially burning.

Marcus gently removed my hand from the wound and quickly put dirt on it to lessen the bleeding. He ripped off part of a piece of cloth he had in his pocket and put it on my shoulder, tying it around my arm. I winced as he made it tight, securing it. I kept hearing more bullets flying all around, the gunshots ringing in my ears.

"Marcus, on me!" we hear Mike yell from a distance.

Before he moved, Marcus grabbed both sides of my face and forced me to look at him. "You're gonna be fine. We're gonna get outta this and you're gonna be just fine. Got it? Axe, take care of her!"

Once he got up and left, Axe helped me to my feet, supporting me as we went to take cover. Bombs kept hitting everywhere near us, making dirt explode all over us, throwing us around in the air. Soon enough, we heard Mike yell, "Axe! Axe, Chris, on me!"

He pulls me close to him as we make it next to the group. I see we're at the very edge of a cliff. My eyes widen as I realize what we're about to do. Another bomb hits right behind us and we all jump, getting prepared for the impact. The second I hit the ground, my knees give out and collapse, my body flying down the hill. I keep rolling, dirt flying everywhere, my shoulder flaming with pain whenever I roll on it.

Soon, I'm in the air again and I fall back down on rocks, my body aching. I can't see anything, my world still spinning. I bang into a tree and I hope to stop but my body swings itself around the tree and keeps going. Somehow, I can barely hear the noises of the guys still going down, somewhere near me. My face smashes into a rock and I felt blood splat all over as I kept going.

I didn't feel rock anymore but I kept hitting trees and dirt, sometimes smacking into stumps and flying from them. I smash into branches as I keep rolling, wanting to stop but my wish doesn't get answered. I didn't care how I was stopped, as long as the pain was gone. I roll down another small cliff and go down hard on a rock, crushing my wounded shoulder. I let out a loud scream as I keep going.

What felt like hours later, my body slams itself into a rock, a sudden stop. I stayed still, not wanting to move and cause more pain to myself. My head was still spinning and my body ached now more than ever. I've been through a lot of shit in my life but so far, this experience is by far, number one. I whimper as I raise my head and open my eyes to see the boys not too far away from me but not the closest, either.

I saw they were all gathering behind a large rock and tree so I used all my strength to push myself up and get to my feet. I slowly made my way towards them and when I was about halfway, I felt someone come up behind me and quickly but gently helped me to my feet. Danny gave me support as we climbed up towards the other two.

I was at the edge of the rock when Marcus moved from his place and grabbed my hand, pulling me up and close to him. The same moment Danny and I joined the group, Axe did too. "That sucked."

"I couldn't agree more, bud." I moan.

"They fuck….they fucking shot me." Danny announces.

"Livin' in the past, Danny." Mike says.

"We're all shot, bro. Can you fight?" Marcus asks.

"Messed up my drawing hand, that pisses me off."

"Chris, you alright?"

I lazily look over at Marcus and saw he was truly concerned. I looked around for a moment and saw they were all looking at me. I smiled and started to softly chuckle. "Those fuckin' assholes gotta throw a lot more than that to get rid of me. I still got some fight left in me, give me all you got."

They all smiled my way, happy with my answer. "We just gotta get to flat ground, then we can take these motherfuckers, that's it." Marcus encourages.

Before any of us could make another move, I hear a couple more bullets passing us but Danny got hit in the foot. We all peek over the rock and start shooting, trying our best to stay covered. I heard Danny cuss as he got shot again but this time, in the shoulder.

"Danny, you alright?" I yell.

"Yeah, I'm fine!"

I turn back to fight and just as I was reloading, a bullet went past my face and missed but it still hit me. Grazed my neck, blood immediately slipping down my neck, an intense feeling going out through my body. I hiss in pain but keep fighting, not turning away from the damn fight, no matter what. I went to crouch down and reload again when I heard all the boys yelling, "Peel left!"

We run from the rock and in the trees, taking cover by the woods. We make our own trail, all five of us struggling to keep ourselves up and not collapse or fall behind. I'm right behind Marcus and Mike is right behind me. I keep going, pushing myself as I feel myself loose more blood from my wounds and making me weaker. My foot got caught in a tree root and I slip and bang my head on the ground before I scramble to my feet. I hear buzzing in my ears as I still hear gunshots in the distance behind us but coming closer. Danny falls and can't get back up but I see Marcus grab his should strap and drag him the rest of the way.

To make sure they were safe, I fall back a bit and push Axe and Mike further ahead of me, telling them to go faster. I wasn't gonna let them get hit, not if I could somehow stop it. They both start running but I couldn't, the pain in my body restraining me. They kept getting further and further ahead until I lost them completely, both of them gone through the trees. I stopped for a moment, trying to see if I could hear their footsteps or their voices but I got nothing. All I could hear was my own heavy breathing and the buzzing in my eyes, the pain in my head making it harder to concentrate.

I push myself more, grunting every now and then, going forward. Before I knew it, I came upon a clearing. It looked like another hill we just came from but a little less rocks, more boulders, and more dirt. For a moment, I thought I heard one of the guy's voices so I nearly killed myself by putting one foot in front of the other and started running. I wasn't looking where I was going; all I knew was that I had to find my boys.

I don't know how long I was going for but soon enough, I ran off a little rock ledge and since I wasn't expecting it, I didn't jump. Instead, I fell straight down and I prepared myself for another rolling adventure except I didn't hit dirt or rocks. I landed on someone, making that person and a few others yell in surprise.

I quickly look up to see the person I landed on and was shocked to find Mike. The four of them were just as shocked but Mike grabbed me by my shoulder strap and yanked me up next to him, against the rock wall. "Chris, you alright? Jesus, we thought we lost you!"

"Don't worry about me." I saw in a low voice.

Marcus leans forward and looks past both Danny and Mike to look me in the eyes. "Telling any of us not to worry about you is like telling you not to fight."

I couldn't help but almost smile at the comment. If anyone would tell me I can't fight, I'd probably kill them. It's good to know he still cares even after everything that's been said and done in the past few hours. I realized we were all out of breath and trying to regain our strength in the small moment we got.

"Hey." I hear Marcus but nobody turns to him. "Hey." I look over at him and so does Danny and Mike. "This is bad, here. This is a fucking problem." He then turns to the most wounded of the five of us. "You're ok, right?"

"Shot me up pretty good, bro." Danny stated.

Marcus started to put some dirt on his leg wound and I saw Danny trying to suppress a yell, a tear slipping down his cheek. Ignoring my own pain and torture, I crawled over Mike and sat next to Danny, keeping a hold on his hand, giving him comfort. He squeezed my hand with nearly all his strength, making it almost hurt but comforting to know he was still there with me.

Once Marcus was done and moved to Mike, I looked at Danny and couldn't help but launch myself at him, hugging him tight. He immediately wraps his arms around my body, pulling me close to him. I ball my hands into fists, clutching his uniform in my hands. This experience has been the worst one we've ever encountered and none of us knew what to do. We didn't know what would happen.

I lean my head on Danny's shoulder and whisper, "I'm scared."

He tightens his grip on me, rocking me ever so slightly. "I know. I know, Crystal. Me too."

"Chris, come here." Marcus orders.

I hesitantly let go of Danny and face Marcus. He carefully grabs my neck and looks at the wound, wiping some blood from it and making me wince. He grabs a handful of dirt and shoves it in the wound, making the bleeding stop a little. The sting intensifies as I crank my neck backwards, trying to not make a noise. Someone puts their hand over my mouth and lets me yell as loud as I wanted and thankfully, it came out muffled.

"Mikey, how'd they get us so fast?" Danny asks, real loudly.

"SSHH! Shut the fuck up!" Marcus quickly hisses, turning to the most wounded of us.

"I just don't understand how fucking fast they were, man. Oh, fuck. I just…fucking faster than we are?"

"They're not faster than us." Axe whispers, not too reassuringly.

"I was fucking talkin' to my mom. She didn't fuckin' say nothing about…she didn't fuckin' say nothing!" Danny looks at his hand that was wrapped in a now blood red cloth. "Oh, fuck, such vivid reds. Oh!"

"We gotta move, Mikey." Marcus informs and the second the words leave his mouth, gunshots start firing our way once again.

Mike gets up and runs somewhere behind us but I hear his voice yell, "Axe, smoke! Smoke up! Smoke 'em!"

Axe throws a smoke container and we run to join Mike and I see we are at the edge of another ledge, but I didn't see any kind of dirt on this one. "We're not fuckin' doin' this again, are we?"

"Damn right we are!"

Marcus throws Danny on his shoulders and we start to take turns jumping. Mike jumps first, Axe follows, then me, and then Marcus and Danny. I don't even try to stand or stop myself from rolling down, I knew it was pointless. The second I land on the rock, I go tumbling down, the rock smashing my shoulder and my entire body.

I keep rolling but thankfully, it didn't last as long as the last time. All I did was roll down the rocks and every once in a while, get thrown in the air. I went down a small hill of rocks and the small of my back smashed into another rock, making me yell out in pain. My world was spinning, seeing nothing but blurs of green and grey and sometimes blue. Just as soon as the rolling started, it stopped and I landed at the bottom, against a tree.