An Unknown Enemy - Chapter 6: No Reprieve
WARNING: This chapter contains some graphic descriptions of injury and blood. If you don't like that stuff you should probably skip this chapter, there will be a TL:DR at the end of this chapter if you do so. Also, I'll put another warning in the text before the graphic stuff begins.
"Well, well, well… Look what we have here," tactical doll RFB sneered at Kia, her gun pointed at the Sangvis doll's chest. "I wonder what's Sangvis Ferri doing in this village?"
"I could ask the same of you," Kia warily replied, her eyes darting between the six Griffin dolls standing in front of her. Three of them were holding RFBs—one mainframe and two dummy links, Kia surmised—while three others held pistols in their hands. All the villagers already fled the area, leaving the street deserted save for the Griffin dolls, the four Guard units lying on the ground, the truck, and Kia, who stood just 20 metres away. Standing underneath the bright afternoon sun, Kia planted her feet firmly on the ground, seemingly unfazed by the Griffin dolls' superior numbers. Kia tightly gripped the handle of her loaded rifle, which was pointed at the ground beside her right leg. Past her unwavering façade, Kia's mind raced to find a way to defuse this situation, preferably one which didn't cause further violence to the village.
"You aren't in Griffin territory anymore," Kia told the lead Griffin doll.
"Sangvis Ferri isn't a legitimate group anymore," RFB retorted with a leer, "I'd say you're the ones trespassing on our turf, so you should be thankful I haven't put a bullet in your head yet."
"You haven't answered my question yet," Kia stated, unfazed by RFB's threat. "You're way too far from the frontlines to be on an ordinary patrol. Why did you come here?"
"We received a distress signal from this village. We were wondering what was going on, but seeing you here…" RFB stated, narrowing her eyes at Kia. "Well, can't say I'm surprised."
"Slow down, you're jumping to conclusions," Kia warned, "We are not your enemy here."
"Oh really, now?" RFB asked, feigning doubt while keeping the barrel of her rifle pointed squarely at Kia's forehead. "The ID tag over your head seems to disagree, heh."
"RFB, why are we still wasting our time on her?" the doll beside RFB—tactical doll Glock 17—asked.
"Hmph, guess it's time to stop playing around, huh," RFB replied, "Sangvis scum, any last words before I send you back to the respawn room?"
"Wait! We are on the same side here!" Kia shouted, raising a hand up to her chest. "We were sent here to defuse unexploded ordinance in the village, we're here to help these humans!"
"Aye, that's kinda sus, you know?" RFB mocked Kia, "Sangvis Ferri doing a good thing for a change? Nah mate, I must've missed the patch notes!"
"I'm not joking around here!" Kia snapped back, growing increasingly frustrated at the Griffin doll's taunts.
"And I'm not either," RFB responded, curling her index finger around the trigger of her rifle.
"Stand down!" Kia yelled, taking a step towards the Griffin dolls and raising her left hand in front of her.
"I swear, one more word and I'll drop you where you stand!" RFB hissed back, lowering her head behind her rifle's scope.
"Stop!" Kirov's voice suddenly rang out just as RFB was about to pull the trigger. Taking her eyes off Kia, RFB saw an old man half-run, half-limp his way onto the intersection, placing himself in front of a stunned Kia who watched in dismayed shock.
"Who's this NPC?" RFB asked Glock 17, lowering her rifle slightly. RFB looked back at the man, who was gasping for breath after having exerted himself to catch up with the Sangvis doll.
"Kirov! You gotta get out of here," Kia urged the village chief, "These are Griffin dolls, their conflict is with us, not your village."
"I thought I had already made it quite clear…" the village chief said between laboured gasps, "that I didn't want any more fighting within my village."
"Step aside, old man!" RFB called out, "Do you even know what you're talking to?"
"I know who I'm talking to," Kirov confidently answered, staring straight into RFB's eyes.
"Well, you should know that you are essentially talking to a terrorist," RFB slowly responded, perplexed at the man's lack of hostility towards the Sangvis doll. "And you should know that she is the enemy to all of society!"
"This 'terrorist' just saved the life of one of my villagers," Kirov rebuked, "Sangvis Ferri is not my ally, but she is not my enemy."
"What… the hell are you talking about?" RFB incredulously asked, tilting her head to one side as she stood upright, lowering her gun. "Who are you, anyway?"
"I am the chief of this village," Kirov declared, "If anything, you are the ones trespassing on my turf."
"You gotta be kidding me," RFB muttered under her breath, "Listen, sir! I don't know what this doll told you, but Sangvis Ferri is a threat to your village. Even if they help you today, they'll come back for your heads tomorrow!"
"Then tomorrow, we shall meet them with arms in hand," Kirov responded without hesitation, "But today, they have already found and removed multiple landmines in the village, perhaps saving the lives of multiple good people. The lives of the villagers are in my hands, who am I to decline their help?"
"He's right," Kia cut in, walking over forward to Kirov's side. Kia slung her rifle over her shoulder and slowly began walking towards the Griffin dolls, who now seemed hesitant to open fire. Kia fought hard to not wince from the five gun barrels still aimed at her as she slowly closed the distance between the two parties. Encouraged by the Griffin dolls' inaction, Kia continued to shakily take step after step as Kirov closely observed from behind.
"I know we've been enemies for years now, and I don't expect to be able to reconcile our relationships today," Kia slowly began, intently staring into the eyes of the Griffin dolls. "But today, we both have the same objective. We are both here to help the villagers, are we not? So for just this once, let's put aside our differences and work together for their sake!"
"What the hell am I even hearing…" RFB muttered, narrowing her eyes at Kia for a few seconds before turning her head to her partner. "G17, what do you think about this?"
"Well…" Glock 17 began, an uneasy frown on her face.
Before Glock 17 could respond, an explosion erupted in a backyard a few houses away causing everyone to spin their heads towards the noise. A flock of birds flew off into the sky as a cloud of dust rose from behind a concrete wall, and as the echoes of the explosion died off the dolls heard the pained screams of a man. Kia snapped her head back and locked eyes with RFB and Glock 17, the three's faces painted with confusion and concern. Without exchanging a single word, the three ran off towards the sound of the explosion, all grievances and hostilities seemingly forgotten for the time being.
WARNING: From here on, there are some graphic descriptions of injury and blood.
Turning a corner, Kia and the Griffin duo followed the sound of screaming and rushed over to a man lying on the ground. The man was perhaps in his thirties, dressed in work clothes, and his face was contorted in excruciating pain. In addition to several shrapnel wounds on his lower body, his right leg below the knee was blown clear off by the explosion, fresh red blood spurting from his artery onto the green spring grass. Kia's eyes widened as she approached the victim; although this was far from the first time she witnessed gruesome injury, the sight, smell, and sound accompanying such an event was something she still hadn't gotten used to quite yet.
"W-what the hell?!" RFB choked out as she held up a hand over her mouth, her face twisted in horror and nausea.
"Fuck!" Kia cursed as she bent down beside the man, throwing her rifle to one side as she laid down her medical bag. She hastily pulled out a tourniquet and looped it around the man's lower thigh while the injured man thrashed his body about.
"AAAARRRGGHH!" the man howled as Kia wrestled with the tourniquet on his leg, tightening it to cut off blood flow to the wound. The man arched his back in agony as he clenched his fists, digging them into the grass. Beads of sweat and tears rolled down the man's face, which was beginning to turn deathly white from blood loss.
"D-don't worry, sir!" Kia shouted over the man's screaming, "You're going to be alright! Please stay still!"
"RFB," Glock 17 asked in a terrified, high-pitched voice. "What do we do?"
"I- I don't know," RFB shakily responded, watching the man writhe on the ground as Kia desperately worked to stop the bleeding. Having finished applying the tourniquet, Kia pulled out a roll of hemostatic gauze and began wrapping it over the exposed flesh and bone below the man's knee.
"You!" Kia shouted at RFB, shooting a quick glance at her. "I need saline, now!"
"Saline?" RFB stammered, "I- I don't-"
"In the bag, clear fluid in plastic packaging," Kia quickly responded to RFB before addressing Glock 17, "And you, dark-brown hair, hold him down for me!"
RFB and Glock 17 helplessly glanced at each other for a moment before springing into action. RFB knelt down and began rifling through the Sangvis doll's bag, pushing aside various boxes and packages, searching for the saline solution. As she was searching, RFB tried to take in the realization that she was working side-by-side with a member of Sangvis Ferri—the enemy. The whole situation felt so surreal to her, as if she were in one of those weird video games shared on Grifchan. Nevertheless, the situation unfolding before her was as real as could be, and like her friend Glock 17, in that moment RFB decided that saving the man's life took precedence over her conflict with SF.
"Is this it?" RFB hurried asked Kia, raising a plastic bag filled with about a litre of clear liquid.
"Yes! thanks" Kia exclaimed, snatching the bag out of RFB's hands. RFB watched Kia with morbid awe as Kia fiddled with the syringe attached to a tube coming out of the bag, before inserting the syringe into a vein in the man's right wrist. Kia's hands and forearms were soaked crimson from the man's blood, which continued seeping through the hemostatic gauze onto the red-dyed grass beneath despite the gauze's clotting agents.
"You, hold this bag like this," Kia ordered RFB, instructing her to keep the saline bag above the man's body."
"What's this?" RFB asked.
"It's saline, a volume expander," Kia quickly explained while she searched through her bag once again, "He's suffering from acute shock caused by blood loss, this will maintain his blood pressure and volume, preventing cardiac arrest."
Holding the saline bag above the man's arm, RFB turned her gaze over to Glock 17, who was still gently pressing down on the man's chest and other arm. RFB noticed that the man was now struggling significantly less than before, his movements seemingly adopting an increasingly sluggish appearance. RFB assumed that the gauze contained some sort of painkiller, but she feared that a topical anesthetic wasn't the only thing causing the man's declining responsiveness.
"Ugh…" the man weakly uttered, seemingly drifting in and out of consciousness. He raised his head slightly, his eyes moving to look at Glock 17's face before he dropped his head back on the ground.
"Uhm, excuse me, m-medic?" Glock 17 quietly asked Kia, looking at the man's face. His eyes vacant and staring off into the sky, his skin was nearly as white as snow, and his breathing was shallow and rapid. Kia turned her head towards Glock 17, following her gaze to the man's face. She placed her palm on the man's forehead; it was cold and clammy, symptoms of decreased blood flow to the peripheral tissue.
"He's still losing blood, we have to stop the bleeding," Kia muttered to herself as she twisted the cap off a tube of biofoam before spraying it over the blood-soaked gauze over the man's amputation. RFB and Glock 17 watched as Kia then began wrapping another layer of hemostatic gauze over the wound, blots of red quickly spreading across the pristine white fabric as it soaked up the still-flowing blood. Kia paused to brush some loose hair back from her face, staining her forehead with blood, before wiping tears from her eyes using a clean portion of her sweater's sleeve. In stark contrast to the man's colourless face, the faces of the three dolls around him were flushed red with various degrees of fear, disbelief, and desperation.
Kia wiped her bloodied hands on the sides of her sweater before taking out a syringe of epinephrine. As Kia fumbled with the needle tip, Glock 17 bent over the man's face and put her ear above his chest; she was unable to feel or see any breathing.
"Medic, he's… he's not breathing anymore," Glock 17 gravely said to Kia.
Kia clasped her fingers around the man's throat; she couldn't feel a heartbeat either. God dammit! Kia thought to herself as she hastily shifted her body over to inject the epinephrine into the man's arm and began performing CPR. Glock 17 stood up to give Kia room, stumbling a step back in listless shock as she struggled to comprehend what was going on. Just about then, the village chief Kirov limped his way over to the group, his wheezing breath stopping abruptly as he laid eyes on the man on the ground. The wide-eyed Kirov stared at the scene before looking at Glock 17, who returned his gaze with a terrified, helpless expression.
One by one, villagers slowly began appearing around the group. Of those who didn't immediately faint or got scared away, the villagers watched in horrified silence as Kia continued conducting CPR on the lifeless man for minutes upon end, periodically stopping to administer more doses of epinephrine. But no matter what Kia did, the man remained unresponsive, lying on the ground as his body grew cold.
"He's gone…" RFB absently muttered, watching Kia as she brushed her hair aside once more, smearing yet more blood upon her face. "There's nothing left you can do for him…"
"No… I…" Kia softly cried, straightening her arms and planting them again on the man's chest, but she knew that RFB was right. Slowly, she bent her arms and relaxed her body, drooping her head close to the ground as she finally gave up. Her brown bangs fell like a curtain surrounding her face, contorted in despair and regret. How could this have happened? Kia lamented to herself as tears dropped onto the grass, mixing with the slowly drying blood. Why wasn't I able to stop his bleeding? What did I do wrong?
RFB let out a tired sigh, discarding the empty saline bag on the ground and placing a comforting hand on Kia's shoulder. "I'm sorry," RFB said, looking at the Sangvis doll while a tumultuous sea of emotion engulfed her mind. Breathing in the sharp metallic stench of blood, RFB remembered the last time she had seen such a horrific scene a long time ago during a Sangvis raid on a Griffin facility. The enemy had slaughtered everyone inside—doll and human alike—and the scene of its aftermath engraved itself into RFB's memory and was one of the key factors that drove RFB to despising Sangvis Ferri. Now, in stark contrast with that memory was Kia—member of Sangvis Ferri—whose valiant efforts just then would've surely earned her a commendation had she worked underneath the Commander.
Why are you doing this? RFB thought to herself, looking at Kia. What are you fighting for?
TL:DR: The Griffin dolls RFB and Glock 17 confront Kia, who tries to convince them that they have a common goal: helping the villagers. Before RFB and Glock 17 can make a decision, a villager steps on a hidden bomblet, causing the T-dolls to rush over. The man is gravely wounded, RFB and Glock 17 are forced to work with Kia to try and save the man. Despite their best efforts, they are unable to save him. RFB witnesses Kia's genuine care for the villagers, which contrasts with RFB's previous experiences with Sangvis Ferri, causing her to question why Kia is doing what she is doing.