District 42-Chapter 199: The last soldier part 3
The colonel walked towards the exit of that place, leaving behind all his sins and mistakes. For a moment, right after kill all those people, he thought how he would be living with all those lives on his shoulders with so many ghosts haunting him.
However, he wasn’t sure even if he would be still alive until the sunrise, so he tried to not think much about that. His mind, in truth, was a bit aloof. Casper was still trying to absorb what he just made so lightly.
Once he got into the exit and was going to step outside the Operation center, Ana appeared in front of him. She was gasping, out of breath. Her body, at first glance, was ok; there was no major harm there. However, the brigade captain wasn’t looking too good, which Casper associated to be exhaustion for that hellish night they were passing for.
Ana looked behind Casper, and saw all those people without life in their bodies anymore, laying on the ground silently. It was awful, she needed to admit, but they knew that something like that was going to happen at some point.
They were already the villains of that situation anyway. Runaway from this fact would just kill them faster.
"We need to go now, Ana. I already took the data we need."
Once she heard that, the brigade captain nodded with her head.
"All the people who were running after us are dead. At least, for now, we won’t be chased by anyone. But... another comrade died."
The colonel felt like he was dead inside before, and now one more part of him rotted. He was feeling sick.
"Ok, let’s keep going. We still need to get out of here, remember?" Casper marched forward, as fast as he could, and Ana followed him.
In the way, they didn’t have troubles. It was hard to believe, but a troop of 10 militaries of the Yanke Forces could take down dozens of dozens of soldiers guarding that place.
"For now, all the way until the surface will be peaceful... but once up there we will have a lot of trouble for sure..."
He was thinking deeply about something while searching inside himself for the will and the courage to say it out loud. Ana didn’t respond to any of his comments at all, and it let him immerse in his own thoughts.
"Ana, before we go up those stairs, take the pen drive with you... And once we get there, I will hold as many soldiers as I can, kill all of them if possible, and let you escape. I am not as harmed or exhausted as you are, so I can do it more efficiently. Also, there is no point in me being the one getting out of here with the pen drive; as long as this freaking data can get to the Headquarters, then anyone can deliver it... Since the start I was ready to step on my pride and be hated by everyone, to take responsibility for other people’s lives, and to lose my own on this cruel mission, but... But I never could bring myself to think in lose yours!"
Casper stopped to walk, his voice was choked, and his hands were trembling. He couldn’t find the strength to just keep walking without a response from Ana. However, no matter how much time he waited, she didn’t answer, she did no sound at all.
"Ana, please, say som--" He turned to her, willing to look in her eyes, just in time to see her losing the stability on her arms and letting her gun fall.
Her face didn’t look any good, and at that point, Casper saw that it wasn’t due to exhaustion. Of course, it wasn’t.
The soldier ran towards Ana and got her onto his arms before she fell to the ground. He dragged her near the wall, and leaned her back there, searching through Ana’s body.
"W-what’s happening!? What the heck is it, Ana? Ana? Are you okay? Please, don’t tell me..." He stopped to talk when she moved slowly her hand and put it near a barely noticeable hole in her clothes. Since the fabric was black, it was hard to realize it without taking a good look, and the injury was on her right flank, which made it harder.
"No... No! It... It’s on the damn liver... They got you right on the liver... W-when it was?"
"Before I found you and... the general... I needed... fight with blades..." Her voice was weaker than before, and each time lower.
Casper could not find words to say there, he couldn’t even touch her. The colonel barely could believe that she struggled for so long with a lethal wound like that. She must have suffered a lot, feeling all the strength of her body vanishing.
Casper heard sounds coming from the entrance of the complex. People were entering there, by the hatch.
"They are coming... go..." She spoke. "Go, colonel... and... survive..."
"No... Please, Ana, I..."
"Survive." She forced more of her abdomen to say that and coughed blood.
The soldier looked into her eyes and saw inside them the courage he needed to get up again.
"Please, Casper... Survive..." Her eyes were getting distant, her pupils dilating.
Casper drew his gun, looking forward, his breath getting heavier, his mind sharpening, all the muscles were tensioning...
"SURVIVE!" She shouted, and that was the last thing she said to him before dying.
And with this, Casper kicked the ground, running through that place and going to face alone all those enemies.
...
Casper was walking slowly through that military camp. There were no sounds to be heard, no shots, yells, and explosions anymore.
The sun was rising behind the soldier, illuminating that terrible scenario of blood and corpses. Gunpowder could still be smelled in the air, the dust was still spread everywhere, and the last moans of the agony of the fallen soldiers silently got lower and lower, until they were completely gone.
Those were moans of pain, silent cries of agony and frustration, and a pray for whatever the god that could save them. Casper couldn’t hear it. No one could. But they were there, no doubt about it.
The colonel was sustaining his body standing and walking with a piece of wood he could find, which served as a walking stick. He had a tourniquet made on different parts of his body, and it wasn’t too well made, since the wounds were still sapping blood, but it was good enough to keep him alive.
His eyes were aloof, the movements he was making were imprecise and sluggish. It was probably due to the blood loss. However, it wasn’t just something physical, but psychological as well.
On that day, a part of Casper’s soul stayed at that battlefield... Or, better, graveyard. There was no other explanation for the sensation of emptiness that he was feeling, and why all the faces of those soldiers constantly appeared on his mind.
They weren’t just soldiers of the Yanke Forces, but also the ones from the Black Widow.
"Enemies" was the wrong manner to address to them. They were just victims. Poor people trying to fulfill their duties and that got killed out of nowhere. They served as a trigger for a war that didn’t have anything to do with them.
Casper thought if he should apologize to all those people, but he couldn’t. He knew that it would be pointless. So he just kept wandering through that camp, remembering all their faces, particularly the ones he killed and using it as his redemption.
If the soldier was honest with himself, he thought that it would be better that he just died there. That he had given up on life and just stopped to fight.
But that word... That cursed word wouldn’t unglue from him no matter how much he tried to forget it.
Because, every time he thought in throw everything away and give up, the same yell made him raise his head and keep going.
"SURVIVE!" was what it said, and after so many traumas, Casper couldn’t remember exactly from where that voice came.
But, even when his legs were trembling hard in exhaustion or pain, his arms couldn’t hold on to that stick anymore, and his consciousness seemed to be fading, that voice appeared, and a wave of electricity ran through his body, making him continue to go further and further.
On that day, at the end of the mission, Casper was the last soldier of that squad that survived. All the "enemies" in that military camp got killed, mostly by him in his escape.
The mission wasn’t classified as a success or failure, even though the pen drive was delivered, and they never named it.
That mission was known as the craziest, bold, and cruel mission that was made by the military forces of the country. 50 special agents could pull through a whole troop of 350 soldiers.
That day was marked in history as the day when the so-awaited and dreaded war between those two countries begun.
