REIJIN
"Get your ass over here, soldier! When I tell you to move I mean MOVE!"
The year is 2021. My name is Private John Simmons, and I'm a member of the United States Army. I had originally joined the Reserve hoping to build up the money to support a family with. I've left a fiance at home, hoping that I would be able to return to her quickly. We just found out that she's pregnant, at 20 years old, but I'm in the Army, so we should be alright on everything, right? I hadn't intended on being brought out here to the front lines, but my unit was activated in response to the strike made upon the United States on May 29th, 2021.
I was at home watching the news with Britney, my fiance, when I saw the breaking news. After years or struggle between the US and other world powers, our oil reserves in the Middle East was attacked by terrorists coming from Pakistan. Their unjust and unprovoked attack upon our territory in Iraq brought about a swift response from our forces, who immediately invaded their country. We thought that after a few bombing runs we had gotten the point through, so we decided to stay in the country in an effort to help them rebuild their economy to help them out. They rejected our attempts at helping them, crying out that they did not want nor need our help. They didn't understand that we were attempting to liberate them from what was obviously an unjust leadership.
Soon after, we recieved a warning from the UN to stay out of affairs in the Middle East. The other powers had apparently held a meeting without our presence and had come to the decision that we were spending too many resources there and were growing more and more bloodthirsty with anything involving the area. They felt that we had overstepped our bounds with our attack on the ragheads that had invaded our territory, and that we had no right to defend our country. After lacking the decency to even bring us into these discussions, we abruptly seceded from anything involving the UN. We had never truely been a part of it, and we no longer shared the same view. We knew that without our help, the UN would fall to ashes like any other third world nation.
We continued our efforts at rebuilding a new world in the war torn countries there, bringing new light to the ravaged people who in their savagery could not see the difference between a new oppressor and salvation. We knew that God would give us the strength to continue with our cause even without their support, knowing that we were bringing these people into a better world. Already, Iraq had grown to become a profitable nation, slowly building their own economy as a US Territory. Our attempts at cultivating the desert land there had succeeded, and they were growing into being powerful allies. We had learned from them that in order to be strong with the desert, we needed people of the desert. They were such people.
The crumbling United Nations sent us a threat to tell us to cease our actions or else they would deal with it themselves. We knew that a few countries had already pulled back from the group in a disagreement, and our sources told us that they were planning on attacking our bases in Iraq along with our new bases in Pakistan. They weren't strong enough to really threaten us on our new land, though, so I mean... Why worry, right? We continued our operations as normal, after attempts at negotiations and diplomacy had gone downhill. We increased our defenses in our bases there waiting for the time that they attacked us. Being former allies, we had wrongly assumed that they would not actually go through with their threats.
We were blindsided in such a way that I still have trouble acknowledging it. Expecting the attack to come around our disputed territory, we were instead taken by surprise by a large military force that crossed our border from Canada. We did not have the appropriate defenses there, never really thinking of them as a serious threat as until recently, they had been great allies. They broke that alliance in their foolhardy belief that what we are doing is wrong, and their troops, along with those of England, crossed the border near our capital and blazed a massive trail in that region. We Reserves were quickly activated in response, as we knew that any of our troops were already in the sandbox instead, and it would be too late to have them reach our own land quickly enough to stem off the damage. The Nations' Armies were quickly intercepted by our primary units while the Reserves were being hastily refreshed on what to do in such situations. Our briefing was quick, only giving us the most basic information. I found out later that that was all that we truely knew. We hadn't recieved an attack of this scale on US soil in many hundreds of years, and we were obviously unprepared for it.
The treacherous Nations Armies entered through every entrance along our Canadian border at once, concentrating the largest of their numbers in a direct line towards Washington, D.C. We quickly recieved notice from Mexico and some of the South American countries that they would assist us in our defense, knowing that our location was vital to their own economy. We even recieved contact from Cuba hoping to assist us in reconcilation after the years of bad blood with our countries due to the tyranny of Fidel Castro before his death. We united under an Alliance and requested further help from our allies in Iraq and Pakistan once Russia and Germany had joined the European forces. Japan refused to enter into the conflict, while China took up a place in the Nations Armies.
The President was quickly evacuated to an unknown publicized location and we were riding in the back of the convoy along the abandoned interstate leading us into northern VA. It was odd... I was riding along a route that seemed fairly normal enough. There were mountains, along with normal neighborhoods and even schools. We had just entered Winchester, which was a fairly small city, if you could even call it that. A few of my friends from boot camp were in the truck with me, taking it in around me.
"What kind of hillbilly city is this?" Will laughed, looking at me. He had a point. This place was tiny, priding itself on the money that it had held over many generations of passing down land to their descendants along with their simple way of life. I could only shrug at him as he lit his cigarette. We would say anything at this point to help us take our minds off of what we knew was coming. We were green troops being sent to the front lines.
I saw the flashes of light begin to grow over the tops of the mountains and pointed as his smoke drifted in front of my face, the intoxicating fumes attempting to invade my lungs. "Looks like the party has come closer-" I began, cutting off as I suddenly felt the truck lurch wildly. "What the hell?" myself and two others screamed in unison as the truck suddenly slammed on its breaks. The back of the truck was suddenly released, a blinding light entering the enclosure as an angry looking US soldier stepped in front of the opening.
"Get off this truck! They are ambusing us!" He suddenly turned and looked off to the side before giving us a slightly panicked look. "Come on!" he yelled, before turning and running.
We quickly scrambled over each other, trying to get out of the truck as we heard the noises in the distance growing louder. I threw my legs over the edge and climbed out as Will tossed my bag to me along with my rifle. "Let's get these fucking 'nucks!" he grinned, jumping off the back.
I smiled, shaking my head at his ambition. My rifle at my side, we both ducked low as we followed the line of soldiers running in the darkness to abandon the vehicles in the center of the interstate. Glancing to my side, I could see one of the trucks overturned and burning, the light flickering strangely in the night and throwing shadows all around us. We could see dark mountains looming just off in the distance with fires raging along the mountainside trees. I felt Will's hand grab me by the jacket and pull. "Let's GO!" he yelled into my ear, shaking me of the shock.
Turning, I saw a large glowing star falling across the sky in a path towards our location. We dove over the railing until we realized that we were on the sharp slope of the mountainside. Luckily we struck the sharp incline hard, sliding down it as we heard the explosion rock the road above, throwing debris down around us. The flames expanded over the side of the hill as we hit a flat area rolling. I quickly snatched up my gun, reaching down to turn off the safety and looked above me. On instinct, I pushed the nearest person away from me before throwing myself back, a large truck door striking directly where we had landed.
We climbed down into the trees and stood still for a moment, listening to the gunfire above us until it finally receded. We seemed to wait for hours, just Will and myself, as the others slowly branched off into their own hideaways. One of the commanders sidled up next to us and began to whisper to us. "Whatever you do, do not go back up towards those trucks. They are watching that area now. They'll send their troops over the side of the road into these trees to search for us as soon as they are sure we aren't waiting for them, but we can't let them see us moving down. Move slowing down and DO NOT make any noise, do you understand?"
I nodded as quickly as I could, the chill holding the gun tightly in my hands. He nodded back to us, and pointed towards the faint moving shadows in the distance and pushed us into the right direction as he slowly stepped towards another group of sodiers clusted beneath a bush. We took the path as a pair, slowly walking as quietly as we could down the side of the mountain. The sound of my own quick breathing filled my ears and I found myself thinking of Britney, alot. All of the scenes of our graduation played throughout my head. All the imagined imagery of seeing our son and hoping that we could bring him up in a world of peace... I knew now that there was nowhere that we would be able to safely bring him up. The entire world was at war. That war was being fought on our land. My teeth gritted in upon themselves angrily as I ran my fingers over my gun, trying to keep my focus on everything around me, but ultimately thinking of the night that Britney and I had concieved our child. I am naming him Jonathon, after myself, if he's a boy... She wants to name it Erica if its a girl.
I can't help but smile slightly when these thoughts enter my mind, drowing out the sounds of the gunfire nearby- Like a sharp jolt, I suddenly wake up as Will stops walking in front of me and I bump into him, grabbing him and quickly shushing to let him know its me. We were hearing gunfire VERY close. We both ducked down into the bushes and looked around quickly, Will pointing out the changes in light from the gunfire a short distance away. He turned to me and gave me a thumbs up. "Let's kick some ass! Teach them not to fuck with our country, ya know?" He quickly ducked off to the left while I moved slowly the right.
"Yeah, let's do that..." I mumbled, my voice not sounding so sure. To tell you the truth, I was terrified. Now that we were in the thick of this... I wasn't quite so sure that I wanted to be here. I mean, this is what I'd been training for, and I had a duty to do for my country, but... I heard a voice yelling near me and I quickly stepped out of the bushes to see what the man wanted. I came face to face with a burly soldier in a Nations uniform.
I threw myself back and ducked behind a tree as the obvious British accent came around the corner. "I've got a group of them here!"
"Fuck..." I grumbled. I heard his gun fire off next to me as I ducked down against the base of the tree, hoping to God that the bullets wouldn't pierce through the tree itself. Looking both ways, I couldn't see anyone nearby. I dropped down to the ground and slowly threw myself to the side, rolling along the ground into another bush. I didn't see anything as I rolled. "Where are you?" I whispered to myself, randomly talking to comfort myself.
"Yo!" a voice called next to me, causing me to jump as I turned to see Will. My heart rate was already escalated as he motioned for me to be silent. He slowly moved his gun up over the bush and recieved no form of gunfire. "I'm going to see where he's at," he whispered, rising up slowly till he could see over the edge. It was that moment that my friend's head exploded in a rain of bone and flesh all over my face. He hadn't even had the comfort of a scream, just... silence drowned through gunfire. I quickly bit down to keep from screaming as his headless body dropped to the ground next to me and a voice called over a radio directly behind the bush in confirmation of the kill.
Leaning around the bush, he saw me and pulled up his gun, not expecting to see a second person behind the bush. I fired quicker, scoring a clean burst of shots directly into his chest. The sickening thud barely did justice to the splatter of blood that mixed with Will's own upon my face... Cold shock entered me as I realized that I'd just killed a man, but I forced it down as the soldier in me forced his way to the frontlines. Gunfire was all around me and I was stepping over the bodies of many people on both sides of the struggle, people that I'd fought along side with... People that had now died right next to me. I fired my rifle off in the direction of a flash of light, hoping to catch the man behind the rifle just around the bush.
I felt a series of bullets rip into my stomach, tearing through flesh and throwing me to the side into the dirty soil. Looking up the mountainside, I saw a Nation's soldier looking quickly to both sides as his gun fired once more, taking another Alliance soldier down before he ran towards me, ducking low in the gunfire. As he came closer, I saw images of Britney flash in my mind. I was doing this for her, to give our child a chance at life. I was doing this to help us build a future together. Tears began to stream down my face as my breathing painfully came in shallow gasps. I love her... God, I love you, Brit...
The man appeared next to me and pointed his gun at me. We shared a look of mutual understanding before my arm brought the gun up quickly, pulling the trigger midway. His finger twitched a moment sooner as the world flashed. "Brit-"
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