Happy Birth To Me. I'm celebrating by becoming an angst writer.
Summary: It is said that we are forced to repeat the fate of our forefathers. Some people, are their own forefathers.
Rating: M; This is heavily edited, but this will be pretty dead dove in future chapters.
Warnings: Canon typical violence, Death, Dead bodies
Series: Suicide Is Painless
Chapter 1: Time Will Pierce Our Skin
Sometimes, when she closes her eyes, she can see the world burning around her once more.
The enemy is long gone. The threat of being found is no longer a concern.
Embers floating and flickering like lightning bugs in the summer. Smoke drifting and billowing and encompassing with the shifting of the breeze. Flames licking up and burning through any available fuel. Living or not, nothing is safe in its path. Breathing does not come easy.
Buildings around her crumble as their structural integrity is lost. She barely manages to crawl out from one, as it collapses behind her. She does her best not to think of those that were still in there with her only hours before. She does not think of the sting of betrayal that sits wedged between her ribs. Or who placed it there. And she does not think upon the grief that fills her, when comms continue to go unanswered. When she realizes that it may well and truly, just be her.
She allows herself to fall numb to the world. Following protocol, rather than the human urges. The likelihood for the lack of response being cut comms is about fifty percent. As is there not being any survivors to respond.
While she may have struggled to get to her feet, once up properly, she is grounded. The roaring in her ears quiets, and everything shifts into focus. Nothing is more important than confirming count and regrouping. Nothing is more important than knowing if her brothers had made it.
It takes nearly two hours, but she is able to make it through most of the surrounding area of the safe house. Lining up bodies with as much care as she can afford them on her own. Extracting one dog tag from each to be given to a member of the burial team; leaving the other to stay with them in eternal rest. Whispering quiet ‘I love yous’ and pressing kisses to their faces as she lays them side by side. Of the sixteen deployed, she was only able to locate ten. Three having been in the now collapsed building. She is careful to mark their last known location on a map for retrieval.
There are still two bodies she has yet to set eyes on. She is too scared to hope, but the prayer upon her lips comes easy. A mantra to see her finish. Please don’t let me find them. Please don’t let me find them.
Her feet drag her to the previously agreed upon exfil point. There are signs of a landing. Many boot prints imprinted into the dusty ground. There are two not insignificant spots of blood soaked into the earth, not far from each other. Indents from the heels of boots digging into the ground as their bodies fell back from some unseen force. The length of the imprints matched too well with the heights of the final missing two. Please. There is nothing to indicate that they had gotten up and moved forward on their own. If she is lucky, they have been taken. She doesn’t dare hope. Please. She follows boot prints she can barely make out through the settling ash.
She can see loose upturned earth piled off to the side of what looks like a shallow ditch. Please. Please. The air around her compresses. Her treacherous heart claws out from the gaping maw that has formed at the very core of her existence. It bubbles past her sternum, scrapes unyieldingly against her tonsils and sinks into her jaw. Its ugly visage embedding into the base of her tongue. Waiting.
Two charred bodies lay side by side, their limbs twisted in unnatural positions from the heat of the fire that consumed them. The signs of struggle in the dirt around the body on the left leaves her with a thought she does not want to bear the weight of.
She drops to her knees between them. Ears ringing. Hands shaking as she reaches to confirm what she already knows. The dog tags detached from their chains, sat in her upturned palms. The names read with such clear familiarity it hurts to know them. The ringing stops. Drowned out by the heavy sound of silence. Please.
It unfurls, teeth gnawing as she lays there between what is left of her two closest friends. Not a sob, a scream, or tears. But a hollow rattling of a final breath.
Sometimes, she feels like this was the last time she ever really breathed.
She out lives many people. Of them her friends, comrades, and family. She outlives most of her enemies, and for that she is thankful.
She outlives. Until she doesn’t. It becomes a common theme in her lives.
