The barrel of a VS-121 peered around the corner of a demolished market building. Like a dynamic camera, the rifle panned from side to side. After a slight pause, it withdrew, and a teenager in a full desert camouflage stepped out into the open.
As more of his body revealed, a distant pair of malicious eyes snapped onto it, and the teen was suddenly pinned by heavy gunfire. He tumbled backward before returning behind the corner.
"Should've been more thorough in my check," the youth sighed, unphased by the swift rise of force that could have torn him to shreds.
His index finger left the trigger groove as he snapped the optic magnifier in line with the circular PKA-S holographic sight nested atop the rail. The teen attempted to peek from a different angle, but as the rifle's barrel returned to a parallel with the ground, he was again heavily suppressed.
Without a worry, or even as much as a second thought, he reached into the utility pouch of his chest rig and withdrew a bronze mechanical sphere. He pressured it, causing a mechanism pop out and the object to illuminate. The once supersonic bullets had been slowed to a crawling speed.
Clumsily returning the sphere to its resting place while making an uncontested move, his fingers missed the pouch, rolling the object into the sand a few meters from him. The mechanism disengaged, and the spray of bullets began once more at normal speed.
"Fuck. Dropped the Chronos… again," the youth responded his fumble, unamused.
Out of reach and out of options, the youth grabbed hold of his radio cord.
"Sokol Four, I'm pinned by heavy IS opposition. Requesting a hit on their location," he shouted in an attempt to outdo the surrounding noise.
"Vasily, kid. Relay coordinates; we'll get them," a familiar voice sounded through the transceiver.
Within short notice, a Tupolev PAK DA bomber rumbled overhead and dumped its load on the position. The youth inched over to reach the partially buried mechanism, and as the tips of his fingers grazed its surface, it reactivated. Instead of the usual perception of slowed time, however, the world around him appeared to accelerate at a ridiculous rate.
Taken aback by this abnormal behavior, Vasily rose to a stand. He shouldered his rifle stock and pressed his finger to the trigger as he came to face a silhouette in such darkness that engulfed the sandy, war-torn world he was familiar with.
A hallucination? Couldn't be.
Though he was unable to respond, or even comprehend the situation, he still knew the relative danger, and so kept his rifle chest-high.
"Laughable 'soldier', whose veins course with the apathy of Belomorsk ice, understand that life retains meaning only when the heart radiates warmth," the specter rustled, sending a sharp chill down Vasily's spine.
The figure gradually expanded as its ragged outline took the shape of a grim reaper. Vasily trembled at the projection of death.
"You, who lacks regard for the innocent, shall feel the agony of the souls tortured by your hand."
Petrified, Vasily released his rifle, allowing it to swing from its sling like a pendulum. His life flickered before his eyes as he collapsed onto whatever platform formed below.
"You shall discover companionship in the form of new blood – an extension to your body that you must embrace."
Vasily's introspective stare into the darkness broke as the unsettling words sunk in. Would his soul not be reaped?
"Tread the treacherous waters carefully, son of Russia, lest you drown in a sea of crimson."
As the ethereal endorsement of luck concluded, the void dissipated and a forest harboring two oddly dressed individuals phased in.