I ran towards the smell of smoke. Leaping over logs, ducking under tree branches. As I got closer, I began to see something bright, I creeped through the forest, until I heard talking. It was not Russian, it was foreign. I laid on the ground, silent, as two men talked. I peeked my head up and saw a truly horrific scene. The inside of the cave burned while piles of corpses laid on top one another in a large pile. The cave had flames bursting out of it. "Please I beg of you," I heard somebody yell. It was coming from the inside of the cave.
The panicking voice got closer as a tall man emerged from the cave entrance. He dragged a man that's clothes were still burning out of the scorching entrance. The soldier threw the man on the ground as he screamed in agony. He rolled on the ground as his burning clothes scarred his back. He then laid there on the ground, alive, but not moving. The two soldiers that were talking ran over to him and grabbed his arms to get him up. The two men held him with cold, dead-like looks in their faces. The soldier that had dragged him out began to walk towards him. He slowly brought his hands up and squeezed them against the man's head as he screamed in agony. With a quick twist the man fell to the ground. The soldier dragged his dead, lifeless body across the ground, until he threw the body into the burning cave. Flames leaped out of the cave.
I began to start moving away when I turned my head around to find a girl behind me. I started to scream but was quickly silenced by the girl. "Shut up, if you want to live." The girl whispered. I quickly realized who she was. She was the girl who had brought me to the cave. "Carefully move back. Keep your head down," she said. We started to creep back, moving away from the blazing fire.
We walked through the forest away from the fire, quietly, not talking at all. Eventually we got to a creek. I walked in front of the girl, until I felt the barrel of a gun at my back. "What the hell were you thinking," she said. "We were ambushed because of you! You led them to us." I stood there, in terror of whether she would choose to pull the trigger or to drown me in the creek. "I did not know" I wept. "Because of you my friends are dead!" said the girl. "I did not know, please forgive what I have done." I said. The girl still looked at me with a vengeful look on her face. The barrel of her gun still stuck into the back of my neck. Slowly, the barrel came off my neck. I slowly began to turn around. The girl just sat on a rock. I did not dare to go near her. I quietly just stood there. "My friends are dead," the girl said, "I have nothing."
The girl just sat there. She did not move, she just sat on the mossy rock. Guilt and shame spread across my body. It was my fault thirty people were dead. It was my fault this girl had nothing.
It was now about midnight. We slept on the dirt as the moon shone its eerie glow. I began to float back into my world of flashbacks and nightmares. The sight of the burning cave and the solider, began to fill my head, making me live through the nightmare, numerous times. This what my punishment for the souls that died because of me. Slowly the visions got dark, and I began to wake up from one nightmare, into another.
As I began to wake, I heard voices screaming. I sat up until something when flying into my stomach, hard. I clenched over feeling like I was about to throw up. I did not look up. I just laid on the ground, hunched over from the hurling punch into my stomach. I finally looked up to see soldiers all around me. Standing above me, staring down at me like I was some sort of pest, was the heartless soldier who had tortured and killed the burning man and had never hesitated or showed any emotion in the murder.
As the man started to get closer, I started to realize who this menacing soldier was. He was the soldier from the warehouse, the one that confronted me. He stood above me, just as he did in the abandoned building. I laid on the ground, in his shadow as he stood over me. I looked around me and saw the girl laying right next to me. Our eyes met each other as we laid there. "Hol den Truck," the soldier said. Two other soldiers ran off to the woods. I laid there with the sun beating down on me as I laid on the ground. Suddenly, something hit my head hard and then my vision went dark.
Hours went by, I could feel myself moving, yet I could not open my eyes. I tried to open my eyes and speak, nothing. I then opened my eyes. I heard the motors, as I sat in the back of the vehicle. The girl sat in front of me, weeping on to the steel floor. As my vision came clearer it became certain we were not in Russia, we weren't even on land. We were in the water.