"A New Level of Hell"
I flinched as I saw an explosion go off in the area where Ashton and the rest were, My heart sank as i saw it, The explosion was most likely from a grenade. I saw a few Separatist's in the treeline just across from the hole, I raised my rifle and fired in their direction, killing 1 of them and his buddy going down and screaming in agony. I saw Prince run out of the hole and grab the Separatist, dragging him into the hole, I heard screaming coming from the position. Without a second thought, I ran back towards the position, taking Charles with me so as not to leave him behind.
I jumped into the hole to make sure everyone was okay, I see Magnus, Elliot and Prince, they were all okay, but as my eyes turned to Ashton, I felt my heart skip a beat and all the blood rush to my head as i saw Ashton screaming, his left hand holding onto what was left of his right. The grenade had gone off in his hand and had blown off almost all of his fingers, His middle finger and thumb were hanging on by a few pieces of skin, the rest of his fingers were completely obliterated, his entire hand was covered in blood and was badly mutilated. His face was also injured, shrapnel had covered his left cheek, blood dripping coming out of the shrapnel injuries with the blood going down his neck and staining his camouflaged uniform with a huge tint of dark red, The shrapnel injuries looked like chicken pox, but this time there was blood coming out of the injuries, with a tint of black surrounding the wounds. His screaming was absolutely horrible.
I don't want to remember nor do I ever want to hear it again. I looked and saw his 3 fingers on the ground, covered in dirt and had burns as well on them, they were riddled with shrapnel holes with that chicken pox like look of shrapnel injuries, the nails on his fingers were almost completely gone, some of them were left but were unrecognizable unless you really looked. I was surprised and shocked that those fingers even managed to survive a grenade going off. He must've thrown it and it detonated at the last second.
I witnessed Prince take his bayonet and proceed to stab the wounded Separatist to death, I could remember his screams combined with Ashton's. He shouted several words at Prince as he was being stabbed to death.
"NO!"
"STOP!"
"IT HURTS!"
"I'M SORRY!"
"PLEASE STO-"
He was finished off by Prince as he shoved his bayonet into the Separatist's throat and pulled out the bayonet, the tip of it dripping with the man's blood, His throat and his body were bleeding out from several stab wounds that came from Prince's cold blooded murder, His blood was spilling out of his mouth slowly, it looked thick with some little chunks in it, I don't know why it looked like that, either it was my imagination or i watched way too much horror films. I didn't care about him though, He was probably the one who threw the grenade and injured Ashton. Prince looked at me and shouted, his cheek had some blood on it, either Ashton's or the Separatist's or both.
P: "THE FUCK IS GOING ON!?"
E: "YEAH, WHAT THE FUCK?!"
O: "ALBERT IS DEAD."
P: "YOU'RE SHITTING ME!"
C: "HE AIN'T."
E: "FUCK!"
P: "WHAT THE FUCK DO WE DO?!"
Ashton was in severe pain but he still shouted orders at us.
A: "TAKE THE POSITION, I'LL DEAL WITH THIS INJURY"
P: "I'LL HELP WITH IT, ELLIOT, CALL MEDEVAC."
E: "THE FUCKING RADIO- WHERE IS IT?!"
P: "OVER THERE!" He pointed at the Radio which Elliot was sitting on.
P: "DONT FUCK AROUND NOW, YOU SHITHEAD!"
E: "DON'T CALL ME A SHITHEAD YOU MOTHERFUCKER!"
C: "GUYS SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GET ON WITH IT, OR ELSE WE'LL HAVE 2 DEAD PEOPLE HERE."
We all nodded to each other, I looked back at Charles and nodded. We both turned around and climbed out the hole, running towards our previous position, firing at the entrance of the hole but being careful to not hit Albert's corpse. I broke off and ran straight towards the position, As i reached the position I bent over and grabbed Albert's rucksack and was able to pull him out of the ditch, Charles ran past me, peaking into the dugout from the outside and sending a couple of rounds into the dugout, he reached for his battle belt, pulled the pin of a frag grenade and tossed it in.
"FRAG OUT!" Charles shouted, after a couple of seconds, the grenade detonated and we heard the faint moaning of pain coming from the inside of the dugout. Charles went straight into the position, I heard a couple of gunshots followed by silence for a couple of seconds. I trained my rifle onto the exit of the dugout for a few seconds in-case he met the same fate as Albert, The blanket covering the entrance to the dugout moves, Charles emerging carrying an LMG in his hand, I lowered my rifle and trained my sights onto the treeline just to our right where a few more Separatist's were still located, Charles moved towards the slight ditch i was taking cover in, He set the LMG down next to me, He carried it up and set up the bipod on the ground, He lifted the stock just against his shoulder, his right hand on the grip with his finger on the trigger, his left hand holding down the stock down. He squeezed the trigger and fired off bursts of at least 5 rounds towards the position.
The two of us continued to suppress the treeline just ahead of us, it was about 15 or 20 meters in front of us so this was not far. We continued to send off rounds into the treeline. The LMG's box magazine went dry as I heard the clicking of the trigger. Charles swore under his breath as he simply moved the LMG away and switched to his rifle, continuing to fire rounds. The gunfire started to die down as the assault groups were able to kill off the defenders one by one. I tapped Charles' shoulder as we both got up from the ditch and ran past the dugout where Albert had died, We ran towards the neighboring one and made sure to not be directly in front of the entrance, and in order to make sure we did not make the same mistake as Albert did which cost him his life, we chucked a grenade into the dugout and after it had detonated we followed it up with a dozen or so rounds and then a second grenade, afterwards we had to choose who was going into the dugout, I decided to go in first, but, before i was able to enter the dugout, I heard the sound of what sounded like firecrackers, some smoke started to rise from the dugout, the smell of smoke filling our noses shortly afterwards, What was happening was that we might have caused the magazines inside to start cooking off from the intense heat we must've caused, either from the grenades or maybe the guy lit himself on fire, I dont know.
After about 10 or 20 seconds, the cook off ended, the smoke continued to billow out of the entrance of the dugout, I could still smell smoke and flames but nonetheless, I still decided to go in and finish off the Separatist if he was still alive.
I slowly stepped down into the dugout, I fired a couple of shots through the open entrance of the dugout, moving forward and training my rifle on this slight right turn that the guy made, I slowly crept forward, going through the corner and there i saw him.
The Separatist who was inside, dead, very dead. He was slumped slightly forward in a sitting position, some smoke coming out of his burnt up chest rig. I pushed him back gently with the tip of my rifle so i could get a good look at him, His back hit the dirt wall behind him, I was able to get a look at him. His body had been completely mutilated from the bullets, grenades and the ammunition cookoff, he probably died to the first rounds and we only just fucked up his body more with the grenades and the ammo cook off. His body was not only covered in dirt and blood but he had some burns around his torso area and face, his chest rig was black as coal, it was only made of some cheap cloth material so it burned quite easily, it burned through his chest rig and through his clothes, i could see his face had some minor burns specifically around his chin area, the front of his neck had burns and his chest was burnt up too. The chest rig was hanging onto him by a single strap on his shoulder, I saw his gun was just infront of his feet, I carefully grabbed it and put it at the entrance of the dugout, Charles picked it up soon after. I could just about see his left eye was gouged out from one of the bullets, I could see his optic nerve was still connecting his eye to his brain, blood still spilling out of the socket, The shrapnel had also gotten him, his left cheek was covered in shrapnel and blood, mixed in with some second or third degree burns. The helmet cover on his helmet had also been slightly burnt up, I could see the steel helmet he had, these guys never got any good equipment unlike us. I took a moment to look at the dead guy, He didn't seem to be Luminian like the rest of us, possibly a Krasnyian or a different nation, possibly Gallena or Nortia, I don't know how anyone other than a Luminian could end up on this frontline, afterall, The Separatist state was formerly Luminian so the majority of settlers there were our own citizens, But because of them breaking away from our nation, the fighters were considered terrorists and were responsible for treason and i agree with my government, they are terrorists and always will be, everyone else in our country considered them the same.
I slowly backed out of the dugout, coughing a bit after inhaling some of the smoke and fumes inside the dugout, Charles was outside of the dugout, crouched down just infront of the entrance, he looked at me as i got out.
"Is he dead?"
"Yeah, very."
We had no time for idle chit chatting as we got back to our main task at hand, clearing the dugouts of defenders. Charles and I got to work, we ran up towards the last dugout, we repeated what we did last time, dumping a couple of rounds into the entrance, Charles chucked a frag grenade into the dugout, just a second later we saw the frag grenade get chucked out by the Separatist out of the dugout.
"JESUS CHRIST, GET AWA-"
I'm cut off as the grenade goes off to our front on our right, we both get knocked down to our feet, groaning as we hit the ground. I quickly check myself for injuries, surprisingly i'm not dead and i'm not injured.
"YOU OKAY?!" I asked Charles, I looked back at him, he's covered in dirt but he gave me a nod of approval, he was okay. I picked myself up, grabbed my rifle and trained it on the entrance of the little dugout. My first instinct was just to keep shooting and kill the guy who returned our own grenade. I saw a silhouette from the inside, I moved my head a bit to get a better look, I saw him, the guy was staring at me.
"SURRENDER, OR ELSE I'LL FUCKING SHOOT YOU!" I shouted at him, Separatists who were taken Prisoner got pretty decent treatment, unlike our own guys who were captured, they'd usually be tortured and starved until we got a prisoner exchange or until they died in captivity, So i naturally thought this guy would use his brain for once and have a second chance at life by surrendering. Nope, he didn't do that. The Separatist spat at me and muttered the phrase.
"I'd do anything but surrender to you Luminian pigs." I gritted my teeth, shaking my head. I squeezed the trigger down and sent a dozen or so rounds into this guy's torso, killing him instantly. He simply ragdolled onto the floor and laid there, he didn't scream, he didn't make a noise, he just dropped. I looked at his corpse and saw his blood spilling out of his wounds and onto the floor. I spat at his body and climbed out of the dugout, looking back at his corpse.