Don’t leave me
“Run!”
“Which way?”
“Through that door!”
I don’t have time to look, she barrels into me and throws me through the door. It’s wooden nature shattering beneath our combined weight. A hail of bullets tear through the air. But she doesn’t stop, her momentum never ceases. She is a champion, a juggernaut of destruction, a hero. She rolls with our fall, while I lay sprawled in a heap, and rises to her feet in one fluid movement. Those nearest her are felled by her blade, others by the pinpoint accuracy of her pistol. She tosses a phone to me.
“Call him,” She grunts as she bisects a soldier. His blood spilling out in a crescent arc behind the gleaming sword.
I sigh deeply as I watch the carnage, we shouldn’t have come here. This was all my fault. They were dead. Whether we tried to rescue them or not was irrelevant now. Whether our intentions were pure or not, they were dead and it was all out fault. How could I tell him that? But I know I have to, so I dial the number.
Ring… Ring… Ring…
“Whats taking so long?” Beth calls to me over gunshots.
“It’s ringing.”
She grunts her response.
“I’m sorry.”
She doesn’t even look at me, two more enter. They see her and try to raise their guns. But Beth is faster. Both are dead before they fire a single bullet.
The phone stops ringing. “Hello?”
“Hi Jeff, its me. We’re trapped in camp 217, we need evac now!”
“Did you get them.”
“I’m so sorry Jeff, I didn’t… they didn’t… we were… they’re dead…”
“It’s OK! You tried your best.”
I smile when he says that, but I can hear the pain in his voice, he was so sure we’d get his brother out alive. I had given him false hope.
“Where do you need me?”
“Where do we need him?” I call out to Beth.
She does not look at me as she continues her deadly dance. For that’s what it looks like to me. She spins, sword in hand, and limbs are severed. Her snow white skin is blemished with red droplets belonging to the fallen.
“End of the runway.” She shouts.
“You get that?” I ask jeff.
“Yeah I got it, ETA 7 minutes, Jeff out.”
As the last soldier falls I clamber to my feet. She nods and I follow. As we leave the death camp through an old metallic door I hear a click. Beth tosses a grenade behind us and seals the door.
“Never can be too careful.” She smiles, well she tries to smile but its hollow, broken. She wont say anything but I know she’s thinking it too, if we had just left well enough alone, they might still be alive.
We hear the low rumble of an approaching helicopter. After the day I’ve had the sound of the rotary blades slicing through the air is music to my ears. I can see Jeff landing his helicopter just at the end of the runway, just outside the range of their defenses.
“It’s Jeff.” I start pacing forward.
“Hold on a second Sparrow.” Beth says as she holds me back, “Once we start, they are going to be all over us, this is a sprint. No stopping. Are you ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
She nods her approval, and with that we are off. Running as fast as our legs will take us. We haven’t taken more then ten steps when sirens begin to wail.
“Keep going!” She urges me.
Before I can reply the ground explodes beneath us. I’m tossed through the air like a rag doll. My vision is nothing but dust, spinning terrain and fire. Then there’s nothing, blackness. I open my eyes to find I’m behind some mass of metal, and shes standing over me, firing at our perusers.She’s covered in blood but still she doesn’t stop. She can’t. She is the embodiment of destruction, absolute.
She pulls me to my feet. “This is where we part ways Sparrow.”
“What? No? You can’t!”
“I have to, my destiny was never to see it through to the end, I understand that now. I was only meant to safeguard you, we all knew that from the start. You’re the one thats important. You can stop all this, save countless innocents.”
“But it’s me they want, let them have me and you can get away.”
She hugs me, gunshots ring in my ear. She’s firing over my shoulder.
“That would be to waste everything. Think of our friends, their deaths mean nothing if you’re killed now. They died to keep you safe. Show them gratitude by living, show me that gratitude.”
“Please don’t leave me…”
“This is the way it has to be. Tell Jeff, I’m sorry and that I love him. Sparrow you are an amazing person, I look back on our time together and I have no regrets, it was an honor protecting you.” A bullet whizzes past my face. “She pushes me behind her. “Now go! I’ll make these bastards pay for what they did.”
With that I run and I don’t look back as she turns to face our foes. I sprint from the sound of gunfire. I slow to a run as explosions of detonating grenades fill the air. I don’t stop as I hear her cry out in pain, not once but twice. Tears roll down my cheeks when I hear her scream, but still I don’t look back. I clamber onto the helicopter and make the mistake of turning to survey the carnage as we pull away through the sky. There she was, on her knees. The flick of a sword and her body falls asunder.
I watch as a juggernaut is halted, as a hero is destroyed and as my world crumbles.
