AUTUNM 1915
⚠️CONTENT WARNING: Violence and death
Frederick, Theodor, and the boys’ cousin, Maximiliano, were assigned, along with another soldier, to track down a small group of aviators who had gone missing after a bombing accident that had occurred days earlier. Theodor seemed excited to finally get out of the camp for a while, he felt like he would go insane at any moment if he had to spend one more day staring at that endless sea of green tents covered in mud.
Freddy, on the other hand, couldn’t bring himself to feel the same excitement while surrounded by so much destruction. As he scanned the ruins of what had, not long ago, been a quiet little farming town, he swore he saw a figure pass by. Before he could say anything about it to the others, the boys heard a voice calling out to them.
“Hey, over here.” The voice said, echoing from behind the door of one of the buildings, and Theodor nearly stumbled back when he realized it was a woman. Why the hell was that girl dressed like an aviator?
“Are you part of the group we came to rescue?” Maximiliano asked, noticing the girl’s uniform. It fit her perfectly, which ruled out the possibility that she had stolen it from a man. Besides, she looked like she knew what she was doing.
“There is no group, just me and a cadet. My copilot and two of the cadets who were with us died in the crash. I was lucky to walk away from it, but my partner wasn’t.” She explained, then pointed to a man in his forties lying among the rubble in an improvised shelter made from the clothes of the dead and sleeping bags. They had cauterized the stump of his severed arm to stop the bleeding, but from his unhealthy color, it clearly wasn’t doing much good.
“So that’s why you didn’t return to your base? You can’t carry him?” Theodor asked, approaching the man and calling for Freddy’s help to lift him, but his brother didn’t respond, still too focused on the feeling that they weren’t alone.
“That’s not the problem. There are still some of the bastards who shot down our plane. If they didn’t attack you, it means they’re either fewer in number or out of ammunition. Those sons of bitches surrounded us, as if the bombing wasn’t enough, they also had machine guns on the ground. But we gave them a good fight. Old Hortis there didn’t stop shooting while he still had strength in his wrists. If there are five of them left, that’s a lot.”
“Well, for someone with such a delicate face, you sure curse like a sailor,” Theodor joked, fascinated by the figure in front of him, and he could swear he got a growl in response. “Mind telling me what someone like you is doing here? And what’s your name, anyway?”
“I’m doing the exact same thing as you, just better.” She replied, her expression annoyed and impatient, like someone who had already dealt with more questions about her capabilities than she could count. Theodor looked a bit embarrassed and seemed to apologize with his eyes, which made her take a deep breath before answering, “My name is Goldie.”
Before Theodor could introduce himself, they heard gunfire, and then a grenade exploded in the distance, filling the air with fire and smoke.
“Is that them? Bastards…” Frederick asked, startled, firing as fast as he could in the direction the shots seemed to be coming from.
All five of them, including the frail Mr. Hortis, returned fire, and they could swear they had taken one down. As they tried to protect the injured man, a thin figure attempted to sneak through the rubble and aim at the group. Theodor cocked his weapon, struggling to see through the smoke. He saw sunlight reflecting off the enemy’s gun barrel, then a bullet whizzed past his face before he could pull the trigger, then another, and another.
Goldie took the man down before Theodor even understood what was happening.
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