Bullets fly overhead as I crouch against the thick wall of sandbags, feeling it vibrate when hit. My eyes are clenched shut, this is my first deployment upon leaving the academy, and I'm deeply aware of how little my uniform covers. My arms and legs are bare, the leotard has a deep v that exposes the inner curves of my breasts. A belt is tightly cinched around my waist, a holster sitting on my left hip, and the rifle I'd been handed is held loosely.
You're a few women down along the line, eyes wide as reality replaces the propaganda. Your own rifle is on the ground at your feet, forgotten, but unlike some who'd abandoned their weapon you're still alive, the commissar a limp corpse off to our right. There's a muted gasp as a trooper gains a third eye, we both hear the squelch when she topples backwards into the mud, and our gazes meet.
Your little nod is cutely determined, you snatch up your rifle, and I tighten the grip I have on mine. Officers begin crabbing along the line, sniffing in distaste as they move around the slain and I have to dip my head to hide my smirk when the commissar is carelessly trod on. An officer stops behind me, I can feel her presence looming over me, and time seems to slow as I hear her inhale.
The whistle is loud in my ear, repeated scores of times along the line, and I glance at you again as we scramble up and over the sandbags. Almost instantly the weight of incoming bullets seems to increase tenfold, women are thrown backwards or slump over the sandbag wall. A heavy thump, the unmistakable sound of a machine gun, can be heard over the crack of rifles and as I clear the sandbags I can see it rotating towards me.
It's sweeping from left to right, scything through our number with ease, and I look at you a third time. My eyes find you just as the machine gun does, you frenetically dance as a dozen crimson poppies open all over your leotard, and all too soon it's my turn.
I feel the bullets penetrate deep into me, physical blows that make me stagger. I drop to my knees, rifle slipping from fingers rapidly losing feeling, and confused touch the wounds that have ruined my belly. My gaze passes over the mounds of dead, hardly anyone is left from our assault, and for the final time you catch my gaze.
Your eyes are open, unseeing, and your mouth is slack, frozen in the moment of a scream. You stretched out to your full length as you fell, body now humping the ground in its last death spasms. I'm still looking at you when a bullet rips through my head, killing me instantly, and I'm hurled down, just one more corpse amid hundreds...
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