Ten seconds passed.

The bandaged man reached into the dead man's bag and pulled out the dull, plastic pistol. He double-checked the slide to see if the bullet was in the port.

"Mugi. This ain't fun anymore. I'll tell the boss about the needles you keep under your bed if you keep this up."

Either the man with the missing finger really didn't mind if his boss knew about the needles he kept under his bed, or something else happened.

Then the bandaged man remembered the woman in the vest's orders.

After that, grab Raj and Ejaz out. Before that, shoot everyone else in the head.

Before that, shoot everyone else in the head.

He didn't hear any gunshots when the man with the missing finger stepped in.

Standing outside, he pointed the pistol into the carriage. He lined his sights towards the heads he could see and pulled the trigger. He shot two heads. There was more on the other side, blocked by the bodies. Perilously, he climbed into the carriage, staying on the edge. He felt something soft against his boot. He looked down and found that he accidentally stepped into the bandana man's open throat.

"Sorry Ejaz," he whispered.

He kept the pistol sights up, spotting for more heads from his view. The bandaged man stood shorter than most of the other guys. As a result, he couldn't see as much. With no avail, he stepped in for a closer look.

The man with the missing finger laid there on his back above the pile, now missing more than just one finger. He was missing an eye, his tongue and most of his blood, now drenching down the bodies beneath him. It flowed from the bottom of his neck where a deep slash cut across beneath his chin.

"Mugi," the bandaged man called out. He didn't know what he expected when he said his name, but what he got was silence, and more blood flowing, now covering the bottom of his boot.

He got closer, stepping over the red, burnt shards of wood, dousing himself in the rays of sunlight shooting in from the charred holes of the walls.

The bandaged man called out one last time, "Mugi?"

As soon as the second syllable rolled out his mouth he felt his teeth clamping down his tongue, biting out a huge chunk off it. It wasn't the most painful thing he felt then. The most painful sensation he felt then was a blade stabbing from beneath his chin, shooting up under his tongue, through his mouth, reaching into his nasal canals.

The bandaged man felt his entire body fall limp as all his focus went towards the nerves on his face, screaming as it was severed in one violent thrust. Darkness swarmed over his one good eye. His body felt numb as excruciating pain radiated across his head.

As his knees gave way, he caught one last sight of the bodies in the carriage. A limb was sticking out amongst the corpses. It was different from the other limbs. This limb laid in wait, drooping down like a deadened arm before springing to life, catching its prey off guard as if a patient predator. The arm had tanned skin, with patches of pale brown spreading like stains across the surface.

Gleaming within its palm was a knife. A straight, big blade standing tall above the grip, its sharp edge riding all the way to a curved tip. Deep notches were smithed onto its blunt end, ensuring savage butchery inflicted on anybody the blade pulls itself out of. The bandaged man could testify for it; he felt both his nostrils combine into one meshed cavern as his mucus flowed into his wound, caressing the flayed hole on his bleeding tongue, mixing with the blood as it dripped from beneath his jaw.

It would've been a torturous experience if the bandaged man hadn't lost consciousness halfway as the blade slid out from under his mouth.

 

---

 

Half a minute after the bandaged man felt the blade stab through the bottom of his head the woman in the vest had finished her smoke and was starting to wonder what’s taking so long. She looked behind and saw the absence of both the lackeys she sent. She then felt two emotions. One of them was annoyance. This was supposed to be a simple excursion. A fast robbery with the cooperation of a greedy, local carriage driver. This was supposed to train the new intakes, and now they're all gone. It'll be a great pain to explain that to her boss, but with the amount of body she saw in the carriage, she reckoned she could soften the blow with the loot.

The other emotion was distress. She sent the lackeys by two for a reason. First was to send the illusion that this was a two-man operation. Any survivors left would take the chance and pounce on the fodders. If anyone manages to slip out, the ones outside would take care of it, as evident from the dead man with the metal arm. If the opposite were to happen, then all the better; she'd come back with all the loot and proven members. The second duo was tasked to scavenge for loot and deal with the aftermath; the task would be bestowed to the first duo if they were to survive.

But the opposite didn't happen, and the second duo was nowhere to be seen.

She pulled out her shotgun and made her way towards the carriage. On the way, she picked up the machete. Just in case.

She stepped over the dead man with the metal arm and pumped three shotgun blasts into the bodies in the carriage, including the new intakes'. She waited. Nothing happened. All she saw was a messier carnage and more unrecognisable pieces of flesh.

She climbed inside the carriage. With her machete, she stabbed anything that resembled organic life. Dead or alive, every body the woman laid sight on was either slashed, hacked, butchered or any combination of the three. As she did all that, she kept the shotgun barrel next to the machete, ready to blast through anything that showed even the slightest hint of reactive movement.

Nothing, as of then.

Then she saw an arm sticking out amongst the body. This arm was unlike any arm she saw. She'd seen sickly men before. Men with pallid bodies and unsanitary looking spots on their skin. This particular arm seemed different. This one had spots of pale brown splashed on its tanned skin. It didn't look to belong to that of an ailing person, but it definitely wasn't something the woman in the vest would voluntarily get close to. Only the upper arm stuck out, just above the elbow. The hand limped over the wrist, stationary and motionless.

The fingers held a combat knife, a tool deadly in the palms of those experienced with it. The blade was wet and dripping from the tip. With the machete, the woman in the vest flipped over the hand. The knife drooped down, facing the bodies below, with the handle still dangling over its fingers.

She kept an eye on the thumb for a while before making an estimate. She shifted the blade of her machete side to side, finding the sweet spot to aim at.

There.

She twisted the machete to a backhanded grip, lifted the blade and drove it deep into the body just beside the arm. The blade itself was at least as long as a body's width and the woman in the vest managed to plunge the whole thing in.

Then she felt something on the other end of the blade along with a faint sound.

Metal?

The corpse pile raised by itself underneath the woman in the vest's feet. In a sudden shock, she lost her balance and fell on her back, her jittery eyes watching the inanimate bodies she stabbed through suddenly coming to life, lifting themselves by whatever it is that willed them to be.

Suddenly, as if a miraculous joke, all the bodies fell limp again, slumping to the side. All except one. The bandaged man rose to face her, but not from the front, but from behind. The wound under his chin opened up as his head arched over his shoulder, his whitened eyes staring right at the woman in the vest from his back, upside-down. Her head aching to catch up with her eyes, the woman in the vest flung her shotgun upwards, aiming towards his overturned head.

She croaked out, "Rahman?"

Then she saw something else.

In a split second, she spotted a faint silhouette standing behind the bandaged man. She could barely make out the details, but she could see discern from the muffled contours.

She came to the realization in an instant. With a quick jab, she jammed the shotgun barrel towards the bandaged man and squeezed on the trigger. The blast, though slightly muted, still roared within the wooden chasm of the carriage. It was a violent, mighty blast that vaporised a good chunk of the bandaged man's body, so much so that it tore a big hole through his side.

It was then when the silhouette behind the bandaged man came into full view.

It was another bandaged man, but not just across his eye but his entire head and a good part of his neck. Nose, mouth, ears and all. He also wore something around his eyes, but that was the extent of her brief observation. Her attention quickly shifted towards the wet, bleeding edge of the combat knife slicing through the air in a sharp dive towards her neck. Her reflexes twisted her body to a roll. She heard a dull crash of a metal blade against a wooden floor just beside her ear.

I need ground.

The woman in the vest bent her knees and leapt outside the carriage, crashing against the road. She felt the pebbles and rocks sear across her face. She didn't care. She can't care. She lobbed the shotgun up in the air and caught it by the pump. She racked it with a flick and caught it back by its grip. She turned to her back and caught the man flying mid-air towards her. She ducked and rolled out of the way, jerking her head to meet the man face to face.

She finally saw what the man was wearing across his eyes: motorcycle goggles, wrapping around his head with lenses that glowed a faint green.

She also took the chance and make a quick scan on the man, top to bottom. He wore a white, tattered shirt, a hooded jacket and a pair of loose pants, all tied to his waist with a thick rope. Covering everything was a charred overcoat, with most of back blown apart by the shotgun blast, now nothing more than sizzling frays of fabric trailing the humid air. The woman also spotted something on his shirt; a pair of pads, stitched to the underside of his shirt, bulging from underneath. She could see where her machete had failed to stab through; a faint line stretched across the shirt. She made sure not to make the same mistake again.

From the little skin that showed underneath his clothes, the woman in the vest saw more splotches of pale brown splashing across his tanned skin from under his neck and across his arms and fingers. It was as if a plague had dominated his thin, frail body. Yet, from the stance he took, she could tell he wasn’t a man to be underestimated. His body, though tense and untrained, was ready to jump at any time. He was still a novice that used his instincts more than his head. However, as evident from the four new bodies in the carriage, he had one hell of an instinct.

For a brief moment, the woman in the vest thought it was a shame. The man genuinely seemed like an interesting person to her. His appearance exuded history. This wasn't just some random man crawling across the charred earth looking to breathe for another day. This man looked to have a story behind him. If their first meeting were to be done in a canteen in a neutral zone, or somewhere out in the wild under friendly circumstances, things might be different.

Alas, fate had other plans.

The woman in the vest flung her shotgun up, aiming her sights down the man. The man charged towards the woman, holding the combat knife with a backhand grip. The woman drew a feint. In one twist, tossed the shotgun to the side and threw all her weight into the machete. She swung it into a low, wide arc. She missed. The blade barely missed the man's bald head by what felt to be half an inch as he dropped to his knees and slammed into a tackle with his shoulder. The woman was thankful she had her vest on.

Both crashed onto the road in a violent skid. The woman nearly lost her grip on the machete but managed to regain it with a reverse grip. The man was on top of her, scrambling up from her chest as he drew his blade held high atop her head. Her reflexes took over her hand. In one push, she thrust her machete from below, jamming it into his side.

She hit something. From her hand, she felt the blade drive deep into something. Yet it didn’t feel right. At this angle, her arm would’ve been deep inside the man himself already. Then her other arm sent a different message, and everything clicked; agonizingly so.

She hadn’t stabbed through the man, but her own arm.

The man had bucked himself off and landed to her side. There wasn’t time for ‘how’s and ‘when’s. The woman could only respond as fast as possible.

The woman yanked the blade out, tugging along her nerves and muscle as the rust scraped across her flesh. The pain only served to fuel the urgency. Laying on her side, she stabbed the blade towards the man, narrowly missing him from above his nose.

At the same time, the man laid still on his back and jammed his combat knife through the woman’s throat.

In one sudden blast, the stench of metal filled her mouth. She wasn’t sure if it was from the blade or the blood bubbling from her neck. Swarming darkness began welling from the corners of her sight. As the concept of perpetual unconsciousness dawned onto the woman she wrangled to keep the strength from seeping out of her body as she struggled to keep her eyelids open. Ironically, with every might she used to struggle, more blood gushed out from her neck, draining her years rapidly as the crimson pool under her grew thicker and darker.

It was unsure, even to the woman in the vest, what made her say it; her last fleeting breaths were directed towards the man who still laid beside her, his hand still firmly gripping onto the combat knife in her throat, containing nothing but the words, “How’d you-”

The woman probably spoke more, but the gurgles of blood that followed after were simply incomprehensible.

Her eyelids twitched ever so slightly as the seconds passed. It wasn’t long until the twitching stopped. Her eyes laid bare, her pupils gazing longingly into the distance. The woman managed to keep her eyes open, but it didn’t matter anyway. She wasn’t seeing anyone or anything any time soon.

 

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