Luke

It hadn't been easy to fall asleep last night. A combination of guilt and regret was casting a dark shadow over me as I tried to drift off into sleep, preventing me from doing so, insisting on me watching a replay of all the events of that evening, of my accusations, my harshness, everything capable of making feel like the piece of shit I'd acted.

I think, eventually, I had fallen asleep. The period of sleep, however, had proven to be a short one. As soon as I'd fallen asleep, I was awake.

What? I was wondering, looking around me in the dark room, just barely making out the silhouettes of other soldiers rising from their bunks, most of them empty, their occupants still likely passed out in the mess hall as I was starting to remember.

What the hell woke us?

The confusion was dispersed evenly around the room. I looked around me towards the bunks that Hanief had offered to Gordez and Zek. Neither of them was present. How long was I asleep?

There was no light in the room, nothing entering from the thin slits higher up the walls of the barracks building. It was still night by the looks of it.

This same confusion seemed more than prevalent in the other Earth Kingdom soldiers as they stumbled off of their bunks, some drunk, a vast majority actually sober, but still groggy notwithstanding. I had no doubt I was the most awake person in the hall, already on my feet, looking around me, but no doubt just as confused as the others.

And not longer after, a flash, accompanied by a sudden boom down the hall. Dust and dirt fell from the ceiling following the noise of the explosion, the previously shrouded passageway that led to the mess hall becoming fully lit by a sudden ball of light that, once it receded, only left a pile of rubble in its wake.

There was no more confusion. Not for me. Perhaps for some of the others, there had been, wondering if it was a misfire, equipment gone haywire, but I wanted to think that it had become entirely eliminated by the time the 3rd shell came crashing down, not on us fortunately, but not far off, and we understood. This was no accident, no misfire, no damaged equipment. We were under attack. And the worst part of it all, I was likely the only sober person here.

Questions erupted around the hall of what the hell was happening, if we were under attack, of who it was as though it weren't obvious, but these question were instantly silenced by the fall of a 4th shell, this one nearer, then a 5th, and a 6th, the last of which struck the corner of the barracks with a near direct hit, the impact of the blast sending debris scattering and dust tumbling from the room.

A small pause followed; one I wasn't sure would last. I picked myself up off from the floor that I had, apparently, thrown myself too, having not even noticed the muscle memory reaction, reaching immediately for my bag, holstering my blade, clipping the sheath to my belt, and rummaging inside my pack for Danev's knife, quickly attaching that as well. It was then a matter of fumbling along the ground for my chest piece with no light source other than a growing fire at the other end of the hall. I eventually did come across it, securing it tightly just in time for another barrage to begin, sending the soldiers who had been attempting to gain their bearings hurtling themselves to the ground once again. I was no exception.

These explosions however, they were softer. I was unsure at first if it had merely been because they were further away, but by the sound of it, they were close, just simply lower grade.

Did they switch to AP rounds? What armor would they be firing at? We don't have tanks, and HE rounds would be far more effective at taking down the artillery installations. Are they just trying to penetrate the wall?

The muffled and quieter explosions continued, and then came to a sudden stop.

The 2nd volley already over? Just like that? What the hell?

It was unlike any Fire Nation firing pattern I'd ever observed before, seemingly far more deliberate rather than aimed to suppress us.

In the wake of it however, no more shells falling, the Earth Kingdom soldiers began taking their chances, starting to hurry towards the door, stumbling over fallen gear, one another, everything as I myself just hung back, looking around the room. There was the primary door that led outside, the one that soldiers were flocking to, the hall that led to the mess, now collapsed, and several windows, rather high, but accessible with enough effort.

I wondered who among us were Earth Benders, but judging by the sorry lack of any bending, I surmised none of us were, or at the very least, sober enough to bend.

It was around this point that the soldiers at the doorway began to cough, softly at first, descending soon into violent fits of them heaving their lungs out, hunched over against the door, sinking to their knees in the span of less than a minute, revealing now the cloud of hazy yellow gas rising from beneath the cracks.

What the hell?

It wasn't alone. From the windows too, this same mist was beginning to reveal itself. It was drawing in.

The men who had been coughing and wheezing were no longer making any noise. They were on the ground, silent, dead.

Poison gas.

The others had reached a similar understanding of their predicament and so only mass panic ensued. I'd never seen anything like this used in combat, and by the look of the men around me, neither had they. They were already reaching desperately for the windows up above, climbing onto whatever furniture they could. I myself was tracking the movement of the gas., watching as it settled lower to the ground.

It's heavier than air.

The soldiers who had gone for the windows were meeting little success, the gas that had flowed in now sinking right atop them as they tumbled off of their platforms to the ground in the midst of violent coughing fits.

The gas was spreading across the room as I found myself near the center with an ever-growing cluster of soldiers desperately seeking one escape or another while I merely attempted to keep my wits about me, my current plan, albeit a grim one, to outlast my comrades and blast my way out of here. I had my shirt beneath my armor raised to my face covering my nose and mouth, but no part of me expected it to truly be of good use.

It was spreading. We were trapped inside. Just need to outlast them. They were already entering their own fits of coughing around me, falling to their knees even as some attempting to cover their orifices as well. To little success, however.

And that was when I coughed. No. I held the cloth tighter to my face, forcing myself not to breathe in. I could only hold it for so long however, and another lungful entered inside of me. I coughed again, far more violently this time. I fell to my hands and knees.

It was the entire room. I looked around me. The others. They were mostly down. If I was going to do this, I had to do it now.

There was another explosion not far behind me. Close. Very close. I didn't have much time. I attempted to raise myself, just enough to get a view on the door. Just blast it open, and run. I raised a hand, but was suddenly interrupted by something that tugged me to the side, up as a matter of fact, hauling me to my feet.

I turned my head with what little energy I had to observe a horrifying figure wearing a sack over their face, tubes connected, going in and out at different points. What the hell?

I was being dragged away from the other fallen Earth Kingdom soldiers into the hallway, nearing what I now saw to be an opening in the wall away from the rubble, seemingly blasted open, leading further into the mess. I was still struggling for air, but at least found that the concentration of the gas was thinning, also helped by the fact that the figure was holding something to my face-a cloth that reeked of alcohol.

Me and the strange figure were past the rubble, into the mess hall, abandoned of the bodies from before, the table still lined with food and drink however. We continued to run, myself still panting for air as the individual, around my height, I noticed, turned to me, holding out a similar sack hood towards me. "Come on. Put this on."

The voice was muffled beneath the hood, but it felt familiar notwithstanding.

"Who-"

It was here, I suppose, figuring the quicker the answer was given, the quicker we could move on, that the hood was pulled up revealing Zare beneath it, hair in a bun, slicked back with sweat, an exhausted appearance on her face. How the hell?

"Zare?" I asked, quite confident that my shock was evident in the cracking of my voice alone. Or perhaps it'd been the poison that had achieved that effect. "How did you-"

"Questions later!" she yelled, pulling a strange piece of fabric out of the bag behind her. Another mask. "Put this on!"

Turning behind to witness the gas continue its approach, seeing as how I had little other option, I obeyed without hesitation, donning the hood as Zare reached behind her, removing a metallic canister reminding me of an artillery shell and reached behind me, opening my bag, and shoving it inside, the sound of it displacing an assortment of other goods I possessed in there reaching my ears. She ran one of the hoses of my mask to the cannister, securing it with a hiss, the sudden inflow of gas into the rebreather within the hood had me startles at first until I realized what it was. Oxygen.

"We shouldn't stick around here," she said, putting her own mask back on. "How much did you breathe in?"

"Not too much," I coughed, getting what I hoped to be the last of it out of my system. "What is this shit anyway?"

"Chlorine gas," she answered quickly, prompting me to wonder just now how the hell she knew this. I shook the question aside. Now wasn't the time for more paranoia.

"Hell's going on? Fire Nation?"

She nodded. "Gas shells. Came by complete surprise."

"Where are the others?"

"They weren't in there with you?"

I shook my head and she seemed at that moment suddenly relieved. "Oh." She breathed out a prolonged sigh of relief. "Oh good. I thought I'd left them behind in there."

She'd gone for me fir-no. I'd just been the closest and most easily recognizable.

"In that case," she continued, "I don't know. With any luck they weren't caught by the smoke or shells."

"And these masks?" Now daring to bed the question just how the hell she'd gotten her hands on such.

"The armory. It was right by my quarters. Hanief and Cholla are getting together the men who aren't drunk. They had these masks in the armory. Old tech, but useful."

By what she said, I already had the gut feeling it was Cholla who was taking charge.I had my doubts of Hanief's competency in light of last, or, hell, tonight's events.

She turned to me, a look of curiosity demonstrated by her positioning alone as certainly not by her non-existent face. "So what now?"

"You're asking me? It's you who just saved my ass."

"Well, and now it's up to you to do the same for me."

Were she not wearing a mask, I imagine I'd have noticed an amused smirk, but alas, such was shrouded by the breathing apparatus she wore, just standing there expectantly for an answer I did not possess in that moment.

"We should help with the artillery. That's the only way we're going to be able to hold off the Fire Nation. How many ships did they have?"

"Don't know. Didn't see."

Pity. It made little difference. One would already have been too many. The number didn't change the fact that the artillery was still are only chance, as slim as it was.

I nodded. "Alright. We get to the artillery. Hopefully, we find Gordez, Zek, and Ka'lira there."

The explosions had resumed outside. The bombardment was continuing. "We should stick inside the buildings and see how long we can go through them. By the sound of it, they just were using the gas to get people out in the open."

"Why the first bombardment though?"

"To wake us up, I guess?"

"Then why not just gas us while we were all asleep? Would have made their job a hell of a lot easier."

"They-" I didn't have an answer. She was right. It didn't make sense, but either way, it was the position we found ourselves in. I shook my head. "I don't know." I found myself hard-pressed to remember the number of troops that Hanief had stated were in the garrison. Around 500, I remembered. How many are still alive? "Doesn't matter," I said, closing both lines of thought.

She nodded, responding with, "Alright. Let's do this."

"And Zare," I said, right before I allowed her to already get to running off, prompting her to turn to face me out of interest.

"Thanks."

She nodded, myself wanting to believe there was a smile beneath that hood she adorned. She turned shortly after to leave towards the unobstructed exit from the mess.

Despite our present conditions, neither of us were in a rush. Well, we were, but were taking our advance one step at a time. The echo of shells falling around us, the gas slowly accumulating all the more within the building, now was a time were neither of us had any room to slip, fall, and puncture our protective gear. I was already battling an urge to adjust the neck on my hood as it was, needing to forcefully restrain my hand from fiddling with the air-tight neck restraint.

The corridors of stone stretched on, candles already extinguished, likely by the gas, I presumed. Dead bodies lined the halls-soldiers in uniform and out all in varying states of awareness of the danger they were in, some having their mouths mid-scream while other's rested peacefully against the wall, not a worry in the world.

"How did you get in?" I whispered, though why, I didn't know, just feeling that it was appropriate when surrounded by the dead, as though I was afraid I may wake them.

"Same way we're going now," she said in a hushed tone back, whether it was for the same reasons as me, or merely because I had done so, I wouldn't come to know.

So she had already come this way. Past the dead that now surrounded us.

She seemed to know what I was thinking and answered before I could ask. "I couldn't save everyone."

She had entered here with a conscious directive of who she had come to save. Among that list had been me, Zek, Gordez, and Ka'lira. And only I had been present. She had come here to save me. There were others she could have helped, and they were dead now.

Would I have done differently?

I looked at the face of a dead soldier, his eyes wide open, his mouth held agape, terrified, the last words to exit his lips likely either a cry for help, a call for his mother, a prayer, or a combination of all three.

No, I decided in spite of my grim circumstances. I know who I would have tried to save.

And if they were your countrymen? If they were Fire Nation?

Maybe, I admitted to myself. I had never before taken the life of a soldier from my own country. The explosions of artillery continued to thunder outside. Perhaps that would change today.

We followed the winding corridors, eventually coming to the exit of the building. It had been barred shut, furniture such as shelves and chairs stacked against it. Had the soldiers feared the falling shells and hostile infantrymen more than they had asphyxiation?

Bodies were clumped by the entrance, weak hands clutching to the corners of furniture in regretful efforts to free themselves of their own fortifications.

"I got inside while they were doing this."

"Why? Why did they lock themselves in?"

"They didn't know the gas had fallen. They wanted to hide."

"You didn't tell them?"

"You try telling drunken men to run out in a field of falling artillery."

"Sorry."

"It's fine," but the way in which she said it indicated such was far from the case. She felt the responsibility of it, seeing their bodies clumped against the floor in such a manner. She had already had this same conversation with herself. There was no need for her to run through it now all over again.

I helped her clear the barricades, pulling the different pieces of furniture away at a time. Chairs, shelves, armor racks, anything they'd used to try and prolong their own lines, ending up in having the complete adverse effect. Soon enough, the door was clear, and she was standing at it, ready to leave.

"So," she said. "How are we doing this? We get out there, and then what?"

"We get to the artillery pieces. That's probably where the Earth Kingdom has gathered. It's their only bet. With any luck the Fire Nation hasn't blown it to pieces yet."

"Do you think infantry has been deployed?"

"I don't hear any fighting outside, so I'd assume not, but it's better to be careful. You ready if they are?"

She motioned towards the bow on her back, a curious sense of confidence in how she did-no. No. That could wait for later. I myself had my swords, and then of course there was option B, but I had no intention of using that. Not here. Not in the center of an Earth Kingdom base. Assuming it was still in Earth Kingdom hands by the time we got out.

"And if the artillery is gone, they've deployed infantry, and the others are…gone. What then?"

"Then we improvise."

"Is that supposed to inspire confidence?" she quipped.

"No, it's supposed to get us to stop stalling in get to work."

She nodded, wondering how her face appeared beneath the mask, if she'd taken my comment as the quip I'd intended it, or if perhaps she'd been insulted. I guess I'd find out later. For now, there were more pressing concerns.

"Okay," she said. "I'll follow your lead."

I nodded. Let's pray this works.

Together, we pushed against the door leading outside, and stepped feet first into hell.