V1-018

"OO-RAH, MOTHER FUCKER. IT'S DEVIL DOG TIME!" and dove through the open window. Ignoring the danger of jumping through a window filled with shards of broken glass, I gripped the two nine-millimeter handguns tightly so I didn't lose them upon impacting the ground.

The Second I went through the window frame, I caught sight of my brother above me, and we both opened fire at the enemies before us. They were caught off guard by our surprise attack, and a quick tally informed me that only six of the thugs remained alive, including their Leader; however, neither of us aimed at him.

Hitting the ground before Renton, my instinctual reaction was to tuck and roll before sliding to a stop on one knee, with both handguns firing sequentially.

Landing a few feet beside me with a strained grunt, Renton matched my positioning, and with an unspoken agreement, he took out the three guys on the right while I targeted the three on the left. Within seconds of making our appearance outside the apartment, the only thug left standing was the Leader of the group of bandits.

And he was instantly submissive when he realized he was alone and had no backup.

"Get the hell on the ground and keep your hands where I can see them; move just an inch, and I'll end you like we just did your friends," Renton shouted at the Leader of the enemy group.

In response to my brother's aggressive threat, the Thug Leader obeyed by dropping to his knees and interlocking his fingers behind his head, making me realize that this may not have been the first time he had heard that command.

Shooting a glance at Renton, motioning for him to check the Thug Leader for hidden weapons, I walked up to the defenseless man, pointed my gun at his chest, and spoke annoyedly.

"You've got three seconds to answer each of my questions; if you hesitate, I don't have to tell you what will happen. The first question is, are there more of you in hiding?" With my warning, I moved the gun away from his chest and pressed the barrel against his forehead.

In response to my question, the Leader chuckled defiantly instead of giving me the answer I wanted, so I did the only logical thing that came to mind and pistol-whipped him as hard as possible in the mouth, knocking out several teeth in a spray of blood.

He crumbled like a heap on the pavement and lay there for a second whimpering; this caused Renton to burst out laughing at him.

"Big man willing to take lives but the second he gets captured and hit, he curls up like a newborn and cries." The man stiffened, returned to his knees, and glared at Renton hatefully.

"Change is coming, you fool; you will see, you will both see soon that..." Before he could finish his statement, I pistol-whipped him again, this time on the opposite side of his face, knocking out a few more teeth and dropping him back to the pavement.

"Quit avoiding my question; I will only ask it once more. Are there more of you around here? If there are, tell me now, and I may let you live."

"You will get nothing out of me, rat, NOTHING YOU HEAR!" Glaring up at Renton and me, he said with a slight whistle due to the missing teeth before spitting a mouthful of blood on my feet.

Before I could hit him a third time, a gunshot suddenly rang out from behind us, and the Leader's head popped in a gory mist, coating Renton and me with blood and brain matter; his death was instant.

In confusion and with heightened awareness, I spun around, reacting to the shot, brought both handguns up, and aimed at where I predicted the shot originated. To my surprise, the person I found with a smoking barrel was far from who I expected it to be.

Chase was Standing at my bedroom window, rifle trained directly at the now slumped-over man.

Before I could yell to lower his weapon, Renton had dropped the handguns, swapped over to his rifle, slung behind his back, and set his sights on Chase out of instinct.

"WHAT THE HELL, CHASE? YOU COULD HAVE SHOT DEAN JUST NOW," Renton yelled angrily; realizing it was a friendly and not enemy, my brother released his rifle, allowing it to dangle from its sling, and race to climb up the side of the building to get in his face.

Heaving a sigh, I quickly let this incident go; however, my hot-headed little brother refused to do so; he flew off the handle. Scaling the wall like a spider monkey, Renton was up to my bedroom window in no time flat and could be seen yelling at Chase.

He even went as far as taking the gun away from him as he did so; all the while, I just walked around the bodies and collected all their supplies.

About halfway through my scavenging, I realized that twenty-plus bodies were lying outside my home, and the realization that I couldn't just leave them there came into my mind. But what do I do with them all?

At that moment, a flood of dark questions flooded my head.

'Is this considered murder? Did we have any other option that could have resolved this situation peacefully?' I thought while looking at the mess of blood and guts strung out over what used to be the sidewalk out front of my home.

'No, they attacked us first; if we didn't fight back, it could have easily been us lying here dead; it was self-defense, right, self-defense. But still, today, we've reaped multiple lives, all because of the chaos caused by a terrorist.' Attempting to rationalize my situation, I crouched down and picked up a rifle with a hand still attached.

What would happen once all of this died down and we were left with the consequences of our actions? Would this get us discharged from the Corps? Would we go to jail because of this? We had committed mass homicide, but was it justified?

What would our father say about our actions if all the chaos died tomorrow and life returned to normal? Would he lock us up like common murderers, or would this all be chalked up to mass chaos? It seemed like a strange time to think about all this; why now, AFTER we had killed them all, would I worry about what had happened?

All these thoughts rushed into my head, and I collapsed to the floor on my knees. This wasn't what I had been trained to do. I was taught to combat other countries' militaries, not ordinary civilians, yet here I was, eliminating the people I had sworn to protect.

Through all the chaos of the past couple of hours, the fact that I had taken my first life hadn't registered till now. As I looked around at the corpses of my fallen enemies, I felt a scorching sensation tingling the back of my throat and tightening my chest.

'I killed them. I removed them from this world; sure, it was done to protect myself and those I care about, but still, I've taken a life, and no training could prepare me for this.' Feeling my pulse quicken and my vision tunneling, I fought to stay rational and in control.

It was different than what I had expected. Renton and I had been taught how to react in these situations, and I did precisely that. I steeled myself from the budding emotions, compartmentalizing everything, took several long breaths, and returned to what I was doing, scavenging any weapons and ammunition I could find.

Tasks, missions, objectives, this is what we were trained to focus on, and right now, my objective was to scavenge whatever could be helpful off the corpses and return to my base of operations before ensuring it was secure.

A couple of them had cellphones and other forms of technology, which I loaded into a cargo backpack I looted off the Leader. After gathering what I assumed to be useful, I took a moment to observe my surroundings for the first time since coming outside.

The Sun had risen some time ago, and the devastation of our firefight was evident. Bullets had riddled holes into nearly everything around, and the fight had done a number on my building, and several of the other apartments on our block, but the main question was, where was everyone who lived around me?

Stepping away from the sidewalk and over the hundreds of shell casings littering the street, especially the bodies, I couldn't help but squint as I looked for any signs of life.

It was too unordinary; usually, a few people should be looking out their window to see what was happening, but I saw no one.

The Streets were silent, nobody was peeking through their windows to see what had happened, and there was no way that they could have slept through the noisy and prolonged gun battle. So where was everyone?

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