Rise and Shine! Part 1

The first thing I felt was a nasty ringing in my ears and a trickle of blood running down my forehead. The picture in front of my eyes sways slightly, and my left shoulder gives off a nagging pain. Somewhere ahead, someone is running, people are shouting and shots are being fired.

Stop. Shots fired?

What the hell is going on here?

I looked around. On the right there is an overturned car with broken windows, a wall behind it, on the left there is also a wall, but with an open door, behind which a flight of stairs is visible. Ahead is a fairly large area with Parking spaces, some of which are occupied by cars. At the opposite end from me, the exit is visible, and, judging by the slope, up.

Underground parking, okay. But it is not clear why the people who are here behave inappropriately. Someone runs to the exit, someone climbs into cars, and all this is accompanied by panicked screams.

The reason for their concern appeared from the doorway, which I had noticed a second earlier. A gray humanoid scarecrow with a height of two with long clawed fingers on her hands, in which she holds some kind of fancy staff.

And this staff is already looking in my direction.

Oh shit!

I barely have time to jump to the right behind the car, hitting the concrete painfully, when a blue stroke of something obviously harmful to health arrives at the place where I was.

We have to go!

I jump to my feet and, ducking my head, run towards the exit, trying to cover myself from the fire with transport. My eyes are still slightly swimming, my legs are obeying badly, and my heart is pounding with fear worse than a jackhammer. You can think about the meaning of being and the reasons for the situation in which I found myself later. And now — to survive! So run, Forest, run!

Something pops loudly a couple of times from behind, and new gifts from my new acquaintance's filthy stick fly by. Too much for me, you, fucking Goa'uld! Well, at least, the same oblique. But that's for now: I won't be lucky forever. Meanwhile, the parking lot was empty. The last couple of people in front of my eyes ran away through the exit towards the surface. Well, good luck to them, especially if this freak's friends are walking outside. But now I can't get there in any way. There's too much open space, and there's nowhere to hide. There's no way to distract the bastard, there's nothing even to throw in his direction. We'll have to get out somehow differently. A short glance to the left — empty, to the right — excellent! The door! Just a dozen meters away and there are just a couple of wheelbarrows on the way, so i have some chances. If only it wasn't locked, otherwise I'd get a couple of undocumented holes. The dash to rescue turned out to be slightly unsuccessful: I stumbled and, falling on one knee, hurt him, which, however, did not prevent me from running further to the accompaniment of the shells of the miracle gun, knocking pieces of concrete out of the floor and kicking the cars that stand between me and my pursuer. When I finally get to the door, I almost knock it out with my own body and find myself on the landing that leads upstairs.

It worked! Now, while I'm climbing, it will be impossible to shoot at me. During this short race, the breathing machine has completely lost its way, but there is nothing to do, so go ahead! In no case do not stop, otherwise death. The first flight, then the second, and in front of me is another door. The sound of footsteps and angry growls can be heard from below.

It won't come off in any way, you son of a bitch!

I allow myself to take a couple of seconds to catch my breath and run into the floor. Apparently, the first one, since I found myself in a fairly battered lobby of some shopping center. The name Manhattan Mall comes to mind. Where did this knowledge come from in my head, we'll leave it for later. Now we need to hide from the chase.

There are no people around, at least alive, here and there among the wreckage you can see corpses of varying degrees of integrity. It looks like those who could have already moved away from here. Somewhere inside, panic began to arise along with the urge of the stomach to throw the contents out, but this feeling disappeared as soon as it appeared. It's strange, in theory I should be hysterical now from horror and from what I saw, and also vomit further than I see from the disgusting mixture of burning smells, blood and shit that is in the room. But no, I'm relatively fine, except for monstrous shortness of breath and a horse dose of adrenaline in my blood. Which is good news.

An automatic burst thundered from the left, it was supported by pistol claps. Either the police or the military, which means I'm going there. These guys will be able to shorten my beater, and it will be obviously safer to stay with them than alone and without weapons. I take off in the direction of the sound. It's just down the street. The exit from the building is no more than a couple of dozen meters away. A staff projectile flies by, knocking out a wide window in front. Well, you don't have to take it out yourself. And another thank you to the shit-eater for his myopia.

Meanwhile, the shooting outside had subsided.

I jump out into the street. I turn my head. There's nothing important on the left, and the picture on the right turned out to be not fucking joyful. A couple of meters away from me lies a dead man in a police uniform, a woman. It looks like she was the one who fired the gun, because it's lying next to her. A little ahead are a few dead gray men with bullet holes in different parts of their bodies. But one is still alive. And right now he is standing next to a soldier trying to crawl away from him with a bleeding leg, raising his club for a blow to finish him off.

Well, no.

I jump forward like a fish, fall on my stomach near the body of the deceased servant of the law and grab the gun. I don't have time to be surprised that I know that it is USP Tactical. The weapon lies in the hand as if it had always been there. The main thing is that the cartridges remain.

Get on one knee

Raise a weapon

Aim

Shoot

Another one

A dead enemy falls with two holes in his head.

The sound of running behind your back

U-turn

Another freak jumped out of the same window as me. Well, hello again, bitch.

Two bullets in the chest. The enemy seems to crash into an invisible wall — 45.ASR has a powerful stopping effect, and even if you are the most gray bastard of all gray bastards, you are just as susceptible to it.

The third in the head.

Ready.

The bullet won our race. That's what I understand, performance.

A strong sense of satisfaction settled in my chest. The adrenaline subsided slightly, giving way to a lingering fatigue. I wanted to lie down right here on the sidewalk and fall asleep to the noisy hubbub of distant screams, the sounds of various vehicles, as well as multi-voiced gunfire and explosions.

A loud groan of pain interrupted this peculiar trance. Damn right! There's a wounded man here, we need to help soon. In three jumps I get to the fighter. A woman again. Young and beautiful, no older than 25. This can be seen even by the face covered in dust and blood, especially the large bright blue eyes stand out, the pupils of which have now expanded more than normal from unbearable pain. Without stopping moaning, the girl clamps the inside of her right thigh with both hands, trying to calm the bleeding. This is only in cool action movies, the hero, having received five hits in the body, stands firmly on his feet, ignoring the pain, and continues to shoot from all barrels right and left. In reality, one bullet is enough to make a person howl. But she did well: she managed to properly transfer the artery, and not so much blood flowed.

"Hush, hush, baby, I'll help," — I say, tearing off the pouch with a small red cross with one hand from the attachment on the victim's bulletproof vest, with the other I support the girl under her head. — "Now, as soon as we stop the blood, everything will be fine."

I open the first aid kit and take out the tourniquet. I take it in my left hand, lie down next to the wounded one and slip it under the injured leg. With my right, I thread the other end into a special lock and pull as far as I can. The moan turns into a scream.

"Almost everything, be patient a little more." — I'm getting an injection of painkillers. The length of the needle is enough to pierce the pants next to the wound and inject medicine. This is followed by an elastic bandage with Velcro to close the wound.

"Done." — The girl calmed down a little. The anesthetic acts quickly.

I return to the police station in order to find ammunition. Two full stores is good. I put the find in the pocket on the hoodie. Just now I noticed what I was wearing: a gray sweatshirt without a lock with a large pocket on the belly, black pants with elastic bands on the legs and gray sneakers. Not bad, in principle, except for the fact that everything is dirty, I didn't even tear it anywhere. I go back, pick up the machine gun dropped by the wounded and put it on the safety: I also didn't have enough to hole my leg in stupidity. With my free limb, I grab her by the strap on her vest and drag her back to the mall. This time through the door. I pull it away from the entrance and hide it behind the counter of some relatively whole mini-boutique. I sit down next to him — I can finally catch my breath.

I pay attention to the girl. It looks passable — the face is pale, and that's all. He doesn't seem to be going to lose consciousness. He sits, looks, flaps his eyes. How beautiful they are. Eh, if the situation were quieter, I would... just stand there. That's not what you're thinking, man.

It would be necessary to have a conversation already, otherwise all sorts of thoughts come into my head at the wrong moment.

— "If we survive, I'll ask you out."

In response to these words, the girl turned in my direction. The face depicts an extreme degree of surprise and stupor. Her eyes are wide open, and her mouth is slightly open, as if she wants to say something, but the words are stuck in her throat. Some strange reaction. It feels like she's hearing something like this addressed to her for the first time in her life.

"T-thank you." — She looked away slowly. — "Probably."

Embarrassed? It doesn't seem like it. It's kind of weird.

Okay, let's put it down to injury. Well, or I'm not the only one here with oddities. I have "I remember here, I don't remember here" in my head, but her brain breaks from compliments.

"What's your name?" — I decide to continue the dialogue.

— C-Catherine. — Somehow the interlocutor does not answer me very confidently, — and you?

"And me... e." — and how? My head is empty, as if this is an apartment that was surrounded by a seasoned burglar. Only five seconds later, the necessary information appeared in my head, accompanied by a short flash of pain in the back of my head, which made me wince and shake my head from side to side. Do my brains work on Windows Vista? Or was it that I was so qualitatively hit on the head that I couldn't immediately call my own name?

"Connor, my name is Connor. I'm sorry," — I point my finger at the wound on my head. — "I got so much that I'm not thinking very well."

To which Catherine nodded understandingly and smiled slightly.

"Are you hungry or thirsty? There was a cafe inside, I was running by. I can look for something edible." — I asked.

Indeed, when I was leaving the gray, I caught a sign out of the corner of my eye and there may well be something left that can be used. It wouldn't hurt for me to take a breath and refresh myself, and even more so for the girl. In addition, you can think about what to do next in a relatively calm environment.

"Yes, it won't hurt." — And again that incomprehensible look. It's like I'm not offering her food, but I'm going to rob a bank in my underpants and Santa Claus hats. Women. Who will sort them out?

We spent about a couple of hours at this place. I managed to get some bars and a couple of sandwiches in vacuum bags, as well as two liter bottles of water. After a snack, Kat even fell asleep for a while, leaning her shoulder against me. However, after about thirty minutes, she jerked sharply and tried to jump up, but immediately sat back down, hissing from the pain in her leg.

"What's wrong with you?" — Holding her by the shoulders and helping to get comfortable, I ask her.

Silent. She lowered her head and doesn't look at me. It seems that things are bad. You never know what she had seen enough of before we met. What can I say, I'm nervous myself. If you let her go into herself, then she's gone. We have to do something. However, there is a way.

"Tell me." — I turn away from the girl and start looking at the wall in front of me.

And she told me. About how their base was alerted and sent to New York. How they immediately engaged in battle with an unknown enemy and in the first collision her platoon lost a third of its personnel. As one by one, all her friends died and she was left alone. And how she tried to get to her own, invariably losing the fellow travelers she met. In the middle of the story, she was already sobbing, dropping her helmet to the floor and burying her face in my chest. I could only hug back and listen in silence.

Black, disgusting luck. Everyone around you is dying and there are no scratches on you. I'll bet my hand that she's ready to bury me, too.

The girl was completely unprepared for the misfortunes that befell her. She would, in a good way, work as a model or an actress. With her appearance — a gorgeous blue-eyed blonde, she will be torn off with her hands, it seems to me. The figure under the form is not clearly visible, but I am sure that everything is more than fine there.

Instead, she runs around with a machine gun in a burning city.

So, it's time to stop reflecting. I slightly pull the girl away from me and gently enclose her palms in my own.

"Kat, listen to me carefully," — I look into her eyes without looking away, — "we will mourn the fallen when all this shit is over. And now we need to pull ourselves together. Aren't you a soldier?"

A nod

— "So behave accordingly in a combat stop, okay?"

Another nod

I release one hand and gently stroke Catherine's cheek, wiping the trail of tears with my thumb. — "Besides, I wasn't joking about the date. So the hell I'm going to lay down my head here and not let you, okay?"

"Y-yes..." — sob — "but…"

"No objections. The man said — the man did, did you hear such a phrase? If I say that we will survive, then it will be so. Just trust me," — I hug Kat again and hold her tight. — "Okay?"

"Okay" — the girl answers me in a firmer voice. And it's really good, I think I managed to get her fighting spirit back.

"Any idea what we're going to do?" — I ask her. — "You won't run much with your leg, and sitting here and waiting for the weather from the sea is not an option."

"There is a large police station a couple of blocks from here, it is well protected, a lot of weapons and ammunition, good medical equipment. The command set up an evacuation point for civilians there, and at the same time a regrouping point for the surviving units. I was just on my way there when you found me." — She replied

"Well, then show the way!" — I smile at the girl from the corner of my lips and get a weak one in response, but still, too