18 Walls

  “The walls. I’ll cut them out with my Extension and carry them along. Sort of like moving this entire room with us. Since they can’t shoot at us through the walls, they’ll move in as they are. I’ll leave them an opening at the top, so they’ll most likely not smash the walls in to enter. That means we only have to guard against attacks from the top. April, Rick and Ivy, I want the three of you to take out any shooters in the building behind us. Hyung, Sean and Raine, focus on the Savages which should enter for close-range combat.”

  “How about I use my Extension to protect all of us instead?” Rick offers. “They’ll destroy the walls to get at us eventually, right?”

  “You’ll run out of steam by the fifty-metre mark,” I counter. “I’d rather you spend your energy protecting April. If they break through the walls, then so be it. We’ll stick close and fight like we usually do.”

  “I’ll do the slicing of the walls,” Sean volunteers. “My Extension is more adept for it.”

  “Thanks. Any questions?”

  No one has any. It is a rough, sketchy plan, but it’s the best we’ve got at the moment. Glum looks all around.

  “They’ll be getting our letters soon, huh?” Sean mutters. “Our parents, that is.”

  “Haven’t got any. You neither, right, Ren?” Ivy nudges me gently.

  I nod. The bloodlust seems to have drained out of her. Ivy yawns and flings herself onto the ground next to me, hugging her rifle to her chest. Too close. She flashes a shark-like grin, but it’s not meant for me. It’s meant for Raine, who’s, for some reason or another, glaring in our direction.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t take him away from you.”

  “Stuff it, you crazy red head,” she snarls. “I’m not worried about that.”

  I don’t know if I should feel hurt or worried.

  “Oooh, she’s pissed,” Ivy laughs. “But really, I won’t get between you guys.”

  “Like I said…”

  “I don’t swing that way.”

  Five pairs of eyes turn to Hyung, who throws us a martyred look in return. It seems to have become a habit, that whenever something regarding Ivy happens, we all look to Hyung for answers, the latter whom never gives us any answers other than laborious sighs.

  “Full of surprises, aren’t you?” Raine comments dryly.

  “Oh my, he didn’t tell you?” Ivy sticks out her tongue, a look of mock horror on her face.

  “Why should I?” Hyung retorts. “Tell them yourself.”

  “I was disowned when I came out to my parents,” she explains darkly. “Told them I was lesbian and they threw me out. A year later, when I thought I could finally make amends, they were murdered. By Savages. I never got to see them again.”

  “Wait, by Savages?”

  “My parents were soldiers like us. Met on the battlefield, took time off to raise a family and ended up back on the battlefield.”

  “You can do that?” Rick asks disbelievingly. “You mean this isn’t a dead end for us?”

  “Sure,” Ivy shrugs. “After you’ve served your contract.”

  “Wonderful,” Rick spits venomously. “That damn thing.”

  “Well, at least you get to go back to your parents once a month, right? Just…”

  “I’d rather not,” Rick interrupts shortly. “I don’t want anything to do with that woman who sold me off like livestock.”

  “Now, now. I’m sure she…”

  “Had her reasons?” he sneers. “Yeah, sure. We’re poor and she needs the money to drink, that’s what.”

  Prince Charming is gone. In his place is nothing but a bitter, lost child.

  “Hey.” April lays her hand gently on his shoulder. “I’m sorta grateful for that, you know? It’s because of that we managed to meet. And that’s probably also the reason I’m still alive right now.”

  Rick’s tensed shoulders relax visibly. If there’s anyone he’ll listen to at the moment, it’s probably her. Catching the grins on our faces, he turns crimson at the ears, suddenly eager to shift the attention away from himself.

  “What about you?” He directs the question at Hyung. “Why did you join?”

  “I sucked at studying,” Hyung replies simply. “Failed most of my classes in school. So I gave up and came here at the age of twelve.”

  “Same here,” Sean nods encouragingly. “Except it was age thirteen for me.”

  He doesn’t elaborate further. None of what he told me in the jungle all those months ago. I don’t say anything about it either.

  “You know, the more I hear, the more we seem like a bunch of outcasts,” I comment nonchalantly. “It’s hard to believe that the fate of this city rests on our shoulders, let alone, the freedom of our country.”

  We share a laugh in agreement. It’s the edgy, gritty laughter of seven people who have tapped Death on the nose and are about to do it again. Deep down, I’m sure we are all wondering if this will be the last time we get to laugh like this. Seconds tick by, melting into minutes and finally, hours. It’s time. I get to my feet, shoulder my rifle and glance expectantly at the rest of them.

  “Five more minutes please,” Ivy pleads, with full knowledge that I’m not going to give in.

  It may sound crazy, but to a certain extent, all of us share her sentiments, myself included. Five more minutes can seem like an eternity to someone staring death in the face. Reluctantly, we gear up as Sean begins hacking at the base of the walls with his Extension. Grunting with effort, I embed a pincer in each slab of concrete, straining hard until a dull rumble is heard and the walls are dislodged from their foundations. We’re off. If any of us were hoping for some leeway by taking them by surprise, we were to be sorely disappointed. Apparently, seeing an entire convenience store literally up and move just doesn’t surprise anyone any more. Howling, they attack.

  “Amazing!” I roar. “It’s actually working!”

  “How reassuring it is to know that you have so much faith in your own plan,” Raine remarks.

  I stick out my tongue in reply. In all honesty, I can’t concentrate hard enough to formulate a decent comeback. Beads of sweat are gathering on my forehead, dripping down my face in tiny rivulets. It’s astonishingly difficult to handle so many Extensions at once, especially when we haven’t eaten nor slept much in the past couple of days. I can barely focus on holding the walls in place, let alone, think about anything else. It feels like I’m trying to sprint through a bog while towing a truck attached to my lower back.

  We breeze through the first couple of metres easily, overwhelming any Savage unfortunate enough to fall into my trap. They are torn to bits on sight, battered from all sides by our Extensions. This is something I can never be proud of: a brutal, barbaric and lethal plan. Blood. It’s everywhere. On the ground, on our Extensions, on us. We’re soaked in the blood of the Savages. Blinking away the blood droplets threatening to fall in my eye, I try to concentrate on carrying out the plan. A threatening presence. The vibrations in the air tell me that something’s coming at us. Something fast.

  “Shit!” I yell, jerking my head towards the wall closest to Rick.

  A fair warning. Rick’s Extension mushrooms out from his shoulder blades, curving out in front of him, just in time to deflect the pieces of the wall as it explodes inwards. Minotaur. That’s the first thought that comes to mind. The Savage has forty-centimetre horns on its head. Lowering its head, it charges at us like a bull, except without the whole pawing-the-ground ritual. Rick engages it like a matador, using his Extension as his trusty flag. April dives to the ground, crawls over to me and takes shelter under a massive pincer.

  “Bring it on, cow,” Rick beckons, backing away from the rest of us. “I’ll ram your horn up your ass.”

  I know what he’s doing. But it’s futile. That Savage isn’t the only one which can get through the slabs of concrete.

  “April!” I gesture to the building behind us, the one we ditched. “Is it clear yet? The walls aren’t gonna hold for much longer!”

&
nbsp; She shakes her head. It must be tremendously difficult for her to focus on the task I’ve assigned her when Rick is fighting for his life just metres away. Clearly, she would rather back him up, but she remains stubbornly fixated on the enemy sharpshooters nestled in the building, determined to take them out before the Savages get through to us. Raine yelps as another wall is smashed to bits. Hyung and Sean step forward to engage the Savages which broke through. Fire. Reload. Fire. Reload. I’m running low on ammunition, the pouch slung over my back beginning to feel dangerously light.

  “All right! It’s done! It’s done! It’s done! The building is clear!”

  I swivel around and with a slick gyration of my Extension, fling the remaining two walls at the Savages. The slabs of concrete hurtle towards the open-mouthed targets, obliterating the twisted scenery in front of us. I fall to one knee, my vision temporarily clouding over. Gritting my teeth, I stand up again, taking aim through the clouds of dust flitting around like demented butterflies. I’m nearing the end of my rope. Rick isn’t doing too well either. One of the Savage’s horns is buried in his shoulder.

  “The Savage! Is it dead?” I ask worriedly.

  “As a doornail,” Rick confirms, his face ashen. “But I’ve got news for you. There are more coming this way. We’re gonna have to skirt around the edges of the city if we want to have even a glimmer of hope of survival.”

  “That will take us about an extra hour or so.” April scans her wristwatch. “We could still make it to our position in time.”

  “All right. Let’s go.”

  I make a face at Raine and gesture to Ivy, Hyung and Sean, who regroup with the rest of us. They have no idea what’s going on, but they trust me enough to follow. Together, we veer off towards the outskirts of the city, towards our only possible escape from the jaws of death. The Savages seem bent on taking us out. Either the position Ulas mentioned is more important than we think, or we’ve been marked as a nuisance on their side of the battlefield. Probably the latter.

  “Raine! Your nine o’clock!”

  She glances to her left, only to find a scaly tail of some sort flying in her direction. She punches it squarely with her Extension. The resultant crack is music to my ears. Finding the owner of the tail, she lashes out once again with a fiery red club, caving in its skull. Snarling, she shakes her head vehemently and pushes on. Just how many more, I wonder. How many more will we have to kill before all this is over? A hundred? A thousand? Will we even live to see the end of this? Sobering questions no one has answers to.

  “Brooding over something?”

  It must have been written all over my face. Sean is sprinting along on my right, shooting over his shoulder at intervals. I glance at Raine to my left, then back at Sean again.

  “Who, me? Not particularly,” I reply. “Save it for later.”

  “You’ll die if you can’t keep your focus,” he argues, swatting aside a Savage with his claws.

  The Savage rolls to its feet, snarls and gets ready to leap. Then, its head jerks back, a bullet from Raine’s rifle buried in it.

  “I don’t want to hear that from someone who hasn’t killed any Savages yet,” she growls, joining in the conversation. “You’re gonna die way quicker than we are.”

  “You noticed?”

  “No shit. All you’ve done is block with your Extension and fire your rifle without aiming for vital areas.”

  “I’m human,” Sean says stubbornly. “I can’t freely slaughter other living things. You’re feeling the consequences, aren’t you? Nightmares and stuff.”

  “You know what? You’re right. Every time I kill one, that image…the final scene…it’s seared into my mind like a damn cattle brand.”

  “Raine…” he starts.

  “I’ll deal with it. Same as the rest of us. You can’t win a war without killing anyone. You’re just letting us do the work for you, you selfish asshole.”

  He swings his rifle above her head and lets fly with a full magazine of bullets. Phew, I thought he was about to shoot her there.

  “Yeah,” he says, so softly that I can barely hear him. “I know that much. But I can’t help but think that there must be another way.”

  “There isn’t. Not when your enemy is baying for your blood.”

  “Sean, she has a point. We don’t have a choice.”

  “There might be,” he insists. “We just can’t see it now since we’re in the thick of the fighting.”

  He catches the expression on my face and a look of shame crosses his mismatched eyes.

  “Sorry. Guess I’m not helping, huh?”

  “You know, you might be selfish, but sometimes, I really do envy you,” Raine sighs. “And thanks for taking my mind off whatever the hell I was thinking about. It was of some help.”

  Seems like she’s got a lot on her mind, just like I do.

  “Me too.” I clap Sean on the shoulder. “It wasn’t pointless.”

  He blinks blood spatter out of his eyes, smiles sadly and turns his attention back to the battlefield. We’re running now, focused solely on escaping the mob of Savages hot on our tails. Fortunately, our Extensions work to our advantage. The firing becomes more and more sporadic as we gain distance on our foes. For the first time, a bubble of hope swells inside me. We might make it after all. I scoop up Ivy, April, Sean and Hyung with a couple of pincers and fling them far ahead of the rest of us.

  “Raine!” I gasp. “Catapult off Rick’s Extension!”

  “And you’ll throw Rick after us, right?”

  I nod.

  “And what about you?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Bullshit. Your Extension is staring to flail about already.”

  I start to argue. She ignores me. Facing Rick, she buries two of her clubs into a pile of rubble, grounds herself firmly and smacks his Extension hard with the remaining six, sending him flying towards the others. I get a brief glimpse of Hyung’s moray eel Extension catching Rick in its jaws. I can’t even begin to imagine what sort of nightmares Rick is going to have after this.

  “Why did you…” I begin.

  “Shut up.”

  She tackles me to the ground, wraps her arms around my waist and holds on tight. I can’t help letting out a startled yelp. She’s so close I can feel her breath on my neck. Too close. Lashing out against the ground with all eight clubs, she catapults the both of us into the air, cushioning our fall as we land.

  “You’re fine with that?” I ask.

  “What are you going on about?” she snaps. “If you’re still wondering, after all that shit we’ve been through, if I’ve had any reservations because of Street 51, I don’t. I did, but now I don’t. I want you alive as much as anyone else.”

  “Ah, okay.”

  “Will the both of you stop flirting already?” Ivy calls. “We have to go.”

  “We’re not…” Raine starts.

  “Fifteen minutes,” I say firmly, trying my best not to make eye contact with Raine. “We rest, do whatever we can for our injuries and drink up. Don’t forget, we still have a long way to go before we reach our position.”

  “Yeah,” Hyung sighs. “Don’t get too happy too. Excluding those which are injured, there are still roughly eleven Savages left. Of course, not counting the backup forces that Rick saw while fighting the guy with the horns.”

  He actually managed to count the number of enemies left in the midst of all that chaos. Seems like there’s more to him than his frightening Extension. Hyung aside, we have many more things to worry about. Rick’s wound looks bad. The horn of the Savage is still stuck in him, wedged tightly against the bone. It’s a wonder he can still move his arm. I take a closer look and realise his shoulder blade is plated with his Extension. He’s using it to ensure that the horn doesn’t dig any further into his flesh when he moves around.

  “I can’t get it out,” April announces, slapping a stack of gauze around the wound. “The best I can do is to bandage it up.”

  “That’s plenty.”


  “No, it’s not,” Raine says. “If infection sets in, you’re finished.”

  “I’ll be fine,” he laughs. “A little infection won’t be enough to stop me.”

  Since he’s being so stubborn about it, no one presses him any further. We do a quick tally of our equipment and push on.

  Built around the comparatively developed city are the villages, the result of increasingly fast-paced urbanisation, where people once settled in hopes of making a living in the city someday. Needless to say, in these warring times, even the villages o have been abandoned. Clusters of wooden huts sit along the edges of a long dirt road, each bearing overgrown backyards where weeds clutch at sunken fence posts.

  As we get closer to the villages, Sean stiffens and wrinkles his nose. Grimacing, he pulls the neck of his uniform to his face, hoping to block the keen sense of smell he acquired from the operation. Fifteen minutes later, it hits us. A stench so bad a skunk would have been proud. Wave after wave of pungent air relentlessly assaults our olfactory senses, forcing us to follow in Sean’s footsteps. Uniforms wrapped around our faces, we proceed cautiously towards the small makeshift huts. There’s a tingling feeling at the back of my neck. Something is wrong, but I can’t place my finger on it.

  “What in the…”

  Raine draws to an abrupt halt. Pushing forward, I see the reason why. I wish I didn’t. The carnage laid before us parallels a botched exorcism. The ground in front of the huts is red. Blood red. Staked to the ground, in the centre of all that redness, are the decomposing bodies of twenty women. Wooden spikes have been driven through their hands and feet, forcing them into a spread-eagled position, as if some maddened priest had attempted to perfect the art of crucifixion. There are clear signs of mutilation on the bodies. Twisted, desecrated and defiled, they lie naked, robbed of their dignity.

  “Son of a bitch,” I exhale slowly, trying my best not to throw up.

  Sean isn’t so lucky. Reeling from the sight, he retches into an empty flowerpot, his back heaving violently. Given his enhanced sense of smell, this must be way more difficult for him to stomach.

  “Squad Seventy-Two to headquarters, we are in a village on the outskirts of the city. We will send in our coordinates soon. Please advise on which route we should take,” April speaks quickly into the radio.