Next morning I was deathly tired, having not slept at all during the previous night.

It was too cold and too dangerous after dispatching the scout team so close to their base. My new, and not so insulated clothes I might add, wouldn't have fooled anyone if they found the dead owner bereft of his attire. So long and restless I marched through the night. Until in the early grey of the following morning I found myself on the outskirts of what seamed to be a very small town. Some buildings rising as tall as four levels.

It was the first time I would hear of battle in this new world. It was an interrupted cacophony of guns shots, strange explosions and other bewildering powers that were unleashed. Finding a good vantage point on a small hill I surveyed my options. Not for the first time they weren't looking so good.

The grim looking town was surrounded on both sides at some distance with a set of sharp jutting cliffs. Thus, there were only two ways in and out of that valley where the town was set in. Back where I came from or on the other end of the city. On its eastern side the land was barren, barely any grass grew there as if the soil was sick. And on its west side a sparse forest clung to the northern edge of the city, giving me a possible infiltration way, but no more cover it would offer on its southern exist.

Behind me was possibly the whole fighting force of the camp that I saw in pursuit of me. And so I found myself with a hard decision. Either make a very painstaking detour around the mountains surrounding the town itself. Or sneak through the battling sides in the city and slip through to the southern exit. My supplies were gone and thus I chose expediency.

Through my scope I could see faintly the battling sides. People in white engaging a much smaller group of people in black and blue. The latter also having formed a ring around what seamed to be non-combatants and wounded... civilians. I lowered my scope. Using my long honed skills I crept ever silently towards that town and entered it. Cunningly avoiding any combat or hot spots.

Surpassing even the fleeing group of people as they seemingly got bogged down in the town's centre. Breaking into a four level building I climbed to the top, hoping to jump onto the parallel nearby structure. It would be risky. I could be seen. But at this point the streets were crawling with the white masked figures. The sewers as I found out were booby trapped. That building I aimed for might as well have been a trap for the black clad figures. Yet it wouldn't stop a veteran like me with years of survival under his belt. The building was unoccupied, and the top was clear. There I had a good vantage point. Carefully I sneaked a peak all around my area and indeed the main force of white robed people were converging onto the overwhelmed and besieged group.

I studied them through my scope. They were desperately holding their damaged shields trying to protect one another and the civilians. There again I noticed different races in this new group but none that I could clearly name by species. That was my time to jump over the next building while everyone was distracted.

I stopped in my tracks.

''I should jump.'' I thought.

I should have jumped... Yet I couldn't pull myself to.

I sighed deeply. I turned around and prompted my M40A1 rifle on the edge and took aim. A monstrous beast man wielding a large hammer was poised to take down the main defender of the small group. I held my breath and aimed, my weapon and me proved true as the shot went straight through it's left eyeball. Its hammer slipped out of its fingers, and its torso slumped backwards as its legs gave in. Taking no break I shuffled to the next target. A menacing looking horned figure wielding a staff seemed to gather more and more light, or power, further back behind the main attack line. I took the shot and my bullet hit the core of the staff. A great explosion and fire burst out, engulfing tens of white robed people!

I took another shot, and another, until I spent my twelfth and last bullet. The dark clad figures retook the initiative and broke the attack of the white group, probably thinking that their own reinforcements were at hand.

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Just then an explosion touched the lip of the building where I was behind, blasting a big chunk of my cover. I fell down unscathed for the most part. I was nearly sure I had lost my opportunity. I was spotted and acted upon. Wasting no more time I rushed to the south side of the building to survey again my escape route. And well enough I saw the white robed people surrounding my building, poised to gain entry after me. Just then I noticed something further in the distance. Five heavily armoured trucks rushing like meteors to the city. Looking closely through my scope I could see the vans had the same dark and blue markings along with a logo that I couldn't quite make out in their rush.

But there was no mistake about it. They were the reinforcements for the beleaguered group in this city. I laid low and waited for the parties to forget about me. But there was no chance of that. I could already hear the white robbed figures smashing inside the building. However, not long after the dashing trucks were ploughing through them, the area and my building was surrounded by both parties. I dared to look again, and the battle was everywhere around me. The white robed figures were now the ones hard-pressed by the dark-blue clothed ones. Bullets flew, grenades were thrown, explosives used, and strange forces were unleashed that appeared almost magical to the ignorant eye.

And amidst all that I could see a third party. Or rather a third person if I could say for sure. It moved incredibly fast! It was a rush and a shadow that even my augmented eyes could barely keep up with but make no sense of it. The dark clothed forces were now systematically overwhelming the once besieging ones. Which a good deal now took refuge in the very building that I stood upon! And to my annoyance I saw the red shadow closing in, soon it was in the building itself.

The sounds of the calm and collected white robed people that I heard faintly rising through to the top were suddenly changed to blood freezing screams of death. That is, blood freezing for the ordinary plebeian. I haven't lived through so much war and horror in years passed to be impressed by such displays of fear anymore. A death threat was approaching. I had to evade it, somehow. I rushed down to the fourth level. The screams were getting louder.

-Help! Heeeeee-*slosh, thump*

-I can't get it! I can't get it! Aaaa! *slosh*

-Aaah! Aaaaa- *slosh, slosh*

-''Hah, sounds like you are all getting systematically butchered here boys.'' I spoke quietly to myself, grinning a little.

I rushed to a room on the opposite side that I knew. There was a hole in the floor small enough to go through. I waited in a shadowed corner, my Heckler & Koch HK45 aimed onto the hole and waited. Slowly, the noises of people being killed in the level below shifted away to the opposite side, to the stairwell and then migrated to my level. The last white robed survivors must have been quickly approaching my way in their fleeing from the red menace hot on their heels.

I threw my sniper rifle through the hole first and just when I was about to jump through, a white robbed man smashed into my room's door frame. He was impaled with a thrown knife in his back and he was giving his last gurgled breath. This thing was too fast, I thought as I jumped through the hole to the third level of the building. Then rushed down the stairs like my life depended on it!

And true to my worry I heard a pair of nimble feet flapping what must have been some light boots on after me! There was no escape but one for me at that point. Taking from my inner breast pocket I armed in preparedness a chuck of explosives that I salvaged along the way. Passing the threshold to the basement of the building I smacked the explosive onto the last intact support pillar. Three seconds delay was too short for my comfort, but I would have rather risked that then whatever monster was after me. I barely turned the second corner as the blast wave hit me in full. Knocking me hard to the ground.

Next thing I knew my face was caked in blood and dust, yet silence reigned. Now came the slow and wonderful joys of trudging through a sewer while trying not to get blown up by the presents the white robed boys left behind. O joys of life.

It took me nearly half a day. But in the end I made it through to the south side of the sewer ending. I smelled like shit and blamed myself for playing the Good Samaritan. Yet, my soul wasn't burdened by the decision I had made. To my luck the sewer ending gave out into a low river at the edge of the woods on the south end of the valley in full cover. There I stood vigil a day and a night. Waiting, listening, sensing for any hidden foes that might have been there for an easy ambush.

There were none on the early morning of the second day when I ventured out. Soon after, I discovered what seamed to have been a dirt road on which the high speed armoured trucks probably came from. While I was decided to watch it at a distance and travel parallel to it, something had caught my eye. A strange plastic bag. I perked my ears and sharpened my senses. Nothing seamed to be afoot, so I dared to it. Picking it up and rushing back deep in the cover of the forest to take a closer look at it. On it, it read:

''Rhodes Island Pharmaceuticals - Ration Pack A - *Recommended for Lupos*''

-Lupos... wolves. No. Don't mess with me, don't give me hope. Fate, you piece of shit.

I crumpled the bag and marched ever onwards towards the south. Trying to clear my mind of distractions.

Even so, a lingering little flame of expectation remained in my heart.