My mental triage went a little something like this, Alexei was okay, nothing life-threatening right now, probably just some broken or bruised ribs. I was fine, apart from some scrapes and minor cuts. The other guy was going to need a lot of work. I quickly disinfected my cuts and wrapped them in bandages. I can’t help anyone if I die from an infection first.
I got to work on the other guy. First, I rinsed my hands off with the last of my fresh water. After that, I got out my IFAC and grabbed surgical gloves out of it. There were three significant cuts on the man. God, there was so much blood. There cut was on his left leg, and it was bleeding pretty severely. There was so much fucken blood… I slapped myself hard. Get a fucking grip; you have to do something to help him.
I tried to slow the bleeding by putting a bandage on it. The piece of gauss was already getting soaked in blood. Fuck alright, then a tourniquet. I grabbed the piece of cloth that was supposed to save the man’s life. I got it in place and ensured that it got fucken on tight. I looked down at my watch and wrote the time down on his skin with his blood. My instructor always made sure that I knew how much time you are supposed to leave a tourniquet on.
Another one of the man’s injuries was on his arm. This time I just skipped straight to the tourniquet. I didn’t have time to mess about. The last injury was a long but not deep cut on his chest. I wrapped it in bandages. That's all I could do for him right now.
I was beginning to run out of adrenaline. My hands were shaking, and blood was covering my hands and dripping on the floor. I took off the surgical gloves when I remembered a historical fiction book with a part like this. One of the characters got slashed up by a sword, so another character saved his life by cauterizing the wound. I am really going to try a medical procedure that I only saw in a book? I looked back to the man, the bandages were already soaked through and a steady stream of blood that already gotten through the bandages was starting to make it’s way onto the floor.
I grabbed the man’s knife, ran outside, and started grabbing sticks and rocks. I made a hasty campfire pit using my E-tool to clear the ground and rocks to form a circle. The sticks I built into a tepee-like structure. Next, I grabbed a paper instruction manual from one of the older MREs. I used that and some smaller sticks and leaves for kindling. Finally, I pulled my lighter out from one of my pockets. I always carry one for lighting smokes. I lit the MRE instruction manual and threw it into the middle of the stick tepee.
Getting the fire hot enough for the cauterization process took a couple of minutes. The smell of the smoke brought back happier memories of camping in the woods with my brothers. I grabbed the knife and placed it in the fire.
Now there is nothing I can think to do but wait. So for the next 20 odd minutes, I had music playing from my MP3 player as I kept pressure on the chest wound. After four songs, I went outside and picked the knife out of the fire. The knife was glowing red now. I was mesmerized by the glowing blade for a second. Then, I snapped out of it with a shake of my head. I walked back to the wounded man on the floor.
I knelt over the man. I cut the bandages off him and pressed the knife to the wound. Immediately the blood spilling over the wound started to boil. The smell of blood overwhelmed my nose, and the taste of iron was on my tongue. I could tell when I got to the flesh, the smell in the cave turned from blood to burning flesh, but I had to be honest. It smelled just like a BBQ. The thought disgusted me, but I did have it.
After a couple of seconds, the smell died down, and I withdrew the knife with shaking hands. I am not fucken qualified for this at all. I went outside and took a deep breath, god the air was so fresh and didn’t smell like burning flesh. I walked over to the fire and placed the knife back in. I then grabbed a nearby flat rock and sat on it, staring into the flames and thinking.
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Snow leopard POV
The snow-white leopard returned to the pack’s cave, covered in mud and clumps of dirt sticking to her wet fur. A black leopard with red eyes walked out of the cave,
“you have failed. We do not need this with that undead church forming in our territory.” the black leopard said with annoyance. The white’s head lowered in shame,
“They aren’t from the village that we made the packed with. Instead, they are fire mages with clothing I have never seen before.” that piqued the black leopard’s interest.
“Good, then they might be mercenaries. We may be able to hire them for the coming fight.” the black leopard mused.
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My POV
Finally, It's finally over.’ Those were my first thoughts as I walked out of the cave. The smell of burning flesh still covered my clothes. Still, in a state of half-shell shock, I got up and shambled over to the small stream. At first, I didn’t do anything when I got to the stream. I just stood there, watching the moonlight dance over the wandering water. My energy was spent. If I had gotten attacked at that very moment, I don’t know if I would have fought back.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Eventually, I collapsed onto my knees. The shore pebbles and wet sand parted easily and made a softish place for my knees to rest. The now kneeling position, I was in let my hands reach down and scoop up a handful of the glimmering liquid. Splash. I had hit myself in the face with the cool water. That woke me up, if only slightly. Well, it gave me the energy to realize that throwing water around an electronic device, namely the radio. Was a pretty bad Idea.
I quickly took off my gear and placed my radio off to the side. Then, I took a second to wash my hands from the blood of the guy. While I was getting most of the blood and grime off of my hands, I thought back on what the hell happened. ‘ Well, getting attacked by a magical snow white leopard. Not something on my bucket list.’ I thought as the last drop of blood on my hands got whisked away by the flowing water.
It took my exhausted brain a second to realize what I just thought. ‘A FUCKEN MAGICAL SNOW WHITE LEOPARD!’ the realization hit me like a brick. So my brain, in an act of self-defense, immediately went into denial.
“I just was seeing things. It was probably just the fog of battle?”
I muttered to myself. A beep from the radio made me jump 10 feet high.
“*beep* hello, Harly you still there.”
I snatched up the radio.
“Yea, I’m still here. Holy fuck, man, you scared the shit out of me. But it’s so good you hear your voice. You got my extract.”
I said all of this in a rambling tone, barely finishing a word before starting the next one.
“Negative. I did, however, get you a little chat with the boss. Also, call me ‘Tower’ so we can maintain a semblance of comms discipline.”
I felt betrayed, angry, and lost. ‘No one left behind, my ass.’ was my prevailing thought as I answered Tower.
“Roger that Tower, could I please speak to your dick head of an officer.”
I didn’t get an answer from Tower. Instead, I heard the sounds of the mic being connected to someone else’s mic. I drew breath to start screaming at the motherfucker who was stopping my fucking help. But something interrupted those plans; somehow, I couldn’t make myself form words.
“Hello, Harly. You want to know why you haven’t been picked up yet. Well, the reason is you are no longer on earth.”
‘Fucken, what did he just say.’ I thought as my brain raced to catch up to what he was saying.
“You have been killed on earth. I believe it was from an AA cannon mounted on top of a truck. Anyway, that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that I have sent you to fight in another world.
I haven’t introduced myself yet. I have been called many things over the centuries. Odin, Zeus, Allah. But you know me as God.”
‘Damn, I really am going crazy. Well, I guess it had to happen sooner or later after all the shit I’ve been through.’ I thought as I began to zone out. Something flickeded me onon the side of the head. That got my attention.
“Hey, idiot, pay attention to me. I am trying to give you information.”
“Stop talking for a second. I just got hit by something.”
I said into the radio as I spun around, looking for the thing that had just hit me.
“Yea, I know. That was me. I was trying to get you to pay attention.”
I disregarded the radio chatter as I scanned the surrounding area for what actually hit me. Nothing moved in the dark forest around me.
“You know what, I'll just get this info into your head, so in the morning, you can remember what I said. Basically, I got you guys from earth after y'all died very messily to come here and ‘update’ the people here to the modern age. To help you do that, I got you guys the killstreak system from call of duty. Maybe I was being lazy, but it works. Anyway, here's everything you need to know.
1. A small airdrop
This will drop a small supply package five feet long, three feet deep, three feet wide, and contains 100 pounds (~45 kilograms). It requires three kills to call in.
1. An airdrop
This will drop a cargo pallet 8 feet wide(2.4 meters), 10.4 feet long(3.1 meters), and up to 10 feet(3 meters) high that can contain 2,200 pounds(100 kilograms), which requires ten kills or capturing a small amount of territory.
1. A vehicle airdrop
This will drop any vehicle that can be dropped from a plane, requiring 50 kills or capturing a town.
1. A10 Gunrun
This calls in an A10 30mm gun run onto a target. Ten kills to call in.
1. AC-130 Gunship
This calls in an AC-130 armed with a 105mm cannon, 40mm cannon, and a 25mm rotary cannon (a minigun-style weapon), 25 kills to call in.
1. Apache helicopter support
This calls in an Apache helicopter which is basically a flying anti-everything vehicle, It has a 30mm cannon, plus four hard points for missiles of all types. 15 kills to call in.
1. Reinforcements
This will call in a helicopter full of trained soldiers, 75 kills to call in, or the capture of a large town.
Your kills are marked with blue notches, but if you get enough of them, they’ll just turn into a number. Have fun with this stuff.”
The radio crackled off, and the glowing blue markings turned into a two with a little skull mark below. I hastened to finish cleaning up, then, I rushed to the cave entrance and sat down to one side with my back against the dirt that made the cave entrance to wait and watch.