Qazin watched through watery eyes as his men frantically tried to stem the tide of Orcs and goblins pouring onto the road in the wake of the great beast. The huge grey skinned titan continued to lead the way, bullets bouncing off its tough hide, drawing closer with each breath.

"Sir, I am almost out of ammo!" shouted Soren, over the deafening sound of gunfire.

Hick's grunted, "Get up into the trees and stay up there."

The sergeant stopped firing and ran over towards him. Grabbing him by both shoulders he tried to lift him up, but Qazin refused to budge from his spot. He shook his head stubbornly and thrust Hick's hands aside, before pulling out a makeshift grenade from his chest pocket. Each squad member carried one in case of emergency situations. He'd make sure his death meant something.

"Get up into the trees Sergeant, that's an order!" he said, voice full of authority.

"I can't do that Qaz, so just put that grenade away and let me help you up."

Qazin's black eyes flashed angrily. "Leave me! You have wasted enough time," adding underneath his breath, "You need to take care of your family."

Hick's stepped backwards, tears prickling his blue eyes, as Qazin clambered up onto his feet, using the tree behind to support him. Holding the grenade to his chest, he shuffled forward towards the big grey-skinned bastard. And prayed his friend would make it out of the forest without him.

~ * ~

Grul Han, his body badly bruised and armor dented, hungrily gazed at the human wobbling towards him, eager to have a taste of human flesh. His eyes turned ruby red at the intoxicating smell of human blood, his mouth dripping with drool. In two long strides, he stood in front of the juicy morsel. Wanting to feel the human's bones break beneath his hands, he dropped his war axe to the earth with a thud and pounced. The human didn't move. His hands closed in around the human, crushing the soft creature in his palms. Something small and round dropped to the ground. Not caring what it was, he leaned in to bite the humans head off, when abruptly his body was engulfed in excruciating pain, and a bright white fiery light.

~ * ~

Time passed by. The dead Orc beside him reeked of death. Gunfire resumed once more off in the distance, maybe a few miles back. After waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, Talmen gingerly pulled the metal fragments from his chest and arms. Biting his lips, he tried to not scream as he felt his fingers dig into his chest to pull out the jagged pieces of metal. Tears slipped down his cheeks as he winced with every movement.

"Fucking Orc," he muttered under his breath with each stab of pain. Taking another deep breath, he yanked out the one in his stomach, releasing a small fountain of blood. Gasping and close to passing out from the pain, he pressed his hand to the open wound and slowly worked on removing two smaller pieces from his chest and one from his right arm.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

As he rested again, he tried to not think of the next part. Without any water on hand, there was only one way to clean a wound to avoid infection. He slowly pulled off his blood-stained shirt and laid it beside him. Then un-zipped his jeans, cupped his hands together and peed into his open palms. Grimacing in disgust, he splashed the urine onto his open wounds, and then rubbed his fingers gently across the wounds, groaning as they stung furiously. Done, he thought about wrapping his injuries with pieces from his tattered shirt, but realized it would be pointless. His shirt was caked in blood, sweat and dirt, which would only aid in speeding any infection.

He tiredly pushed himself up to his feet and zipped his jeans. More flashes of gunfire blazed off in the distance. He wondered how many were still alive, judging by the sound of the gunfire, he reckoned there were only a few left. In any case, they would all be dead soon, as would he, if he didn't find a place to shelter from the night. He hurriedly bent down to pick up his shirt, when he saw the creature that stalked his nightmares... Skin blackened like molten lava, with red hot flames dripping down its naked lithe body. It glided across the earth, its footsteps turning the ground beneath it to ash and giving birth to tiny flames that crackled to life. Twin flames burned within pitiless caverns where its eyes should have been. Its wide crimson lips slightly parted to release bursts of fire, revealing a corpse-like visage.

Petrified, he stood still watching as it passed through the forest heading towards the sound of the gunfire, gracefully gliding forward. Images flashed before his eyes of his father curled up in a ball screaming in agony, waving his hands in the air begging the creature to stop as it melted the flesh and skin from his bones, laughing all the while. Shuddering at the vivid memory, he broke free of the hypnotic appearance of the dread creature and hid within the crevice of a nearby tree; his body trembled uncontrollably. More lights dotted the forest as more of the creatures appeared. Burning the ground where they walked and lighting up the forest with their bright red flames. Too scared to move, he watched as the almost human like creature passed him by and felt an intense heat that caused him to sweat profusely.

Heart beating furiously, he gazed up into the sky and mouthed a prayer:

"Please, please, don't let them find me."

~ * ~

The powerful blast from the makeshift grenade shook the tall cedar trees and set them aflame, lighting up the darkness to reveal a seething mass of filthy goblins below in dirty brown robes with bits of human flesh hanging from their necks as they scrambled up the trees. The strong stench of blood, sweat and desiccation lingered in the breeze. Bullets whistled threw the air tearing away goblins from treetops and dropping them to the earth like rocks dropping into a pond. The Orcs clad head to toe in thick plate armor, stood at the base of the trees swinging their massive war axes, splintering wood and cracking the skulls of goblins that accidentally got in their path. Trees shaking with every blow, Tommy found himself struggling to line up perfect head shots. He fired into their chests instead, which wasn't quite as satisfying. But that didn't matter to him in the end, all he really wanted was for this fight to never end. He loved the feeling of warm blood gushing over him, the feeling of invincibility that followed the adrenaline rush. This was...this was the way to live life.