[Val Verde]

[November 13th, 2009]

—

The beep of the heavy machinery was a dull ache in my head as I looked at the people around me.

Our eyes met as the midday sun beat onto our backs. What was often a simple afternoon light, felt relentless today.

Many were shirtless as it was pointless to wear shirts. The sweat and grim only matted it down. Though the girls did elect to keep on their shirts, or sports bras.

“Ready?” I asked and the other people nodded.

“One. Two. Three!” I counted, and we all grunted.

Our arms strained as he moved the shattered speck of mountain piece. Compared to us humans, this piece was over a hundred kilos of solid stone.

The piece shifted, and we all huffed as we shifted it enough. Gravity took hold, and we let go. The piece rolled on its own, fell onto the ground as we all stepped away.

[Thump]

The piece gave way to the let us into the small cave. It used to be an alcove until an explosive knocked the rocks above loose.

Inside, the bent and shattered frame of an artillery gun was half there. The lower frame was enough to somehow hold up the inverted pyramid made of rocks of all shapes and sizes.

In a flash if inspiration I recalled the Simpson's Three Stooges Syndrome.

The slightest bump could bring the whole thing down on us. Which would be ironic since, if we survived, we would then need rescue.

“Help!” came a girl’s weak reply.

My heart pounded in my chest. I hoped against hope that it was Carmen. That she was safe here despite the remains of the carnage around us.

I moved forward, as did two others. Volunteers to brave a potential cave in. The heavy rope was light in my hands as I paced forward.

The girl was crying as we made our way in.

[Rumble]

We all stopped for a moment. Dust fell from the ceiling as a digger moved somewhere nearby. I watched as pebbles fell loose and made their escape to the pock marked floor.

“Please…” the girl whispered.

I was the first to move. If it was Carmen… hesitation could be the difference between life and death.

I was quick to reach her side, but I sighed as I saw why she had not moved.

A long, thin metal shard had impaled her legs together. There was blood, but not profuse amounts of it. It had luckily missed two arteries as it pierced her legs.

[Uuuuuuurrrrr]

Our eyes met. Her eyes teared up, and she broke down sobbing. The feeling of death enveloped her.

I shuffled over, and she reached up to latch onto me. It was not Carmen. None of them where.

I squatted, allowing her to wrap her arms around my neck as I gathered her into my arms.

I moved, and I fell behind the other two I was with dragging out stiff corpses. I hustled it and we made it out as the metal frame of the heavy gun creaked.

The alcove collapsed. Rocks fell inward and, like sand, was fluid as it filled the small space.

The low rumble as that speck of the mountain moving was loud enough that it brought others rushing to aid us.

I did not need help, but the stretcher someone brought over was perfect. The girl gasped, and cried as her adrenaline wore thin and the pain returned.

The girl was sobbing as she held my hand as we made it to the medical tent. Nurses took one look at us, and then they moved her to a proper stretcher.

I watched as the was then wheeled off to another section. Doctors would be able to attend to her now.

With a cough, I made my out and I made sure to go to the rest stop. It was one of many canopy tents. The large roof only tent kept out the sun, and there was both food, and water.

The cool breeze helped us recover.

Dozens of volunteers were sitting around. Whispered conversations were sparse, and short bursts of talk. Many had their head in their hands or arms.

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There was some that talked. Some that whispered. Some that cried.

They touched on Hydra and their abandonment. The mighty organization had pulled up and left.

They took away the majority of the healthy. From the statistics, Val Verde had sacrificed the most. We had taken the brunt of the defensive measures.

The Supreme Leader, Baron Zemo, was also gone. The dead body of the previous Supreme Leader, Willian King, had been found in the man’s own bed.

Shot through the head and heart.

I felt solidarity with those that cried. The reality of lost ones ground home.

It was often times worse to find the body. You had closure, but so too did you lose the ability to deny their death.

Of the thousand soldiers that had was station here, less then half had been accounted for. Many were missing, and from some of the smears I had found, will never be found.

Of those that we did save, less then a hundred had got saved. As for how many of those would survive... I did not want to know.

I grabbed a bottle of water, and ignored the food. I had no appetite today.

Finding I seat, I sat and stared out into the world beyond. To another place and time as I had visited this view before. A local tourist location.

From here, it was possible to see the essence of Val Verde. To the the heart of our homeland.

From one side of the view to the other, I only saw hell.

The water was warm as I drank. It was refreshing but it did little to soften the wasteland that was once the base of the Morning Mountains.

Where there was once thick, lush rain forest... became a land of mud, wreckages, and bodies.

The only life down there was the milling of other groups of volunteers. Each cleaning up what they could. Salvaging what we could.

Bodies were wrapped and then piled high. Each dead wrapped in a simple sack, and ready for transportation. They would get moved to the ceremonial cremation kilns.

A left over from when a plague had devastated the island decades ago.

There, they would get reduced to bone. Then those bones would be ground into ashes. Ashes that people would dumped into the northern volcanic region.

From the earth came man, so thus man must be returned to the earth.

I wondered if that is what had happened to Carmen already. Had she already been returned to mother earth?

I felt her sit down beside me. She cracked her own water, and chugged it down. I opened an eye and I had guessed right.

“Johnny…” Candice said after moment. Her voice lingered as I finished up my water. Her mouth opened. Her lips moved. Yet nothing came out.

“You found her,” I sighed.

“We found her,” she whispered. She hugged me as her sobs broke the silence.

The world blurred as I stared out to the wasteland. The image of so much loss. So many of my fellow countrymen killed.

The sun shined. Yet I felt not a touch of its warmth.

—

“From the earth comes life!” Mother Madia whispered as she looked at the two people standing.

We stood in our military dress uniforms. The sharp looking clothes was a common sight as people moved. In the air, thick plumes of smoke drifted up and out into the ocean.

Tonight, the gods saw fit to gift us with good winds.

“Yet all things end. All things fade. All things return to earth,” Mother Madia continued.

I stared at the still forms of my family. They had been boxed up earlier today. The thick cardboard was important for the process of cremation.

A small flap revealed only their faces. It was also a opening that Mother Madia used to pour blessed water onto them.

Mother and father was found in each other’s arms. The collapse of the radar station had involved a fire. With no way out, they had suffocated to death.

Carmen had suffered the same fate.

There was no attempt to destroy her artillery gun. Instead energy beams had triggered a collapse that sealed off her large alcove or cave.

They had tried to run away from the Iron Legion. Forty people inside a small cave with no proper air flow. The air ran thin, and everyone suffocated.

Did that mean that my death would involve suffocation? If I lost both lungs, was that not the same?

“Return to the earth, and may the gods judge your spirits fair! These three have served Val Verde with great honor, and greater sacrifice!” Mother Madia finished.

Her voice had grown hoarse from the days of ritual sermons. Yet she closed her book, ending the ritual, and moved away. She had other to bless as well.

I was the last part of the ritual. I was slow to close the face lid. I tried to memorize the final sight of my family. Their closed eyes, that was most likely glued shut.

They all looked at peace. As if their last moments was not in suffering. It would have to be enough for me.

The pallbearers moved the three boxes onto robust carts and moved them towards the kilns. I moved with them.

Candice threaded her arm through mine.

We made it to the tenth kiln. Inside was space for ten bodies at a time. Candice rested her head on my shoulder and she linked her hand into mine. She squeezed it as a silent show of support.

I watched as they loaded the three into the last three slots of the kiln. The workers slid in the boxes, and then closed the heavy lined doors. Huge metal locks were then slid into place.

Here they would become bared to the gods. Their flesh stripped away, leaving only the foundation of their bodies.

My hand squeezed hers in return.

The bell tolled as one of the workers hit the start button.

I stared as I could see licks of flame leak out from the doors. After a minute, a man asked us to leave. The workers all left as well, and I could feel why.

The heat was incredible despite the many layers of brick and clay that sat between the central fires and us.

I was in some morbid way glad that they had died of suffocation. The last thing I saw was not mangled bodies, but still faces. It was as if they had gone into a very deep sleep.

When I had seen them separately, I was just tearful.

This morning, as they were placed into their boxes, my brain caught up to me. I grieved.

My outcry was the last thing I remembered before Candice collected me.

The day was a blur.

Yet.

I watched their bodies turn to smoke, and then vented into the air above. They mingled and soared. A signal to the gods that another one of their children had passed into their realms.

I had seen Harvey and Cheryl burnt this afternoon. Along with the rest of our squad.

Now my family was gone.

As I stared at the rising smoke from the ceremonial kilns. They formed a signal that I was sure could be seen from the international space station.

I hoped that they noticed. That all the gods noticed and ensured that the judgments were fair.

I leaned against Candice who then wrapped both arms around me. Her tears were enough.

I did not cry. I had cried enough.

I felt numb. My body felt weak, and my spirit broken.

My eyes opened to see that smoke drift away towards distant nimbus clouds. I could tell that they were raining.

There, off the coast of Val Verde, did the spirit of the country itself cry.

————

Chapter 04: Mourning Mountains