Snow crunched under each step as you scattered across the forest. Originally being a team of five, you found yourself alone out here. The only reason you knew you were truly abandoned by the team you had grown up with, was the cracks of firearms filling the air followed by the occasional scream of a child. Some didn’t kill your teammates right away, but most hits seem to hit dead on.

The gun in your hands felt so heavy, so unfitting for you. You struggled not to trip over your feet as you ran. You ran and ran until an explosive went off in front of you. It kicked up the snow and dirt, tossing the loose branches from the trees too. Being quick, you took in the things around you. You did your best not to hesitate too long before pulling yourself into a bushy tree. You hid up high, covering your mouth without a second thought. Your gear weighed you down, or lack thereof. Being your age, unfortunately, brought the issue of most issued gear being too big for you. So you wore what you could in hopes it would protect you at least a little bit.

You slowed your breathing, keeping a gloved hand pressed to your mouth and nose to keep the fog from spilling past your lips. Soon, voices came. From what you could hear it was two men and a woman. You couldn’t make out what they were saying, though you figured they were speaking about you. Carefully, doing your best to match your movements with the wind, you moved a little lower in the tree.

“ I counted four dead,” the larger man of the small group sighed heavily.

The words burned through you heavily. Though you weren’t allowed to have relationships or attachments, you had grown up with your team. You were raised together, trained together, and of course, taught together.

“ Jesus,” the woman began with a heavy breath. She fixed her vest for a moment before looking around.

“ They were just kids,” the smaller man of the group spoke sadly. “ Couldn’t have been older than fourteen,” he noted for the other two.

Silence fell over them. Your heart pounded in your chest as you realized you were the only one left. You felt the decisions lying heavily over you. You weren’t your team leader, he was dead from what you’ve heard. While you found yourself lost in your mind, you weren’t paying attention to reality any longer. The wind brushed through as you fixed your footing on the branch. Suddenly, the branch gave out under your weight. The sound, the feeling, snapped you quickly out of your thoughts. On a reflex, you grabbed the branch above you and pulled yourself into it as the one you had been standing on gave out and fell. The branch had been a decent size. Unfortunately, without it, you were pretty exposed.

The three stared at you with a burning gaze while you were staring at the branch. Your small frame had a tremble to it from the cold and adrenaline burning through your system at an unhealthy rate. Slowly, hesitantly, you looked up from the branch. The three still stood shocked at the view of you. You swallowed thickly, quickly grabbing your pistol at your hip and pointing it at them. The sight of the weapon seemed to snap them out of it. The largest man pointed the weapon at you, the smaller looked confused, while the women quickly shot in front of the largest to stop him.

“ Wait, they’re just a kid,” she snapped at him, grabbing the barrel of the weapon and pushing it down to stop him. He only huffed in reply.

The space fell quiet for a moment until the women finally moved to face you. You’ve seen this before several times. Soldiers find themselves unable to harm a child soldier. You were taught to abuse that, to kill them and get away.

“ We won’t hurt you,” she tried to speak as she offered her hands out to you, likely to offer help down from the tree.

Your gaze sharpened, weapon focusing on her the moment she came closer. The two men looked tense, to say the least.

“ Let us help you, please,” she asked of you, but you found yourself unamused by such a detail.

You’ve heard it before. When you were younger, you fell for it once. It resulted in some not-so-pretty things. Sure, they had gotten you out of there, but they still had treated you like a soldier with the information they needed. Your hands gripped the weapon tighter. The women hadn’t said anything more, leaving the wind to be the only sound in the space besides the occasional soft chirps of birds. The space became so tense, more so as you visibly expressed that you would not budge.

Suddenly, to take advantage of the situation, you moved to behave like you accepted her help. Your gaze softened in a carefully planned way as you allowed yourself to slide down from the tree. The group seemed to relax at the view of you standing in front of the women. So, you took advantage of that. You fired the weapon. The sound made you flinch while your hands ached with the familiar burn of the weapon in your hands. The sound of shouting filled your ears as you spun on your heels and booked it into the forest behind you.

You needed to do your job and they were in the way, that’s simply how it went. The woman was dead, you knew that much from the way you had shot her. You had shot her angled, so the bullet tore through her throat to her brain. It didn’t bother you, how could it? You were so used to killing others it was hard to care about another death.

Your feet slid against the wet, fresh, snow. It was difficult to keep your footing but at least your running was warming your body. You hated winter missions. It was cold, wet, and always so lonely. You tripped for the first time against a root that was sticking out of the ground, though hidden under the snow. Your breath hitched in your throat, swallowing down the pain as you pulled yourself up. When you had gotten up, you began to hear the familiar zips of bullets flying towards you. It allowed your system to burn hot as you began to run again. You were more careful about your footing, well, as careful as you could be.

Annoyingly, you kept slipping against the snow. After falling for the third time, you had lost your weapon. On the bright side, you were hearing lest bullets, though more shouting than anything. With your hands free they scrambled to get your comms to work. You became so desperate to get out of there, to live. As you began to reach a clearing, you spotted a cave. The clearing sounded mighty noisy with people, likely more of the people who had killed your team. Your feet slid against the snow as you stopped. They slid too far, causing you to slide forward and fall right onto your ass. Your pants were completely soaked from the snow. Then again, most of your gear was soaked. You stared at the cave, looking at the clearing off and on.

You decided to fuck it.

Scrambling to your feet, you stumbled through the snow and ran for the cave. The snow that was beginning to fall, and heavy, covered your tracks with ease. It allowed you to focus on hiding and running instead of covering tracks to get away. The moment you reached the cave you collapsed against a wall. You tucked yourself tight into the lip as you heard the two familiar men scramble the way you came, shouting at each other in clear frustration that they had lost your tracks. You figured they were mad about you killing their teammate, though you saw it as an eye for an eye at the end of the day.

Then the silence followed. Finally, the snowy forest was quiet. Your breathing lowered as you relaxed against the cave wall. It felt amazing to get to relax after all these hours. Your body ached and burned, more so from how many times you tripped or ran into trees and branches. As far as you knew, you didn’t have any injuries besides bruises you knew you’d feel tomorrow. The coast seemed to be clear, so you sat on the floor and began to try and fix your radio. You kept quiet, knowing you were fairly close to the camp of the enemy.

As hours ticked by, you found yourself unable to even get the radio to work. It was frustrating, to say the least. You kept working even after the sun had fallen and the cave grew extremely cold. With little adrenaline left in your system, you were practically vibrating from how cold you found yourself to be. It was awful. Your eyes grew heavy as the night raged on, but despite this, you kept pressing on. The only thing on your mind was getting out of there.

Unfortunately, the exhaustion of the mission hit you quickly. You were just a kid, after all. It couldn’t entirely be helped. While you were slumped against the wall, trying the channels of the radio all over again, you fell asleep to the snowy storm raging on outside.