NON-FICTION
Excerpt
"Clouds in Liyvos: A Soldiers Tale From The Naxomian War"
Written by David Holltree
Chapter 3, Page 34The thoughts that race through a soldier's mind at 3 a.m. are the most dangerous. When the night envelops a soldier's mind, it can produce terrifying results. But not this night. Despite the threat of a looming attack, I thought about my family in West Pines, a small town on the Great Sea. I was a world away, in Naxomia. But when I closed my eyes, it felt like I could reach out and touch the hometown I missed so much. It was an escape from the reality. Sure, the poison gas had already come in other places. And yes, there was talk around the barracks that we'd be next, but nobody thought they were that crazy. We didn't think the People's Republic would gas their own city. Well. We were wrong.
The call came out at 3:01 a.m. as soldiers slept in the Liyvos RAF Forward Command Barracks. "Get your masks on, get them on!" a Lieutenant came in yelling. After that, sirens. And the shells began to land. We were lucky. We were one of the few barracks that had precious minutes to put our masks on before the clouds came. And we were one of the few that had masks at all in the barracks. Most didn't, but we were special forces. A minesweeping division that had them standard issue. When the clouds came, some were green, some were yellow: the colors of the gas clouds would only present themselves when the night sky was illuminated with the explosion of more shells. The men and women in our barracks were all from High Pines. We were a tough crew. We came out of training as a unit: ready to fight and ready to win.
But war is never what they tell you. It's not what you see with Truck Borris in the movies. We got to Liyvos only a few days before the fateful night of the Liyvos Gas Attacks. We never did get to see the enemy. Instead, we were dealt the horrifying aftermath of a chemical weapons deployment on an unprepared city. Liyvos, and Kyivos too, both suffered immensely. Upon arriving, I thought I'd be serving in a forward position, minesweeping with the Rural Combat Marines out of The Barrens. Instead, I was assigned the grim duty of accounting for the numbers of fallen comrades in the buildings they felt safest in.
In total, 67,000 RAF personnel died in the June 14 attack.
The next morning, the sun rose on a city shrouded in death. The once-vibrant streets of Liyvos were now silent, the only sounds being the haunting echoes of distant sirens. The gas had dissipated, leaving behind a lingering, acrid smell that filled the air. The streets were littered with the remains of the fallen, and the buildings stood as silent witnesses to the horror of the previous night.
My unit and I, clad in our gas masks, moved through the city, searching for survivors and tending to the wounded. We encountered scenes of unimaginable suffering. Families huddled together in their final moments, clutching each other as the gas took its toll. The gravity of the situation weighed heavily on all of us, and we knew that the horrors of war were far from the heroic tales we had been led to believe.
Days turned into weeks as we worked tirelessly to provide aid and support to the survivors. The city slowly began to come back to life, but the scars of that fateful night would forever mar its landscape. The hospital facilities were overwhelmed, and makeshift medical stations were set up in any available space.
I befriended a medic named Sarah who had seen the worst of humanity but remained dedicated to her mission. We often found solace in each other's company amidst the chaos. As the days went by, we discovered that we had more in common than just our service. We both hailed from small coastal towns and shared a love for the sea. Sarah's stories of her hometown, Cove Harbor, echoed my own memories of West Pines, creating a bond that helped us weather the emotional storm around us.
One evening, as we sat together in a makeshift break area, Sarah spoke said, "You know, despite everything, I still believe in the goodness of people. It's what keeps me going in this madness."
I nodded in agreement, taking a sip of the lukewarm coffee from my canteen. "I do too. It's moments like this, when we see the resilience and compassion of those who have survived, that restore my faith."
Our conversation was interrupted by the distant rumble of thunder. We exchanged worried glances, knowing that a storm was approaching. The weather had been unpredictable since the gas attack, with frequent, violent thunderstorms rolling in.
As the first raindrops fell, Sarah and I decided to make our way to the hospital tents to help secure them against the impending deluge. We rushed through the muddy streets, pulling down tarps and reinforcing the tents as the rain intensified. Lightning streaked across the dark sky, illuminating the destruction that surrounded us.
Once the tents were secure, we took shelter in one of them, sitting on a couple of folding chairs. The sound of rain on the canvas was deafening, drowning out our thoughts for a moment. Sarah's gaze met mine, and I could see a mixture of weariness and determination in her eyes.
"I've seen a lot in my time as a medic," she began, her voice barely audible over the rain. "But this, this is different. It's as if the world has lost its way."
"We're doing our best to help those who need it," I said. "That's all we can do."
The scars of the gas attack would never fully fade, but the resilience of the people was remarkable.
As we looked out over the city, it was evident that the clouds of war had cast a long shadow over Liyvos, but they had not extinguished the human spirit. It was a reminder that, even in the darkest of times, there could be a glimmer of hope, a chance for humanity to rise above the horrors of war and rebuild what had been lost.
Then, the sirens sounded through the city. It was the RAF, calling all personnel assigned to humanitarian assistance to report for new assignments. I never saw Sarah again. I was informed later she was killed on the front while tending to wounded soldiers in an assault on an enemy trench the next day.
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