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Gunshots cracked through the stale air of the caves. There were no combatants here, not active ones, at least. Everyone here was injured or sick. One of the higher ups that had figured out that a hippocratic jaeger was among their ranks sent Carmen to the backlines to care for them. Carmen was meant to nurse them back to health. He was supposed to take care of them and go on with his life.
Yet, here he was: holding back his tears as he held a bulwark's machine gun. It felt all too heavy, but he held down the trigger and fired at any dark blob moving through his blurry vision. With how he was gasping for air, you'd think he couldn't breathe. He felt bile rising in his throat; he forced it down, no matter how much it burned his throat. It kept coming back, like there was an ocean of vomit in his stomach and a storm was nearby.
He couldn't even aim the damn thing straight, even with its bipod. Bullets sprayed into wood and concrete, though anyone in sight became nothing more than another casualty. It was brutal. He couldn't even give them a swift death. He fired until those soldiers bled out. Carmen felt more ill than any patient under his care when it was finally over.
Then, Carmen saw a flash of purple in the corner of his vision, and he pulled out his knife with weak, shaky hands. He swung as hard as he could, even in his panic, aiming somewhere around the soldier's face or neck. His knife tore through the flesh and cartilage of their throat. The wound sprayed blood onto Carmen's guilt contorted face. That soldier is an enemy, and the queen would be disappointed in him but.. He pressed his palms against their throat in a desperate, instinctual attempt to stem the blood flow.
“I'm.. sorry.”
Tears flowed from his eyes like a dam that had burst. He hugged the Royal Nation soldier tightly, unable to tune out the sound of the gurgling of the man's opened throat. The only other thing he could hear besides the gunshots echoing in his head and the man's gurgled cries was his own heartbeat. He wanted to tell the man that it would be okay. He wanted to be able to just stitch up the wound, but it was too deep.
“I'm sorry.”
He couldn't stop the words from spilling out.
“I'm sorry..”
Again and again and again. He could hardly recognize his own voice. It was too high pitched, too panicked, too raspy, too desperate for this moment to end.