The killer detective

23 - The famous waking-up technique

Without a second thought, she went down and a shooting sound followed not even a second after. We were being shot at, without a place to hide, completely in the open terrain. This was bad. We were easy targets.

“Alth! What’s going on!” I heard Isaac’s calling.

“Alth! Answer!” No answer from me. I was silent. Isaac’s irritated worried voice appeared in my ear again a while: “Alth! Situation! Tell me the situation there!”

“Lieutenant Serapheim! Do you copy?!”

“YES!” I took a deep breath after trying to figure out all the options to go through.

“What is the situation there?” Isaac wasn’t very calm.

“Omita?” I asked her. She was stuck to the ground not moving. I came closer to her. The Moon was covered with clouds again, so we had the one in a million chance to find a cover, to quickly run and hide. Omita was motionless. 

“Not clear. Need cover.” I replied as fast as I could. I quickly grasped Omita’s body and threw her on my back. I started walking as fast as I could, pulling her away from the spot before the clouds would pass once again. Luckily, a few hundred meters from us there were a few pieces of something that used to probably be a house. Only about half a meter tall walls were sticking out. I was checking the sky, praying for more time to run. She was heavy. I could feel my legs getting shaky as I kept pulling her further and further into the Area 29.

Suddenly, the motionless body on my back started shaking. I tightened my grip on her as I needed her to stay put, so I could get to relative safety with her. The clouds were quickly dispersing.

“s**t,” I mumbled and threw myself on my belly, dropping Omita right next to me on hers. I locked her down with my leg through her knees and my right arm on her neck.

“Don’t you dare move now!” I growled, breathing heavily. I was trying to calm my breaths and heart. This was a very sticky situation. Omita either got a direct shot, a scratch or she was completely frozen just from the situation itself. And there was no time to find out.

“Alth, more clouds coming soon.” Basil was the calm guy speaking now. Isaac was keeping silent, probably trying to calm himself down as his irritated state would cause the situation to be even worse than it already was. It was shitty, that’s what it was. Nothing better.

“Kay,” I whispered, listening to the sound of wind and rustling grass around us. We were close to the shadow of the wall. Just two or three more steps and I’d have a few minutes to wake Omita up from her trance. I was staring into the house and the sky. I didn’t see any movement there. Suddenly it felt so peaceful, like nobody shot at us. Nobody fired a few bullets at us. It was just the two of us camping out during this calm night with a nice breeze.

Clouds! I grabbed Omita’s collar, yanking her up to make her run with me. We hid behind the wall. Finally. We were safe for a while.

“We’re behind the wall,” I reported the situation. I could hear Isaac’s and Basil’s relieved sighs.

“What’s Omita’s status?” Basil inquired. We were all hoping she survived her first real action without any injuries. I looked directly into her eyes. She didn’t seem responsive. I touched her left shoulder, gently squeezing it.

“Newbie, you hear me?” I asked her, trying to not stir up much commotion. If I violently woke her up from the trance, her survival instincts would kick up. She would jump up and run away from danger, making it even more dangerous for her, as she would be a completely easy target. She wasn’t answering. Her arm didn’t twitch even if I squeezed her arm a bit more.

“You’re not leaving me any other options,” I mumbled to myself. There was no use to wait or hope she would snap out of it. She was so deep in shock, that it would be a serious miracle if she woke up from it. I started grabbing and squeezing her body. First arms, then her legs, her belly, and chest as well. Her back was leaned against the wall. I pulled her forward, checking her neck, back of her head, and back. I couldn't leave out a single place. The bullets were small and precise. Then I leaned her back, crouching her legs as I was going through them from the bottom side.

“No bleeding. Just a bad shock.” I replied to the guys on the communication radio.

“How bad?” Basil asked. We were basically hoping it was just a mild shock, which everyone experiences at the beginning. But my hunches were telling me this was going to be a tough cookie.

I widened her eyes one by one, checking the pupil movement and size a few times each.

“Not looking well,” I replied, squatting down in front of motionless Omita.

“Isaac, can you check the building? I need to get clear air to get her there. I have to make her snap out of it.” I sighed. This kind of shock could last even for a couple of hours.

“Omita… What can I do with you?” This was one of the worse scenarios. Of course, it wasn’t as bad as dying here together, but there were better ones than I had imagined that could have happened.

“Negative.”

“But I really need-”

“Negative.”

I facepalmed myself. This was the end. And I couldn’t stay here with Omita for a few hours, waiting for the body to calm down and compress the adrenaline. I sat down next to her, leaning my back against the wall as well. I needed to calm down to think. I couldn’t possibly shoot anyone in the building from here. They could see the whole field. I couldn’t even properly see who was inside. Even night vision wouldn’t help me in this case. And infravision would pinpoint our location as the green light blinking on it would be too visible.

Think, Alth, think… Time is ticking. You can’t stay here for too long. They’ll come after you. This is the only hiding place there is. They know we'll be hiding here. We are too much of an easy prey staying here like sitting ducks. I squeezed my eyes shut for a while, trying hard to not imagine the worst possible scenes.

“Hey, newbie, snap out of it!” I could faintly hear shots and people screaming and running around me.

“NEWBIE!” No matter how much Cail was calling me or shaking my body, everything around me was blurry. I couldn’t even lift a finger. I could only clearly hear my heart beating and the shallow breaths I was taking. It was the first time anyone openly shot at me. I got shot into the vest, there was no blood on me. But I still felt like I could die at any moment.

“How is she?” One of Cail’s teammates was asking while covering us. We were in a ruined building with no ceiling. Just the walls were standing quite well. Why did we come here? For what did we go here? I can’t remember… Ah… A mission. We were here on a mission.

“In shock. How much longer?” Cail’s voice sounded so muffled as if he was behind a wall. I didn’t hear anything after that. I still couldn’t move.

“Alth! Now listen to me. If you don’t move right now, this will turn quite bad in an instant. Either you move on your own, or I make you move!” Cail’s blurred face was right in front of mine, but I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t do anything. I was stuck inside of my body, not grasping the situation, not knowing what was going on. Just the ever-present feeling of dying or possibly dying at any point was torturing me. It was making me take breaths slowly, so I could survive.

“WE NEED TO GO, CAIL!” 

“Okay, Alth. Take a deep breath. This is going to be awful.” I had no idea what they were saying as I was starting to see just black. Something squeezed the space between my thumb and forefingers strongly, nearly crushing my skin. I yelled out. Then, somebody lifted me up and kicked me into my solar plexus. I coughed out some liquids that got up from my body. I was standing, my arms falling down and pain going through my whole body.

“ALTHEA SERAPHEIM! IN POSITION!” I heard someone calling my name and telling me what to do. I forced my body to salute.

“ANSWER!”

“YES SIR!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.

“Welcome back, newbie.” I saw Cail in front of me. He put his hand on my shoulder.

“Now get your s**t together, we are leaving here! Take your gear! Don’t let others clean after you!” He pushed my rifle into my arms.

“Yes, sir!” I gripped it. The team’s captain quickly looked back at us, nodding. We were ready to set out. I wasn’t ready to die yet, even though my body was writhing in pain.

“Omita, don’t blame me for this…” I whispered.