>>16076
The Foxhole: Part 2

The assault lasted for most of the day and into the evening.

Wave after wave of the enemy had rushed headlong into the Imperial machine gun nests and trenches, their sprawling corpses piling up in the wet earth of the battlefield. Patricia and Emily had repelled by their estimate at least 150 soldiers, and were halfway through their last 200 round belt.

The shadows grew long as the sun set, and Patricia wondered when they would get resupplied. After hours of combat, the girls were exhausted and their nerves frayed. Emily had taken one of the "go pills" they had been issued with at midday, and now she was beginning to crash hard from the high. Patrica had to gently shake her every time Emily's head nodded forward. Patricia let her mind begin to wander. She looked at the bodies scattered in front of her and felt a wave of nausea. She had snuffed out hundreds of lives, and the girl felt the gravity of that begin to settle over her. Patricia looked down at her pale, slender fingers and shivered. The hands that had once elegantly embroidered fancy dresses and gracefully played the piano were covered in blood.

Lost in thought, the teenager didn't notice the dark forms slowly crawl past the bushes surrounding the foxhole. Nor did she notice them slowly pad behind her and Emily. It was only when rough, gloved hands clamped over her mouth did she snap back to reality.

By then, her fate was sealed. Her blue eyes shot wide open as her hands clawed at the muscular arms restraining her. She saw the cold gleam of a knife and felt raw terror flood her heart. Animal instincts took over. She thrashed furiously, but the arms were far too strong to slip out of. The knife struck, slamming into her breast and penetrating between her upper ribcage, the tip of the blade slicing open her aortic arch.

Patricia stiffened, ice cold pain spreading across her chest. She inhaled, the smell of her killer's leather gloves flooding her panicked brain. She could feel a wetness spread across her chest as her heart pumped frantically, each pulse sending her closer to eternal oblivion. Her hands still scratched, her legs kicked, but with each second her struggles weakened. Her dying mind was filled with emotions and memories flashing by in instances, random synapses firing as brain cells shut down by the thousands. Her 8th birthday, the time Father had left a meeting early to attend her piano practice at school, the smell of Mother's perfumed hand caressing her hair during an illness, the warmth of Grandfather telling her war stories by a crackling fire, the spark that planted a desire to join the Army. It all swirled past, swallowed by the yawning eternal darkness. It was so damned cold. Then, a white light.

Nothingness followed.