Chapter 2: Chapter: 2 New Beginnings
Helen woke up to a sudden tremor, a shaking originating from the very roots of her cozy home. The building shook, cracks spread across the roof, and the walls came crumbling down. She jumped up, attempting to move out of her head before the ceiling could crumble in on her, but she was too late.
Soon, Helen was buried under the debris of what had sheltered her for over three years and she saw the culprit of all her predicaments. It was an armored military vehicle, a fuckin' Cougar! An MRAP!
She thought the army had trashed those ages ago!
'*COUGH*FU*COUGH*CK*COUGH*'
As the dust began to subside, Helen looked down and found herself trapped beneath several tons of concrete and metal. Her vision blinked in and out of focus, probably from the blood loss... and the fact that most of her organs appeared to have been crushed.
She stared at the hole in the ceiling, it was supposed to be a durable structure made to survive artillery bombardment and it collapsed under a truck. But how the fuck did it get there in the first place?!
Well, those were her last thoughts as the truck slumped forward, crushing her head beneath its tires.
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*PAIN*
The pain was all she could feel, spine-chilling, bone-rattling, and skin-splitting pain. She felt her legs shatter, her arms twist, her abdomen crushing in, her neck, her chest, and finally her head break.
The pain lasted a while, it was all she could feel for a long, long time. She couldn't tell for how long, but it felt as though a couple of days might have passed she couldn't tell really, it all felt quite hazy. All she could tell was that she was in too much pain to be making up proper thoughts... but she somehow was!
How utterly fascinating!
Fascinating her chemical burned arse!
After what felt like an eternity, the pain finally started to die down. It receded slowly, bit by bit. First, it receded from her limbs, her head, her neck, and so on but for some unknown reason, the pain in her abdomen kept getting worse.
Slowly, she opened her eyes or maybe she didn't, the darkness was far too dense to tell anything.
*ZzzZzzZzzZzzZzzZ*
Slowly, she began to hear radio static and chatter... and gibberish, the voices were far too broken to make anything out of it. But something was wrong, the static was far too dense to be a conventional radio.
Time passed yet again, long and short, noisy and quiet, and now she was in a white room. Milky white walls, white ceilings, and a milky white floor... or maybe she still hadn't opened her eyes yet.
She could still hear the static, it had begun to sound more and more like a standard malfunctioning military radio... seriously, when one hears their sound all day long for half a year, you can almost distinguish military equipment from almost anything in existence.
After listening to the voice, she began to make some sense out of the gibberish she had been hearing so far. She heard a deep male voice shouting, ordering someone to hurry up and bring him his fucking tools before the fuckwit he was operating on died. After a few hours, she began to hear several soft voices, women chattering on and on, contemplating whether they would survive the great war.
War? What war? The last war they called 'Great' took her voice and squad in exchange for five VIPs' lives, three of whom died half a year later, from diabetes... quite the coincidence.
Perhaps a new one started and she had her brain installed in some sort of computer?
Nah, she felt far too much to be a computer, and her abdominal pain kept worsening by the moment. Hours passed, maybe... but the pain did not die out, instead, it kept increasing until with one last burst of agony, it stopped altogether.
"I'm tellin' ya', son..."
"...gonna stand for this, not a chance!"
"...business, so keep your nose outta it!"
She began registering loud voices, they were commanding and gruff. Some more than the others, and she thought that she heard the sound of shells!
Artillery shells!
Those were so outdated!
What about missiles!?
Jolly old nukes!?
Does nobody fucking miss them!?
*SPLAT*
A splash of ice-cold water jolted her eyes open and she stared straight into a pair of amber-brown orbs of pure panic. They belonged to a woman... or rather a girl, she appeared to be in her early 20s with blond hair and amber-brown eyes. She looked shocked, but then again, most people would be when someone with a hole in their stomach tried to sit up.
The woman took one last look at her and ran straight out of the fuckin' tent shouting,
"By golly, sir! She's come to, haven't lost her grit! You can have a chat, but make it snappy. Poor gal needs rest and grub, ain't touched a bite in a week!"
She appeared to be calling out to someone of higher rank and soon, the heavy fall of boots replaced the chatter of a broken radio. The sound of a man with a rather gruff voice called out,
"Alright, shouldn't take much. Appreciate you not makin' a fuss, lady."
A rather bulky man stepped inside, he appeared to be in his late 50s but the creases on his face made him look like someone in his late 70s. He had brown hair or at least at one point in time he had brown hair... now they were mostly grey, and balding, can't overlook the balding. Maybe 6 feet, a couple of inches give or take. Freshly ironed uniform and a no-nonsense attitude that almost made her flinch... almost, but not quite.
He observed her for a few moments, his eyes wandering from her head to toe only pausing to give her heavily bandaged abdomen an apologetic look which only made his face look even scarier. He began in what she took to be his gentlest tone, which was slightly grinding and jarring and scary,
"Top of the mornin', Sergeant Helen! Colonel Matthew S. Stock here, at your service. No time for chit-chat, I know you need your rest. But hold on to your hat – you've earned yourself a couple of shiny medals, though, between you and me, they're just metal scraps compared to the real prize. Congratulations, you're a First Lieutenant now! Now that's something to celebrate, wouldn't you say?"
He smiled, which was somehow even more scary,
"Listen here, soldier. If you're hankerin' to get back home, we'll get you a ride back to the States faster than a telegram. But if you need some R&R, or maybe even feelin' up to rejoining the fight after you mend up, that's your call entirely. Now, I gotta say, it's on us that your outfit walked into trouble without a heads-up. That's our fault, plain and simple. Just let Rita know your decision within the next two days, see? After that, you'll be stuck in Europe until things calm down a bit."
He finished the entire 'speech' in a single breath, it looked as though the man had been rehearsing his lines properly, or perhaps it was from experience, who knows?
Anyway, she needed to know what the fuck was going on here, she really needed to know how she got into this strange mess,
"Sir, I appreciate the offer, but the whole thing's still foggy. Can I have a bit of time to clear my head before I answer?"
The Colonel didn't look all that annoyed by Helen's answer, instead, he had a rather sympathetic expression on his face. He nodded before walking briskly out of the damned tent that was starting to smell like really old socks.
A moment later the short woman appeared again, her name was Rita,
"Say, Ma'am, anything you need? Water, grub, anything at all? Don't you fret about bein' shy, just holler. Least I can do after you went through the ringer. Doc'll be here later, but you know how it is – trenches full of fellas needin' patchin' up, works piled higher than a mule can kick. Feels like there ain't a spare breath to be had around here. But you just relax, we'll take care of you proper."
Helen wanted to say, 'No she doesn't' but held it in, and with some struggle. she voiced out,
"...Water"
The... what was she again? A nurse? Meh... She scrambled out of the tent blabbering, 'Of course' and 'How silly of me.' Rita came back a minute later with a metallic canister in her hand, she screwed its cap off and held it to Helen's mouth. Helen took a long sip, not liking the taste... or rather the very presence of a 'taste' in said water. It was bitter and had a metallic tang to it, but she needed the liquid to go down her throat and she gulped it down desperately.
Rita stared at her with twinkling eyes filled with excitement, like an excited puppy. Maybe she wanted to say something, anything, desperate for a conversation, like a hyperactive kid... good, she won't suspect much.
Helen nodded at her,
"Listen, I'm grateful for everything, but things are still a bit foggy. Could you maybe walk me through what happened?"
Rita bobbed her head like a chicken... chick... 'heh,' and began in an almost worshiping tone,
"Reckon you showed them Imperial varmints what for! Them Kaiser-lovin' sons o' guns wanted to blow up the doc's place, but you filled 'em full of lead! Sent 'em squealin' back to their trenches, faster than a greased pig!"
She trailed off into a heroic narrative of a tail Helen was quite certain never happened,
'I did what now?'
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Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone