Twelve: A quick death

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From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.

–Edvard Munch

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2052 Old Germany

Snow crunched beneath thick-soled combat boots; a hidden ice slick squeaked and caused the soldier to lose balance for only a second.

Unfortunately for that particular soldier, a second was all it took for his life to come to an abrupt end. It had been a few days since Mwamba’s machete had tasted blood, but its sanguine appetite was at last appeased in this most sullen of environs.

With proper use, the simple farming tool commonly known as the machete can be used with deadly precision. Designed primarily as an agricultural implement used to harvest fruits and produce, its blade is weighted at the tip so that it can be swung with minimal effort and maximum effect. Unlike blades designed for military use, which are intended for quick thrusts and parries, the machete operates on pure momentum, and when used as a weapon, the weight can be used to mutilate, or to kill, with a single blow.

Fortunately for that particular soldier, Mwamba’s blade met effortlessly with his throat, and he died within a few seconds.

A quick death.

A good death.

Falling to his knees, the soldier dropped the shotgun that he had been carrying, and collapsed onto the ground, engulfed momentarily by the steam rising from the warm blood.

As quickly as Mwamba had sprung from his hiding place, he ducked into another, just as a second soldier clamored through the doorway, locked and loaded.

While the first had died as a result of slipping on unseen ice, this particular human being met with his own ignominious end due to the shock of seeing his squad mate lying before him in a pool of blood. The red hues and warm scent overloaded his senses for but a moment, yet a moment too long.

Fortunately for this particular soldier, he instinctually swung the muzzle of his shotgun towards the shadow lunging from the darkness, finger tight on the trigger; although his mind was preoccupied, his muscle memory compensated.

Unfortunately for this particular soldier, having aimed his weapon at the Silence, he became a greater threat, and thus his right hand had to be severed from his arm before his world went dark from a cut throat.

His finger still clung to the trigger, and although his grip went limp with the removal of his hand, as the weapon hit the floor the pressure from the taut finger was enough to discharge the chamber.

The pellets from the round embedded themselves harmlessly in the wall, and the world suddenly fell silent; the shot rang out, echoing down the street, the lumbering machine mere meters away jerked to a halt, and every single soldier in the patrol froze, muscles tight and ready for a fight.

The silence had been broken, and the fate of the rest of the squad sealed with it.