• Desolation 20


    By: Tristan Hafner





















    Chapter one: Snipers, Ahoy!
    “Bravo Team respond, over!” The commander screamed into his walkie talkie. “Spirals have taken down Apache 6!”
    “Roger commander Wilson, we have visual of Apache 6’s base. Its been blown down. Over.” The voice scratched through the speaker. The commander slammed his fist down. I looked up at him, still holding my M-16. The soldiers around me sat and waited for the official word from Wilson.
    “Men! Apache 6 is down, we have to get in there and retrieve any survivors before the spirals come!” Several soldiers looked down at the ground. Apache 6 was gone. Some of us had created bonds with the men over in that team. Now they were gone, to never return.
    The war had started a few years ago. Spirals had started small, taking over Oceanside. They eventually took over California, and went on to the whole US. Spirals are viral, disgusting, and ruthless creatures. They kill anything in their path. For years, humans did not know of the spirals. Only the gifted did. By gifted, I mean, gifted with extraordinary powers. Powers such as flight, strength, shape shifting, you name it, and one out of fifty people in the world had a power. Special schools were created to train those who were gifted to control their powers. When the spirals had taken over, the kids from all over with powers united to take them down. Every type of military joined also. Army, marines, navy seals, every single one of them joined in the fight to save the earth. I, Faten DesOlation, had joined the marines, not knowing that this would happen.
    My team and I, Desolation 20, had been in the plains on the mid-western states in the United States. We had been fighting off spirals for weeks and months. Bravo Team, and Apache 6 were two other teams that fought in the Midwest also. We were the bravest and most cunning out of the marines, or so we thought. In an encounter with the spirals, Apache 6’s home base was blown too smithereens. Now our mission was to find the survivors.
    “DesOlation!” The commander’s voiced shrieked and I jumped up.
    “Sir!” I said.
    “You take your team and head North West, until you reach the side of Apache 6’s base. You will wait there until you receive further orders.”
    I nodded and my team stood up. The team’s name was Desolation 20, yes, but within it, some soldiers commanded smaller groups. My group was Desolation 22. It consisted of 50 men, all different people. One man in particular, Axel Breeze. Axel Breeze was one of the gifted. He was half wolf, half human, and controlled wind. He was a quiet one, but it seemed when he fought, he couldn’t be taken down.
    I motioned my hand and my team began the trudge into the gates of what seemed to be, hell. As we walked away, the commander barked more orders at the rest of the men.

    As we trudged along, guns at the ready, eyes dilated, the heat bore down on us. Men were dumping their canteens on their faces and sighing in relief. Axel simply floated along in front of us, not saying a word. We had been walking for about 8 hours now, and we were getting closer to the base by the second. Men were groaning as the hot weather and dry air made them tried and sore.
    I stopped and wiped sweat from my forehead. The sun was directly in front of us. It seemed to be laughing as it stared down at us and made us suffer. Axel stopped and opened his eyes. His ears perked up and he looked to his side, his long blonde hair flowing behind him.
    “Someone is here.” He said turning, and pulling out two katanas. He looked around and sniffed, as a dog would. His wolf senses gave him the upper hand when it came to finding the enemy. Our whole group stopped and raised their rifles.
    A small infantry man, holding an RPG whispered to me, “What’s going on?” Suddenly two spirals lunged out at our group and ripped one of our men too shreds. Axel shot over to one, and seemed to somehow go through him. The spiral fell into two pieces. Axel jumped at the other one, thrusting both swords into the beast. Axel put his swords away and sniffed the air. He signaled to keep going. We started to run in the direction of the base.
    We had no idea of what we were getting into.

    An hour and a half later, we were all hunkered down behind a bunker. I held my M-16 close to my chest and breathed. I retrieved my talkie from my pockets and switched it on. “Sir, DesOlation here- We have reached our destination.” Static scratched through the speaker and a voice came through, it was raspy and not familiar.
    “Good. The Commander and his team should be arriving soon. Hang tight, over.” The voice said.
    I shook the talkie, “Who are you!?”
    “Oh right. Chill dude. My name’s Joey Bolt. General. I’ll be giving your orders now, I sent the commander with a group. My cousin, Alexander, will be accompanying them. Once they get there, Alexander and Axel will go in and get the survivors. You will follow behind.”
    “Wait a second, General Bolt, The hero of the Eternal Hills battle in Oceanside?” I screamed into the talkie. My men looked over at me. Axel just laughed.
    “Yeah, yeah, yeah, focus on the situation at hand.”
    “Oh right. Over and out.” I said, switching off my talkie.
    About ten minutes later, a large group piled into the bunker next to ours. A boy, about 17, with a large tomahawk strapped to his back. Alexander. He looked over at Axel and threw him a case with the letters “F D” on its top covering. Axel threw open the case. Six sniper-rifles lay inside. He carefully took each one out. “Can we get some snipers over here?” Axel screamed, and two men rushed over. I followed. I picked up the biggest sniper I saw. We knew 3 snipers wasn’t enough, but it was all we had.
    After loading up my gun, I positioned myself next to the other two men. We got ready to cover Alexander and Axel. Axel drew his swords, and Alexander his tomahawk. They began to charge towards the base.
    About ten minutes passed, and we heard a large crash. Alexander came running out, holding at least 6 men. Spirals came up out of the ground to attack him. It was our time to work. I pulled off an instant headshot taking out a spiral. The two other men, however, finished the others with shots to the heart.
    Axel came out, fending off spirals as they lunged at him. He launched some back with air, and sliced others directly in half. I pointed my barrel around, looking for targets. I suddenly looked up and saw snipers positioned on top of the base. I looked at the two next to me, and, without warning, screamed, “SNIPERS ON THE BASE! GET DOWN!” I looked back at the enemy snipers, and I was thrust back by a shot in my chest. I fell back onto the ground and looked at my camouflage jacket, a red stain seemed to keep growing. A medical troop rushed over and ripped off my shirt.
    “Stay with me sir… everything will be ok…” His words drifted off into nothingness and everything went black.

    Beep… beep… beep… My eyes opened ever so slightly. My ears picked up the sound of beeping to the side of me. My eyes opened more. I was fully awake now. The room around me was white, with one window. I looked down at my legs, which were under a blanket. I tried moving them, but there was an excruciating pain as my left leg barely lifted. I had obviously been here a long time. I looked at the door, and a large red cross was on it. I knew where I was, the hospital.
    I looked down at my chest, and a large bandage with an enormous red stain covered my chest. I slammed my head back onto the pillow and groaned. The last thing I could remember was getting shot by a sniper. I must’ve been carried off to the hospital. I looked at the calendar on the wall next to me. It was the month of January. It was December the day I got shot. I might’ve gone into a coma for almost a month!
    The door opened slowly, and in stepped a nurse. She placed some files on a desk, and looked at me. “You’re awake,” She said with a smile. “That’s good.”
    “What happened? Did we win? How long have I been out? Where’s the commander?” Questions poured out of my mouth.
    “You where shot directly between your ribs, luckily,” The nurse started. “I don’t know if you won.” I clenched my fist. “You’ve been out for 28 days now, and the commander should be here soon.”
    I tired sitting up, but a pain blocked my efforts. I laid back down, and blacked out again.