Fallen Sniper

I lunged up the last step gripping the rail being as silent as I possibly could, trying not to give away my location to any enemies nearby. The window right next to me was shattered and the cold breeze blew through into the building with a whistling trail up and down the stairwell. It let in the sounds of people screaming for their lives and noise of heavy gun fire. I let out a breath and saw the moisture form into a fog and disappear into the air.

    I pushed my back up against the wall while I dropped my gun into my hands. I peered out the window over my shoulder to check out my surroundings. There was an old Irish pub and a grocery store across the street with two apartment buildings on either end of the small four building block. The wind picked up and was brushing leaves all over the streets, there were dead bodies everywhere. All of a sudden sounds of closer gunfire filled the city and saw people running into buildings. At this time I knew that someone had a machine gun and was moving in closer and had opened fire on the innocent civilians of  the small town of Dublin.

    I propped my gun up onto the frame of the window and used my scope to check out everything around me. My hands started shaking. I reached my hand into my right back pocket of my warn jeans and pulled out a red and white pack of Melbourne cigarettes. I shook the pack and opened it, then pulled one out of the middle and placed the filter gently between my lips. I then carefully closed the top and put the pack back into my pocket. I reached up to my jackets pocket, unzipped the zipper and pulled out my lucky lighter that my father had given to me when I was just 14 years old. He gave it to me just before him and my older brother who was 18 at the time had left from war and 4 years later, still yet to return. With the shiny silver cap open, I flicked the spark wheel and lifted the flame to the cigarette pressed between my lips until the end turned amber red, and gave it a puff. I flipped the top back on and slipped the lighter back into my pocket. 

    I took a drag of my cigarette and gently placed it down beside me. While exhaling the smoke, I placed the end of my rifle into my shoulder once again. I scanned the area for any other possible snipers or to see where the guy with the machine gun was. On the apartment building to my left, I could see what looked like to be a guy wearing all black on the roof hiding behind the brick chimney stack setting up his sniper. I quickly darted my vision to the right of me and saw a blue and green figure scampering around on the roof of the other building carrying the same model of rifle as I had. I dropped my vision back down towards the street, people were dead scattered all over the road and sidewalks. I saw motion and threw all of my attention at it, a guy wearing black padded chest and leg armour walked out of the store a few blocks down, he had on a red helmet and was carrying around a big semi automatic AK47. I was assuming that he was the one who had taken out all of those people on the nearby couple of blocks before i had even wandered to this side of town. 

    I stalked every move from the two new soldiers I have discovered for the next hour or so. I'm very certain that neither of them knew that I was there watching their every move, or that if they were aware of each other's existence either. The man on the right hustled out from behind the chimney and crawled across the buildings top all the way to the ledge, where he then pulled out the legs of his rifle and propped it up to look out his scope. The smaller built soldier on the left of me did not move his position from sitting with his back pressed against the the roof staring up into the sky. The sky was quite cloudy today and the air was crisp, meaning that winter was approaching. Slowly he picked himself up and used his binoculars to look around, he suddenly dropped them and fell back down onto his stomach. The other sniper then jumped up and ran back toward the chimney and hid behind it. They become aware of each other's locations. I stood there watching and pondering the thought if I should get myself involved with it and give my location away, or if I should just sit back and watch how everything plays out in silence.     

     The tinier framed man dragged himself across the hard cement towards the air duct and hid himself behind it. He lifted up his gun and let out a shot that hit the brick just above the opposing shooters head, he then jumped back down to the ground. He poked the nose of his rifle out and shot back at the other guy hitting the ground right by him and causing the bullet to ricochet sending it flying back into the air and puncturing something else on the building. The younger man climbed out of behind the air duct to get a better aim, he let out another shot this time getting it closer to the other shooter. Both snipers had the same shooting technique which had me thinking that they might have been trained by the same commander. The taller guy leaped out of hiding and shot the kid right in the chest, causing him to fall forward off of the building straight to the sidewalk below. I was in shock, my stomach formed into a knot. I knew that i should be used to this by now, but seeing other people die is still really hard on me. I thought, If that shot didn't kill him, then the nasty fall from at least 6 stories high onto the hard concrete would have.   

    The bigger guy had disappeared off of the roof and I could not spot him anywhere. I took my eye off of the scope and backed away from my gun. I picked up my still lit cigarette and placed it back between my lips inhaling it as I continued to search for the missing sniper. I heard the door open on the apartment building on my right and saw the man dart out onto the street and run fast hiding behind parked cars and buildings hurrying over to the man he had just shot. He lifted the helmet off of the body and fell straight to his knees, he put his hands to his eyes and started to cry. I looked through my scope and saw that the man he shot was in fact a child no older than maybe 15 years old. He removed his own helmet and sat it down beside the other one. They had the same facial features. They were brothers. There was no doubt in my mind. It explains there similar technique.    

    I sat there and thought to myself what should I do. Should I go out there and see if I can do anything? Or should I just pack up my gun and leave the area to another. I threw my cigarette down and grounded it into the concrete with the toe of my boot. I stared at the two other snipers and then turned around and slid my back down the wall and fell down sitting on the floor. My heart hurt and my head started pounding. It made me think about my father and brother and how I will probably never see them again and how much i missed them. I'm hoping that they are okay and wishing that they do return home. I closed my eyes as tears started to fill the brims and slowly stream down my cheeks and drip off of my chin onto my shirt. Maybe i'm not cut out for this whole sniper thing.