Ground Ops: Turkey

Fuchsia tinted light flooded his eyes as he blinked the blood from his eyes. A cautious and trembling hand ran over his brow and quickly found the fresh split in his skin. For all the blood, it was bright crimson, shining in the sunbeams breaking through behind him as he moved it about his fingers. He needed to cleanse the wound and attempt to suture it if he had any hope of making it back to base. Pulling himself to a seated position in the middle of the room, Raziel could see that he was still inside the library; well, what was left of it. A few of the bookshelves were still smoldering, slowly succumbing to their fate of charcoal and ash.

The young Turk scooted himself across the floor to the nearest remanence of literature that was still glowing orange despite the evening sun. Blindly, he felt in his satchel for the lone bottle of water he had packed and found it hot yet still mostly full. He took the cap and threw it somewhere else in the rubble as he had no further use for it. Having hastily drank all but an inch of the remaining water, he picked at the cinder near the edge of the fire, finding the perfect piece to cram into the small bottle. A vigorous shaking saw the cinder turned to paste as Raziel prepared himself for the impending pain.

Haste glances around the room and he stumbled to his feet, grabbing a small book on his way towards the back rooms. He couldn’t risk staying out in the open for long and needed the additional protection of the corners to tend to his wound. He pushed through the large wooden doors to the back rooms, the weight of the doors taking all the strength he still had. It wasn’t until he was halfway through that he realized he bled on the door. If the ground ops searched the library they would certainly follow any blood trail he left. It was true, he could die before he found clean water, but if he bled back to base, they would find and kill all of them. Given the choices, he would rather sacrifice himself if he could save the others. Raziel half fell into the doors from the opposite side, pinning them shut with his weight as he shoved the small book between his teeth and clamped down. He only winced a touch when he drug the sleeve of his hoodie across the wound to sop up the excess blood. When he smeared the paste of ash across his fingers, he whimpered and cried into the book, biting hard enough to leave his teeth imprint in the cover as he rubbed the concoction into the gash. Broken glass might as well have been pressed into the wound, his nerves would never be able to tell the difference.

When his tears stopped, he continued to navigate the remaining rooms of the library in search of the best route back to base. Even over the thrumming of his heart, the cadence of leather boots on cobblestone was unmistakable to someone in his position. He managed to fold himself under a table against the outer wall seconds before the ground ops marched their course. Last he’d heard, the standing order was for ground ops to take all survivors captive, and the ones who fought their captors were to be executed: Raziel could risk neither at the current moment. The catch in his breath felt audible when the cadence outside ceased. It was in that instant that the glint of silver fell squarely into his eye like a beacon in the night falling on the weary sailor.

Nothing in his being would have kept him under that desk. As quietly as he could muster, he stole across the room to retrieve the small heart shaped locket. Just having the cold metal in his grasp made his heart soar. Iriam, the only word on the locket verified what he had hoped. It was his sisters, and it meant she had been in here not long ago. Raziel hadn’t realized he returned to standing until one of the ground ops grew loud outside the walls. He didn’t understand what language they were speaking but it didn’t matter. They had overthrown the world order, and they sounded furious. A crack to rival a sonic boom erupted in the room as an exterior door was kicked in, and Raziel knew he had only one chance for survival; he had to run. And that is exactly what he did.