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This has been his life for the past few years now.
The air was stifling. All around him, he could hear the screams of terror and cries for help, his own heartbeat sounding like a drum as it pounded in his ears. Dust was a constant. It surrounded him, settled into his eyes and floated into his mouth. He couldn’t escape it. The land was in ruins, bodies strewn about, eyes bulging with a look of unending terror. There was no time for friends, he had learned. Everyone he had cared about had been killed, he had nothing left. No brothers, no mother, just the will to survive and outlast everyone else.
This was his life now, and he’d be damned if he let someone else take it from him.
~~~~~
A hot, steaming blast from the high-tech gun sends the building, weary and old, tumbling to the ground. Debris rains from the sky, slamming into the earth with hard hits. Elliot feels the boiling fear in his stomach rise to his throat, a scream threatening to escape. His breath is knocked out of him when a plank hit him hard, tossing his body to the side like he’s nothing more than a rag doll. A heavy boulder of metal throws itself at his shoulder, pinning it uselessly to the ground. More and more crumbled pieces of the fallen house fall on top of him, covering the engineer in a hard blanket of rubble.
Satisfied, the IMC soldier turns, certain that if the boy was not killed he would eventually suffocate beneath the destroyed building..
“Help…” Elliot cries out weakly, blood pouring through his lips and staining his teeth a light crimson. He gives a quiet, squeaky scream, he can’t feel his legs. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Why can’t he feel his fucking legs.
He’s breathing all wrong, beginning to gasp like there's not enough oxygen in the air. Which there most definitely won’t be soon. He knows he needs help. He knows he needs to conserve his precious oxygen, but fuck, oh fuck. His breathing becomes more rapid, more shallow, panic wrapping its dark, horrid tendrils around his throat as dust enters his airways with each hasty inhale.
Black spots dance in his vision, blackening the already black area around him. Elliot screams desperately, as loud as he can with his scratchy throat.. He doesn’t care if he attracts more bad than good, he just wants this to end. It started to get even harder to breathe, oxygen loss rewiring his brain with clever, deft fingers.
Suddenly, the world explodes in a fit of too bright colors and too loud noises. A figure stands above him, cast in a headaching, but heavenly white. Elliot gasps for air, coughing and spitting blood. Elated, a red smile spreads across his face even as the anxiety that this might be an IMC soldier settles hard on his chest.
He’s yanked up by his shoulder before he can even comprehend what’s going on. The pain is searing and mind numbingly hot, but he revels in the pain. He’s alive, holy shit he’s alive.
Even more to his surprise, he’s hefted onto the stranger’s back carelessly but not unkindly. It’s then that the sounds of the war make it to his ears again. The guns, the screams, the pounding. It’s all too much right now. The last thing he sees is a blurry face that he can’t make out and a black gas mask being guided towards his face.
~~~~
The first thing he thinks when he wakes up is; holy shit, everything fucking hurts. His heart pounds fast, a buzzing in his brain and panic clawing at his throat. The ground is lumpy as if Elliot were on a bed of earth and rocks. His clothes, tattered and painted in mud, are damp and reek of iron. Elliot lays there silently, hands clenched and breathing pained as he tries his best to not throw up. When everything settles into place, he opens his eyes.
He’s on a bed, wood rotting and blankets thin and full of holes but it’s more than what he’s had to sleep on since the start of the war. He’s grateful for that at least, even if it’s not much.
Elliot winces, pain rushing through his limbs, almost all thoughts of escape pushed to the side as the fire intensified. His body felt as if it had been bruised in every corner. His legs screamed at him in agony as shivers racked his body, thin blanket doing nothing to protect from the fierce cold. His eyes are squeezed closed as his face contorts. Never had he ever experienced such pain in his life, he feels like each single bone was broken.
But, he can’t stay here. Who knows when the figure would be back, and Elliot doesn’t want to risk his chances, even if the stranger had supposedly saved him. It was honestly really hard to tell at this point, his memory of last night, if it was even last night, is muddled. And with pain overtaking his mind, he can barely focus enough to lift himself out of the bed.
With a pained effort, he slowly rises up from the bed. Immediately, his head starts to spin, he falls onto the floor, jaw clenched. He grabs a fistful of his hair pulling on it in a vain effort to help ease the pain. He stays like that, crumpled on the floor in a hot mess, sweat trickling down his face as he waits slowly for his breathing to get back to its normal rhythm.
Finally, the searing white pain is too much, and to his relief, a soft darkness envelops him eagerly.
He wakes up in flashes, and only for a few seconds. Sometimes he sees a figure standing above him, features blurry, before he falls back into an unconscious state.
When he awakes once more, eyes bleary but feeling more restless than ever, he notices that his body hurt way less. Which isn’t to say that it still doesn’t hurt like a bitch, because holy fuck, it most certainly does. However, it isn’t as horrible as before, and at least now he can actually focus on his complete surroundings.
The room he’s in is sparse, walls a damp brown and there’s a strange smell lingering in the air that he can’t place his finger on. There’s a light beige table in the middle of the room, it’s missing half a leg so it’s tilted to the side slightly. There’s no chairs however. To the left of the old table, he sees a door. It has a broken lock and it’s hinges look rusty, but it determinedly stays closed.
Elliot’s hands tremble and his eyes water as he reaches his hand towards the door knob. Body hot and sweat trickling down his neck, he grips it tightly and twists it. With every move he makes, the fear he feels climbs higher and higher. Breath quickening, he hears the creaking of the door. Suddenly everything goes silent and behind the door is looming image of the masked figure from before.
He screams, and throws himself back, arms raised defensively. His plump ass hits the wood with a thump, dust flying up. Elliot resists the urge to groan, he’s going to have a bruise there now. As if his whole body isn’t just one huge bruise right now.
The masked figure doesn’t move besides the slight tilting of their head. They’re not unarmed, in fact there’s a knife in their gloved hand, and grenades peeking out from their pockets, but Elliot for some reason, feels unthreatened.
A raven sits loyally on their shoulder, eyeing Elliot with a mean glare, daring him to move. Which is stupid, Elliot scolds himself, because birds are dumb and aren’t fucking protective over a stupid human.
“You and I will survive together.” The stranger declares and Elliot knows he wouldn’t be able to say no, even if he wanted to, which he mostly certainly doesn’t. But, holy shit, Elliot thinks, their accent is fucking hypnotic.
Wary of upsetting the stranger, and very cautious, yet still feeling unthreatened, he responds quickly, diving straight into his usual cocky persona.
“Heh, ‘course we will! I’m fucking amazing!” He laughs carefully, trying to gauge for any sort of reaction from the masked person.
The stranger nods, and steps closer, offering a hand to the fallen engineer. With the slightest bit of hesitation, Elliot takes it eagerly, pulling himself back onto unsteady, calf-like legs.
“What’s your name?” Elliot asks easily, eyes gleaming happily. Any sense of caution or logic flying out the window. For some reason, he feels like he can trust them. There’s a strange, welcoming aura around them, warm and inviting. Elliot idly wonders if they get the same feeling from him.
“Bloodhound.” Bloodhound replies just as easily, and even if their face is covered, Elliot can guess that Bloodhound is smiling as well.
~~~~
War had been Elliot’s life for years, alone and frightened, he had given up on life after the war. But now, he knows he will conquer the war with Bloodhound, and maybe, just maybe, they’ll finally have a life after the war. Together, of course.