This heave, heavy weight. Part two.

The broken street of the city was crowded not with people, none that were alive. Motor vehicles sat silent, broken and tossed about as if a child had rammed one right into the whole mess. bodies filled the empty spaces, blood evident. A single man continued to move. Loaded rifle used as a walking stick, he stumbled over the bodies, gasped his way around the cars, the trucks, the tanks of either side.

A child lay here, a mother there, a soldier hung precariously where he had been smashed to the lip of a roof. The sounds of war grew ever louder as the lone man inched his way up the street. A dog, loyal companion, raised her head from laying against an elderly man's chest. A weak growl escaped her throat, the right side of her muzzle torn viciously off, her right foreleg laying limb.

The lone figure took no notice and the dog's growl lowered to a quiet whimper, her head falling back to the chest it had been resting on, her sharp eyes already turning glassy. Grunting, the man shook his head slightly, feeling the brambles within loosen up a bit, the pain not so bad as his previous attempt to clear it.

  So many bodies and no one around to clean it up. Not even the civilians were safe in this war. Wincing as he stopped, the man windmilled his right arm, wincing at the slight twangs within his shoulder. Clearing his throat, he spat. The mix of saliva and mucus having a slightly red tint, much of the sickly mess colored black. Ash and dirt he had somehow managed to inhale.

Grimacing, he tried to clear his throat again, the previous attempt having caused an itch. Doubling over, his body convulsing as he gave to a horrendous fit of coughing, his mouth open wipe, tears dropping unashamedly to the broken street. He was shocked to say the least, when he began to cough up gunk from his lungs. Holding  onto the rifle for dear life, he slowly sank to his knees as the coughing began to leave him, shaking and spluttering. wiping his runny nose on his sleeve, he stood and staggered back and to the right, blinking away tears and shaking a much clearer head with little pain. Amazing what a good fit of the coughs and clearing the throat could do for a person.

That wasn't to say that he had been miraculously cured of his various cuts and bruises. They just felt more processed that before. Sighing, the lone man sat on the broken hull of what used to be a tank and fished in his pocket for a canteen he didn't have anymore, blasted away from him earlier when the artillery had hit. Most of his gear was gone and he was using a borrowed rifle.

He needed something to drink and looking around him resulted in finding a small department store. Grimacing once more he rose from the tank and tottered his way over to the store, the door was blown apart, the windows shattered, his feet crunching as he stepped into the ruined store, rifle held loosely in one hand. The place was just as bad inside as it was outside. several civilians had been killed within, the store clerk having been blown into the back wall behind the counter by what appeared to be a shotgun blast. Most of the merchandise was no  good, bullets having riddled the majority of the shelves. half a dozen soldiers lay sprawled by a hole in the wall, two having been caught the blast by the wall, the rest had various wounds, most of which were inflicted by knifes.

Understandable when half the soldiers were from his own army, the others from the other side. A single bottle of water stood unscathed, full and alone on a nearby shelf. Reaching over and grasping it, the man quickly uncapped the lid and put the opening to his mouth. Relishing in the fresh, clean taste of the water just under room temperature. Pulling the bottle away, he gave a satisfied "ahh".

There was nothing like a good bottle of water in the middle of a war.

twitching his head to the side, bottled water forgotten, he hears the faint sounds of running boots, not so distant voices. Cursing his luck the man lowered himself by the bodies and peered outside. He couldn't see anything but he could hear the voices getting closer. Looking at the bodies, the man grasped a sidearm just at his feet. It was a standard issue pistol and checking the mag showed it was fully loaded. Poor bastard didn't even get a chance to use it. Holstering the pistol, the man yanked a knife from one of his comrade's throat, wiped it on the dead man's uniform and easily slid the knife home at his side.

The voices were closer and he didn't have very many options where he was at. If only the place were better defensible. Looking to the counter, the clerk still smashed into the wall, the man ran in a crouch to the counter, spun round and set his back against it.

They were just outside. At least a dozen of them. The sound of three walking into the store caused the man to close his eyes. One of them spoke in a strange accent, confirming his fears. "I left it in here. Nobody would mess with a soldiers body." The y at the end of the word slightly over pronounced and drown out. "Its right here see." The e in here drown out. "Its gone! Somebody took it!" Some shuffling and cursing spoken too fast for him to hear and two sets of boots thundered out. The one who had spoken still inside. "It was here. In here! I know it was!" The third man seemed to be throwing some sort of tantrum, smashing things.

Laying his rifle down, the lone man easily slid the knife from the sheathe at his hip and peer 'round the corner of the counter and saw the man no more than five paces from him, just out of site of the door and hole in the wall. Moving as fast as he could, the lone man lunged forward, rose up, clasping his hand to the soldier's mouth, knife sinking to the hilt in the soldier's back. He quickly, silently lowered the soldier's body to the floor, pulled his knifed clean out, wiped it on the purple looking uniform of the soldier, returned and retrieved his rifle and silently moved to the hole in the wall, looked outside and, seeing that it was clear, left the building and moved behind a nearby car before he could be seen.

Taking a deep breath, the lone man moved forward, getting as far from the soldiers as he possibly could.