Young Writers Society

(Woah guys. I'm a bit lost!
I'm planning on the shrapnel in Nate's shoulder to get an infection, and she'll pass out. Just a heads up.)
***Nate***
God my shoulder hurt, I really need to talk to someone about that, my fricken head hurt too. How much did I have to drink last night? After we received word that Victoria was out. The gang and I headed back to camp. I walked in the bunker where Sasha was tending to Victoria.
"Woah, your leg is frigged up!" I exclaimed. Blood didn't scare me, but that much from one person? Heck yeah.
"Yeah..." Victoria moaned groggily.
"What the frick happened?!" I asked. If someone did that to one of my fellow soldiers, there will be hell to pay.

why is everyone passing out?

*lol. I don't know.*

*Because it's awesome.*

Dylan

Sasha and Paige started towards the door, each clearly at least somewhat irritated by being set to watch duty. Dylan considered saying something - after all, Paige was still in pretty poor shape, having drunk stupid amounts of alcohol the night before. Then Regan looked straight at him. "Dylan? Victoria's still wounded, aren't you going to do something about that?"

He sighed. With a rudimentary knowledge of medicine and human biology, it seemed to fall to him too often to see that injuries were treated properly. But he knew that he could not cure everything - in fact, there was little at all he could do for most serious things. And he did not like having such a burden on his shoulders at all.

Rubbing his eyes and trying to blink away the tiredness that was starting to set in, Dylan bent over Victoria, inspecting the leg wound. He winced, it looked like it could get terribly infected if left to its own devices.

"So?" Regan said from behind him.

He shrugged, "All I can think to do is get some antiseptic on this and then cauterise any areas around the arteries. I'm not sure about doing that to the whole wound, though, I don't want to do any permanent damage. So I think just binding the rest will have to do. It'll take time to heal, but we don't really have any choice. We don't have the medical supplies to do anything faster, and I wouldn't know how to use any of that stuff anyway."

(I'm not sure which place my guy was in, so let's just sat he was just interrogated by Regan?)


Anthony stared dumbly at his hands. They were holding a gun. A PT145, a small handgun.

A killing machine.

If he had to, he knew he would use it. That face scared even himself. He wouldn't want to, but this was a war, people had to defend themselves. He supposed so, anyway. Regan had thrust it into his hand before she walked away after interrogating him.

She had said, "Well, if your going to have a go at being one of us, you'd better do it properly."

It was thanks to a guy called Alex that he was still here - he had run over, stroking his gun, to see what was going on. He had spoken in defence for him when they were making a decision of whether to let go, kill him, or let him join.

"He made it here, didn't he? That ought to count for something,"

Then he had walked away, looking slightly embarrassed, as if he had said to much. So they had decided he would stay - a trial run only. If he failed, then he was going to be kicked out. Probably with a bullet in the back. Before Regan had stalked off, Anthony had had to ask her one think.

"Regan - miss -" she smiled as he struggled to find the right words to address her, "- do you know if my brothers here? His name's Edward Devon. He came to fight here, a year ago. I don't what's happened to him, I never got a word."

Regan regarded him with a cool, slightly pitying gaze. "Few people make it here alive. Those that do, don't always last that long. We've suffered heavy losses this year, Anthony. I wouldn't keep your hopes up."

So that meant that Regan thought Edward was probably dead - but she didn't know for sure. Anthony tried to work out whether that was good or bad. He decided it was a bit of both.
He tucked the handgun into his jeans pocket. It only fitted because the pocket wasn't actually there any more, just a large rip.

"Hey, kid!" someone called, making him look up.

Paige:

"Hey kid," I called. He looked up, startled.

He didn't answer me as I slipped into the room. I know I was supposed to be on watch but I was curious.. New kid, why not have fun?

"What're doing in here?" I asked and put down the bottle I had nicked. It was only water but it was better than nothing.

He shrugged and avoided looking at me.

"I'm Paige," I told him. "What's your name?"

Anthony looked up at the girl who had just entered the room, fingering the gun. It was all right, she was just a kid. Well, she was still in her teens anyway.

"I'm Paige. What's you name?" she asked.

"Anthony," he muttered reluctantly. "Anthony Devon." as a second thought, he added, "I don't suppose you knew my brother? He tried to join a year ago... I've never heard anything from him."

The girl, Paige, stiffened a bit.

Paige:

I flinched when he mentioned his brother...Don't tell me I'd killed him when I'd accidentally set off that bomb during the last raid, I thought, watching the kid.

"Um, about that," I muttered. Anthony looked up at me questioningly.

"What did you do?" He asked, narrowing his eyes at me. Jeez, he caught on quick.

I hesitated, stalling. Anthony watched me closely as I moved away a little.

"I, um, accidentally set off a land mine on our last raid," I muttered. "I think you're brother was there.... I..I think I might have, accidentally, um...blown up a few people? Your brother included? I think he was there..."

Alex
Alex limped over to the prone Victoria, dropping his rifle and kneeling next to her arm. "Hey Vic, it's gonna be fine". I couldn't believe it though. I've seen enough to know this was messy. She was lucky she wasn't dead, with blood loss like that she was going to be weak for a while. He reached down for hand. "Don't you think about leaving. You've got too many lives to take". Her grip was feeble.

He stared up at Dylan, watching him get to work. He glanced over at the hut, he could hear some commotion, see a new face. Seeing someone die in battle, with guns blazing and lead screaming in your ears. But hear, in our home. That's something else.

He heard something over at the hut and saw Paige. Alex stiffened, she was on watch. And with the new kid in town the Japs could be here anytime. "Paige get back to you post!" he screamed then extended a hand to grab his sniper rifle.

Paige:

I heard Alex yelling for me to get back to my post....but that's not what had me freaked out--it was the look Anthony was giving me. We were both sure that I'd killed Anthony's brother by now.

"Paige!" Anthony yelled as I took off out the door and back to my post.

I ignored him and Alex's glare as I reached my post and sat down under the tree. I fingered my dagger, watching the forest.

"I'm such an idiot," I muttered and turned towards the tree. I started carving a list of names into it. I heard Sasha nearby, watching me.

Antony


"Paige!" Anthony called after the disappearing back of the girl. "Come back!"

His fingers had frozen on his gun, and for a moment he thought about firing it. It didn't matter where - whether at Paige, himself, or some random person - but just firing it would get rid of some of the anger that he was feeling.

He had always known that Edward might have been dead when he finally found him. Maybe he had even been expecting it - but it would never get rid of the shock that it was true. And blown up by that girl who had just been talking to him?!

Life was a bizarre journey, and you never knew what it was going to throw at you. Someone stepped out beside him, making him jump.

"You don't want to do that," the newcomer said. Anthony removed his hand from the gun, slowly. This person must have listened to his and Paige's conversation. "The bodies were buried up in the North corner. I think they put some identification of who they were, so you can find your brother."

Anthony backed away from the newcomer, towards the door. "The north corner?" he asked.

"The north corner."

Anthony ran for it before someone else could tell him that they had killed his father, too.

Victoria

For a while, I hated myself. Why hadn't I asked for help when I had first gotten the leg wound? Now I had to lie in a bed, listening to the sounds of war. A war that I should have been fighting. Everyone was kind to me, but I didn't want their sympathy. I wanted to fight.Soon, I heard, they would try to cauterize it. That was fine by me. As soon as I could stand without fainting, I would get back and fight. This was my war too, and I refused to sit wounded on the sidelines.

Sasha

Sasha watched as Paige hurried to her post as fast as she could in her hung-over state. She sank down at the base of a tree, and began to carve something into the bark.

“You shouldn’t drink so much,” he said, coming over. Paige glanced up and glared at him before returning to her carving. Sasha, unconcerned, leaned against the tree trunk and slowly unwrapped a piece of gum.

“Chewing gum, now that’s a safer addiction.” He said, not looking at her. “Hardly any negative effects, except, maybe, a sugar rush.” There was an irritated huff from Paige. “What are you carving, anyway?”

Paige:

I huffed and tried to ignore Sasha.

"What are you carving, anyway?"

I sighed and looked up for a moment then went back to my names.

"What I am carving?" I muttered and stopped short, looking at the long list of names now carved into the tree. "It's a list of names....of...all the people who have died because of me." I stared at the last name on the list. Edward Devon was the last name I'd carved into the bark.

I stood up and started pacing. Sasha watched me as I fiddled with my dagger.

"Why do I keep screwing things up?" I asked and threw the dagger at the tree I had been carving. The dagger dug into the bark a little to Sasha's left. "Why do people keep dying, huh?"

Sasha sighed and yanked my dagger out of the tree.