Heal Me

Chapter Two

TW: Blood, gore, war etc.

It was so loud. At the sound of the whistle, an almighty roar came from the men around me. I couldn't tell if they were actually enthusiastic about the violence that was about to happen, or if they were trying to act tough, trying to give themselves confidence. 

There was a rush forward and I was frozen. Mycroft looked at me and grabbed my shoulder, jerking me forward so I would not be shot for cowardice. My mind cleared and my hand shot out, latching onto my brother's uniform as we pulled ourselves up to where the battle was starting. 

As soon as my feet  hit  ground, the earth near to me and Mycroft erupted and we were thrown sideways. The men who had been standing exactly at the explosion were blasted off their feet and I remember crying out and getting dirt in my mouth.

Mycroft hauled me to my feet, and with other men around us, we advanced. I had no idea what I was doing. I held my rifle and I moved forward, trying to stay next to Mycroft the whole time. Crash after crash banged against my ear drums and I started to see men dropping like flies just ahead of me. Their deaths were accompanied with a continuous, deafening rattle. Machine guns. 

Me and Mycroft realised what was happening a little too late and my brother tried to drag us down to avoid bullets, but he was just that second too late.

A bullet found its way to my leg and lodged itself deep in my thigh. I cried out and went down, still holding onto Mycroft's uniform. I felt tears pool up in my eyes and I gasped at the unbelievable heat and excruciating pain coming from my leg. It paralysed me for a minute. The shock pinned me down to the ground and I tore my hand away from Mycroft to press against the wound, trying desperately to find some relief from the hot pain. Blood spilled out onto my trembling fingers and I cried out. 

"My-Mycroft." I whimpered, the paralysis finally falling away. I couldn't move from my hips down, but I managed to force myself up with the strength of my arms to get my brother. 

His face was ruined. His eyes were unseeing as blood spilled from the back of his head and created an alarmingly large pool of blood. 

I felt my stomach drop and twist and flip. "No." I choked out. I had no fight left in me. I was weak and bleeding, but I forced myself to drag myself closer to my brother. I cried out and tears leaked from my eyes, but eventually I made it. 

"No, no, no, Mycroft, no." I cupped his cheeks, feeling his hot and sticky blood get on my fingers. "Stop it." I sobbed, giving his body a little shake. His head lolled and blood trickled down his face. "PLEASE!" I cried out, staring down at him.

Finally, it started to sink in. He was dead. Mycroft was dead and I would die too. I would bleed myself dry waiting for someone to take me away from this place. 

I remember how much I shook. I trembled so terribly, so violently and I kept myself over my brother's body, as if protecting him. "P-Please." I whispered, trying to blink away the hole in Mycroft's head. The hole that had ripped through that brilliant brain of his. All those memories. All that intellect. It was just...gone. This wasn't my brother any more. This was a useless slab of meat below me and I could not detach myself from it. 

I can't really remember how long I lay there for. Eventually, I remembered seeing other men with wounds similar to my own. So, still whimpering in pain, I tugged off my belt and then wrapped it around my leg, just next to my bullet wound to try and stem the flow of blood.

The sounds slowly became less and less.  I could hear men crying and moaning in pain around me, near and far. The air was dark. It was heavy with dust and dirt and the stench of blood and gun powder. Occasionally, there would be another boom and then it would go silent again. 

I never let myself lose contact with Mycroft. I trembled and stayed beside him, protecting him from being more ruined than he was. I knew he was gone from this body, but the thought of seeing it even more mangled than it was made my chest ache. 

And still I lay. Waiting. Waiting for a rescue I wasn't quite sure I even wanted now. Did I want to live after seeing what I had seen? I would not lie. At that moment in time, I would have preferred to have been left to die by my brother's side. I didn't want to have to face...Moving on. How quaint does that sound? How ridiculous is it to think that anyone could ever move on from this?

"Mycroft." I whispered. It was still dark and I was starting to realise it was because it was now night time. How long had I been here? How long had I lain next to a corpse and wept? "Mycroft, I can't do this." 

Luckily...I didn't have to. I didn't have to do this any more, because I became weary. I became weary and I lost consciousness. My ears became muted to the sounds around me and I slept. Again, I don't know for how long.

When I woke, it was silent. The air around me looked brown, maybe green and I could barely breathe from the dust in the air. I felt Mycroft below me and I remembered with a jolt what had happened. I cried out and pulled away from him, making an unbelievable course of pain wash through me. I was temporarily blinded from the pain, and when I opened my eyes again, they fell on Mycroft. 

He looked so gaunt. His face was paler and the blood had dried, turning dark and more brown in colour. I whimpered and pressed a hand against my leg, suddenly realising that I was alive. Alive in a sea of dead people. This was not how I wanted to die.

"Help!" My scream ripped through the air, hoarse and unnerving in this deadly silence. Once I had managed to get over the fear of being so loud in this dead world, I kept screaming. "Help me!"

Was I being an idiot? Yes, I was. My fellow soldiers weren't the only ones present. There were the men we had been fighting against. I would have to leave Mycroft and try drag my way back. Leave Mycroft.

Crying out in pain, I moved back to him and rested my still-shaking hand on his cheek. "Thank you." I whispered. Thank you for looking out for me all my life and thank you for staying with me til the end. "Thank you, Mycroft." I would have kissed his forehead if that wound hadn't looked so terrifying. So, instead, I pressed a kiss onto the back of his hand, which was frozen in shape, fingers curled from when he had grabbed onto me. I said his name one last time and looked at his face, then I looked up into the sea of dead people. I wasn't too far from help. 

I dragged myself and cried, tears making tracks through the blood and dirt on my face. I finally started to hear voices. People were close by and I would be saved. I saw stretchers being brought up for the wounded and I made a noise to try and make myself known. 

I started to black out again and the last thing I was aware of was two pairs of boots running towards me. I heard myself sigh in relief, and then I gave into the approaching darkness.