The fog was thick enough to chew.
CR 379E was sent to sweep the perimeter.
One of the radar units had glitched out again.
Maybe it was rebel sabotage.
That was the last thing she wanted to believe.
More likely, it was just signal interference.
The jamming had gotten worse lately — maybe it was the remoteness. Maybe it was something else.
Didn’t matter. She had to check it.
She moved in slow, deliberate steps.
God knew what was hiding in that fog.
Her M4 was warm in her grip.
Safety off. Round chambered.
A familiar weight. A trusted bite.
The forest had gone quiet.
Too quiet.
The kind of quiet that screams ambush.
Then—
Footsteps.
Fast. Uneven. Scattered.
Charging through the mist — straight at her.
She spun, dropped low, rifle raised —
finger brushing the trigger.
Her heart pounded in her throat.
She couldn’t see them.
But they were close.
Too close.
She sucked in a breath and shifted sideways,
shoulder low, bracing for melee — ready to shoot, strike, kill.
Branches snapped. Leaves burst upward.
And then—
A rabbit!!
Brown. Twitchy. Wild-eyed.
It darted through the clearing like it was running from the Devil himself.
Then gone — swallowed by the brush behind her.
CR 379E froze. Rifle still raised.
Chest heaving. Jaw clenched.
She stared into the mist for what felt like hours.
Then slowly lowered her weapon.
And laughed.
Just once.
Dry. Bitter. Hollow.
Then her voice cracked — not from fear. From shame.
“Nice work, Viper,”
she muttered, wiping sweat from her brow with a shaking hand.
“Almost fragged by a fucking rabbit.”
Her knees buckled. She crouched, grounding herself.
Still gripping the M4 tighter than she needed.
Still shaking.
She hated this place.
She hated the fog.
She hated the silence.
But most of all—
She hated what she was starting to become.
CR 379E exhaled through her teeth.
M4 against her chest.
Grip loosening.
The rabbit was long gone. No movement. No sound.
Just fog.
Her breath leveled.
Shoulders dropped —
Half a second of calm.
Then the forest exploded.
A blur on her left.
Thick hands burst from the brush —
one clamping across her mouth, the other seizing her wrist.
Her boots left the ground.
Then the ground hit back.
Mud smeared across her side.
She rolled — Too slow.
The rebel was already on her.
Precise. Trained.
Not a farmer. A finisher.
An elbow came up — too late.
A forearm cracked across her jaw.
Her head snapped.
Blood and spit slashed through the mist.
Then the knee —
driven into her core with surgical force, just above the thigh gap.
To hurt. To break.
Something twisted inside — a flash of heat, then cold —
and the world caved inward.
CR 379E folded like an old cellphone.
Air gone. Crotch on fire. Structure shattered.
A breath escaped her lips — sharp, wet, helpless.
Her body curled.
Tears welled.
Reflexes fired without aim. Useless.
"That earns you no pity. Trust me, love. You’ll get plenty more."
“Get up. Or don’t. Makes no difference to me.”
Another impact.
Lower. Deeper.
Bone met bone. Her ribs shrieked.
White flared behind her eyes.
Her knees hit the ground an instant before her mind did.
The rebel didn’t pause.
She grabbed CR 379E by the collar and hauled her up —
a limp half-kneel, nothing left behind her eyes.
Backhand.
Palm.
Another.
Then again.
No rhythm. Just hate.
Her head snapped side to side.
Blood sprayed from her chin.
The sixth strike dropped her.
She hit the dirt hard, shoulder-first,
cheek dragging through blood and mud.
The rebel crouched.
Two fists gripped the front of her recon jacket.
The Cobra insignia stared back.
Then — RRRIIIPPP —
the jacket tore clean down the center.
Seams peeled like wet paper.
Now the Cobra recon lay in her white undershirt —
soaked in sweat, streaked red.
Blood dripped from her lip, down her collarbone.
Her arms limp.
She didn’t move. Didn’t resist. Completely out.
The rebel stood. Jacket in hand.
“Skinned another snake bitch.”
Then, into the fog:
“Tie her up. High and tight. Let her rot with the trees.”
The rebels dragged CR 379E through the forest
like something no one would ever come looking for.
The Cobra recon's boots scraped furrows through the wet leaves,
one heel missing, the other barely holding.
Her uniform — Cobra tactical issue — hung in torn strips, heavy with sweat, blood, and earth. Beneath it, the white undershirt clung to
her ribs like bandages, the Cobra insignia still visible over her heart.
Or maybe where her heart used to be.
She didn’t speak. She didn’t plead.
There was no one left to hear it, and she’d used up all her breath
on silence hours ago.
The rebel woman said nothing as she hauled CR 379E’s limp body
to the tree. No gloating. No drama. Just a duty.
The tree stood crooked, bark dark as dried blood, half-dead but still standing. Vines curled around its base like veins.
It had held prisoners before. And it would again.
The Cobra recon slumped against it,
her body sliding until the roots caught her.
Then the rebel began the work.
She grabbed CR 379E’s wrists,
yanked them behind the trunk, and bound them fast
— rope pulled so tight her shoulders jolted forward with a gasp.
CR 379E didn’t fight it. She barely reacted.
Her breathing was shallow, like someone holding on just to feel the pain.
Then came the second rope.
It looped across her chest and the tree, crushing her back to the bark. Again. Again. The pressure drove out what little breath she had left.
Her undershirt bunched under the strain, damp and filthy.
Mud smeared her jawline where it had met the ground too many times already. Blood from her nose had dried halfway down her neck.
By the time the rebel stepped back, CR 379E was pinned
— arms twisted behind her, chest rising in short, choking pulses,
her head hung low.
But she was still awake.
And that’s when the rebel leaned in — close, almost intimate —
her voice barely above a whisper.
No fury. No passion.
Only facts.
“You are nothing to Cobra.
They won’t come.
They don’t rescue nothing.
And nothing is exactly what you are.”
No more.
She stood, adjusted her collar,
and walked off without a glance.
CR 379E stayed behind — lashed to old bark,
shoulders pulled forward like a broken doll on display.
Her breath stuttered. Her eyes shut.
The wind didn’t move.
The birds didn’t sing.
And the tree — like everything else in the forest —said nothing.
Nothing at all.
