Jared was so tired of this shit.
He hadn't slept that night--nobody did. That was a given. But he had also lost count of how many times he'd been here before.
Standing behind that exact same sandbag formation in the wee hours before dawn broke, listening to the sounds of his 'fellow soldiers' heavy, anxious breathing. Looking ahead at the horizon for what was to come.
It had all ended the same. Death. Game over. Surrounded by a bunch of useless f*cks staring down at his body.
Who knew that the tutorial levels would be this hard?
Maybe it was his fault for stubbornly choosing the hand-to-hand combat role every reset even though he clearly had no talent for it. But Jared was not the type of person to accept fault, and definitely not the type of person to accept he was talentless.
Really, they should've just equipped him with better teammates if they wanted to make the game fair.
Speaking of...
Jared frowned.
That man, not-Lance. Usually a meek, wheedling fool only existing as a body to hold a gun. As milquetoast as a person could get, with a generic backstory about growing up in some perfect nuclear family, wanting to serve his country.
Apparently, that wasn't the case anymore.
The current Lance--Mack, as it called itself--looked almost identical to the previous iteration, down to the way his left eye twitched in annoyance, the way he held his weapon and cared for it as a child, hell, even the look of his gait was identical, too-cleanly striding one foot in front of the other as if afraid to stray from some invisible straight line.
The same could not be said about his personality, though.
That vaguely chipper man had become soured, stained with some invisible darkness.
A quality about him had become slightly more human.
It unnerved Jared.
At least he was a fair bit smarter than 'Lance' was, even if he was a bit of an annoying ass. Jared hated to admit it, but the main reason he had a chance at beating this round was that Mack's kill count had nearly doubled.
Maybe this was the game's way of apologizing for all the shit RNG he'd been dealing with these past few...weeks? Months? Years?
It had been far too long. Things were starting to drive him insane.
Here, Jared would clear this level. And escape all these cardboard caricatures of people.
The sun began to rise.
The plan sprung into action.
~~~~~
Mack took the liberty of pausing a few seconds, waiting for a second shot to come whistling by, but none did.
Crack!
The line of shielders grew thin as another fell to the gun of his comrade, but they had given up on moving the weapon any further. There was a heavy clang! as the six men holding it tried and failed to gently set the contraption down.
Though, it wasn't like the noise could draw anyone's attention. They were already busy trying to kill each other, after all.
A scream rang out to his side near the sandbags manned by Squad No. 10. He couldn't see who had been hit without shifting the tarp and risk exposing his position more.
Mack looked through his scope at the six men. With the remaining few shielders they had, a line was formed at the front, while soldiers behind them began operating it.
Crack!
He got off one more shot, but it hit low, enemies having already ducked behind the short line of shields. The angle was too disadvantageous, and the sun reflected off the large gun, sparking orange halos in his eyes.
Mack considered making a mad dash to safety while they were busy setting up the gargantuan machine gun, more aptly some kind of semi-portable turret, but a heavy bullet striking less than two feet away from his torso stamped out this idea.
With a few cranks and clicks of some handle on the side, it seemed the mechanism was almost operational. Two soldiers sat at its back, one looking down the barrel and the other pulling levers that swung the muzzle up and down.
Mack swore under his breath: they were just covered enough by the bulk of the machine that a clean shot would be unlikely.
He realized that he and the other riflemen likely had no chance of stopping the machine, so Mack turned his attention to the other squad members.
The assault team, supported by the ambushers, was beginning to push back against the wave of footsoldiers rushing at them, drawing ever closer to the turret. Maybe they would be able to--
TACKTACKTACKTACKTACK!
The barrel of the gun swung around in a wide arc, spitting lead multiple times every second, burying bullets into ground, sandbags, and flesh. One smashed into the dirt next to him, and Mack felt flecks of it rain down on his back through the tarp.
Though their progression had been preemptively interrupted with the deaths of their shielders, it seemed everyone was still well within the range of fire.
Only issue was that due to this rush, the turret wasn't exactly able to distinguish friend and foe.
The first wave of firing had crippled several soldiers from both sides, being aimed low at the thigh/knee area. There was a simultaneous wave of screams and groans that arose symphonous beyond and the soft pitter-patter of men falling to their knees.
Blood dug red lines down silted boots. Sandbags cried their filling into dust below, sagging into each other.
A figure streaked across Mack's vision: another rifleman, number 10 emblazoned on the back of their helmet.
He could guess the scene immediately. The bullets that hadn't met their path's end in a person or a bag had all landed worringly close to where the riflemen lay.
One had gotten spooked by the revelation that death was mere inches from their face, and had immediately thrown off their tarp, aiming instead to take cover behind the comparatively safer sandbags.
However natural such a response was for humans, a soldier could not afford to make judgments using fear.
The person had only ran about fifty feet before their torso jerked as if pulled backwards by an invisible string, scream stifled quickly in their throat as blood filled their lungs.
Finally, the enemy snipers had hit true.
Men manning the turret were cranking up another round.
And Mack's wrist buzzed three times.
This was his only chance to make it out of the trench. And if the soldier laying dying in front of him had waited a few more moments, it would have been their chance as well.
Not waiting for a single second more, and before the flashbang erupted in light and sound, Mack frantically flipped off the tarp above him and began sprinting towards the first wall of sandbags.
Eyes covered by a gloved hand, he finally heard a loud BANG.
And as he reached the bastion of safety, Mack felt the dampness of blood slick around his hip.