"Where am I? Why is it all dark? What happened... why am I lying down?"
Those were the disoriented questions echoing through the haze of Graves's mind as he slowly drifted back into consciousness.
The violent ringing in his ears still persisted, deafening and sharp. His head throbbed as the world spun around him. He tried to sit up, but a sharp wince tore through his throat as warm blood trickled down from his eyelids and ears, blinding his vision. His entire body felt as though it had been pulverized by an industrial hammer.
Dragging his broken frame across the mud, he managed to prop his back against an overturned dirt mound, gasping heavily as he waited for the vertigo to fade. It was pure, unadulterated luck that he was still alive—or better yet, that his limbs hadn't been shredded into pieces by the blast.
After a few agonizing minutes, the muffling in his ears slowly began to clear. The chaotic sounds of distant heavy gunfire, roaring devils, and thunderous bombings bled back into his reality.
"Arghhh..." Graves groaned weakly, shifting his body slightly, only for a blinding surge of agony to shoot straight up his spine.
Wiping the blood from his eyes, he looked toward the center of the blast radius. The bomb had carved a shallow crater into the ground. Sitting at the edge of the pit was his medical bag—or what was left of it. The bag had been torn to absolute shreds, its contents scattered uselessly in the mud.
Reaching down to his hip, Graves checked his holster. It was empty. His sidearm had been flunged away during the blast.
He let out a long, shuddering sigh of pure exhaustion.
"One... two... three... go," Graves muttered to himself, trying to force some desperate motivation into his mind.
He braced his hands against the mud and tried to pull himself up, but the agonizing pain in his lower body was too immense. He collapsed instantly back into the dirt, his lungs gasping for air.
"Damn it... damn it!" he growled, pounding a weak fist into the sludge.
Getting ready to attempt a second try, his ears suddenly caught a faint, wet sound in the mud nearby.
Thud... thud... thud.
Heavy, footsteps were approaching his position. With every passing second, the steps grew louder and closer until a massive, towering silhouette materialized right beside him. It lowered its head, noisily sniffing the air.
It was nothing else but a devil.
Graves couldn't make out the creature's exact features through his blood-blurred vision, but he didn't need to. In a flash of pure instinct, he squeezed his eyes shut, forced his trembling, battered body to go completely rigid, and held his breath.
The devil paced around the crater, its nostrils flaring as it searched for the scent of fresh blood. Graves silently prayed—to any higher power, to the Church, just begging to be overlooked. But his luck seemed to run out. The monster suddenly snapped its head in Graves's direction.
THUD. THUD.
It stomped directly toward him. The devil bent its massive torso downward, bringing its heavy snout so close to Graves's face that the warm, foul exhaust from its nostrils blew directly across Graves's cheeks. It growled softly, showing its teeth if graves had seen it, he would have seen strands of flesh stuck between its multiple teet...
Underneath the mud, Graves's fingers slowly wrapped around a sharp, piece of debris—a heavy wooden splinter with a pointed tip. "If this bastard tries to eat me... I'm shoving this straight through its eye," Graves thought, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
For thirty suffocating seconds, the devil hovered over him. Finally, it let out a low, uninterested growl, raised its head, and lumbered away into the smoke.
The moment the footsteps faded, Graves unleashed a ragged, violent breath, his lungs burning. His entire body vibrated from the sheer tension of his near-death experience.
"I have to get the hell out of here..." Graves muttered, his voice cracking.
He forced himself to his feet, gritting his teeth so hard his jaw ached as a white-hot pain flared in his left leg. Looking down, he finally noticed a deep, laceration running along his thigh, weeping dark blood. Mumbling curses beneath his breath, Graves aggressively tore a strip of cloth from his ruined tactical trousers, wrapping it tightly around the wound and pulling it knot-hard. He winced, tears of pain pricking his eyes.
He limped toward his destroyed medical bag, but a quick glance confirmed it was completely unsalvageable.
As he turned to scan the surrounding area, his eyes landed on a limp figure lying face-down in the mud a few yards away. The body was twitching faintly, weak mumblings escaping the man's lips.
Graves limped over. As the smoke cleared, he recognized the man as realization hit him... it was the wounded soldier he had been dragging on his back before the artillery shell blew them both to hell.
A sudden, uncontrollable wave of rage erupted in Graves's chest. He completely lost his composure.
"You bastard!" Graves shouted, his voice hoarse with pain and anger as he glared down at the man. "You're the damn reason I'm in this state! I swear to God, you better not die on me now, because if you do, I'll drag your corpse back just to kill you again!"
He stood there, chest heaving, letting his furious tirade echo into the smoke.
After a moment, the fiery rage ebbed, leaving behind only hollow, crushing exhaustion.
Graves took a deep breath and bent down.
"Can you move your body?"
Silence hung between them for a second before the soldier let out a fit of violent, wheezing coughs. "Yeah... I've regained some motor control. Looks like... the nerve-blocker is finally wearing off..." The man gasped, his voice trembling violently. "Argh! God... the pain... the pain is too much!"
Without a word, Graves used every remaining shred of his fading strength to haul the soldier up.
Draping the man's heavy armored arm over his own shoulders, side by side, the two survivors resumed their agonizing ordeal toward the medical camp. The soldier's head hung low, his single leg barely dragging along the muddy earth as Graves bore almost the entire weight of his body.
"I don't think... I don't think I can make it..." the soldier rasped somberly, his eyelids fluttering.
"I don't think I can make it either," Graves snapped back, his voice dripping with bitter frustration. "So if you want to give up right here and let those monstrosities pick your bones clean, then be my guest! But as for me, I'd rather die dragging my broken ass back to camp than let my body get torn apart by those heinous bastards. So if you really want to die right here... tell me right now, and I'll leave you to your fate!"
The harsh words hung in the air, cutting through the soldier's haze of agony like a whip. The man swallowed hard, dug his remaining boot into the mud, and forced himself to take another step forward alongside Graves.