After fighting with the team for a long time, Hayes had left his bayonet and rifle on the last enemy. He brandished a machete picked up from the battlefield and chopped hard in the crowd. He had never been a fighting expert, but years of war had already changed his mind.
Forged into a warrior with a killing instinct, this broad-bladed machete was like a tiger in his hand, constantly splitting open the shriveled bodies of those cultists and cutting off their ugly heads.
There were corpses all around him, including those of enemies and comrades. Most of them had fought to death with bayonets. He was covered in blood and one of his eyes was bloody, like a blood-soaked god of war. He cut off a man's arm.
At that moment, another man tried to sneak attack from the right, but he blocked the thrusting rifle and bayonet with his knife.
Hayes gasped and stared at the enemy in front of him. When the tattooed face across from him met the one-eyed man, he seemed to lose his courage in an instant. He put away his rifle and turned around to run. Hayes rushed forward and raised his machete high, directly slashing the opponent's head.
Split from behind.
At this time, Hayes seemed to have lost all energy. He knelt on the ground, holding the knife and gasping for air.
"Hayes! Hayes!"
Holding his shoulder with one hand, Hayes turned his head and saw that it was Political Commissar Ayi. His hat had gone somewhere, there was a bullet hole in the left shoulder of his coat, and he was covered in blood.
"Are you okay? Let's go! I'll take you to-"
Before he could finish speaking, a round of bullets blew half of the political commissar's head off, and the brains splashed all over Hayes' face...
Then there was a violent roar, and the explosion overturned the bodies of Hayes and the political commissar, and then his world slowly fell into darkness.
He didn't know how long it took before he woke up in darkness and the smell of earth.
Hayes opened his eyes and looked up to see a narrow rectangle of cold gray sky above his head, surrounded by black earth walls. When he tried to stand up, he found that his limbs could not answer him and he could not move.
Accepted the fact of his paralysis with a strange sense of detachment and quiet resignation.
Suddenly, he saw four bent figures in ragged clothes suddenly appeared and looked down at him.
They were wearing shabby robes and had sickles, shovels, and hoes in their hands. The smell lingering on their bodies made Hayes feel uneasy.
"He is a hero."
The first figure holding a scythe hissed:
"He died heroically and deservedly. If he had been more cruel, he might have survived."
"He is a fragile body."
Another figure holding a shovel then made a sound, like a rotting corpse gasping with its leaky throat.
"Struggling to survive deserves praise. If his desire to survive was stronger, he might be able to survive."
"He is an idiot who died for a goal that he cannot understand. If he had real knowledge, he would not be involved."
The third almost just mocked, with a creepy snicker
"He died with pain but couldn't enjoy the pain. It's so sad."
The fourth one looks like a woman and a man.
Suddenly, the rustling sound of tattered clothes was like the flapping of black wings of a crow, and the four figures disappeared from his sight. Hayes felt that the previous calm was replaced by a sudden premonition of fear.
Something's wrong here, they're talking like he's dead.
Are they blind? Can't they see that they are still alive?
He wanted to speak, to shout for them to come back and rescue him from this strange pit in which he found himself lying, but he was speechless, and his mouth and tongue were as paralyzed as the rest of his body.
Immediately afterwards, Hayes heard a scratching sound, as if a shovel was being pushed into the mound somewhere, and he knew that his terrible premonition was about to come true.
He is actually lying in the grave!
Just when Hayes was choked by fear, he suddenly felt something moving around him. He found that he could turn his head, but the moment he turned around, he almost screamed. There was another "body" lying next to him.
Corpse".
The other party has been wrapped tightly in a shroud, like a mummy, with only one head - or half of it - exposed.
The body's head and nose were gone, and the burnt tissue could be seen. When Hayes noticed the exposed political commissar's collar, he immediately realized who the corpse was.
Suddenly, the other party also turned his head and opened his mouth in a horrifying way.
"Hayes."
The whimpering sounds of the deceased could be heard from the blood-stained teeth and mutilated tongue. Although there were no eyes, Hayes could still feel the chilling gaze of the deceased.
"Don't be afraid."
"Sir Ayi, please return it"
Hayes wanted to ask the other person if he was okay, but he immediately realized that he was really stupid.
At this time, a smile broke out on the broken face.
"I'm sorry, I'm not a competent political commissar. I didn't lead you. I'm too cowardly for your courage to win."
"Ah, no, no, sir, you performed very well. Everyone likes you very much. Uncle Hashet also said that you are a good political commissar, much better than those guys who only know how to point guns at soldiers' heads!"
"Thank you, Hayes. I know you are all good people. Fear is not cowardice. You are all brave soldiers."
Intermittently, Ayi and Hayes talked a lot. He entered Zhongsi Academy when he was eight years old. It was a place full of glory and ideals, but it was also a depressive and cruel place. From the first day they entered school, the instructor
The training was like torture for everyone, including but not limited to extreme intensity training that made people vomit blood. They were only allowed to sleep for three hours for a week and were soaked in ice-cold water for 24 hours.
Many people can't hold on, but in Zhongji Academy there is no sick leave, no rest, only death. It is a place where death is allowed to eliminate the weak.
Ayi once had a brother who was one year older than him, but one day, he died and was hung in the air by a rope tied to the ceiling around his neck.
Suicide is a crime, and what's worse, it's a sign of cowardice.
From then on, Ayi endured everything silently. No matter how much he was beaten, scolded or insulted, he would never dare to retaliate. He was afraid that like his brother, he would become an "escape coward", but he was still regarded as a coward by others.
"Sir Ayi, you are a brave man. It is my honor to die with you. I know that you are not the kind of person who refuses or evades responsibilities. You are a truly competent political commissar because you have never been
Use bullets instead of your own actions and care to inspire everyone. You are already part of this team."
Ayi's broken face smiled, and it was a real smile.
As dirt fell on Hayes' face, he found he couldn't see, and then, as bits of dirt dripped into his mouth and nostrils, he felt more dirt hit his body, its weight slowly
The slowness became more and more unbearable as the merciless shovels shoveled dirt into the grave again and again by the unseen gravedigger.
Soon, his lungs were pressed against the earth on his chest, his mouth and nose were choked by the earth inside, and he could no longer breathe.
At this time, a strange and hollow voice said indifferently: