You died in a haunted forest during a repeat of the Korean War (pt. 2)

No one much liked you, it didn't take a genius to work that out, but gee, someone had to take a handle of this thing. The fellow who had died twenty metres back, that was a tough one. You weighed up carrying him, because after all it was his God-given right to be treated to a proper burial, even if he came off as some kind of troubled agnostic at best--but you made a promise you would come back for him after this was over.

Then you lost another one. The poor boy who you tried to keep calm and close to your bosom the whole time, mumbling that dear song about his mother's cheesecake, oh goodness, how could he just run off like that? You made a short prayer but really was there any hope for him? Even if he found safe haven in the company of some family who weren't secretly feeding him nitro glycerin, only to be sent back to us in a million pieces; what methods would they brainwash him with to follow these cults of warmongering affinity. What beliefs were there out here? Not Buddha surely, you knew of him in a round about sense and certainly he was a good enough guy, certainly one of the more tolerable, fictitious deities. But this was something else. You made another short prayer, and you hated to think that no good would come of it.

God would guide you, you were sure of that, but it was certainly an odd path He had chosen. Gunfire was growing, each individual ping of each bullet rang louder inside your ear until you were sure that you were being led to a defining moment of faith. Without putting yourself down, you were without doubt the larger of the targets in the group, but your faith would guide you, and shield you from any harm that would come to the others too. The volume of the battle had escalated to the point that you didn't hear the next body fall backwards with a thud against the damp earth.

Though you were close, there was no reason for them to be shooting at you. You were well hidden by the scrub of the forest; there were many layers of arbor separating you from them. It was another non-bullet death, and this time people couldn't not notice it.

* * *

You heard them chatting among themselves as you led on ahead, and they weren't letting you in on it. Overhearing words here and there, parts of sentences, it didn't take you long to work up to the idea that you weren't all from that mall in Pomona. There were all kinds. That one guy who finally opened his mouth to speak, the one from the Universal Studios tour, the brother of the man fallen now a good five hundred metres back. He hadn't done a thing because it had taken him up until now to really know if any of this was happening. And as he knew it, you knew it. God had brought you all here for a reason and you had your theories.

--Wait, wait how many people had grandfathers in the Korean war? one says over your shoulder.
--Well mine...I think mine...man I dunno.
--I was a runaway, the fuck you think I know about my grandfather?

And so forth, and you walked with your hands over your ears from then on.

* * *

After what felt like another twenty minutes, you felt a slight tug at your elbow, and then a dragging weight, and you looked down to find a small girl hanging off your arm. The sound of war flooded back to you like a television switched on at full volume. You stopped to let everyone else catch up, but there was no one else. This little girl of about six or seven, wasn't part of the group. She was a tiny Korean girl, the base of her dress soaked in mud with little splotches here and there and on her face. The group had left you, and maybe if you'd seen which direction they'd headed you could have caught up again. You'd been walking and praying aloud, very loud, and you were a walking target, and they weren't about ready to deal with the kind of crazy you were dishing out right there. You'd never thought of yourself as crazy, right? Maybe it stood out more in a place like this. With people like that.

--You're not safe out here my angel, you said to her but she just smiled through the gaps of missing kid teeth, and there was a small amount of blood in her hair as you patted her. It wasn't hers.
--Where can you take me? you asked. A bullet shot into the mud, showing you how soft it was and it made a little sloppy sound. Then another. And another.
--Were you sent here by God? You were weren't you? And she kept smiling and she nodded like she didn't even know what she was nodding to, and there was a little sloppy sound, and you felt it as well and you thought maybe being a big girl would save you, that God didn't want you to lose all that weight for a reason. But it wasn't like that.

You fell forwards into the mud and you could still see through one eye, and girl looked at you with a tilted head, like you were some sick puppy dog she could no longer help.