"Come back here ya coward, it's only a flesh wound..." SFS Round 2 Sitrep Thread!!

[Copper]

Leto (allies) vs. Recruit 2112 (axis)

Turn 5

Even through the cacophany of gunfire and explosions and the screams of dying men, one can hear the incessant barking of a lone dog somewhere in the village of Krupki. The sound of the mongrel's chatter disappears from time to time, disrupted by the jetstream woosh of shells passing overhead... but it is always there, continuous, and unabridged... in the background, even if you cannot hear it.

The sky overhead is so blue that it could be woven out of fine silk cloth. Not even one cloud to stain such worldy fabric. From time to time, the rising heat of the day causes the sky to shimmer, as if ethereally shifting it out of phase, perhaps into another time. Maybe to another place.

The dog still barks. How it is that the animal can be heard defies all notion of similitude to reality. Looking at Krupki as the small village erupts into a geyser of earth and debris, one can almost sense that the rapid barking should come to an abrupt end at any second.

Between the shifting skies and the concerned and constant raps of a lone dog, a surreal quality overtakes this small part of the world. If one focuses hard enough, the dough-like thuds of bullets in the earth around you, the clatter of the many turtle tracks of man made machines, the shredding screams of soldiers (who are they?), disappears into the singularity of sound that is an unseen dog.

Out there somewhere.

A new struggle commences to follow the sound of the dog through the maelstrom, and you begin to feel yourself clinging to that desperate sound. Anxiety trips your heart from explosion to explosion, as the masking sounds deny you that code... that lifeline... that flea bitten bark! Fully dependent upon its throaty rasps, your entire life turns on the axis of that sound... another explosion, another tearing, ripping push of a staccatto spandau... pushing the dog and his bark from the world again. It becomes more difficult to pick out, disappearing for longer and longer, moments turned to ice.

Panic. The screams that now block that lifegiving sound are your own. Calling out. Searching. Answer me!

Thick treads crush the world around you and vacuum up all sound, even yours. Panzer. It was there all along. Moving forward, sucking the world into its manifolds, usurping all sound. The crash of its black longbarrel scratches the inside of your ears with pain. A twig shoved through your head, up into your brain. The ringing hurt forms into a cadence like crescendo. You hear nothing.

Except the barking of a lone dog.


The Death of Comrade Major Maximsmillionov
18 Guards
South East of Krupki

Leto