Action - Write To Rank 2021: My Entries

Purple Belt: Stop!

Another day, another fight.

Dilip nodded absentmindedly, his fingers clenching over the handle of his rifle as he took aim.

"You must fire" General Dyer had commanded a few hours ago - or had it been a day? "Fire straight and fire hard"

No one had dared object; neither did Dilip.

If you valued your life, your family, your privileges, you didn't.

Why would they want to object anyway?

This was their job.

It was fact.

It was truth.

He could see his would-be victims clearly, buzzing about like in a child's toy village.

Brown skin and tough clothing harsh against the bright blue, taciturn sky above, as they mingled, discussed, talked.

They were talking...just talking. Was talking bad?

Dilip looked to his right to see another soldier aligning his rife in preparation for good shot and the same to his left.

They were all doing it and as he looked back at himself, he realised he'd done so too - an avatar in a game.

When to fire - when to shoot?

Who to kill?

Dilip tried not to think about that. 

To be honest, he tried not to think about anything.

The first shot rang through the clearing

Dilip gulped. 

Millions followed, trillions, their subjects crumpling, shouting, screaming.

He watched silently as a mother, holding her baby, was hit straight in the stomach and she buckled, doubling over in agony, her cries drowned by the endless pounding that ripped her skin so soon after.

Her baby rolled right out of her limp arms and kept on rolling, crying, shrieking until it too was ripped through and butchered, blood pooling under its lifeless form.

Dilip made to run to them, to go help, but then he realised what he was doing: he was shooting.

A man clung onto his wife's hand as they ran, shrieking and dodging the bullets flying past. But like puppets under a pupetteer, someone had orchestrated their fate.

The gunshots ringing through his head were his own - not only the others'.

Moments later, the man collapsed to the ground, his hand clutched over a wound around his stomach.

He was the one wreaking havoc.

A few more ripped through the roughage of his clothes. His wife weeped, yelling.

He had shot them.

Then she too was shot, straight in the head, sending a red, bloody rainbow flying overhead.

How could he?

"Stop!" he cried, looking to the others in wild desperation "Stop it!"

He glared at them, his friend's - companion's - forms, as they fired so easily, so effortlessly, ignoring his pleas, ignoring him completely.

He fingers itched to rip the rifles out of their hands and bash them again and again on the head with the exactly same device they used to create so much sorrow, so much death, but his fingers wouldn't leave the trigger of his own rifle.