Survive [Mad Max: Fury Road]

Chapter Twenty-One

"You're never gonna have a better chance."

"At what?"

"Redemption."

-Mad Max and Imperator Furiosa

Mud and dirt and blood filled my mouth. Fire threatened to char my flesh. All my sense were going wild, each one of them telling me to get out of there. But Max didn't budge. For a moment, I wondered if he had been knocked out. The crackling of flames and the cries of wounded men came back to me, and I heard Max's breathing right above my ear. He lifted himself from me and then glanced at the explosive scene behind him. Burning pieces of fabric were still falling from the smoke cloud around us, there were limbs scattered about, blood pooled around them, some of them sunken into the mud, some on fire. I took a breath and brought my hands to my sides, pressing into the soft mud and tucking my knees under my chest, then forced myself to a stand.

Max glanced at me and pulled out his gun, then nodded towards mine. I pulled it out from my waistband and took a deep breath, my eyes scanning the surrounding area for survivors, as I knew there was some. They took a while to surface, the ones that were still alive, but they came out of the rubble, some with charred faces and some with blood and mud all over their bodies. Max and I began to open fire on them as the rose, like zombies from the grave. When they were all fallen, I heard a groan and Max reached his arm out to stop me from nearing as I took a step forward.

He went ahead of me, and I followed closely behind him. A large chuck of metal, possible part of an engine, was pressed down on a man whose skin was burned black. I recognized him through his garb, however. The long bullet helmet he wore gave him away; the Bullet Farmer. Max knelt down and looked him dead in the eyes, his hand flexing and then curling into a ball. He muttered something that I held onto, pocketing it away to talk to him about later, something that would give me insight on how the world was before all this. Before the Wasteland. Max lived in the downfall of the world, I was born after it was what it was. He had knowledge I yearned to know.

Max brought down his fist against the burned mans face and the man cried out pain, but it was anger I heard. He still wanted us dead, he would not beg for mercy. I felt better as his cries turned from anger to nothing more than gargling blood. Max's fist was bloody, the blood splattered over his arm and his chest as he finished off the Bullet Farmer. Where the hatred for the man came, I would learn one day. But for now, I watched as he beat him to death, my eyes wide and interested in the scene. There was something so beautiful about watching Max finish of someone so vile. No matter how good you were in this world, there was blood on everyone's hands. But I'd rather have the Bullet Farmer's blood on my hands than any of the Wives.

Max was breathing heavily as he landed that final punch, the crunch of bone and flesh and cartilage louder than the remaining crackling of fire all around us. It was dying down now, the flames being doused by the humidity of the mud. My eyes scanned the area, the bloodshed, the explosion. I looked at the bloodied and burned Bullet Farmer and felt nothing, then I looked at Max, and felt something. Something, but I didn't know what. Something in the distance moved, catching my distracted eyes. When they focused on the movement, I realized it was not in the distance; someone had stood up from the carnage and was raising their gun to kill Max, who was still staring at the dead Bullet Farmer with his wide, dull eyes.

I wasn't going to let him die. My pistol was in my hand and I rose it while shouting, "Max, get down!"

His head dropped and I fired off my last three shots into the attackers skull. Brain matter, skull fragments and a whole lot of blood burst from his impaled body, and Max was not spared from the bloody shower. He shut his eyes and winced slightly as the warmth of the fresh blood splattered him, and then it was silent for a moment. He opened his eyes and scanned the area, then looked at me when he was sure that it was clear. "Thank you."