Can there be peace in all this noise?

Jeth huddled beside the earthen embankment as yet another explosion sent debris flying everywhere, choking the air with smoke and dust. Fortunately, no one was killed this time. His chest and head ached from the repeated concussions but he didn’t have time to pay that discomfort much mind just then. The area was lightly wooded which provided some cover from those watching the area, but the trees also made the explosions that much more lethal. Even a few splinters of moderate size could do terrible things to a person when moving that fast. Jeth had seen firsthand what those injuries were like and wanted very much to avoid them.

On the other side of the earthen embankment the trees began to thin for a few dozen yards and then opened up into a clearing that was perhaps a hundred feet across. It wasn’t a natural clearing and Jeth hoped the area would be clear of any corpses. It was a hope Jeth often found himself leaning on only to have it crushed. If there was any other way through this area he would have gladly taken it. To the one side of the clearing was a sheer cliff dropping down hundreds of feet that Jeth had no chance of scaling. The other side was another cliff, this one rising several hundred of feet. This narrow strip of land ran along and was the only way through the mountains that didn’t require extensive climbing gear and supplies. Besides, there was no shelter on those cliff faces and people had given up on trying to scale them after the first few groups were blasted off the mountain side.

A few of the other people Jeth was traveling with made a break for the clearing. They were halfway across when the fireball blossomed and filled the clearing. Their screams, if they even had time to make such sounds, were drowned out by the deafening explosion.

He couldn’t tell if the area was booby-trapped or if there were people watching the clearing. There were any number of places mines could be placed, or motion sensors to trigger remote mortars, or drones hovering so far above that no one could see them. There could even be some hidden cave in the overlooking cliffs with people keeping watch on the pass and calling in the strikes.

As Jeth considered his options, another group made a desperate run for it. They made is slightly farther than the group before them but still not far enough. It took some time for his hearing to return. The repeated explosions were taking their toll on his ears and a faint ringing persisted long afterward. He wondered if it would ever fully go away.

He wondered if he would live long enough to be bothered by the ringing.

There were only a couple other people left besides Jeth now.

Mortars continued to rain down behind them, picking off whatever stragglers hadn’t made it to the woods yet and Jeth was overwhelmed with his own recent memories of that terrible race. There was nothing but open fields before the forest. People would surge forward in the hundreds, spreading themselves out as they ran in the hopes that the enemy would target someone else, anyone else. Of the few hundred Jeth had left with, barely a dozen or so had made it to the trees. Now there were just three of them.

“Run together?” Jeth asked the other two. “Like we did before? Maybe they won’t get all of us.”

The two were pale but nodded resolutely. There was no going back and waiting here would only mean dying of thirst and starvation.

The three of them braced themselves against the earthen embankment, readying themselves for the run. There was a certain insanity required for such things, a frenzy you have to work your mind up to in order to overcome the fear and terror of the situation. It took longer this time for Jeth to get himself ready. No one spoke but they all knew the moment they were all ready and broke out of their cover at the same time.

Jeth turned to the right, holding close to the cliff wall whereas the other two split up, one going to the left and the other staying in the middle. He couldn’t stand to watch them as he ran, counting his steps and watching the sky above for any sign of falling mortars.

They were almost halfway through when Jeth planted his feet and skidded to a stop. Immediately he turned around and ran back towards the way he’d just come. No shouts came from the other two so he had no idea if they thought he’d lost his nerve or if they’d even noticed. Regardless, he hated himself for doing it. He reached the trees and dove to the ground just as the explosion sounded. Without wasting any time, Jeth threw himself back onto his feet and rushed back into the clearing. The smoke and dust were still heavy and although his lungs burned he didn’t allow himself to breathe while he ran. Spots flashed in his vision as his brain suffered from oxygen deprivation but breathing in the smoke and dust would make him choke and slow him down.

His vision and hearing were still muddled from the blast but he could navigate well enough to keep from running off the cliff. He tried not to look down at the uneven ground beneath his feet, only giving it a glance now and then to plan out his next several steps before snapping his gaze onto the far side of the clearing where he hoped to find safety.

He surmised that whoever or whatever was signaling for the attacks wouldn’t be able to see through the dust cloud and thereby grant him a few precious seconds of extra time. He could have told the other two about his plan, but in the short time he had to make his plan he worried that the watchers would figure out their strategy if they all turned back at the same time. Still, using them as bait felt wrong. Horribly wrong.

As he passed the midpoint of the clearing he couldn’t help but look, even if briefly, for any signs of them. Unidentifiable pieces of this or that covered the ground. Everything was so churned up in the dirt that it was impossible to tell if that strip of reddish brown was material from a shirt or a bit of muscle and skin.

The air cleared enough that Jeth finally let out the breath he’d been holding and gasped in a fresh lungful of air. His throat still burned with the lingering dust but he managed not to cough and to keep gulping down breath after breath. His head cleared somewhat and he put on a fresh burst of speed. He was nearly though. He was farther than any of the other groups he’d seen attempt to cross the clearing.

His gambit, terrible and deceitful though it was, paid off. He reached the cover of the woods, saw a low divot in the ground behind a row of trees and launched himself into it, cowering just in time as a fresh explosion tore into the clearing. His body was shaking with excitement and adrenaline but he didn’t let himself relax. It would take moments for them to target his current hiding spot if they wanted to and so he moved, crawling at first while his legs regained their strength and before pulling himself upright and running with all his might.

That night it was cold in the mountains and Jeth refused to set a fire for fear of being found. Explosions had followed him for what seemed like hours but eventually they had stopped. Jeth pressed on for another couple hours before exhaustion finally forced him to stop.  He had little in the way of supplies so he contented himself with sucking on small pieces of dried fruits. A clear stream satisfied his terrible thirst.

His throat never stopped itching though. Early on he thought it was from the dust he’d inhaled but then realized he’d been screaming the entire time, from when he had stopped holding his breath until the time he stopped to rest. He’d certainly damaged his throat from creaming so long.

As he sat shivering in the growing darkness he acknowledged that the ringing in his ears was more than just ringing after all. Now that he was quiet, the ringing was much quieter as well. He tried speaking and found he could barely hear himself. He dabbed at his ears and found dried blood on both of them. The explosions must have burst his eardrums. Not surprising considering how many he’d survived.

At last he found sleep and gave himself over to it in the hopes that in the morning he could forgive himself for what he’d done to those other two, forget the entire ordeal. For now, though, he would have to accept being alive as a good enough reward.