89

89
Jackson's POV. I felt all their eyes on me, and it was a little scary, honestly. I didn't know what they expected me to do, or who I actually did. They wanted me to make a decision. They wanted to know what I had in mind for us to do. I wasn't supposed to feel very happy about that, but actually, at this point in time, I felt a little surprised, and a little as if I was in shock. I couldn't think of anything, and I just couldn't make a decision, no matter how much it depended on me. On the one part, I knew that Damien had a very good point. We had been lucky to survive the previous phase, and it was very foolish of us to go into the battle once again. But on the other hand, there was a very large village that was about to be sacked just because we weren't brave enough to go in and fight. I thought about everything for a moment, thought about the decision that rested on my shoulders heavily, and thought about the safety of my own men. We were only, how many left? Six, or were we just four? Yes, four. And the city had a lot of people, a lot of men, a lot of women, and a lot of children that were in danger just because of the people that had come here. And we happened to be in the same vicinity. I didn't see how I was going to be able to block my nerves and my actual human feelings in order to ignore everything and simply leave. It was going to haunt me for life if anybody died, even if it was just a single person that died because of my negligence and because of my inaction. I looked back at my three men that were with me, making up my mind. As I did so, my face scrunched up into a frown, and I gave them a very serious expression. "We can't leave them," I said, finally, given my verdict. "We are going there, and we are going to fight and stop them from doing anything to harm the villagers." I finished. They all gave a collective sigh, or at least that's what I thought about it when they looked at me. I gave a nod, knowing that they understood what I was talking about and why I was going about it this way, even though it was rather inconvenient for us and it was putting us in danger. It was better that a few of us died than the people in this place died, even though the few of us that were here were actually very important people. We might not be able to do anything about them at all. We might not even be able to slow them down, not to talk of stopping them. I looked at him, doing my best not to glare at him as I did so. This man, this little boy, my best friend, had been opposing me ever since I started leading this particular journey. I didn't think I could think of just one particular time where he didn't say something to oppose my decision. He seemed to be very bent on making my rule difficult, but I just couldn't see the reason why he was doing so. "Well, let's hope we can," I told him in response, trying to hide the biting edge from my voice. "I hope we are able to stop them in time, because if we don't, we might just lose our lives there, so we have to do our best." I said, continuing, "there are just ten of them, and they are four of us, no big deal. We fought against greater odds before now, haven't we?" I asked, turning to the last soldier. He looked away when I looked at him, so I looked at Robert instead, who met my eyes. I could see the vast years of experience in his eyes, and knew that he was someone that would relate easily to what I had just said. Indeed, this particular person had definitely fought against a lot of people in his own time, and I was pretty sure that the odds weren't always balanced, and sometimes they were very much against him, like just this case. I was about to ask him some personal questions that could motivate the entire team, like how many people he had actually fought at once and won, or something like that, when suddenly I heard the marching sound of the men down the hill. They weren't marching anymore, no, they were running, they were running very quickly, and it was very unsettling for me. "No more time," I said, letting out a sigh, "let's go now. Before they get to the village, we have to intercept them and try our best to make sure no one dies." We all started running, all of them following my lead as I moved as quickly as I could, grabbing my gun and just running. I would have taken the tank, but there was no time for that. By the time the tank got to the village, I was pretty sure about 10 people would be dead, and a lot of things would already be almost looted from the place. If we were going to affect this situation and stop everything bad from happening to it, then we needed to strike, and we needed to strike fast before it actually happened, so that we could prevent it and not be sympathizing with the broken families afterwards. I would hear them still running forward, like they didn't even know that we were coming yet. I was pretty sure that our footsteps on our own was definitely making a racket, but it was surprising that they wouldn't hear us. Either they didn't actually hear us and stopped to turn, or they didn't show that they heard us, deciding instead to focus on their mission. "Fuck," I said, realizing that if we actually got to the village, they were going to use the people against us. The moment everyone in there was held hostage by one of them, or even if it's just one person at knife point, I would be completely controlled. After all, it was a simple logic. If we were going to save all of them, despite putting our own lives in danger, it was very reasonable that we would also give our lives in exchange for just one of them in the village. I couldn't bear to think of how it would be if they went about killing person after person once they got there, if they got there before us just to make us stop fighting and to make us give in. I looked back at my men, noticing their pace, and then looked forward to see that I couldn't even see the men anymore. All I saw was the spike in the distance of our opponents running towards their target in such a rush that I knew that unless we actually put in so much more effort, we wouldn't catch them. And then my worst fear, being controlled by them, would actually come true. I was presented with two options at that moment. Either I stopped and gave up, deciding to leave entirely and save myself and my friends, or I cut off with them. One decision was very easy, and another one was very hard for me to make. The hard decision, however, was not to go and fight. The hard decision was to run away. I just couldn't bring myself to do that, so I commanded instead, "move faster. We have to catch them before they get to the village." My voice was as loud as the rumbling sound of thunder, or at least that's what I thought it was when I heard the feedback from it. The sounds of their footsteps, their running footsteps, suddenly sounded much more stronger than it had been before, and I personally put more effort to stay ahead of the entire team. I could feel my heart beat getting faster and faster with each passing moment, and knew that it wouldn't be long now before we got to our target. I almost wanted to think of it that it was fine and we wouldn't have any problem, but I decided to not count my tick before they had her scared. We hadn't still gotten to them, even though right now I could see their bodies and I could actually see them as we were running. I brought out my gun and pointed it at one of their backs. Now if they weren't going to turn back and fight against us man to man, they were going to pay the price. We were the ones behind them right now, and they were the ones in front, they were the ones in danger, especially since we had long range weapons, guns. In fact, I shot at one and the pleasant sound of a man's cry filled the air. He crumpled to the ground and fell down pretty much dead to me right now. The men in front of us stopped. All of the opponents turned and faced us, glaring at us in anger. At least they got the point that they just couldn't keep on running anymore and they had to face us. We had basically caught up with them right now and it was going to be a standoff. Things were already looking bright for us. They were one man down already so it wasn't going to be too difficult.