[b]Broken[/b] Part Four Struggling to drag my feet forward, I only made it a couple of shaky steps before my foot caught on something and I fell, cursing myself for not thinking to watch my step. But as I caught myself on my knees and left hand, I looked back over my shoulder to see what I had tripped on. It was another Guardian, female, that I had ended up next to after the explosion. Right now I could only see her head and the arm I had tripped on past the body of a Cabal, and that's why I hadn't noticed her amongst the rest of the carnage. Dragging myself around, I pulled off her Hunter helmet to find lifeless blue eyes staring back. Raven hair tumbled out of the helmet as I pulled it away, fanning out around her head. Her last moment was captured on her face, showing the shock of her Light being torn from her right before she was killed. Gently sliding my hand down her face, I closed her eyes and brushed strands of hair out of her face. Then I took her outstretched arm and started pulling it down to rest at her side, looking away from her face for the first time. It took me a second to drag my eyes away from her torso, or rather her lack of most of it. All the armor was shredded away aside from the breast plate and armor on her arms, and only a short stretch of burnt flesh could be seen past that in the pool of blood that drained away from her. I spotted a chunk of leg armor only a few feet away and turned my head back to her face with my hand over my mouth, glad I was next to her shoulder and not where I could see into her damaged stomach. After a moment I was able to remove my hand from my mouth and start looking around again, although the queasy feeling still remained. I spotted part of a Ghost shell wedged under a Vex chassis a short ways from where her arm had been flung out, but couldn't find any others so settled with putting the single shard in her limp hand. It wasn't much of a funeral, but at least she looked peaceful now. A soft scrape caught my attention, and I reached instinctively for weapons. Nothing came to my grasp but the cannon, and I pulled it out knowing that I didn't have any ammo to fill more than a few clips. I remained motionless, crouched silently next to the fallen Huntress with the dead Cabal sufficiently concealing me from anything that approached from behind. My breathing was controlled but seemed alarmingly loud to my ears, increasing the fear that I would be heard by something unfriendly. After a moment, the scuff sounded again and I leapt to my feet, spinning around and aiming my cannon over the Cabal that I now used as a meat shield. My sudden movement was answered with a soft squeal and small footsteps pounding away. It was a child, frightened by my appearance and weapon, and they ran and dove behind a large chunk of concrete without hesitation. Dumbstruck, I fastened my pistol back onto my belt and glanced over my shoulder at the dead Guardian behind me. Satisfied the child had not been able to see the mangled body past the Cabal corpse, I climbed ungracefully over the dead Cabal, stumbling over to where the child had hidden with my injured leg sending pain signals to my brain. Stopping several feet before reaching the concrete slab, I heard the already panicked breathing of the girl grow uneven with whimpering. "It's okay," I spoke quietly so as not to startle the kid or draw the attention of anything else roaming the area, "I didn't mean to scare you." The whimpering stopped after a moment, but the breathing remained unsteady as I saw the child's hand slide out from cover to brace their weight, followed by the head as they peaked out cautiously. It was a girl, a girl that I soon recognized as the one who had met my eyes during the siege last night. Able to really look at her now, I took in her brown eyes and light brown, wavy hair that fell softly to her shoulders. As I had hoped against, I saw death in her eyes; haunting phantoms of the horrors she had been through these past few hours. She stared right back at me, and I slowly reached for her hand as she stood up and left the protection of the debris. At the last second she tried pulling her hand away, but I snatched her hand and pulled her gently against me, wrapping my arms around her firmly. Before long she was sobbing against my armor, her little arms struggling to find some part of my armor to hold on to. I winced whenever she touched the wound on my right side, but I didn't consider letting go of her even for a moment. I don't know how long we stood there, but her crying eventually quieted and I slowly pulled her arms away from my waist, quickly wiping away my own tears with my thumb before she could see. She didn't resist much, and stood silently with her arms hanging at her sides and head tilted down. Frankly, I didn't know what to say now that our moment of relief in finding someone else was over. The girl was filthy, covered in ash and dirt except where her tears had trailed down. Torn and muddied clothes, disheveled hair, a couple scrapes and bruises, but other than that, no harm. "Are you alright?" I asked anyway, knowing she might take comfort in my caring. Her response was a small nod of the head, but I could still see in her eyes that she wasn't fine at all. If she lived through this she would probably suffer from trauma all her life. If…no, she will live on. I'll make sure of it. I remembered the woman she had been latched onto last night. "Where's your mother?" That got her crying again, but I crouched down in front of her and took her hands in mine. "Do you know where she is?" I tried again. If any of the civilians survived, they would either be there in need of help or be nearby. The girl kept crying, but she tilted her head in another nod. "Take me, please," I requested, and she began leading me on, wiping at her eyes with one hand but not daring to let go of my hand with the other. It didn't take more than a couple minutes to reach the crevice where the civilians had been sheltered, even when I was weaving through the field of bodies slowly on my hurt leg. To my despair, it also didn't take very long to reach a spot littered with human bodies. They had barely made any ground before something caught them. I stopped us several meters away from the closest of the bodies and turned the girl away from them to face me. Crouching down again, I cupped her face in my hands and tilted her head up so she would meet my eyes. "Wait here," I nodded my head towards a piece of cover provided by the broken wing of a City ship that would block her view of the corpses, "Its safer." She grabbed my wrists before I could let go of her and held me there. "I need someone to watch my back while I look for survivors," I tried making her task feel important, "If you see anything, or if you need me, just call. My name is William." "W-wi…" she choked on her parched throat, "William." "Yes, and I need to know what to call you if I find something," I probed for her name now that I knew she would speak to me. "M-Mm…M-Marcy," she stuttered, but this time she spoke more strongly. "Marcy," I smiled and pushed a few strands of hair out of her face, "What a lovely name. Now stand guard right there and keep me safe, I'm trusting you." With that I turned her towards the wreckage and came back up to my feet. After a couple slow steps spent looking back over her shoulder at me, Marcy darted towards the burnt and bent aircraft wing and ducked behind an upturned piece of concrete, looking back the way we had come. With a sigh I began walking onward, knowing she was probably aware of why I really wanted her to stay back. Tired flames danced across this street, consuming wood and cloth and flesh where it could find any. This street wasn't as torn up as the one I had been fighting in, which wasn't even a block away by my estimate, but debris from the dogfight that had raged in the skies last night coated the area. Some dented Cabal fighters rested on the ground while the splintered remains of several City jumpships either rested on the ground in sad heaps or stuck out of the ground they had torn into like warnings to any who dared come near. Then I caught my breath as I realized I hadn't checked the air above after waking up. Turning around in a circle with eyes skyward, I found no trace of any ship, wether Cabal or human, but couldn't see down to the horizons with the buildings blocking the way. Unfortunately, despite the relief of no enemy craft in sight, looking reminded me of the absence of the Traveler that had hung there just yesterday. _____________________________ Link to part 3: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/229945649/0/0 Link to part 5: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/229945772/0/0 Link to Archive: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/217384398/0/0