The first sensation I got as soon as I felt my consciousness roused was the cold metal and the creeping slow heat.
I opened my eyes, seeing what looked like the usual infantry fighting vehicles that I've almost gotten sick of. The chairs inside the dark canopy is lit by what looked like ripped portions of metal, glass, and concrete debris.
First, I moved my fingers and toes. I've been wearing some nylon gloves, from the look of it, and a hard-toed steel boot.
"…I almost thought I was back home, but I guess even in the concept of reincarnation, some things don't change, huh?"
Reincarnation isn't a new thing even for me. I was slightly aware of it, or maybe an inherent fear in me that even in death, things don't end up like a blink of an eye.
I stood up and found my body sluggish—only I realized that there's a whole portion of the top turret that collapsed into the IFV that is now laid directly atop my body where I found myself on a sideways position.
Though, weirdly enough… I feel a tingling sensation from my hand. I'm getting itchy at a time like this?
"Ugh, get this off me."
Managing to pry off the slab of metal off me, I eyed around and found a gun that is almost close to a modernized AK-10. What's bizarre, though, is the ammunition.
"Why do these mags have weirdly colored tips?"
Colored tips aren't bizarre as I remember, like blue tips for armor piercing. But these tips aren't really particularly looking like that kind of deal at all, and there's a letter designation on each of them.
There are three particular sets of magazines here with different colored tips. Red tipped rounds with the F etched on the cartridge, blue tipped ones with W, and brown-tipped with C.
"…"
I decided not to bother thinking too much and loaded two magazines each on my waist pockets. I loaded one magazine with F rounds in it to this sort of AK-10 look-alike and stepped out, only to find myself breathing in relief.
Fire slowly ate the vehicle from the front. It looked like this carrier got crushed as the tunnel that leads outside this urban sector collapsed.
The tunnel in question too is embedded on a mountain. But looking from the sides, there stands a giant curtain wall that had what looked like laser sort of fencing atop it… Not to mention that this said wall looked like it spans almost 2,000 meters…
That's a gigantic wall, honestly. I won't see that back home because even a mere 30-meter wall gets you in trouble for how much it costs.
I cocked the slide ready as I took off the safety as I turned towards the urban sector. I found a nearby telephone booth, and stood close to it.
I can't really see my reflection… But looking at how I stand to the telephone, I'm quite small. I guess I'll be around 5'1"? Now that I mention that, my hands looked pretty small too… Yet I wore a multicam uniform and a plate carrier…
"Conscripted?" I mused.
Really… Things really don't change at all, huh? Even here…
I sighed as I opened the telephone line and tried to see if there's a dial tone, and there's none… Which I kind of expected.
This place is torn up. I can even hear some sporadic gunfire and the noise of buildings collapsing, even if they're quite far. The architecture looks enough to be similar to what I'm familiar of—a mix of Western and Eastern European.
Next, looking at the stores nearby, one sign looked like it's Polish… I guess for a guess, Poland wouldn't be a hard bet. Sadly, most of the language I'm familiar is English (which I learned at school and mostly by interpreting some basic communication signals from volunteers) and my native Russian tongue, though it's more like I could probably understand anything close to Cyrillic.
So, reading these signs that are in Polish is a no-go for me, but I decided to move on from here. I decided to enter the city and prepared myself as I stick to the sidewalk and listened carefully.
…Ah, that reminds me. This…body, this definitely isn't mind. It's young, not to mention smaller than I was. I fished my pockets for anything else, and found a wallet and a pendant.
Looking into my wallet with a few crumpled bills, I found an ID.
"…Isakov Kadymir, service conscription notice the Military Mobilization Board." I said as I spoke out the words in the ID. "Age, thirteen…"
…I really have to say, fate is fucking me over with these coincidences. I also was thirteen when I got conscripted.
I looked at the pendant and I found a photo. It's two young children, a boy and a girl, smiling at a camera. Though, the girl's face seemed to be ripped out by a scissor or a knife. What happened to this…?
But I wasn't able to stay mulling over that detail as I heard loud footsteps.
I quickly took cover on a nearby store, using the aisle as a firing position as I steadied my gun over to aim at the upcoming target.
The first thing I noticed to the approaching unknown was their legs. They had camouflaged pants and boots—military, definitely. But their gait… The way they walk is weird. It's like they don't know where their center of gravity is.
Little by little, as the unknown approached, I realized why.
The torso is ripped open. Their plate carrier is just dangling over their shoulders as they came into view, and the part where the heart should be at was gone, with a gaping hole with almost dried out blood spurting over it.
What got me shocked however… Is their head. They still have a head—I think the helmet was literally torn from their face, but the top remained strapped, but they don't have a face. Instead, their chewed-out face is a home to what looked like a giant bug the size of a hand, six legs are anchored to where the crevices of the head should be at…
Their mouth is also held by the two front legs of the bug, who seem to have like multiple eyelids over its slightly enlarged head.
The bug, noticing me, quickly met my gaze and—
"Kaaaaaaaah"
The poor man's voice etched out a shriek of sorts, and quickly started to shuffle towards me.
I shot my rifle to the target I deemed to be the best part to target—the bug. But it used the body's hands to block the rounds, or at least that's what I saw it tried to do.
However, the rounds that struck the arm of the body quickly set it ablaze, and the flames quickly ate the hands of the corpse this bug is using… But that's where I realized why that's futile.
A normal body would reflexively avoid being hurt. That's something I'm well aware. But… what if it was a body puppeteered by another entity? Considering the place where the brain should be is gone and instead used by the bug to put itself at, doesn't that mean…
As I feared, the body kept on struggling to run towards mine. I decided on another approach.
I shot three rounds into the leg of the corpse, around the knee. Thankfully, as I expected from handling 7.62 rounds, it was enough to tear off the kneecap of the corpse and caused the body to fall.
Thanks to that, I used that opportunity to shoot the bug dwelling into the face of the corpse, and it wasn't able to defend itself this time. The corpse irked out one last cry before the flames set the bug ablaze and finally died, but I didn't stick around.
I quickly moved to the other street and prowled lowly into the buildings. If those shrieks were cries, it wouldn't be a far-off guess that it's used to call for help from other corpse-manipulating bugs like that one.
"…This is fucked up."
I steadied my breathing as I found a stairway on one of the taller buildings here, to which I decided to move into.