Unedited Ch: 55 How to stay sane (Patreon)

The Super was a man dressed in a South Korean Army uniform. He struggled to stand up and when he turned his head to look at them his eyes were filled with fear. “Run!” He yelled in Korean.

A man walked in through what was left of the wall. He was wearing a North Korean officer uniform and carrying a sword in his hand. He looked at Emily’s group and smiled. Emily raised her gun and pulled the trigger. The North Korean Officer stumbled back a step and he lost his smile. Emily pulled the trigger a few more times but this time he braced himself and didn’t stumble. 

“Back!” Hook yelled as the North Korean officer stepped forward. Emily slipped her gun back into it’s holster and pulled out Righteous and her little black knife out but the officer didn’t attack her. He stepped towards the South Korean Soldier and with a smile that never left his face the enemy super swung his sword beheading the downed South Korean.

“Never, move. Now.” Hook yelled and Emily backed away still looking at the enemy officer. 

The enemy officer grabbed his sword with both hands and with a battle cry charged Emily. Taking a step towards the charging enemy super Emily blocked the sword with a underhand swing of her tomahawk. With her other hand she swung upwards with her little black knife. To her complete surprise the enemy super dodge the strike and kicked her in the stomach sending her backwards through the wall and into the dirty kitchen. 

Emily had been thrown over the dirty stove and into refrigerator. She found herself covered in smelly noodles, expire meat, and broken glass. Her stomach hurt where he had kicked her. She the pain faded when she noticed that she was missing her little black knife. Panicked she looked around and spotted it under the stove. She grabbed the underside of the stove and lifted one of the legs causing the stove to fall sideways in her haste to get her knife back. The stove fell with a loud band. She ignored the sound and grabbed her knife pulling herself out of the dirty refrigerator. 

She had just enough time to turn around to see the enemy super’s sword descend towards her. Panicked she swept righteous upwards and was able to block the strike. The enemy super responded by kicking her again. She flew back right through the wall again. This time she found herself in a small room that had a bunch of laundry baskets full of racy underwear. On the wall was a long mirror that was cracked in several places.

“Was that like that before I came through the wall or did I do that?” She questioned herself as she stood up. There was a loud crack above her and the ceiling groaned. 

The enemy super walked through the Hole that she had made when he kicked her. She took a deep breath and let herself fall into the basic horse stance that she had learned so long ago. She shifted her weapons slightly and brought them up to the ready position. The enemy super smiled at her and brought his sword up in the guard position. He slowly rotated the sword until the point of the sword was aimed at her face.

They both froze. Neither of them moved for a moment of time before Emily broke it and screamed out a battle cry her Drill Instructor at boot camp would have been proud of. She took a step forward. The enemy super responded by lunging at her impossibly fast. Emily reacted. Both supers stepped past each other. Emily let go of the handle of Righteous as she passed him. She left it buried in the enemy supers chest. With her now free hand she grabbed the side of her stomach as the enemy super fell to the ground.

Emily felt the blood flow over her hand from the wound on the side of her abdomen as she dropped to her knees. She cursed. She had been able to redirect the lunge slightly but not enough that it didn’t hit her. Instead of hitting her heart the sword had passed right through the side of her abdomen at an angle. It had been pulled sideways slicing its way out of her abdomen leaving Emily with a deep horizontal cut that started a few inches from the side of her abdomen through her abdomen and out the side. 

Dropping her little black knife and she grabbed her bandage from her top pocket. She used her teeth to rip off the plastic and unfolded it. She placed it over her cut and used the cloth stips attached to the bandage to tie the wound tightly. She grit her teeth and pulled the strips even tighter to apply direct pressure on her wound. She reached down and grabbed her knife and stood up.

She stopped for a few seconds to make sure she didn’t fall down before she stepped up to the dead super. Remembering her training she went through his pockets. She found a map with some writing on it. She didn’t try to read it. She just stuffed the map into her pocket. The only other thing that was in his pocket was a picture of a naked lady. Emil frowned at the dead super and crumpled the picture up.

Emily pulled Righteous from the dead supers chest and used his uniform to clean the tomahawk before she put it back into its sheath. She paused by the sword and decided to pick it up. It was well made and didn’t break against Righteous when she blocked it. She pulled out her pistol again and made her way out of the room be the hole in the wall. 

She had no idea where the rest of her team was. She knew it was standard practice to leave when supers get into a fight, but she still felt a bit mad at Hook for leaving her behind. She left from the way she entered the stip club by the back door. She considered crawling through the rice paddies trying to hide but decided not to because she was worried that she would be spotted. While there was enough rice stalks to hide in the rows were too neat and spread apart for her to hide in well.  It was best to try make it fast and to disappear before someone spotted her. 

“If I’m spotted then I’ll run in a different direction.” She told herself and she ran to the first mud wall and leaped over it. Dropping to her stomach she winced in pain and something dug into her cut. Taking a deep breath she looked over the mud wall, back towards the town, looking to see if anyone spotted her. When she didn’t see anyone or hear any alarms she turned around and  got up into a crouch. She ran as fast as she could through the mud and water leaping up and over the mud walls in single jumps. In less than a minute she was among the tree line.  

She paused by a tree and looked towards the town. There was smoke hanging over the town now. She couldn’t see any fires but there was a lot of black smoke. She looked around to see if anyone spotted her but didn’t see anything or anyone. It took a few seconds for her to spot it but she noticed that the body in the rice paddie was gone now. She checked her cut but didn’t see anymore blood. 

“Well that is weird.” She thought to herself looking back at the town. She looked around one last time, looking anyone who might have spotted her, before she turned back into the woods and disappeared under the cover of the trees.

She found her team less than a half a mile and a half away. She was creeping along quietly when someone called out the password, “Tom.”

“Goat.” She replied in a whisper. Looking around she spotted Thompson hiding behind a fallen long. He looked up at her and smiled.

“Still alive?” He asked as he stepped out from behind cover.

“Who him or me?” Emily asked smiling.

“I’ll take that as he's dead and you didn’t just steal his sword.” He told her shaking his head. “I meant do we have to worry about them following us.”

“Yes, he’s dead. I don’t think anyone spotted me when I left but I could be wrong.” Emily said shrugging.

“You ok?” He asked nodding his head at her wound.

Emily untied the bandage and slowly peeled it back. Her wound was already closed and all that was left a large ugly red scar. In a day or so even that would be gone. “All good now.” Emily said showing him her wound.

“Hook found a house up here in the hills. There is no one home so we are going to break in and get supplies.” Thompson said nodding in the directions of the house.

Emily followed him through the woods to a beautiful traditional Korea house made out of woods. It was strange to Emily to see something so beautiful in the middle of the woods of Korea. It was straight out of a picture on the internet. The house was a single story house with a black metal chimney sticking out the top of it. The wood that made up the cabin had a dark reddish tint to it. The grey-blue metal roof was slightly slanted and nearly flat. The building had a lot of big windows and a glass sliding door as the front door. There was a paved private driveway the led off into the woods.  

Hook had already broke into the house and was inside with Mulder. Emily wandered around to the back of the house to stand guard while Thompson guarded the front of the house. Emily found a nice place to lay down and covered herself in leaves and settled into wait. She took a deep breath to relax and smelled the fallen leaves. It reminded her of fall back home. The smell remember raking the leaves in the backyard of her grandmother's house. 

“That super was good. Really good.” Emily thought to herself. She admitted to herself that she almost died. “But I didn’t.” She told herself. She let herself feel the fear and anger that followed with the fight. She had learned that pushing the emotions down was a big mistake. She had to be honest with herself and let herself feel the emotions. It was natural reaction to a very stressful situation. “There is a time to feel and this is the time.” She thought to herself repeating what she had been taught when she had been stationed on the little island in the pacific. 

She breathed in deeply and then slowly let the air out. It was a relaxing technique she had learned from the Chief’s wife. She felt the tension in her body fade away silently in the woods. She remained where she was listing to the wind blow through the trees. Her eyes slowly scanning the woods not only looking for anyone trying to sneak up on them but also enjoying the woods around her.

“The woods here are beautiful.” She thought with a smile.

“Never, get in here.” Hook’s harsh whisper broke Emily out of her relaxing mood. 

She go up from under the leaves and walked around the house to the front door. She found Hook by the living room. He had placed a large sheet on the floor and had a bunch of dry food stuff along with a bunch of canned foods on top of the sheet. Mulder had another sheet with stuff like soap, pots and pans, with some other non-edible stuff piled on top of it.

“Pick them both up. Make it fast we have a long way to go.” Hook said to her as he walked out of the room.

With a sigh Emily dropped the sword she had taken from the fallen super in the pile and  tied up the ends of the sheets together in one big knot. It made two makeshift bags that were tied together in one knot. She threw the bags over her shoulder and walked out of the house. She led her group through the woods and back towards the cave where the rest of the OD was holding up. Roughly an hour later she was challenged with the password. The had made it back.