First Kill

Corvan dropped down to his knees that were unable to support him any longer, trembling hands spreading out flat on the dirt.  His mind was clouded, a sharp ringing in his ears as his breaths came in shuddering gasps, intensified by the confines of the buy’ce.  He was shaking so hard he thought he might collapse.  He felt like he was going to faint, vomit, and cry at the same time.

He couldn’t pick which to settle on so he veered towards a panic attack instead as the ringing and dizziness increased.  

His first kill.  It was nothing like shooting animals.  That was fun, even when they charged at him and his siblings and caused them to dart away, laughing before converging on it with their knives and blasters.  

This was terrifying.  

He had hoped it might have been something from far away, but he had been forced to engage in combat, see the man’s face as they struggled.  Eventually it came down to him sticking the settler with the knife or his opponent sticking him, and as much as Corvan tried to delay the inevitable, he also didn’t want to die.  He had plenty to look forward to with his short twelve years of existence under his belt.

His elbows started to shake harder as he felt his body tucking in on itself.  The knife had hit the jugular and sprayed blood all over his front while the victim howled and writhed.  He’d panicked and tried to stop the flow before he was thrown off in the flailing, stumbling into his mother who had been watching.  She spun him around, clamping an arm on his shoulder and forcing him to watch the rest of the man’s death throes.

He’d gotten away as soon as the settler expired, staggering on legs that felt like flimsi as he frantically wiped at the blood on his armor.  That must have been when his legs stopped working and the attack started.  His breaths were coming so quick and fast that they hurt his throat and chest, his hearing muffled and the ground rocking.

A shadow fell over him.

“Are you done?”

Corvan gulped, the noise creating a squeak in his throat.  He had his tremulous fingers at the neck of his flight suit, pulling it as if it would help him breathe.  It didn’t.  He knew he had to respond.  He had to get over being a hut’uun.  He couldn’t be seen as that.

The only thing he could manage was a spasmodic nod.

“Are you done?” His mother asked again, an edge to her voice.

All Corvan wanted to do was curl up into a ball and let the shaking and the nausea and the after images pass if he’d only black out.  Absently, he thought that he’d have to get rid of his knife.  He couldn’t use it again without those memories slamming into him with enough force to knock the wind out of him.  He bit down on the sob that tried to creep out, gritting his teeth together and breathing in rapid bursts through his nostrils as he tasted bile.  He quickly swallowed, his hands sliding from the collar to his knees.

Udesii, udesii--

A lesson from a while ago about fear and how it could control someone if left unchecked fluttered to the front of his mind.  Box it up and put it away, think about it later.  If he was in a melee and he became a shaking mess after just one kill, he wouldn’t be much use to his aliit.  If he did that and one of them died…

He blinked, staring at the ground through his fogged visor, a tightness forming in his chest.  That was somehow worse than him being killed in a fight if he allowed that fear to consume him.  It would be a death he could have prevented.  

Corvan drew in air through his nostrils, closing his eyes and willing his trembling hands to become still.  The terror started to draw back in a wave.

You’re no use to anyone if you panic and die.  You’ll only make things worse, hut’uun.  Get over it.

He slowly rolled up to his feet, squaring his shoulders and facing his mother where she had stood, waiting for him.  She had her hands on her hips, her helmet cocked so he could tell she had been watching him as his body indicated the internal struggle he had undergone, and hopefully won.  

“Done?” she asked, a hint of scorn in her voice that made Corvan rankle.

That was good.  It meant that the anxiety was melting away if he was able to feel annoyed at the way she had spoken to him.  In response, he looked full on at the body, marched over and yanked the knife out where he had left it, wiping the blood on the corpse’s clothes before sheathing it and returning to stand in front of her.  His stance implied he was daring her to say he had done something wrong; he’d made up for his initial panic and he wouldn’t let it happen to him again.  She could at least be glad that he wasn’t crying into a puddle of vomit.

“Jate ad,” she replied, a smile in her tone as she slapped him on the shoulder, gestured at him to follow where the rest of the clan was taking care of the settlement.

She couldn’t see it, but he was smiling too.  Whatever had happened back there, he had gotten past it.  The kill was still there at the back of his mind, beckoning him to brood over it and let it swallow him up in trembling horror again, but he had successfully blocked it off and tucked it away to be dealt with when he was better able to assess it.  A small stepping stone to becoming a verd like the rest of his family.