Tear A Path 294 Luck And Smoke

His perception of this new world held pretty strong for a few seconds until he realized it wasn't the land that was flying about in the sky only that he was upside down.

He was quite lucky, they had landed in a crater of some sorts. If the ground was flat he'd be squished between the roof of the car and the ground below, like this he was simply dangling from the manhole of the car.

What the heck was that!?

It's not something a human would do.

When anyone saw something bigger coming at them, even if it was just another person, wouldn't their reaction be to avoid it?

And yet that old man not only didn't avoid the impact, he jumped towards it.

That shield of his was a trick, probably covering a rock or something, the moment their vehicle crashed into it and the car began to tilt upwards he had jumped on. Even if the impact had slowed the car, what sane human would try to do anything at such a time.

But he, he came into the crash, forget avoiding all the shrapnel that was flying about, he took it all. When he was on the cars body he grabbed onto anything he could find and pulled his weight into the momentum of it's movement, making sure the thing was flipped over.

It was almost as if he wasn't taking care of a giant armored car but a bull instead, catching it by the horns and twisting into it's violent movements after having it crash a wall.

The car shook, the guy at the shotgun seat had retained consciousness and was trying his best to crawl out of the wreckage, there was blood all over him, but with his body's movements, the gunner could more or less discern that he was fine while probably sporting some flesh injuries.

For him, he could feel his own body aching all over, something was up with his right leg, but he couldn't see what was up since the rest of his body was covering the hole. Slipping his hand in with great difficulty, his fingers began to feel around.

He cursed in his mind, he was saved by the harness which kept him from being flung around and turned to mush when the vehicle flipped around, but now he couldn't find where the buckle was, worrying considering how he smelt gas. Their gas tank had broken open or some of the cars inner working were ripper apart, either way, it was leaking everywhere, not a good thing especially with a crashed car around.

He tried to move his hands around, trying to find the buckle that held him. It was ironic, the thing that usually kept him from falling overboard while this thing was moving now just kept him trapped inside what would be a giant metal pressure cooker in a few moments.

As he fumbled around, his hands stopped. It wasn't the buckle, it wasn't even anything he'd hoped he'd find. Hair.

Long, dry and still attached to the scalp of a head that was no longer breathing. The driver was gone, probably instantly considering it was only his skull without anything underneath the chin.

It wasn't anything a guy could react to normally. Once he found out what he was holding onto, he reacted badly, letting go and dropping it, hearing it tumble around on the car's ceiling, he almost retched.

"No! No! get away!" He heard from the side of the car, seeing a pair of feet walk along towards the guy who had crawled out his breathing almost stopped then and there.

Two gun shots popped off, followed by something heavy swinging in the air and the man's gut wrenching scream. A thud later and the man began walking towards the car.

'This isn't happening! This isn't happening!' He screamed to himself in his mind, step by the step the man began to close in on the car's side until he could see the man's body from the waist down right next to him.

His mind spun frantically but his body stayed absolutely still, unable to do anything in this situation. For a few seconds all he was seemingly doing was looking around inside the car before picking up his sword and leaving.

Somehow his reaction had actually saved him, his lack of movement had probably made the guy think that he was dead.

"Haaah!" The gunner sighed. 'I guess I can still be considered pretty lucky.'

It took him a few seconds for his trembling fingers to finally become usable again as he continued his search for his freedom from this potential death trap. Finally he exclaimed with a heavy breath after finding that small metal piece which clicked open easily, dropping his hefty body down onto the ground, knocking the air out of him as he fell on his back.

"Hahaha!" He smiled, like before he had narrowly escaped similar fates to those who had been in the same position as his own. He tried to push himself up to a sitting position.

"Eh!?" He exclaimed as he fell back down, it was as if there was no weight to keep him sitting.

'Couldn't be right?' His sweat poured down profusely, his arms trembling in the fists they had subconciously formed. His eyes farted around, as if it knew that one day it would have to see what it needed to see and his mind and even his body could understand more than at any other moment, now was not a time where he had the leeway to wrap his head around what had happened to him.

'This isn't happening, I'm lucky, I'm lucky...' He kept telling himself those words in his mind, but it seemed even he didn't believe it as his sight continued to avoid looking downwards.

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"Urge!" Ode grande, digging out the pieces of shrapnel from his flesh was way less fun than the ride he had while taking down that metallic monster.

One human had died instantly inside, the cap it's front had become unhinged and broke off in the tumble, breaking into the windshield and cutting off the man's head.

The other one barely missed the train to heaven by covering his head in between his thighs before the crash. Unfortunately, Ode made sure his ticket was still valid for the next one.

Knowing that there was three he checked the thing. The last young man was still alive in there, but seeing the state of his body it was a wonder if what he did after this could be called living.

'In a way he was quite lucky.' If he'd been whole, Ode would've had to finish him off to make sure the other side didn't have another able bodied men.

But maybe they both forgot, this wasn't about luck, this was war, and war always takes something from everyone.

*Boom!* from behind him, in the direction he came from, an explosion rang out and little by little smoke filled the skies.