I took one look at the oncoming wall of people and broke the line. There were too many; we’d be crushed, they’d be injured. It was too dangerous. Around me, soldiers made similar calls, stepping back, moving out of the panicked protester’s way. Some tried standing their ground, only to fall under the first wave. 

“Fall back! Fall back! Let them through!” I ordered, screaming into my radio. “Fall back! Let them through! Fall back!” 

Some listened, others didn’t. I didn’t know if they could hear me. It was pandemonium. It was chaos. 

It was war. 

I watched in horror as a soldier, panicked, started beating a woman who’d run into him with his baton. She desperately tried to push him away, twisting to avoid him, trying to move towards the exit. She managed one step before his arm came down cracking her on the head. She went down, landing on the street, immediately swallowed by the wave of stampeding feet.

“With me!” I screamed, surging through the crowd, eyes on the spot the woman had gone down. I prayed someone was behind me. I fought against the people, using my shield as a weapon. I was pushed, shoved, and beaten as I clawed my way to where she’d fallen. I stepped on her arm. Immediately pulling my foot back, I looked down. Her face was a bloody mess, her body completely mangled with blood and bruising. I stepped over her, bracing a foot on either side, the soldier who’d hit her nowhere to be found. I held my shield up as still more people streamed through the narrow entrance, eyes panicked, bodies bloody. 

What the fuck was going on? 

My radio crackled, but I couldn’t hear it over the screaming and thunder of the crowds. A child tripped beside me. I snapped out a hand, hurling him up, pushing him behind me. He clung to my leg, whomever he’d been with already lost in the crowd, pushed along by the surge. 

Fuck. 

A soldier appeared beside me. The guy from earlier. 

“Colonel!” he yelled, struggled to be heard over the crowd. He braced, lacing his arm with mine, crouching we shuffled slightly, moving to fully cover the woman. The kid kept clinging to me, his small arms and legs now wrapped completely around my leg. 

“She’s bad,” the guy said as the crowd started to thin. 

“I know.” Her legs looked broken, and she had to have internal injuries. Her face was a complete mess. 

“She won’t be the only one.” 

His arm flexed around mine, but we didn’t move. We couldn’t. We had to hold, or we’d all go under. I could see the end of the crowd, the line of soldiers three deep, followed by a row of trucks. 

“Shit,” the soldier yelled. “This is some dystopian shit!” 

I grunted, shifting my grip on the shield. “Pray the truck is for casualties.” 

The crowd thinned, light enough I could shift into a crouch, my hand going immediately to the woman’s neck. 

“Pulse,” I reported. “Weak as shit. She’s bad.” 

“But alive,” he pointed out. “We’ve got to get her help.”