Staring at the eagle slowly trying to wiggle its way out from under the helicopter woke me up from the trance and I ripped of a segment of my sleeve, and tied it around my head, covering both my mouth and nose before looking for a way past the flames and towards the chopper, there might be survivors.

After going around half the ship I found a place where the moss was to wet for the fires to catch on and charged towards the helicopter.

At this point the eagle was barely moving it’s first wing out and seemed to be trying to shift the helicopter off of itself. Going towards the giant hole where the left side door to the chopper had been I felt the smell of burnt pork as I looked inside, careful not to touch the metal directly with my skin as I tried to see the state of the squad.

Dead, decapitated, shredded, another decapitated, pierced through the head, breathing! Towards the back of the helicopter there were still two, maybe three whole bodies, the eagle must not have had the time to shred them like the rest of their squad before they crashed.

Entering the helicopter I has blasted by a wave of heat that seemed to singe the edges of my clothing, how the hell is it so hot in here! I continued forward(or backwards) into the chopper, occasionally having to move a fallen piece of equipment before I made it to the remaining soldiers.

“Cough”

Taking out my hiking knife I started cutting through the first soldiers seat belts when the helicopter heaved towards the right, shit! Its recovering!

With renewed vigor I managed to cut out the first solider before pulling them up and starting to heave them towards the exit. They probably broke something with how I handled them but soon they where out of the helicopter and I was rushing back in for the next one.

The smoke had grown visibly denser and I had to squint to stop myself from tearing up as I finally managed to pull the third and final solider out, the eagle had been trying to get loose from its position but seemed either to shaken to do it or wounded enough that it couldn’t get out. Not that I intend to tempt it.

“wha…”

The first solider shifted a bit as I lay the third one down and started looking through their equipment.

“what happened… THE EAGLE!”

The first solider shouted as they sat straight up before collapsing back on the ground from pain.

“Wait there, I’ll get to you in a minute”

I said in an almost unnaturally calm voice as I found what I was looking for, a MJ-11. A standard issue in the Ecoputonian infantry. As I held the hand gun I walked over towards where I could see the wings of the eagle struggle to try and get out from under the helicopter.

Looking at the wings I checked where the head was supposed to be, of course it’s underneath everything. With both the head and the body being covered by the helicopter my plan to kill the bastard was thwarted, if I can’t kill you I can at least stop you from coming after us. Aiming the gun at the wings I shot.

“BANG”

The first bullet went of and I felt the recoil push my arms back dangerously close to my face as the eagle shrieked. Must be getting weak, the recoils is stronger than I remember. Looking at the wings there was a sizable hole in the otherwise perfect sky blue coat of the eagle, a few more to be safe.

“BANG”

“BANG”

“BANG”

I wouldn’t want to leave it a chance of recovery, no matter how unlikely. You never know, it might have some sort of super regeneration.

Returning to the soldiers I see that the first one had recovered enough to sit up and was checking up on the other survivors.

“Are they okay”

“They should recover, did you kill the bird?”

The voice seemed to be feminine but it was hard to confirm it with all the layers of clothing they had on.

“No, the head was hidden under the helicopter, but I made sure it wont be able to follow us for a while. I know a safer place if you can help me carry one of them”

“Very well, lead the way”

After picking placing one of the fainted soldiers each on our backs we started heading towards my cave. The was limping and we had to stop to rest a few times to rest her wounds.

A few minutes into our walk we heard a loud crash behind us followed by a loud shriek from the eagle as it finally released itself from the helicopter.

“Let’s hurry”

I said as I shifted the weight of the soldier on my back. I got a nod from my companion as we started jogging through the last couple of trees and started making our way towards a cliff situated just beyond the tree line.

““Pant, pant””

Once we arrived at the cliff we immediately laid down the unconscious soldiers on a thicker piece of moss and sat down to rest. they were the one the girl had been carrying looked a lot better and was even showing signs of waking up while the other one was paler by the second.

"Where's the place?"

“So, uhmm… I didn’t think this through”

I said as I looked up at the cliff to where my newest cave was carved into, and then looked at the ten meter climb to get up there.