Gone To Grey

I
I collapsed on the ground, giving my legs a much-needed rest. letting out a sigh, I watched the steam escaping from the valve of my mask. The dark, lifeless streets seemed to stretch forever. My helmet clanked against the damaged concrete wall as I leant against it. I gazed yearningly at the red-grey sky, a lighter red-grey patch of sky signalled the muzzled presence of the moon. The sky wasn’t really red, that was just my night vision mode Heads-Up Display. It was all just grey, grey sky, grey concrete, grey snow. It didn’t help that my armour was grey too. I closed my eyes to give them a rest from the HUD. “God,” I thought “when the hell will this monotony end? When will the blue sky show itself again? When will I see the moon’s face again? Will it end at all?” I wanted to scream at the world, the war wasn’t enough, it has to punish what was left of us with this godawful greyness.
A set of stamping boots made me open my eyes. I glared at the source. A man in the standard issue kit, M100 Stahlhelm, M58 full body armour, and the gas mask. A large capital ‘D’ that I painted on his helmet was starting to fade. I reminded myself to repaint it, we still don’t have any paper for a dunce cap.
“Hey Sarge-”
“You’re ruining my internal monologue, Private!”
“Uh, sorry?”
I hauled myself back onto my boots.
“Come on, lets go” I said, turning down the street.
“You better not run off again”
“You better not muzzle sweep me again”
He gestured to the sniper rifle, now safely slung over his shoulder. To an untrained eye he looked like a soldier, but what I saw was his ill-fitting armour, his helmet slightly crooked on his head, his spare magazines placed upside down in their pouches. The only well-done part of his kit was his mask, though that was only because it had to be perfect.
“alright” I sighed as I hefted my machine gun.
We trudged through the thin layer of snow down the street.
“I’m hungry”
II
“Do you know where we are?” asked Private
“Nope” I replied
“So, our chances of finding the main group…”
“Slim”
“how did we even get here?”
“you fell down a hole and I came to save you, now I wish I hadn’t”
“aw, you’re just saying that”
We came to a crossroad, problem was, that there was someone else at the crossroads too. about ten metres away, two men, one wounded and being carried with his arm across the other’s shoulder. Their khaki armour and masks looked worn and scarred. I wasn’t not sure why our uniforms are different colours in this grey world, just to distinguish ourselves I guess. I do know that I hated their stupid brimmed helmets. When he saw us, the unwounded one desperately grabbed for his pistol but dropped it. Private quickly scrabbled to get his rifle into firing position. I grabbed the barrel of his gun and shook my head. I walked over to the men, the unwounded one is now kneeling and staring at me in terror. I retrieved a package marked with a red cross from one of my pouches and threw it to him. He took the package gratefully and turned to his comrade. I waved Private over and we started walking again. We managed to walk for a few seconds before Private started talking again.
“that was awfully nice of you, Sarge, I didn’t know you had it-”
An explosion shook the buildings behind us. Private turned to me, his expressionless gas mask trying its best to give me a stern look.
“what?” I shrugged innocently
III
A distant roar persuaded Private and I to take cover in one of the abandoned buildings. We climbed to the second storey to get a better view of the street.  A small convoy of tanks rounded the corner.
“fuckin’ Greens” I cursed
“fuckin’ Greens” agreed Private
“Have you got any more rockets?”
“Nope, you used them to blow up some Red’s birthday party”
I smiled to myself. Good times.
I attached my enhancement visor over my mask’s eyepieces.  Through it, I could easily see the procession of drab green tanks make their way down the street. While the X-ray function didn’t work on them, I could see every little detail of the machines. Each tank had a man poking out the top, keeping watch armed with one of the Green’s signature energy weapons.
“why do the Greens get the cool stuff? Where do they even get fuel?” whined Private
 I handed the visor over to Private.
“blow ‘em up”
“with what?”
“your rifle”
“how?”
“So, you’re a sniper, and don’t know how to kill a tank?” I said, exasperated
“Well, you’re a machine gunner, what would you know?”
I took the rifle off him and loaded the 20mm HVAP. I plugged a cord from the rifle into my eyepieces. My heads-up display lit up with the windspeed, range, bullet trajectory and a view from a camera on the rifle. I racked the charging handle and set the camera view to take up my whole HUD. I placed the rifle on the windowsill overlooking the street while taking cover behind the sill. They were almost directly below us now. I took aim at the lead tank. I let the round fly. In less than a second it reached its target, burrowing straight into the soft top armour of the tank. The turret of the tank was wrenched off the hull in a spectacular explosion. In all this time, they still haven’t moved the position of their ammo racks.
“Awesome! Now what?” whooped Private
I ripped the sight cord out of my mask and shoved the rifle into Private’s arms.
“RUN” I shouted as I scooped up my machine gun and the first energy bolts blasted the concrete windowsill.
We managed to get to the fourth floor before the Green’s main guns started firing. The entire building shook as the grand majority of the third floor turned to shrapnel. I quickly threw three grenades to the street side of the fourth floor as we rounded the flight of stairs.
“FASTER PRIVATE”
I nearly had to push him up the stairs. I hoped I threw the grenades right. I could hear the Greens shouting and shooting at us. The grenades blew, and I felt the floor lean slightly.
“Yes!” I shouted in victory.
“what?”
“Follow me!”
As we reached the fifth floor I ran to the opposite side of the building and waited. With the Greens blasting away and my grenades, the floor was angling more and more. Private almost slipped down, but he threw a small grappling hook through the back window and caught himself. Just before the building reached the point of no return, I climbed out of the window and hauled private out with me.
“Hold on!”
The base of the building shattered causing the rest of it, Private and I included, to thunder to the street. When the dust had settled, there were no more Greens. One of the tanks was only half-crushed by the buildings but the effect was the same.
“that is what a machine gunner can do, Rookie”
“I wish we could have captured one of the tanks”
I was miffed that he would just change the subject like that. How dare he not acknowledge a superior officer’s badass deeds!
“then we’d end up getting killed by an ally”
"we could have repainted it”
“would you trust a Green tank painted grey”
“no” he admitted
"besides where would you get enough paint to cover a whole tank"
"same place you get paint to tag corpses with dicks"
IV
“hey Sarge” said Private
“Yeah?” I answered as I stoked the campfire.
“Why are we here?”
“waiting for the storm to pass”
There was a moment of silence. I could hear the howling winds up above, even though the concrete. the sewer we had crawled into was luckily empty, else I would have put up with more complaining.
“No, like, why are we fighting? Who are we fighting? What makes the atrocities we commit worth it? is there no other meaning to our existence than to blow up Reds, Greens, Khakis and all those civilians”
I stoked the fire again and thought
“Dunno, cause we can”