Caught completely off guard Bertrand struggled to defend himself as the zombie tore into his unprotected stomach.

The cursed thing was smart as well, only targeting his abdomen and ignoring his chest where his ribs lay.

Bertrand flailed desperately at it, punching at it with his ruined left arm and trying his best to stab at its eyes with his right arm.

His blows just scraped off its eye sockets though, Seer he never wished he had an enchanted blade more intensely than at this moment.

If only he had one of those enchanted bayonets he would have been able to easily kill his zombie assailant.

But those weapons were rare beyond belief, only a select few in the legions had the right to be bestowed such a relic and even then they often rarely saw actual use.

Enchanted weapons were one of the few things the Coalition had the upper hand in, almost every one of their officers had one and anyone with any real skill was soon gifted one.

Bertrand had always looked down on them truth be told, what was the point in having a sharp blade that could cut through rock when you got sniped from four hundred yards away?

Well now he knew the point, Seer was this situation ironic. The very thing he had looked down on so much was now something he craved beyond belief.

The sound of that thing chewing on him and engorging itself on his flesh and blood was disgusting and yet he couldn’t do anything to stop it.

Even the pain was starting to feel distant, he was becoming unbearably tired, it felt like his body was weighted down with iron cuffs, chaining him to where he lay.

But still, he tried, he tried so very desperately to kill that sickening zombie but it seemed to all be in vain.

His bayonet just kept on scraping off its skull and he was starting to grow too weak to continue trying to kill it.

His ruined left arm certainly wasn’t doing him any favours in fighting it off either, before he may have had a chance to heal his wrist but if he somehow survived this there was absolutely no way it would ever heal naturally.

At least the pain from his arm helped keep him focused though, strangely the pain from his stomach where the zombie was eating him alive just made him feel tired.

Seer he hoped it wasn’t venomous.

After struggling through another minute of pure agony and horror, he finally managed to succeed in stabbing the zombie in the eye with one of his weakened thrusts.

He had to twist and turn the bayonet a couple of times to actually drive it far enough into the zombie's skull to kill it though.

A rather difficult thing to do considering it was thrashing wildly the whole time.

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But finally, he killed it, the zombie was dead, the clump of his intestines spilling out of its clenched jaw and the blood from his destroyed left arm running down its face and through its greasy hair didn’t make him feel like he really won, it just made him feel weary.

Seer he was tired but he had a duty to do, he hadn’t signed up expecting to fight things like these horrors but he had still signed up nevertheless.

And until his heart stopped beating and the breath left his lungs he was going to keep fighting, it was his duty.

And so, slowly and agonisingly he began to stuff his insides back inside of himself.

He yanked the ropy intestines from the dead zombie's grasp and pushed them back inside of himself, it was painful beyond belief and he almost blacked out but he succeeded, funny how putting them back in hurt more than when they were pulled out.

Humans had two intestines so he should be fine even if this one was damaged beyond what his body could repair.

Something that he wasn’t sure he could do without was the hunk of circle like meat, shit had that thing ripped out his stomach, no way that was his bladder, Seer had it robbed him of his bladder?

He was no surgeon or doctor but what else could it be?

Just like with his intestines, he tried to shove it back inside his body.

This time it got trapped on this weird fleshly layer that he guessed was meant to protect his organs, sort of like a secondary set of ribs, so he had to peel it back slightly.

By the Seer did it hurt.

It hurt so much that he actually lost consciousness for a few moments.

Upon regaining his awareness he promptly stuffed it into his guts and looked around for the next piece of himself he had to grab.

It was hard work to do with only one working eye but he did eventually manage to spot a torn up hunk of what looked like part of his intestines.

Though it was so badly mauled that it could just as well have been some other organ.

Regardless, into the gaping hole in his abdomen it went.

He had overheard someone talking about how organs just slid into place even if you put them into the wrong spot, he couldn’t recall where he had heard this from or who from though.

Seer he hoped this was actually something someone had said and not something his mind had conjured up thanks to blood loss and crippling pain, he also hoped it was something said by a surgeon, doctor, medic or some other person who was involved in the health industry and not something said by some random soldier.

After stuffing whichever organ that slab of meat had been back into himself he braced himself and took in a deep breath of air, what he had to do next was going to hurt unbelievably.

And then after he had prepared himself, he reached down and pulled down the fleshly layer that had covered his vulnerable organs back over them, Seer it was beyond painful.

The pain was like nothing he had ever experienced, the few seconds it took for him to pull down the flap of flesh had aged him significantly.

It was also left incomplete, for although the zombie had pulled the flesh strip upwards it had also eaten a fair bit of it, meaning Bertrand had to use something else to cover up his wound unless he wanted his newly recovered organs to fall out.

If he had any strength left in his limbs he would have torn off a strip of his trench coat after tearing it with his bayonet but presently he was utterly devoid of any energy and only had one working hand so making makeshift bandages was beyond him.

Instead, he slowly and painfully moved his left arm over to his stomach and used it to hold his organs in as he agonisingly began to stand back up.

bayonet clenched with paper white fingers and swaying side from side, he stumbled over to the rear of the house, he could hardly register the fighting around him and there was no way he could possibly join in on it when he was having trouble telling friend from foe, everyone just looked blurry to him.

Zombie, human, he couldn’t tell.