Pietro sat in a rat-infested hole he’d helped dig, wearing a muddied, wet uniform. A far cry from the jolly romp war was supposed to be. The air was thick with fear and sweat when they waited for a sign to start the final push. This was supposed to be it. If they took this stronghold, they would have direct passage to Osetaria, and some said that might as well end the war. Pietro tried not to get his hopes up and instead took out a letter from Danielle.

A letter telling him he would be a father. His gift to her before getting conscripted.

“Don’t you know that’s bad luck?”

Pietro looked up from his letter and saw a fellow soldier. He had a weird look to him. He could have been anywhere between twenty and fifty. Fighting had a way of aging you. The war seemed to have driven him completely mad too.

“What?”

“Flaunting letters from home before a fight.” The mad soldier said: “It brings bad luck.”

Pietro bit his lip.

“No. I didn’t know that.”

“You learn something new every day.” The mad soldier said and glanced at the ring in his finger: “Married, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Well… shit.” The mad soldier said and showed the ring in his own finger: “Made the same mistake. Haven’t regretted it yet.”

The mad soldier lit a cigarette before offering the pack to Pietro who shook his head.

“I don’t smoke.” Pietro said.

“You shouldn’t be afraid to try new things.” The mad soldier said and blew out a smoke ring: “My advice to you? Fight just bravely enough not to get in trouble.”

Pietro hugged his rifle.

“I’ll remember that.”

“Good. That’s my plan too. What are the odds the Osetarians get us both? Besides… I would hate have some limp-dick draft dodger screwing my missus if I ate a bullet here.” The mad soldier said.

A horn was blown a wave of fear washed over Pietro. Fear smelled of piss and shit. The mad soldier took one last drag from his cigarette before flipping it away.

“Well… that’s our cue.”

The moment they jumped out of their trenches in waves and started charging at the enemy stronghold, the chaos began. Canons and rifles left him deaf, and the dust blinded him. He didn’t even know if he was running in the right direction. He couldn’t hear or see but he could feel cannonballs bouncing off the ground, breaking legs, and crippling men all around him. Pietro made sure he was always running behind someone taller than him who would soak the bullets for him. He didn’t care how many died here today as long as he wasn’t one of them.

For a moment he thought he had beaten the odds. That he was that special case out of a hundred that could run through a battle unscathed.

He didn’t hear the bullet that got him.

A fist hit him in the stomach, and he thought someone had elbowed him in the guts. Then the pain hit him, and the screaming started. Blood was spilling from his stomach but what was worse was that he couldn’t feel his legs. Everything below the bullet hole was dead weight.

The war raged on without him while Pietro lied in the mud and screamed. He screamed until his throat split and then he screamed some more. Other wounded joined him, and they cried together. The reek of blood and filth filled the air. Pietro screamed until he passed out.

Even oblivion didn’t protect him from the pain and his stomach had been filled coals. The agony had been terrible enough to knock him out and eventually it knocked him awake. The pain had turned into dull aching that nailed him into the muddy ground. All around him he could hear dying men crying for their mothers or God. He tried to move but his legs weren’t any less paralyzed now than they had been during the day.

“Hate it to break it to you but those legs are only good for decoration now.”

The slightest movement turned Pietro’s body into a sparkling fuse but when he turned his head, he saw the mad soldier walking towards him while sucking on a cigarette. The mad soldier was also missing half of his head and Pietro could see brain matter mixed with blood falling from the gaping wound with every step.

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“What did I tell you? Bad luck reading letters from your girl like that.” The mad soldier said before pointing at the smoking bullet hole in his head: “But then again… who am I to talk? Guess some limp-dick draft dodger gets to stick it into the missus after all.”

Pietro tried to talk but he could only manage a weak whine.

“Trust me, buddy. You’re about to have a lot more to cry about. They are coming. Can you feel it?” The mad soldier said.

What was coming, Pietro wanted to ask but then he felt it.

Something was moving underground. There was an entire pack of them, and they were swimming through the dirt like it was water… and now they were moving towards the surface. Drawn by the spilled blood and cold meat. The mad soldier flicked his cigarette away and lied down into the mud with the other dead.

“My advice to you? Get busy dying. Makes the next part a whole hell of a lot easier.” The mad soldier said before falling quiet for good.

Whatever lived below their feet during the day, had no problem coming out for air when the sun had gone down. A wind that cut through the pain and his wet uniform chilled him to the bone when he saw pale hands break through the mud. The dirt slid off the creatures hides like the earth itself was disgusted to touch them.

Pietro started chewing his lip when he saw this abominations rise from the ground.

Their skin was bone white and hung to them loosely like a too large coat. Their eyes were solid orbs of red and their lips had drawn back over their teeth. Their fangs. Long and pointy. Even paler than their skin. Stained with dried blood.

Bile rose to Pietro’s mouth when he saw the creatures… these monsters… crawl to the wounded and dying. They put their fangs to work and dug into throats and wrists, drinking them dry. Instead of terror the look on the victims’ faces was one of… bliss. Pietro stayed as still as he could and pretended to be dead. They would not get him! He would not die as food for some pale monster!

Lying still did not stop the wound in his gut from bleeding and the smell of spilling blood made one of the creatures turn its crimson eyes towards him. It began approaching him.

“… no… No!”

Pietro forgot about the pain. He forgot about his useless legs. All that mattered was getting away but… the hungry monster was more desperate than him. He could feel its hunger. That terrible need to live even in this miserable state. He couldn’t flee from it and his clinging to life just made the monster want him more.

When those fangs sank into his throat, a sweet relief took over him.

It was over. It was finally over. He could stop fighting. He could stop trying. He could just… give up and drift away. Who could possibly ask more from him? He had given up his life for the war. A war that had gone on for twelve years. No one could expect more from him after everything he had done. No one…

… except himself.

He had so many plans. Plans that would make him a rich man. Not just an assistant carpenter.

At that moment Pietro decided to live. He had to live. He had to get home to start building his business empire. His wife was even giving him an heir! Someone to pass his life’s work to! He would not die like a nobody on this muddy field with all these other fools!

All the pain in him was numbed by a need to live and he drew his knife. The weapon he knew how to use the best and he stabbed the monster in the throat. When that didn’t do the job, he started stabbing and slashing at it blindly. He cut open its eyes and veins. He sliced off fingers ending in black talons. The monster was so lost in feeding that it didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late.

The monster blood splashed on his face, dripping into his eyes and snarling mouth. On his tongue. Cancer had to taste like that. Of slow, bitter death.

When the monster started fighting back, it growled like nothing of this world and started slashing at him with its claws. It cut Pietro’s face to ribbons, but he was past caring. It was either him or the monster and he had to survive. He hadn’t accomplished anything yet! This monster would not keep him from his destiny!

Pietro kept cutting and stabbing until the monster’s body had no more blood to keep its twisted heart beating. It fell on top of him, and the knife slipped out of Pietro’s hand. He drifted to nothingness with the monster lying on top of him and its blood stinging his eyes and souring his tongue.

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Pietro woke in darkness. He couldn’t move and… he was hungrier than he had ever been. So… terribly thirsty. He needed to get something to eat but… why couldn’t he move? Was this… death? Had they buried him alive? No! He wasn’t dead! They couldn’t do this to him! He had to get back! There was so much work to be done! So much to accomplish!

While flailing wildly… Pietro realized he could move through the earth. It was nothing more than… thick water to him. Something he could swim in. Something he could swim through. Pietro started climbing back to the land of the living.

When he broke through the ground, he thought it was the middle of a day. He could see everything so clearly. So… vividly. There were colors he didn’t have words for… and even the battleground that had turned cold smelled sweet. Then he saw the pale moon in the sky. How could he see… so clearly in the middle of the night? Even if it was a full moon?

Then he noticed his hands.

His skin was white as snow and his fingernails… no… Not nails. Not anymore. His talons were black and sharp. But not as sharp as his new fangs. Everything about him was new. There was no hole left by a bullet and his legs were stronger than ever.

But… he was still so… thirsty and… he could smell something… enticing nearby. A smell better than anything that he had ever experienced.

Silent as the corpses around him, Pietro moved through the cold battlefield and found a camp set up by soldiers dispatched to clean the mess left by the final push. He could see it and smell it. Life coursing through their veins. Like liquid fire. It was… calling to him.

But the blood wasn’t the only thing he could feel. He could… sense the thoughts of the soldiers. Images of homes. Memories of happier time. Hopes and wishes that the war had all but snuffed out. Desperate yearning for the war to finally end.

These soldiers and their minds… they weren’t just something he could hear. He could reach out and… rewrite them. Some minds were more malleable than others and he focused on the weakest link in the unit. A young man… still half a boy… who had been conned into joining with promises of adventure. Despite getting through bootcamp he was hardly something you would call a soldier. Just a boy who was eager to follow the orders of those more powerful than him.

“Come to me.” Pietro whispered.

The young man could hear his invitation echoing in his mind and he made some excuses to his friends. A sudden need to piss perhaps and with that he left the protection of his fellow soldiers and campfires. He walked into the dark of the night where Pietro was waiting for him with open arms. He embraced the young man, and his fangs knew just the place to pierce the skin and drink the life in the young man’s veins. There was no struggle and the young man surrendered to him with a relieved sigh.

The power… was even better than the hot life filling his mouth.

This had to be what it was like to be a god. Holding the power of life and death in your hands. Getting to choose if you let someone perish… or live forever.

When there was no more life to take and he was holding a corpse, Pietro threw the body in the mass grave with the rest. He barely paid any heed to his work and for a while he could only soak in the warm afterglow of a feeding. No pleasure in his life had matched that single moment and he wanted nothing more than to call someone else to him and do it again. But his hunger was gone for now and overeating would only slow him down. The other soldiers were already calling after the young man. They had taken out torches and lanterns to find him. Pietro stayed away from the searching lights and chuckled to himself like it was all just a game.

None of them were safe from him but… he could hear another whisper.

The sky… it was calling to him. It would have been cowardly not to answer. A sudden realization came to him. His new body wasn’t just faster and stronger but… the form he took wasn’t set in stone. All he had to do was imagine it and… he could become something with wings.

When he soared above the search party they shivered with nameless dread. While his shadow passed over them, Pietro laughed.