Lain
Running my fingers through my messed up and dirty hair, I walk into our makeshift infirmary and collapse into a chair, setting my hammer on the ground beside me as I rub at my face tiredly.
Lieutenant Colonel Roberts stands by the side of a bed, looking down at the young man wrapped in gauze and resting in a deep sleep.
He shifts a bit towards me, acknowledging my presence but not looking away from the dying man.
He asks, “Any luck?”
“No Sir. The trail went cold somewhere in the north side of the building. Lieutenant Dole is directing teams to cordon off the area. I combed over the entire area, but I haven’t found any signs of it managing to escape the building. Our current assumption is that it is still hiding in the vents somewhere, recovering from its injuries.”
“Has everyone been informed?”
“Yes sir. Just like you ordered. No one is to leave their groups and they have all been informed on what to look out for… Some of the workers are scared, worried about a monster being in the base.”
He simply nods his head, his eyes never leaving the young man lying on the bed. After a few long minutes of silence between us, the only noise being the rasping breaths of Private Smith, he finally speaks up. “He fought till the end, didn’t he?”
“Yes Sir… he did.”
I’ve already given the report on what had happened in the restroom. But I think that he needed to hear it said from me…
“He’s going to die. The medics say that he wont last the night.” He tells me.
I simply nod my head and continue to watch the sleeping soldier breathe.
“You’ll be turning twenty-one here soon, won’t you?” He asks.
This takes me a bit by surprise, the sudden shift in topic, but I answer all the same. “Yes Sir, in November…”
He continues after a bit, a tired look in his eyes. “He’s only nineteen. Practically still a kid. He was going to join the army straight out of high school, was already working with the recruiters and getting everything planned out. He played football, worked part time after school, and maintained good grades… You know what happened next. He never got to finish high school, when everything went down, he didn’t run and hide. He came to us and asked to join. He wanted to fight for his country and save people… Just a kid…”
I stand there in silence, watching him. He doesn’t cry or morn. He just looks tired…
After a spell, he finally breaks the silence again, “I’ve seen how you look around the dead; humans, monsters. It doesn’t affect you anymore, does it? You’ve seen too much already, even before you mutated. Too much death, too many bodies, the smell of too much blood and emptied bowels…”
“Sir?”
He stands and turns for the door, “Apologies, just the ramblings of an old man…”
I watch as he heads for the door, his guard waiting for him. Before he leaves, he turns to me and says, “Take the rest of the night to rest, you can resume your hunt in the morning. When you find that thing, I want its head.”
All I can do is give him a nod, “Yes Sir…”
He turns and leaves, his guard shutting the door behind him. I listen as their footsteps slowly disappear down the hallway until I am finally alone. The only noise being that of Private Smith’s labored breaths. Sinking into my chair, I lean my head against the backrest and let out a slow breath, mulling over his words.
“I’ve seen too much…” I mumble to myself.
When was the last time that I freaked out over seeing a corpse, the last time that seeing a human body made me throw up and cry? When did the scent of dead things become nothing more than a nasty annoyance…?
…
I can’t remember. It’s only been a couple of years, and I’ve already seen too much…
I can still remember the first time though, when I cried over a corpse and vomited until my stomach was empty… Those two old gentlemen that used to use our restaurant as their afternoon hangout spot, just spending their time watching the TV in the corner and bullshitting about anything and nothing. They died from the pulse on the very first day. Their hearts couldn’t take it. I woke up lying right next to them, already covered in my own vomit… From the smell, I am sure that one of them had voided their bowels after dying. That annoying kid was crying and trying to wake up his mom somewhere behind me… I don’t even remember their names anymore… Out of all our regulars, they were the only ones that I somehow bothered to learn… When did I forget their names…?
…
When did all of this become normal for me?
Looking back down from the ceiling, I look to the soldier on the bed… the kid… Besides the wraps of gauze all around his face, torso, and arms, he looks like a normal teenager. Like he should be at a skate park or playing basketball with his friends. He isn’t a wall of muscle or some scarred veteran with a taste for cigars. He just looks like a teenager. He should have been going to college and trying to figure out his future, or going into basic training for the army and getting yelled at by a Drill Sergeant for doing stupid shit…
From his story, he probably joined when he was sixteen or seventeen. Probably went through accelerated training and then got a rifle put in his hands and told to point it at the monsters eating people…
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Will I feel anything when he dies? Probably, I’m not dead inside, yet… Will I cry? Will I blame myself because I couldn’t save him…?
I…
…
I don’t know…
----------------------------------------
I sit in silence and meditate, the sounds of Private Smith’s labored breathing and my own becoming the only noise around. It has been a couple hours since I was left alone in here, and I had felt little reason to leave, almost compelled to remain by his side and guard him in his final moments. A couple of times the night patrols or the medics would come by and do a checkup. I would leave them to their work, and they would leave me to my meditation.
It did not surprise me when the medics announced that he would not last much longer. I could have told them as much. Having listened to his breaths all night, I had noticed that they have grown more and more labored and raspy. But more than that… I can feel it. His life is slowly leaving him, he only has a couple of hours at most left to live. The only solace is that he has enough morphine in his veins that he is probably sleeping peacefully.
I will be here when he dies. I don’t know if I will be able to properly mourn for him. I doubt that I am the person that he wants to have by his side on his deathbed. He would probably rather it be his family, or a lover… Regardless, I will be here, and I will take responsibility for him.
I couldn’t save him.
----------------------------------------
He has an hour left to live; I can feel it in my bones. He won’t last much longer. Even the medics are certain of it now. They left earlier, having given him his final dose of painkillers. They thanked me for being here with him in his final moments, for keeping him company… I didn’t respond to them. I simply continued to sit in silence.
No longer do I meditate, instead, I moved my chair closer to his bedside and watch him as he slowly breathes, each breath a pained labor, the sound of blood slowly seeping into his lungs making a small gurgle with his every breath. Slowly, his chest continues to rise and fall, slathered in antiseptic and whapped in blood-stained gauze.
The minutes pass and ever so slowly, the feeling of his death draws ever closer. Its dark hand drawing ever nearer to his shoulder.
I continue to watch.
With not but a few minutes left, he shifts. His one good eye slowly opening as he takes in the room, strained by the light of the lantern hung on the wall.
He does not move his head, simply turning his eye to take me in.
I remain silent as I watch him, waiting. Soon enough he gathers his words and speaks through acid-burned lips and halted breaths. “Am I… going to die?”
Before I can stop myself, something compels me to act and the words leave my lips, “Do you want to die?”
----------------------------------------
Private Nathanial Smith
“Do you want to die?” She asks.
My world is blurry and slow, a fog filling my mind as the desire to fall back to sleep fills me like a warm bath full of promises of sweet dreams. To just let go and go back to sleep. To let out one last tired breath. But I can’t look away from her eyes. Those golden halos that shine through the fog and stare into my soul. Despite not being able to feel half of my face and feeling so weak, I force myself to continue staring. To continue looking into those golden halos that cut through the fog.
She had asked me a question…
Do I want to die?
Ah, I guess I am dying then…
My mother died when I was in middle school; she lost her battle with cancer. I remember when she passed, how dad cried over her. She looked so gaunt and frail, her head bald and her brown eyes looked so incredibly tired. Like all she wanted was to finally go to sleep…
My dad died as the world ended; he died when the pulse hit. He was driving home from work and his car crashed. It took days, but I found the wreck and pulled him out… His body broken and bloodied… I carried him to mom’s grave and buried him beside her by myself.
My sister, she… I don’t want to think about how she died. The pain she must have endured, the fear. I wasn’t there to save her…
So many of my friends didn’t survive, some died to the monsters, others in the riots, some in accidents… Johny is dead… He died… One of my last friends… He died right in front of me, and I couldn’t save him…
Tears fall from my eye and makes the world even more blurry, the only thing I can see through it all are those two golden halos that stare at me unblinkingly. They peer at me and refuse to look away.
Do I want to die…?
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a hero, I wanted to save people. In the end, I wanted to join the army because I wanted to help people. That didn’t change with end of the world. I wanted to fight back against the monsters and make a place where people could feel safe. So that children could grow up safely with their parents and have a future to look forward to. I wanted to make a place where I could be happy, where my parents and my sister would be proud of me from up in heaven. I made friends in the army, and I wanted to fight by their sides... And I couldn’t save them… I couldn’t be a hero…
Do I want to die?
My body quivers as the tears continue to fall from my eye, a shiver working its way up my throat as a muffled and wet cry that I can’t hold back. Looking into those golden halos, I can’t stop myself as I work up the words between pained chokes and gasping breaths. “I… I don… don’t want to… die…”
…
She does not respond; she does not blink. Instead, a small hand of smooth and soft skin rests itself upon my cheek and gently caresses me. I cannot see the hand through the fog, but I can feel as it holds me like a mother would hold their own child. The tears continue to fall from my eye as I watch her draw near. I can no longer see her face, but her eyes of gold and black draw closer and cut through the fog until they lie before me, filling my world. I fight to breath as I peer into their depths and they peer back into me, piercing through me and seeing me for all I am worth, weighing and judging my very soul like scales cast from the purest gold.
Slowly her whispers reach me, her voice calm and measured, filling my mind and pushing aside the fog like a gently song.
“Then live.” She says simply.
Her hand slowly leaves my cheek, her claws sliding gently across my skin before rising away from me. I want to cry more, being parted from the warmth of human contact, but her eyes never leave me.
Warmth, wet and heavy and smelling of iron and ash falls to my lips, sliding down my cheek and mixing with the trails of my tears. Ever so gently, my lips are made to open, something warm and soft being pressed against them. Slowly, the warm liquid fills my mouth and rolls over my tongue, her hand returning to my cheek and pets me gently.
Those golden halos draw ever closer, a whisper filling my ear, “Drink and live. Change and become something more. But know this, you and yours will always be mine. From this day forth, until the day your blood fades.”
Her eyes, her touch, and her voice are the only thing left in the world now. There is nothing else but fog and darkness. Her presence the only tether keeping me from falling into the void.
I don’t want to die.
I swallow and the liquid flows down my throat, hot and heavy, spicy like fire. My body shudders with the effort in its final moments.
She continues to pet me, her eyes never blinking, never looking away. Softly she whispers, “Nathaniel Smith, You, and all who shall follow in your blood, are now mine. I command you to live. I command you to grow and to change, to become powerful. I command you to become beautiful. You shall become the first Fiend, my First Warrior.”
My world continues to darken as everything begins to fall away, my mind slowly slipping away into a deep slumber. Touch, smell, taste, hearing. Everything goes dark as my mind slips away from awareness, but yet it strays from the void. The last thing I see are those golden halos staring down at me as my eye slowly shuts. They do not look away or blink, never leaving my sight until the moment that my eye finally closes.
There is only darkness now, but I go peacefully, a warmth filling my chest. The fear in my heart melting away as my mind drifts off into the darkness.
Everything will be better in the morning. I just need to rest.