Kaenei
20-12-2003, 03:41
The snow fell, flakes of gentle white that drifted beautifully on the chilling breeze. Falling in a chaotic yet strangely ordered unison. A blanket of white that lay not on the ground, but hung in the air in almost three dimensions. The soft whistle of the wind itself as it rustled through objects and shapes lent the flakes a voice, a murmur that could register their presence on earth beyond what the eyes of man could see or decipher. Deep within the white, visible only through tremors, huddled and unmoving, lay a still form- Curiously shaped, and silent thoughts could only lend imagination permission to identify what exactly lay there. A spasm betrayed finally what truly sought total isolation. A painful shade of the colour that fell to the ground, extended rigidly and with digits erect and apart, a limb.Thoughts brought pain, and he did little thinking. The absolute agony of the raging cold subsided now as hypothermia and other ills descended apon his soon-to-carrion being. Slowly he rolled himself, the supreme effort on par with the lifesaving stories of mere men lifting impossible weights, of superhuman acts of endurance against the odds.
No, simply to roll so that his frostbitten body might expose itself even more was all that was accomplished. The first flake of snow fell, landing on the tip of his running, inflamed nose brought a ragged gasp as he felt the extrodinarily sensitive nerves of his cheeks recoil at the savage winter caress. Another flake, joined by its bretheren thereafter claimed home on his features. He brought a uselessly club-like hand to his cheek, and roughly brushed them from his presence. But after a short time he grew to weary to manage even this. His arm lay wearily at an un-natural angle to his tilted head.
And then once more they began.
Low rumbles, filled with a dangerous growl that shook the frozen earth around him. At the threshold of his ability to make out, but unmistakingly present.
Squeezing his eyes shut his breath came in ragged clumps. Panic swelled its hated self as fear surfaced in his numbed mind. The thuds grew in both impact and aftereffects. A carcophany of nightmarish barrages began building to an agonising crescendo. Every inch of his soul recoiled in the horror he found himself in. For terrorising seconds, he recalled not how he came to lie here, of how his entire being lay colder than the snow that fell and now sorrounded him. Strewn and forgotten at the bottom of a long since crumbled trench.
He had once had a wife, Annika. She had lived in a home that had personified both their personalities. Photos of dearest relatives both living and departed, of children in the throes of teenager life to those who had taken only baby steps on the path to adulthood hung from carefully decorated walls. A roaring flame that leapt and crackled from the fireplace, a chair he chose always to sit on....
The wind screamed its fury, lashing the gentle snow into a painful blizzard. His lips snaked as his face twisted into an uncomfortable grimace. His memories of home, happiness and what little had once been his life faded into a curtain of blackness.
"Annika....." He rasped.
Desperatley he tried to recall details, events, incidents. Something that would allow him to cling to the consciousness that cruelly waivered and waned and threatened to leave him to slip into the warmth of nothingness. Memories flashed by, disjointed and surreal.
Gunfire roared violently as he struggled to speak. But he was not simply speaking, he roared at the very limit his lungs would allow, bellowing and screaming for acknowledgement or agreement. Others, other men stood alongside him. Weapons pitched erratically over the trench wall and fired in an even more haphazard fashion. As their personal weapons chattered a stream of reloadable death, the bass thrums of artillery joined in this ridiculous orchestra.
"Medic!"
He turned for only a second, though that mere fraction of time stretched as he watched. Crimson splashed against his forehead as his eyes widened in horror. The being to his right, who had only moments ago stopped firing to peek over the trench walls, fell backwards. His face a bloodied ruin of bone
fragments and torn flesh.
Around him men dropped like poisoned flies. Limbs were explosivley severed, skulls smashed to peices by falling rock and sniper fire. Screams mingled with gunfire until he felt as though the weapons themselves sang songs of lament at the loss. Arcs of fire swept in front of him as he lost what little independent view of the situation he commanded. All lost, bloodshed, murder and death.
Those memories faded, and the snow recalled his debt unpaid. Now too weary even to open his sealed eyelids, he felt the warm grip of the holy father, the shepherd who had come, and would take his fallen and grant peace at last for a soul weary for another second on this cruel, cruel earth. The thunder of Artillery shook his being as the thuds began to almost rhythmically sound to his own slowing heart. As he felt his mind finally, valiantly fail he strained to make out those almost comforting bombardements, as though they faded from view or knowledge.
"Silent night....."
No, the abyss would come no closer. His will exhuasted, he could not summon the push he needed to feel finally free, to unshackle himself from the mortal bonds that tortured him so, that sent him to die along with millions, to freeze amidst a wasteland that would see him never found nor acknowledged. At the limit of his senses, a gentle melody floated through, carried to his foggy intellect by the now-gentle breeze.
"Holy night...."
A song, a voice....he felt as though now he could sleep. Finally, he had reached what limit a man could handle. Surely the lord would now come, to claim him and let him rest. He lay, waiting, feeling himself neither slip further nor rest. The ghostly words continued, until his attention was diverted from the warmth within to this intrusion, in the world of reality.
"All is calm, all is bright..."
And now, a new feeling seeped inside his embittered, torn soul. A flicker of recognition. Images flashed through his mind. A tree, green though winter blew outside, decorated with beautiful, shining ornaments. Of a roaring fire that warmed any who lay or sat near. Brightly wrapped gifts, for his children....They lay underneath. A glimpse, outside of a window. Snow fell gently as other lit homes displayed their own festivities.
He glanced down, at his own hand. It held another. Following it, with a thick miasma of confusion and weariness he settled on the face, the features. He knew, he recognised. The long golden hair that cascaded down her back. Her lips, perched in a small, glowing smile, Annika. Sorrow fille him, he could not stand it any longer. He felt his soul finally scream its readiness to depart this hell, this punishment. He clung desperatley to his wife, his children, one not old enough to even fully remember him would be denied what he himself would lose.
"Round yon virgin, mother and child."
For the first time in what may have been months, he cried. Tears began a journey they would never finish, succumbing to the harshest of weathers to become yet more frozen wastes that already covered what little remained previously free. A sob broke through the thick layer of weariness that stifled his throat. A hoarse, red cry.
"Holy infant, so tender and mild."
His son, barely entered of this world and beginning a journey on a mortal coil all to short would continue, he would watch, he prayed, with the little that remained in him, for the chance, the right, the wish to see him at least once more, wherever he watched from. His wife, beautiful Annika who had never faltered in her word or deed. She smiled, a vision or memory of her burned brightly and he sobbed once more. A kiss, a lingering, sensual act. He could recall not when or where, or even if it was a true memory. But he held on to it.
"Sleep, in heavenly peace."
His chest rose slow, and lowered slower still. Each breath prolonged the pain and suffering he endured. Each gasp that allowed his aching heart to beat allowed him a second more to remember, to try and hold on, and never forget. He could fight it no more, the will of a thousand men over would not have continued his pointless quest for one, final breath. A slow exhale, rich in the memories of a man who had been dying for longer than the time spent frozen within the snow. As the wind escaped from his deflating lungs, a final warm scene flashed. He held his newborn in his arms, his closed, peaceful eyes denying him a final chance to see the young life. His wife sat by his side, her beautiful lips twisted into another smile as he watched a gift unwrapped by his elder child. As the blackness consumned all, he got a last glance of his smile as he held the toy up for approval.
There were no further breaths, and his chest rose no more. An almost impercetible slump of the head signalled what no other living creature was around to see. Here he would lie, an unimaginable distance from his family, from Annika and his children. Never to be put to rest truly.
The snow did not care, it continued to fall. Soon he was almost completely obscured. Nature took it apon itself to finish the work of man. Laying a gentle blanket of white. Only an outstretched hand remained.
Silence reigned once more.
"Sleep, in heavenly peace."
No, simply to roll so that his frostbitten body might expose itself even more was all that was accomplished. The first flake of snow fell, landing on the tip of his running, inflamed nose brought a ragged gasp as he felt the extrodinarily sensitive nerves of his cheeks recoil at the savage winter caress. Another flake, joined by its bretheren thereafter claimed home on his features. He brought a uselessly club-like hand to his cheek, and roughly brushed them from his presence. But after a short time he grew to weary to manage even this. His arm lay wearily at an un-natural angle to his tilted head.
And then once more they began.
Low rumbles, filled with a dangerous growl that shook the frozen earth around him. At the threshold of his ability to make out, but unmistakingly present.
Squeezing his eyes shut his breath came in ragged clumps. Panic swelled its hated self as fear surfaced in his numbed mind. The thuds grew in both impact and aftereffects. A carcophany of nightmarish barrages began building to an agonising crescendo. Every inch of his soul recoiled in the horror he found himself in. For terrorising seconds, he recalled not how he came to lie here, of how his entire being lay colder than the snow that fell and now sorrounded him. Strewn and forgotten at the bottom of a long since crumbled trench.
He had once had a wife, Annika. She had lived in a home that had personified both their personalities. Photos of dearest relatives both living and departed, of children in the throes of teenager life to those who had taken only baby steps on the path to adulthood hung from carefully decorated walls. A roaring flame that leapt and crackled from the fireplace, a chair he chose always to sit on....
The wind screamed its fury, lashing the gentle snow into a painful blizzard. His lips snaked as his face twisted into an uncomfortable grimace. His memories of home, happiness and what little had once been his life faded into a curtain of blackness.
"Annika....." He rasped.
Desperatley he tried to recall details, events, incidents. Something that would allow him to cling to the consciousness that cruelly waivered and waned and threatened to leave him to slip into the warmth of nothingness. Memories flashed by, disjointed and surreal.
Gunfire roared violently as he struggled to speak. But he was not simply speaking, he roared at the very limit his lungs would allow, bellowing and screaming for acknowledgement or agreement. Others, other men stood alongside him. Weapons pitched erratically over the trench wall and fired in an even more haphazard fashion. As their personal weapons chattered a stream of reloadable death, the bass thrums of artillery joined in this ridiculous orchestra.
"Medic!"
He turned for only a second, though that mere fraction of time stretched as he watched. Crimson splashed against his forehead as his eyes widened in horror. The being to his right, who had only moments ago stopped firing to peek over the trench walls, fell backwards. His face a bloodied ruin of bone
fragments and torn flesh.
Around him men dropped like poisoned flies. Limbs were explosivley severed, skulls smashed to peices by falling rock and sniper fire. Screams mingled with gunfire until he felt as though the weapons themselves sang songs of lament at the loss. Arcs of fire swept in front of him as he lost what little independent view of the situation he commanded. All lost, bloodshed, murder and death.
Those memories faded, and the snow recalled his debt unpaid. Now too weary even to open his sealed eyelids, he felt the warm grip of the holy father, the shepherd who had come, and would take his fallen and grant peace at last for a soul weary for another second on this cruel, cruel earth. The thunder of Artillery shook his being as the thuds began to almost rhythmically sound to his own slowing heart. As he felt his mind finally, valiantly fail he strained to make out those almost comforting bombardements, as though they faded from view or knowledge.
"Silent night....."
No, the abyss would come no closer. His will exhuasted, he could not summon the push he needed to feel finally free, to unshackle himself from the mortal bonds that tortured him so, that sent him to die along with millions, to freeze amidst a wasteland that would see him never found nor acknowledged. At the limit of his senses, a gentle melody floated through, carried to his foggy intellect by the now-gentle breeze.
"Holy night...."
A song, a voice....he felt as though now he could sleep. Finally, he had reached what limit a man could handle. Surely the lord would now come, to claim him and let him rest. He lay, waiting, feeling himself neither slip further nor rest. The ghostly words continued, until his attention was diverted from the warmth within to this intrusion, in the world of reality.
"All is calm, all is bright..."
And now, a new feeling seeped inside his embittered, torn soul. A flicker of recognition. Images flashed through his mind. A tree, green though winter blew outside, decorated with beautiful, shining ornaments. Of a roaring fire that warmed any who lay or sat near. Brightly wrapped gifts, for his children....They lay underneath. A glimpse, outside of a window. Snow fell gently as other lit homes displayed their own festivities.
He glanced down, at his own hand. It held another. Following it, with a thick miasma of confusion and weariness he settled on the face, the features. He knew, he recognised. The long golden hair that cascaded down her back. Her lips, perched in a small, glowing smile, Annika. Sorrow fille him, he could not stand it any longer. He felt his soul finally scream its readiness to depart this hell, this punishment. He clung desperatley to his wife, his children, one not old enough to even fully remember him would be denied what he himself would lose.
"Round yon virgin, mother and child."
For the first time in what may have been months, he cried. Tears began a journey they would never finish, succumbing to the harshest of weathers to become yet more frozen wastes that already covered what little remained previously free. A sob broke through the thick layer of weariness that stifled his throat. A hoarse, red cry.
"Holy infant, so tender and mild."
His son, barely entered of this world and beginning a journey on a mortal coil all to short would continue, he would watch, he prayed, with the little that remained in him, for the chance, the right, the wish to see him at least once more, wherever he watched from. His wife, beautiful Annika who had never faltered in her word or deed. She smiled, a vision or memory of her burned brightly and he sobbed once more. A kiss, a lingering, sensual act. He could recall not when or where, or even if it was a true memory. But he held on to it.
"Sleep, in heavenly peace."
His chest rose slow, and lowered slower still. Each breath prolonged the pain and suffering he endured. Each gasp that allowed his aching heart to beat allowed him a second more to remember, to try and hold on, and never forget. He could fight it no more, the will of a thousand men over would not have continued his pointless quest for one, final breath. A slow exhale, rich in the memories of a man who had been dying for longer than the time spent frozen within the snow. As the wind escaped from his deflating lungs, a final warm scene flashed. He held his newborn in his arms, his closed, peaceful eyes denying him a final chance to see the young life. His wife sat by his side, her beautiful lips twisted into another smile as he watched a gift unwrapped by his elder child. As the blackness consumned all, he got a last glance of his smile as he held the toy up for approval.
There were no further breaths, and his chest rose no more. An almost impercetible slump of the head signalled what no other living creature was around to see. Here he would lie, an unimaginable distance from his family, from Annika and his children. Never to be put to rest truly.
The snow did not care, it continued to fall. Soon he was almost completely obscured. Nature took it apon itself to finish the work of man. Laying a gentle blanket of white. Only an outstretched hand remained.
Silence reigned once more.
"Sleep, in heavenly peace."