Mr.Self Destruct
Chosen Undead
When I open my eyes, the sun is shining.
It is a warm morning in the Colovian Highlands, the first in many months. Spring has come, and the sun washes over the land. Warming the trees and grass back to their green and urging the flowers from the soil. My home sits upon a hill overlooking a river, recently thawed from the frozen cold of winter and now flowing freely. My beautiful children play in the yard, my son and my daughter. From the shade of the porch is my wife, perfect in every way. Her eyes iridescent shades of blue and her blonde hair long and flowing. She looks at me, she smiles.
Claude is roused from his sleep by a sharp jolt of the wagon, and for a moment he forgets who and where he is. However, he is quick to remember. He is Claude Taylor, legionary for the Rourke Empire. There is no home waiting for him, no wife or children. It's a dream he has from time to time, a dream he longs for to be true. On either side of him are others, but Claude is the only above the age of 17. He is a man among boys, who, like him, were expected to kill and die for the Empire.
The wagon is surrounded by muddy fields and dead trees, pockmarked with craters left from shells. Other wagons, which are pulled by sickly and emaciated horses, rumble by. Soldiers who had arrived before march alongside the wagons, their faces hallow and brooding. Claude has seen this once before, and although he is more experienced than the others with him he is still afraid. Deathly afraid of what lies before them.
They are near the Western Front, and the boys in the wagon tremble with anxiety. Claude reserves himself, trying to hide it. He clenches the battered, wooden frame of his rifle tightly. Holding it tight to his chest and trying to steady his breathing. Trenches, barbed wire, and bodies begin to appear. The sight of a rotting corpse causes the boy sitting next to Claude to begin vomiting over the edge of the cart. "I-I need to go back I can't--" The boy was hysterical, vomit staining his uniform and face. And then, from the air, there was a piercing howl. Growing louder and more shrill by the second. "Shells! Get down!" There was a flash of white, and then all went black.
When Claude opens his eyes, he's face down in the mud beside the road. The wagon got a direct hit, and what's left of it; and the other troops, has been blown apart in a twisted and smoldering heap of rubble and limbs. Although his ears are ringing, he can hear shots and shouting. Booms and screams. He takes hold of his rifle and begins crawling towards a nearby trench as airplanes roar overhead and soldiers run by, firing their rifles as they go.
He clambers inside the muddy trench and lets himself fall. His ears are still ringing and his entire body is stiff and numb. He's shaking terribly, and thoughts and senses are coming in like shards of glass. He struggles to hold onto his rifle as more shells go off. The battle has begun.
It is a warm morning in the Colovian Highlands, the first in many months. Spring has come, and the sun washes over the land. Warming the trees and grass back to their green and urging the flowers from the soil. My home sits upon a hill overlooking a river, recently thawed from the frozen cold of winter and now flowing freely. My beautiful children play in the yard, my son and my daughter. From the shade of the porch is my wife, perfect in every way. Her eyes iridescent shades of blue and her blonde hair long and flowing. She looks at me, she smiles.
Claude is roused from his sleep by a sharp jolt of the wagon, and for a moment he forgets who and where he is. However, he is quick to remember. He is Claude Taylor, legionary for the Rourke Empire. There is no home waiting for him, no wife or children. It's a dream he has from time to time, a dream he longs for to be true. On either side of him are others, but Claude is the only above the age of 17. He is a man among boys, who, like him, were expected to kill and die for the Empire.
The wagon is surrounded by muddy fields and dead trees, pockmarked with craters left from shells. Other wagons, which are pulled by sickly and emaciated horses, rumble by. Soldiers who had arrived before march alongside the wagons, their faces hallow and brooding. Claude has seen this once before, and although he is more experienced than the others with him he is still afraid. Deathly afraid of what lies before them.
They are near the Western Front, and the boys in the wagon tremble with anxiety. Claude reserves himself, trying to hide it. He clenches the battered, wooden frame of his rifle tightly. Holding it tight to his chest and trying to steady his breathing. Trenches, barbed wire, and bodies begin to appear. The sight of a rotting corpse causes the boy sitting next to Claude to begin vomiting over the edge of the cart. "I-I need to go back I can't--" The boy was hysterical, vomit staining his uniform and face. And then, from the air, there was a piercing howl. Growing louder and more shrill by the second. "Shells! Get down!" There was a flash of white, and then all went black.
When Claude opens his eyes, he's face down in the mud beside the road. The wagon got a direct hit, and what's left of it; and the other troops, has been blown apart in a twisted and smoldering heap of rubble and limbs. Although his ears are ringing, he can hear shots and shouting. Booms and screams. He takes hold of his rifle and begins crawling towards a nearby trench as airplanes roar overhead and soldiers run by, firing their rifles as they go.
He clambers inside the muddy trench and lets himself fall. His ears are still ringing and his entire body is stiff and numb. He's shaking terribly, and thoughts and senses are coming in like shards of glass. He struggles to hold onto his rifle as more shells go off. The battle has begun.