A/N: This is a fic about what George Luz really saw that night Skip Muck and Alex Penkala died.
Disclaimer: I own nothing! This didn't happen the way it did. I mean no disrespect to the actual men who died.
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"Wise-ass."
Lip said behind Luz.
George turned and giggled to himself. He
ignored Lip's request, and basked in the glory of the compliment he
received.
Luz walked away while taking the last drag on his smoke before flicking it to the side. Before he got the chance to exhale, or even blink, he hurled himself to the frozen ground. He didn't even notice the chill of the snow trickling down his uniform. George felt the ground shake from below him, almost like the earth was caving in. The sound of mortar fire spread across the forest instantly. For every other moment, the dark shadowy sky got fire. Tree tops exploding, shattering, falling upon the occupied foxholes.
Luz felt the adrenaline in his veins, pumping danger straight to his heart. His heart, which was now painfully embedded in his stomach.
He scrambled to his feet, struggling to find balance. Luz sprinted, stagger, and dodge his way to a foxhole.
It seemed like the whole universe was under attack. Fireworks could not compare. The earth exploded just yards in front of him, forcing him to frequently change his direction. Luz obscurely heard his name being called among of sounds of the shelling. He looked straight ahead. Muck and Penkala were yelling out to him fearfully, gesturing him to take cover with them. George started forward but hurling himself to the ground, shielding his head from flailing chunks of dirt and remains of trees.
Muck and Penkala were even more rowdy then before, the fear of George getting bombed right out in the open left them nervous and tense. Luz looked up at the men, and gaped at the sight. All of a sudden the air went stale, something had emerged from the shadows the forest.
They were not alone in that foxhole.
Despite the chaos around him, George remained strangely still, his sight no longer fixated on he boys. Luz stared in amazement at the dark figure standing over Muck and Penkala. The figure was cloaked, and still—like death. George gawked with uneasy eyes. This figure wasn't inanimate; this was a being, with a human posture and—
A flash of a mortar hit lit up the area, and the shine of steel caught Luz's eye. A blade attached to a staff, attached to a bony hand was visible, and luminous against the darkness of the forest. George strained his eyes, not quite believing what he was seeing. The truth hit George like mortar fire. The human features were convincing, and the scythe gave it away. This was Death—The Grim Reaper.
Muck and Penkala were screaming now, and confused by Luz's inability to move. Luz's eyes were wide with fear. Can't they see what standing over them? Questions swamped his mind. He wasn't quite sure if he wanted to trust his eyes. Maybe it was a hallucination, a trick of the imagination; his mind slowly coming undone, unable to bear anymore of the horrors he'd seen in the war.
George shook his head, hoping it was all in his head. He looked up. A bony hand hovered over the men. A terrible feeling burrowed inside Luz. He felt as if something awful and horrendous was about to take place…
And all at once, a mortar hit the foxhole. George felt the light and the heat from the explosive on his face. The yelling came to a stop. Luz ducked his head from flailing dirt. The sounds of distant explosions seemed to be silenced. George looked up again. There was no Muck, no Penkala, and no Grim. Just pieces of tree trickling down over an empty foxhole.
