Summary: It was the only time Pitch was possible to rise for fear was everywhere; within the heart of the alone children, of the souls widowed women and, of course, the lives of solders within the battlefield.
-ONE SHOT- (Potential few shot)
A/N:
This is just an excuse to practice for a short, creative story I must write in English.
Our story in English is about the battlefields and the trenches of the First World War and since, being the fangirl I am, I decided to practice it online yet twist it around into a fanfiction one shot. (Maybe a few shot)
So, enjoy!
They hurt.
Hurt beyond their throbbing chests and exhausted arms, agony beyond their tired bodies. For, the feeling of guilt and sin has finally made there ways towards their aching hearts. The dread and horror of having to kill, murder a human being, end the life of someone like them.
But, this is war and the soldiers have suffered the feeling enough to become immune to the burning, agonizing emotion of guilt and fear.
Even though, the thoughts of fear and terror still remained. Even as they shot, hid and defended, they still had that feeling of disaster and paranoia.
War does that to a person, makes them fear for their small, inferior lives.
The soldiers marched on, through the towering mud and wood of the trenches towards the reserve.
They couldn't wait, it was like the small, flickering light within the dark, hellish pit they have been stuck in for 3 years. It was a time that they could attempt to sleep, try to rest during the booming sounds of war and death.
Sleep was a rarity, for the terrible sounds above the bunkers and across the battlefield of No Man's Land prevented the enclosing feeling of blissful rest; the haunting nightmares that plagued their minds yanked them away from the darkness and emptiness of sleep they could have retrieved.
The nightmares were horrifying, they showed no mercy to what they made the such fragile men watch or what the men was scarred to hear.
It was like the Nightmares were more superior, towering over the opponents of the war and stare down at them with their golden, corrupt eyes of fear and death.
For, no matter what side, fear was in everyone's hearts.
Fear of death, abandonment, pain. So many fears that darkness could just feast upon.
Yet, the soldiers tried to drown the fear, overwhelm the crushing darkness within their souls with happy thoughts and encouraging reminders of what was for them once they won the war and went home.
However, many of them never returned home. They never experienced their encouraging thoughts or remember their happy memories for another time. For, even though the darkness likes feeding on the fear, it also feeds on the defeated souls of the lifeless and dying men of the battlefield.
Many didn't see it, only one did.
He was 17, barely reaching the grasps of adulthood.
He signed up for the war when he was 15, standing right in front of the officers as he handed his sheet and they didn't even batter an eyelid at him. They just stamped the paper, and waited for him to be sent towards his death.
Even though, they didn't know that. Nobody knew the terrible things that happened on the battlefield except the fighters within its land, its land of fear and death that the public were so blind of.
He marched forwards, stepping through the sinking mud and intoxicating smell of smoke and rotten flesh that made everybody want to gag.
He gagged, oh, he did. He coughed and vomited many times during his few months at the battlefield. The things he saw, the things he had experienced.
He hasn't killed a man; he doesn't plan to.
Sure, the Germans would have wanted to kill him but he wasn't that cruel. Nobody should be that cruel except death himself. Death should be the only one that can murder, the only one to take a life.
Yet, the war proved otherwise for everybody could kill. They can shot and bomb and murder other human beings around them.
It disgusted him, but he didn't speak his feelings. If he retreated, spoke a word of concern, be a coward, he would be shot in the head.
He didn't want to be killed by an ally. He just wanted to get to the reserve and hopefully get out of this war alive.
The men around him didn't even give him a glare as he fell over a dead body, the body of a youth lad around his age. He stared at it, scared and wide-eyed, at the dead body with its glazed eyes and frozen expression of pain and fear.
'Death shows no mercy, you must carry on before death takes you too.'
He staggered back up, rushing back towards the crowd of his fellow allies and comrades. They laughed and talked through the journey of surrounding bodies and mud, trying to have the hint of a true laugh during a time like this.
They were trying to laugh, to have fun, to believe they were going to get out of this alive.
He believes he would. He believed a lot of things, in fact.
Many things that his age shouldn't imagine anymore. Believes things that should have faded away during such a cruel, dreadful time like this. Yet, he still believed; yet never told anybody.
For, he was one of the few teenagers in the army. The rest was to old to believe, to old to understand but can only mock and laugh at him.
He believed in myths, legends, folktales he had been told as a childish lad. He got told by his mother, which he told to his sister, who then told them to her friends. He enjoyed the feeling of helping his sister tell the stories of wonder and joy towards young children, bringing the belief towards small hearts that were warmed by each word.
He bowed his head, pulling out a locket within his pocket. He flipped it open to see the bright, smiling photo of his little sister, her brown hair in pig tales and her teeth held a gap were a tooth once been.
A tooth that the Tooth Fairy had now taken.
He believe in the Tooth Fairy, stayed up all night during his childhood to catch the glimpse of the small sprite stealing away his tooth. He hunted during the warm Easter, tracking down the fluffy myth that was the Easter Bunny. He laid awake during Christmas, in hopes of a man climbing into his home with presents within his hands. He waited within the dead of night to see the golden, twirling trails of dreamsand created by the Sandman.
He believe in them, and many other myths that someone his age shouldn't believe.
Yet, he did. And the moment he leaves the frontline and goes back towards England, he was going to his sister and tell her every story until they learnt the tales it word by word.
He glimpsed at his sisters loving smile one last time, before shutting the locket and returning it towards the pocket of his jacket.
He continued marching, walked beside his equals as he stared at the night sky and its glimmering full moon. Even though he was in a place of war and death, he couldn't help but be memorized by the beauty the moon radiated.
His hypnotic stare at the Moon was his fatal mistake.
He heard the clanking of a canister against the wooden supports of the trench, staring down at the sizzling canister that rolled beside their feet.
"Gas!" A soldier cried, causing the fumbling movement of men towards their sides. They tore their gas masks away from their belt, placing them on with ease.
He was about to put his on, when he saw it.
A man, not a person he even knew the first name of, didn't have his gas mask on him. His hands frantically moved round his belt in panic, in fear.
He sprinted towards the man, instantly putting the gas mask he held around his face.
The canister sizzled until the gas exploded out of it, the yellow substance overwhelming them.
That was when he noticed.
He didn't have a mask on.
He gave it towards the struggling man without a mask, he gave his only mask to him.
He yelled out for help, for an extra mask, but inhaled the thick, intoxicating air around him.
His lungs burned as he collapsed on to the ground, flipping and jerking about across the mud as his allies cried out in shock. He gurgled, choked as blood filled his mouth and escaped through his trembling lips. His eyes darted about as froth escaped his lungs, his body being drowned by the vile gas.
His allies, his friends in terms, cried out and screamed for him. They wails faded away, turning into distant echoes as everything suddenly stopped.
He couldn't move, or breathe or feel the horrid feeling of froth and blood pour past his tongue.
He saw nothing except the towering walls of mud and the blurring sky. The moon shone down on him, glimmering across him as he laid there.
A chuckle was heard through his silent ears, a figure of shadows entering his vision.
The golden, amber eyes of a man looked down at him. His grey skin and black hair making him seem deadly and evil. He chuckled at the him, at the dying boy by his feet.
"Oh, the disappointment." His dark voice spoke, "The fear and realization that you're never gonna go home, never tell another one of your stories, never see the smiling face of your sister."
He could only stare, stare at the man that stood beside him.
"You're fear delights me. The fear of every soldier within this battlefield, their hearts tainted with crushing darkness, makes me feel so powerful."
He didn't know how he could, since he was as lifeless as death, but he rasped through his dry mouth.
"A-Are you death?"
"No, even worse." The man replied, giving a cruel grin at the boy, "I'm Pitch Black, the Nightmare King. The person that feeds on the fear of the dead and dying within this battlefield."
He remembered that tale. The stories of the Boogeyman that haunted scared children under their beds, filling the heart of the brave with the worst of fears.
"Do you know my story, child?" The Nightmare king asked him.
"Y-Yes."
"Of course you do. Aren't you a bit old to believe in such things, lad?" Pitch replied,yet didn't let him answer the question, "Tell me, boy. Do you know the old lie?"
"N-No. W-What Lie?"
"The old lie. The lie soldiers are told as the truth. The lie that gives the belief that soldiers can defeat death." Darkness started to overwhelm his vision as the Boogeyman talked.
The last things he saw was the moon, and the bright, golden eyes of the Boogeyman as he spoke,
"The old lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori."
It is sweet and glorious to die for your country.
Rest in Peace to those that fought in the First World War. Although your times have been forgotten, you're still remembered within our hearts.
This story might be turned into a few shot. Depends on how much feedback I get.
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