Known Unto God
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For the first time in a long while, all was silent.
The battle, fought so long, so hard, so fierce, so bloody, was, at long last, over.
Signs of the struggle scarred the entire landscape. Trees charred to black soot, confused footprints splayed out all over the bloody ground, arrows decorating bodies that lay on the ground decked in some macabre parody of a gruesome dance. Somewhere in the mist-enshrouded forest, an owl hooted softly.
A gasp.
Then another.
He twitched, drawing in lungfuls of air in pained gasps. Silently, he writhed on the cold muddy ground.
Pain… pain had long since overwhelmed him – had left him. Now all that was left was the dull numbness, and the spreading cold.
Oh, the cold. It seeped into the very core of his being, chilling skin, muscle, blood and bone. Torture, it was. Silent torture. He could scarce withstand it.
Another gasp, and he lurched again, trapped in the maddening darkness. For his eyes could no longer see. Though he knew they were opened, they saw only the gaping abyss.
His mother… his wife… still at home, still anxiously awaiting his safe return. Ah… that he could feel the warmth of their embrace, just one, last, time…
Blood pooled from multiple wounds crisscrossing his body. What rage had driven his opponents to hack at him again and again even as he fell, he did not know. Ah, he supposed the atrocities of his country – both real and imagined – had to be answered for, somehow.
He shivered as another wave of cold spread through his body. Ah… that he could be rid of this torment, this suffering. And yet… and yet… the only escape he could foresee was to plunge into the black maw, the great unknown. He knew not if it were cowardice or caution, but he did not want to die.
He did not want to die.
Suddenly, he felt someone prodding at his shoulder.
"Dead?" The voice of a young female.
"He's still drawing breath, but… not for long." And now a youth.
There was silence for a while, and he could not tell if the two had moved away, had remained, or were now standing poised, ready to drive a sword through his heart.
Then, the sound of shovels hitting dirt, and of the wet earth being flung about in messy heaps.
Somehow, the realization that they were currently digging his grave frightened him more than he would have thought possible. Oh, that he would have had the strength to move… but it was lost, lost, lost, bled from him as surely as the lifeblood that pooled around his body.
Then he felt a soft hand on his shoulder, and the voice of the girl sounded in his ear.
"Look, I… I don't know if you can hear me or not. But… if you can… It's… we'll be here, okay? We won't leave you."
Another rush of air filled his lungs. Weaker. He was getting weaker.
Silently, he shivered. Death… it was inevitable. The very thought of it amplified the gathering chill in his heart.
And yet… and yet… he was so very tired. So… very… tired…
Silently, the black tendrils that caressed the edges of his consciousness began to move forward, covering all in shadow.
The last thing he knew was someone tightly gripping his hand, and a voice whispering soothing words into his ear.
Night had already fallen by the time the two of them were sighted trudging back to base camp.
The party gathered around the blazing fire was silent, watching as the two figures, one spring-green, the other blood-red, softly made their way back to the encampment.
And as they neared, one with a sharp eye could make out several details – the exhausted determination on their faces, and their bodies, wet with blood that was not their own and stained with the dirt of freshly dug graves.
For those of you wondering about the title, during war time, if they come across soldiers that are for one reason or another cannot be indentified, they were dig a grave for them, and on their marker they will chisel out the words 'Known Unto God'.
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