VERMICULUS
The elements laughed and roared at the Granary. The winds howled like a banshee while the rain fell hard and loud like an unending volley of bullets, as if in a desperate effort to wash away the blood and scorched earth, to cleanse the work of the mercs daily duties.
Nature always has a way to purge things, but some stains don't wash and there are wounds that don't heal, as if holding on to their existence with jagged claws and tendrils, unyielding.
Everyone was at the base, Demoman was passed out drunk mumbling out some alcohol induced dreams in the living room, while Heavy was reading in the den, putting his PhD to good use. "Hard hat Dell" was taking the time to do some repairs on his robotic arm, (he noted that the reaction time was a little off when he punched a hole through a red spy's torso earlier that day), Medic was making the most out of the storm by using the lightning for some crazed experiments in the medical bay - no doubt Archimedes by his side enjoying in a relaxing blood bath much to the doctor's annoyance. Pyro was asleep rather comically, head first on the table as he wheezed loudly (she was never much use at cold or wet weather). Sniper and Spy where arguing over the definition of what a real bladed weapon is and the best method of using said tool while Scout was just simply bored.
Gazing out in to the dreary weather, Scout sat and hated the rain. Always has, as he preffered to just go out and run in the sun, hit a few balls or heads, smash some windows, the "usual".
Desires screamed in his heart, yet the elements laughingly defied them and the lightning bore it's fangs and the thunder cackled. He noted that oddly someone was missing. Indeed someone was missing; his teammates didn't pay much attention to it.
They where used to it, to him and his odd ways.
In the midst of the howling and the rain Soldier stood next to a grotesque display of faces, all the same yet strangely different, the blank stares, the flesh peeling and rotting away, exposing the bone and tendons, it was a display of death and terror an inhumane disregard of human decency. Madness.
He passed slowly up and down staring at them, studying the features. Perhaps it was remorse or pondering on how he could have killed them better, maybe it was simply how worthless these maggots where, not a single true warrior among them.
"All the same," he thought, "not a single soldier among them, just children playing at war."
He stepped closer to the face of a masked figure, its head freshly removed from its former owner, grotesquely deformed by the expression of horror and pain, frozen by rigor mortis. The only motion present is the crawling of several larva and the flow of raindrops.
"As worthless as you are on the battlefield, afraid to face the consequence of failure, you are not brave enough to embrace the glory of victory, the excess of warm blood and the screams of carnage. At least now you have purpose as worm chow."
He turned rapidly, and stomped passed the cranium gallery, he grabbed his trusted market gardener and shotgun and started digging a trench.
Doe always preferred thinking on the go, about not wasting time standing around, war beat that notion into him senselessly those many years ago. Back when he stormed through war torn Europe with his own paid ticket and weapons, despite the rejections of the US army, his dedication to his country guided him on a lonely path of bloodshed and carnage. At least that's what he thought back then, until he met a peculiar band of rouges with a similar story, in which he found kinsmen,
battle brothers.
