The fire burned brightly in the house of the old colonel, sending smoke and ashes up the flue with a ragged hiss, which played in a drastic counterpoint with the crackling and snapping of the flames themselves. Outside, a freezing wind whistled across the courtyard, and, occasionally, the crashing of a fallen tree could be heard. Inside the dimly lit room, a servant walked in without a word, pouring a glass of dark red wine for each of the men at the battered wooden table. The blood-red liquid flowed from the silver jug with a sound like a tranquil stream, changing barely-perceptibly as the volume in the glass increased. When the last trickles of the wine were poured, and the sparkling crystal glasses were filled to the brim, the servant whipped away the jug, and walked soundlessly out of the room. The scent of the wine filled the room for a brief, lingering moment, before the darkly earthy stench of the colonel's gold-banded cigar wrestled it into submission. Breathing a sigh, the colonel slipped further into his sturdy chair. The man on the other side of the table tensed suddenly, as every muscle rebelled against the brain's urge to stay calm. His eyes turned to the door, darting from side to side as they sought future means of escape. The colonel seemed not to notice, and straightened himself out, smoothing his weathered yellow uniform as he rose up slightly, spine slightly breaking its contact with the back of the chair. Taking another puff on the cigar, he opened his mouth to speak, revealing teeth stained brown-yellow from a lifetime of smoking heavily. He did not look the other man in the eyes as he talked, but rather looked slightly away from him, with a glazed look in his eye, as though in a half-conscious state.
Outside, strange noises could now be heard above the roar of the wind and the crackling of the fire. Almost like moans, they were barely perceptible, occasional spikes of loud energy from a seemingly infinitely great distance away. The colonel had been talking for a while now, seemingly passionately energized and completely defeated and disinterested at the same time. It was a strange illusion, and the man across the table wondered if it was hiding happiness, sorrow, or perhaps mere insanity. He reached smoothly for his glass of wine, but for all that he tried, he could not hide the trembling of his arm. Swirling his glass once, he took an uneasy sip, and barely got it down, with an awkward gulp. Fortunately, the colonel did not seem to notice, as he breathed another cloud of darkly scented smoke from his cigar, clasped tightly between his fingers, webbed with the flaps of skin of a person who had lost a great deal of weight in a very short time. The colonel coughed, the hacking, phlegm-filled cough of the smoker. He pulled out a handkerchief, and coughed more. When he pulled it away, it was stained red.
The colonel sipped at his own wine, quickly drinking down more than half of the glass. Wiping his hand on the sleeve of his mustard-yellow uniform, he once again sighed deeply. The noises outside had become louder, and were more and more recognizable. They sounded almost like a pack of wolves and a ghost, a scream of a man mixed with a feral howling and barking. The colonel paid no attention to them, even as the man across the table looked at him franticly, almost imploring him with his eyes to take action of some sort, or to at least give some explanation for the horrible sounds. The colonel drained his glass of wine, and rang a bell for the servant. The man who came in was the same man as before. He too heard the noises, and began to look troubled. Even so, he soundlessly filled the crystal wine-glasses once again, and swept out of the room.
The sounds from the courtyard were now deafening. Clearly recognizable as the angry shouts of men, they filled the air with an almost physical heat of fury and hatred. The colonel breathed another mouthful of smoke, and exhaled it calmly, blowing a little cloud of black air through the room.
"Fuck 'em all… let them come." He croaked, without much emotion in his old voice.
"Please, sir… I beg you…" Came the voice of the man across the table.
The colonel stirred. Faster than the man across the table would have thought possible, he reached a hand into his pocket, and whipped it back out again. A crash came from outside, at the same time as a deafening bang erupted inside the room. The man looked frantically outside, then looked down at his chest. A scarlet flower had bloomed on his starched white shirt, and spread beautifully across his breast. His face registered a moment of pure shock and terror, and he fell to the ground, face white as the snow outside in the courtyard. The colonel began to laugh, a painful laugh, that mixed with his smokers coughs until they dissolved into one. When the door was broken down, splintering into a thousand fragments of dust and firewood, he laughed. When they shot him in the knees, and kicked him into the developing wreckage of the once-great house, he was laughing. When they burned the wreckage to a smoldering crisp, he was laughing. As his greatcoat caught on fire, covering his skin in incredible heat, he was laughing. Finally, the fire consumed him. His body twisted and turned in the consuming flames, until he was burned to nothingness. There would be nothing on this earth that would show he had walked upon it. They planted their flag in the center of the wreckage, as the early-morning sun painted the white snow pink and scarlet.