AN. I just want everyone to applaud Chubaby15 for her lovely new cover image she made for this story, which I've now put up so if you haven't seen it yet have a look. It looks great doesn't it?!


The Creature POV

The day I arrived on the camp was the day I knew that attitudes had not changed as much with the general public as the gentle souls in my garden. The soldiers who had wandered up my garden path winked, in the younger man's case, or nodded at me from across the field but did not come over as the field was filled with the hustle and bustle of men training or arriving for duty.

I quickly realised that the men did not keep their opinions to themselves, as I shouldered my pack and headed to the meeting point, keeping my head down but hearing the whispers none-the-less and seeing the pointing fingers out of the corner of my eye. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched them going about their business, observing the best that Britain had left to offer. I was well aware that rationing had gotten to the men and that these were not the fine young gentlemen handpicked at the start of the war – many of these were the men had been deemed too young or too weak or too old, who hadn't fit the bill the first time round. They were the slim pickings and many of them looked no older than sixteen, boys dressed in uniforms. In comparison, I was a tall and well muscle man, filling out my uniform and casually lighting a cigarette as I went. I had always been tall, people were shorter and slimmer from the time I had come from, Victor had at least engineered me to have an ideal frame but now I looked even more out of place, compact – if wiring – muscle stood out in contrast to slightly hollowed cheeks and men shortened by childhood rickets.

An officer was parading around, checking on the training and laughing with his public school comrades. I could see the weight of the world behind the laughter however, though it was nowhere near as terrified as their working class men… the ones who would die first, the ones who were more expendable. I doubted any one truly knew what we were letting themselves in for, what awaited us on the other side of the channel. But we knew it would probably end in our deaths, the list of the dead and the obituaries filled more and more pages of the papers every day, men coming home as corpses. And I was expected to be one of them. Small chance.

An elderly officer, most likely brought out of retirement due to the shortage, came forward to welcome the new recruits, lining us all us for inspection. He checked his papers for the names of every man he spoke and then would promptly let out a small dissatisfied noise as he wrote something down. It was a minute before he reached me, his eyebrows furrowing as he looked at the records, looking slightly surprised when he saw my scars,

"We don't appear to have any records for you Private. It merely says your age and address. I see you're from the Holmes house on the outskirts of the village, I've lived in this village ever since I was a lad and I've never known there to be anyone there. What's your name boy?" I raised an eyebrow, he called me boy yet in reality, even if he didn't realise it, he was at least twenty years my junior,

"That would be yours to pick, sir." He tucked his papers under his arm, sizing up to me despite – much like most of the other men – just reaching my chin,

"Is that cheek, boy? I won't stand for cheek."

"No, there was no cheek intended sir, my father never named me and I never had a mother."

"Then what do people call you?"

"There haven't been people to call me anything for thirty years."

"I've never heard anything like it, it's rather bizarre I must say-"

"I don't pretend to be anything otherwise, sir."

"No, I doubt you could with a face like that. Where did you get the scars boy?"

"My father, sir." I knew the impression that would give; they thought my father a child-beater. He thought him abusive. No, he was not abusive… he could never bring himself to raise a hand to me, even if he had pointed a gun. He had never physically harmed me. No, he was not abusive… neglectful, however. The man spoke quietly, an edge of sympathy in his voice,

"What shall I call you then?"

"I told you sir, it is your choice." The man hummed, clearly unsatisfied with that response,

"What was your father's family name?"

"Frankenstein, sir."

"I suppose we shall have to give you something generic. Tommy's a popular name for us Brits, isn't it lad? The Tommies, the Fritz call us. How about that, lad? Tommy Frankenstein." That was how I came across my first name, it never quite fit. I never really took to it as anything other than a convenient label, in my mind I was simply me – or the creature I suppose many called me. I was not Tommy, it was simply too generic and British. What I wouldn't give to be generic, one of the crowd. But I stood out like a sore thumb, always had and always would… even when the scars were long gone, so the name always felt a bit loose fitting for me. Though it served me well enough during the war.

"That will do fine, sir."

"It'll save me calling you Private What's-his-name if nothing else. Come lads, time to get you to your beds, we need you fresh and ready for tomorrow, you have a long day's training ahead of you."

"Yes sir," we barked back in response, saluting our superior, who nodded at me as we marched past.

Later that evening, as I lay in my bunk looking up at the canvas roof above my head, I heard sniggering from some of the young lads, the ones who I had thought looked no older than sixteen,

"Oi, Freak-enstein." I turned my chin slightly, without taking my eyes of the canvas of my tent,

"How very amusing, you substituted Freak into my name. How may I help you?"

"What happened to your face? How'd it get all- weird lookin'?"

"I told the Officer earlier, my father gave me these scars."

"What, couldn't 'e stand the look of your ugly mug or somethin'?"

"No, I suppose he couldn't."

"Can't blame him. Can you lads?" There was a murmur of agreement, as the lad climbed out of his bed, tiptoeing up to mine with a nasty sneer on his face, lit up by the flickering candle in his hand,

"Well, that's for you to decide but I am scarred, there's no changing that. Beside, you had better learn to watch your tongue… because after this war, it might be you or your father or your brother coming home with the scars and then you'll understand what it's like to want a kind war."

"I'm getting out of this war alive and unmaimed, unlike you. Freak."

"That's for your God to decide. Now, if you don't mind, I would quite like to go to sleep now."

"Act as high and mighty as you like, Freak," I'm afraid to say that word followed me around long before it fell from Donovan's sneering lips, "but we all know why you're here. Coward."

"I'm here now, aren't I? I came when I did not need to, when I was already free of duty, and knowing what was to be expected of me, and what I would face. There is no glory in a war like this; there is only death and suffering. You may think me a coward for keeping out of it but you are fools to run in headfirst, and a fool can be parted with his life just as easily as he can his money. Goodnight." And with that I rolled over, blew out his candle and went to sleep, blocking out their sniggering voices.