Many rumours whispered about a mysterious enemy appearing at midnight as from
nowhere, destroying everything and then vanishing into the night again.
At the beginning, no one could believe it, the officers tended to minimize,
reducing those rumours at the level of stupid gossips, but as time went on and
more and more bases were destroyed without even know exactly how, also the
officers begun to worry.
In the dormitories, where the recruits slept, the younger soldiers continued
over and over again to feed the rumours and the fear narrating to each other
what they knew about the mysterious enemy.
"I've heard no one survives after seeing him. Every time he comes, he
destroys the entire base."
"That's true!"
"How scary!"
"Yeah!"
"Lt.Watson told me that once there was a survivor, but he couldn't talk
anymore."
"What? Why?"
"For the shock!"
"Oh my..."
"How scary!"
"Yeah!!!"
"At the end, there is someone who can defeat Oz."
"I never thought it could be possible."
"How scary..."
"Yeah..."
The older soldiers, instead, who should be brave at any cost to not scare even
more the younger companions, tried to hide their fears and exorcize them
standing together for renewing their faith into Oz's strength.
"Oz can't be defeated!"
"Yeah!!!"
"Oz will protect us!!!"
"Oh yeah!"
"Oz will die for us!"
"Yeah! Yeah!"
"But we are Oz..."
"Shit..."
On one of the tall turrets of the base Milos was yawning: staying alone all
night watching the dark wasn't exactly exciting.
Patting his cheeks to try to awake at least a bit, Milos remembered the old
days at his parents farm. Life was so relaxing there, but never boring.
Everyday there were the cows to milk, the chickens to feed and his mum made
such good tarts with the plum marmalade!
Sighing, Milos checked the time on his watch. Four more hours and then he would
be off-duty.
His mum had told him not to join Oz.
"What are you going for?" She had said, while crying in her apron.
"You'll only get killed!"
"But mum!" He had tried to protest.
"I will not hear 'but mum', you're going to stay here, understood? You
will not go away from m...m...meeeeeeeeeee!"
Watching his mum crying he had felt a little guilty, but, unfortunately, his
desire to travel all over the world had been stronger.
He had left his parents' farm in the mountains of Transylvania, had joined Oz
and after almost six months he still was in the same base he was first
assigned.
"Tsk", he said loudly. "Travelling... Oh sure! I travel a lot,
up and down from this miserable turret!"
Again, his thoughts turned towards his parents' farm. He wanted to see it
again. He wanted so much to be able to eat his mum's tarts again, sitting with
his whole family around the fire in winter, while outside it snowed and inside
his old grandpa told them of ancient legends about Vlad Tepes, the warrior who
sold his soul to the devil to become Dracula the immortal prince of the
darkness.
Giggling he remembered how much his grandpa's stories had scared him: he always
ended up in bed shaking with fear and holding tight in his hand, a piece of
garlic.
He had been a boy full of fantasy.
Leaning against the railing of the turret he looked down at the darkness. That
was one of the new tactics of Oz: switching off all lights when the night came.
In this way, they thought to be less exposed to their enemies' eyes. Milos
thought that could be right, but if the enemies couldn't see him, he also
couldn't see the enemies...
Something hit his neck. With a cry, Milos backed away from the railing and
threw him self on the floor searching frantically for the torch, as his fingers
touched something hard and cold he released a breath of relief.
Still sprawled on the floor he lit the torch and looked for what had hit him.
There, in an angle of the turret's ceiling was a bat... a little bat, no bigger
than his own hand.
Standing, Milos laughed at him self, only a stupid, innocuous, little bat.
Still smiling he neared the bat and observed it for a moment. It's fine whiskers
vibrated frantically and it's whole body shook a little, but Milos knew that
was normal. He had seen plenty of bats, in Transylvania there were many and his
mum had always told him to pay attention not to get to near to them because
they could bite.
"Bite eh?" said Milos to the bat. "Do you want to byte me and
suck my blood?" He begun to giggle. "Don't' tell me you're Dracula
'cause I'm afraid I can't believe you!"
Laughing he switched the torch off. He wanted to turn and retake his duty, when
he noted something strange had happened to the turret: it was filled with a
strange green light, also the bat's eyes and whiskers glowed in that light as
his whole body did.
"What the..." Milos did not panic, he still was a trained Oz soldier
also if he was the son of superstitious Transylvanian farmers. First of all he
controlled the torch: it was out. Then he checked for the few headlamps on the
ceiling of the turret, but they were out too. Only then he finally turned
around.
What he saw, was something coming out directly from his childhood's nightmares.
Two enormous green eyes were watching him over the railing of the turret. That
eyes couldn't possibly be human or animals eyes, they were big as half a man
and shined with that cold, green light.
Milos blinked. Perhaps he was shocked, who knows. It's sure that he was frozen,
all the muscles of his body did not obey anymore, all he could do was look into
those eyes.
Then, there came the voice, a young, cheerful voice:
"Hello," greeted the voice.
"He...Hel...Hello," answered Milos.
"Nice night, ne?" Asked the voice.
"Uh...Uh...Yes?" Milos hoped that was the right answer.
"I definitely have something for nights full of stars, you?" Asked
again the voice.
"Uh...Sure!" Answered Milos, blinking.
"You don't seem afraid of me..." Wondered the voice.
"Uh...To be honest...I've already pissed in my trousers."
The voice giggled softly.
"Do you mind if I blow up this base?" Asked the voice again.
"Excuse me?"
"I know it's annoying", stated the voice. "But, I'm Shinigami
and someone has to do the dirty work. Do you mind?"
"Shini who?"
The last thing Milos could remember was that voice tsk-ing: "I knew I
should have chosen an easier name, Dracula hadn't all these problems..."
Only once, with Louis, his best friends among the soldiers, he alluded at big
green eyes, a cheerful voice, a shini-who? of sort but his superiors were
convinced he had dreamt, they did not believe.
Two sentinels were on duty on the turret of the base.
"I've heard he always is followed by myriads of bats."
"Bats?"
"Yeah! If you see a bat, you can be sure he isn't too far away!"
"But who is this enemy? Batman or Dracula?"
A bat entered the turret, green light surrounded the two sentinels, a voice,
young and cheerful, said: "None of them, I'm Shinigami! S-h-i-n-i-g-a-m-i
!!!"
While pissing in their pants, the two soldiers chorused: "Shini who?"