I just saw TTT! Yay! ^_^ This is a one-shot, written in second person; "you" are a fifteen-year-old Rohan refugee. (And they say second person isn't a proper literary device...who the heck are "they" anyway?)
Nightmares
You're fifteen years old. You and your family have fled from Edoras to Helms Deep. You thought you were fleeing the war. Now your mother and little sister are in the caves behind the fortress, while you and your fourteen-year-old brother have been given swords and told to go fight orcs.
You and your family are farmers - were farmers. This is the first time in your life you've touched a sword. It scares you, all of it - the cold metal, the grim veterans, the heft of a sword in your hands. It scares you. Rumors say that there's a thousand orcs, ten thousand, a hundred thousand, marching to the fortress. A hundred thousand bodies, crammed in front of the castle...it boggles the mind.
You and your brother practice with your new swords while you wait, darting forward and back across the stones of the courtyard like you did when you were little. The old men stare at you as if you're insane, and look away shaking their heads.
You're called up to the battlements. You march up with the others almost hesitantly. What little excitement there was is gone now, and you're scared. Tingles are running up and down your back. The face of your brother next to you is drawn and pale. The older men heft their swords nervously. The veterans walk grimly onto the battlements and survey the field with a practiced eye. You look out, but all you see is orcs-
Thousands of orcs. Tens of thousands. Their ranks stretch out as far as you can see, carpeting the field in black. Ten thousand orcs, pounding their spears on the ground. The sound is deafening. The sight is terrifying.
It comes on you, slow and sickening, how small and insignificant you are next to a horde of orcs. It comes on you how small your chances of surviving are. You dimly hear Aragorn yelling something. It sounds elvish. It's hard to tell with your blood pounding in your ears for the world to hear. You're terrified.
The elves stop firing. Ladders poke up in front of the battlements. The time for fear is over. You look at the veterans, standing there grimly with their swords in hand. You see Aragorn on the front line of battle, unafraid, and Theoden, your king, his sword raised. You grip the hilt of your sword tightly in an attempt to calm yourself. The cold metal that scared you now comforts you, and you raise your sword and plunge forward, squeezing between the ranks of the older men; they try to hold you back, but you will not be stopped. Suddenly you're at the wall, in front of a ladder, staring an orc straight in the eyes.
Cold fire shocks through your veins. You lose control of your bowels.
Your body reacts nevertheless, hacking at the orc's throat. The orc is holding onto the ladder, and can't react fast enough; it falls. Acting on pure instinct, you shove the ladder back onto the orc army. The end of a spear intrudes on your field of vision; you twist away just in time and swing wildly at the orc, the play duels of childhood completely forgotten. Terror surges just below the lid of action, threatening to boil over at any moment. And under it you think: Is this what war is...?
And the answer comes, from the actions of the veterans around you: Yes.
You run forward, dodge, thrust, swing, and disengage; you've taken a wound on your leg. You turn to the side and repeat the maneuver. Your body is reacting more than acting, on pure instinct, any sword drills you might have once seen completely forgotten. The wound on your leg is bleeding heavily. Your brother is nowhere to be seen. Out of the corner of your eye you see someone finish off your orc. You feel a blade slice across your back in a line of white-hot fire and pain. You spin to see someone with their sword in an orc; you dash forward and stab it, then back off. Common sense now dictates to fall back behind the battle and nurse your wounds, but you can't do that. There are too many people in the way...and the orcs will find you, even if you run.
Suddenly you're in a lull, a tiny bit of time and space with no orcs immediately attacking you. You try not to collapse against the wall. You need to keep moving. You look around desperately, see an orc charging toward you, spear set - you thrust your body out of the way just in time, and manage to swing at it as it goes past. It's finished off by someone.
Once again you find yourself in a lull. You look out onto the carpet of orcs, and a small whimper escapes your throat as you see how little their numbers are diminished. You see a lot of orcs with their shields over their head advancing up the causeway, an orc running towards the walls with a huge torch in its hand. Arrows are being shot at it, most of them somehow missing. It makes it to the walls-
A humongous blast rattles the castle. A section of the wall not twenty feet from you simply explodes. The retreat sounds. You run, skewer an orc, and keep running. Your arm is in pain, your leg an agony. Somehow you make it into the keep. You nearly collapse; you manage to sit down with some modicum of grace. Hazily you see Aragorn, an elf and a dwarf come running in. The doors slam shut.
You survived.
The terror you suppressed during the battle now comes crashing down on you, and your body starts spasming. Your breath is coming in short little spurts. You grip the hilt of your blood-stained sword in a vain attempt to calm yourself. Someone comes over to you and starts dressing your wounds. Someone helps him hold you still. Slowly the fear starts to trickle out of you. You look around. There are maybe a tenth of the men that went out. You don't see your brother anywhere. The only other person under twenty is lying on the ground covered in blood, and little of it orc. Orcs are banging on the door as it's being rebarricaded. Aragorn and Theoden are arguing. Men are piling wood up against the doors. You're coming out of that dreamlike haze of pain and fear. It vaguely registers that someone is talking to you, but you can't quite understand them yet. You try to sit up. You hurt like hell, but you seem to be okay.
Then it hits you that you're going to have to do that again, and you feel as if you're going to be sick. You curl up into a ball, with just one thought repeating itself: We are all going to die...
"There, boy," the person who bandaged you says uncomfortably, "we aren't dead yet. We've still got time."
You stare at him, and realize that you had said that aloud. You look around again. You must have been out for longer than it seemed, because it's dawn. The door is all but in splinters. Theoden and Aragorn are looking at the tiny window where the sun is coming in. They start getting up on horses, preparing for one final charge.
No. No. They're all going to die. You're going to die. This is madness. This is a nightmare. Valar save us, we are all going to die.
You stagger to your feet. Your wounds aren't too bad. Somehow you've managed to hold on to your sword.
You mount up on one of the horses.
And you ride out to meet them.
I had to watch the movie again to get the timeline right...I actually took notes. You should have seen the looks I got. *grins* Please review.