Authors note: So, no reviews for the last chapter so this area will be left blank. And happy new year!
Screaming that's all there was, never ending. Then I felt a jab in my shoulder, for a second, I felt a soothing numb begin to take my body and I allowed my self a small smile. 'Finally, an end to the pain' I thought. But before the growing darkness that began to fill my sight I heard a scream. It was faint and it sounded far away. "that's right you bastard I'm leaving you in this hell, see ya." I whispered. Then all I saw was darkness, peace…. peace at last I though.
"GAHHHHHH!" I screamed. My eyes shot open and I felt a searing pain in my lower left abdomen. I looked towards the area the pain originates from. What I saw scared me, there was no skin and my muscles were torn. I saw guts and a couple of intestines, all hanging out of the cavity. Tears began to fall from my eyes. The pain was that of fire, slowly burning every individual nerve in my body. While I was screaming I notice in the edges of my vision long arms that ended in razor sharp claws come around from behind me. At first, I thought they would descend on the rest of my body, making it a mess. Leaving me as a pile of broken bones and flesh. But no, no it didn't give me any hope of death. For the arms curled around my body, they grasped around my abdomen and pulled me back. I felt something on my back it is hard to describe due to the pain.
The thing that frightened me the most was how gentle the arms were, they held me like how a mother would when trying to comfort a crying child. No force, no malicious intent in this dark embrace. "Ssshhhhh. Young William, don't cry, after all there's no need to." I heard that sickly sweet voice. The more feminine tone was prevalent while the male one sounded quieter. "its alright we have you. The pain will be all over, just rest dear we are here." It whispered. I tried to say something anything, but I couldn't. my mouth was stuck in the shape of how I was screaming, yet no sound came. All there was its voice and silence. I couldn't believe this was happening, why, why? Was the only question that came to me, the only one.
I felt one of the clawed hands begin to move upwards to my head. My eyes widened and thoughts flew threw my head, so jumbled, no organization to them. Before I could extract any of them I felt the claw around my chin. And slowly it forces my mouth shut. Once it completed this action it moves over my lips and pressed down, silencing my already silent screams. My eyes darted left and right trying to see anything besides the darkness and the arms. Yet there was nothing but blackness, 'God dammit what was happening?! What hell have I landed in?' while I was pondering this thought the arms withdrew from my head and began to wrap around me again. I quickly realized this and slammed my foot where I assume its knee was.
I was dropped with little care and as I fell I was accompanied by a roar filled with rage and pain. I thought that I would just keep falling and be stuck there, what I did not expect was that I would hit a surprisingly hard ground. And it hurt, especially since I went said ground with my face first. Though I quickly collected myself and rolled to the right. I looked to where I was and saw a giant claw impaled in the ground. I shot a glance at the thing and what I saw was hard to explain, its body seemed to be made of a black smoke, the smoke seemed to end in faint but visible purple outlines and its eyes were a sharp red, the pupils of it were a dark white dirty even. Before I could make any more observations, I rolled away for the creature had shot out its claws at me again,
"YOU LITTLE SHIT! WE WILL SEND YOU TO MEPHASTOPHILIS!" It yelled. I noticed that its voice had taken on the more masculine tone from its more female one. I bolted like a track runner with no regard for what was happening around me. I quickly looked behind me and saw the beast giving chase to me, which is not surprising given the kick I gave the freak. I turned my head and looked around, all I saw was darkness. I looked towards a random direction and ran; my only thoughts were that of what would happen to me if the thing got its claws on me. So, with all I had I ran, north, south, right, left. These directions and more I went, but I always felt the creature right behind me. Every once in a while, I heard a swipe and thankfully it missed. This went on for what seemed like days and more, but then fate played a joke most cruel, for while the cavity in my body had slowly but surly the entrails had leaked out. And the outcome was one that to this day haunts me. They fell and I slipped on the blood and gore all the while screaming like a child. And once the ground and me made contact I slowly rolled over while groaning in pain. I looked up and saw the shadow creature, but know it had gained a more wolf like appearance. But it was all wrong, it stood on two legs and its body was that of a mix between a mans and wolfs chest, it glared down at me and slowly I heard it growl.
"so, this has what it comes to, not through persuasion but through force. We half way agree to such a tactic, while our other disagrees. But they're not here, now are they?" It chuckled darkly. The masculine voice had taken a predominate role. Slowly I took its shadowy claws and moved them to my chest. And I closed my eyes and whimpered and waited for the torture to come. I yelled when I felt the claws begin to sink into my flesh, and I felt that my time had come.
That was until a bright flash broke the darkness. Like a bomb dropping on a building an explosion of blinding white light began to envelope the area, I then heard a scream from the shade and I looked towards it. It had stopped in its menstruations and began to flee from the light. I came to a stop myself and watched as it gave me a glare and it disappeared into the shadows. During this I'd forgotten the ever-expanding light and when I looked in its direction and it was upon me, before I could utter a single word I was enveloped and all there remained was blinding light.
Maybe it was because the darkness left me feeling cold I thought the light would burn me, after all when you basically confront or in my case run from what could be called a demon you`d give me some slack form this little thought. But no, I was actually wrong. It felt like a warm summers breeze gently caressing you after a long run, it was relaxing to say the least. A nice change but that still didn't stop me form asking one simple yet extremely important question, which I decided would get answered if I asked aloud. "WHEN WILL THIS NIGHTMARE END?!" I never said that I would ask politely now did I. And I was answered with… nothing…. Yep what did I expect from that? Something yet I received nothing…. I really expected that to work…. I'm going insane. My inner monologed was interrupted when everything began to fade to black, now it wasn't the type that I just escaped from, no it was due to my eyes being to close. They felt heavy and I could no longer support them, I tried too but it would not work before I could figure a way to keep them open they had already closed.
Soon I felt my eyes begin to open, and it was hard to get them moving, the shudders that were my eyes began to open and what I saw confused me. I was lying in a bed with an iv attached to my arm. The room was compact with a small bed side desk with a lamp and papers on it. There was a round window to my far left, I managed to see outside and only saw black. At first, I was worried that I had returned to hell but that was soon debunked with the door opening and in came a nurse.
I wanted to jump for joy when the nurse walked in, but I found that I couldn't really move anything with out pain shooting through me. I groaned from the pain, from what I could gather the cause of such might have been due to… to…. What the hell happened? I remember seeing something in the fog back when I was on watch, but after that everything is a blur. Where was I? It seems that my puzzlement had worked its way onto my face for the nurse soon asked.
"Well it seems you've finally woken up Mr. Booth, to be honest after the 3rd day many began to doubt you'd live." She said with mirth. I gave her the best glare I could but it seemed that my replication of deaths glance was a failure most paramount. For there was no step back or no avoided glance, no what I received was a chuckle. Once she had her fill of merriment, she looked down at the clip board she was caring and began to write something. I just watched her, what else was I suppose to do? My body felt like it was on fire or something to a similar effect. She seemed to be relatively tall, 5`8 or 7 if my estimate was correct. Her hair was a long amber that reached to her shoulders, a couple of freckles here and there on her face. And if I must be honest the brightest shade of emerald that I had the pleasure to lay my own weary brown ones on.
"See something you like Mr. Booth?" she said with a husky voice. It would seem that my overview of the young woman had to be cut short due to 1. She had caught me staring, and 2. Would be my inability to say jack shit due to what appeared to be the almighty embarrassed stutter. It seems we meet again my annoying adversary. While I was trying to take back control of my vocals and mouth, she seemed to be enjoying my discomfort. This enjoyment soon took hold and I was treated to a delightful laughter, it was soft and melodious, I quickly reasserted my control and managed to force out.
"My apologies miss, I meant no offense." Was what coming out, and boy was it weak, nothing special just a I'm sorry and nothing more. I wanted to face palm but luckily, I remember that I was in quite a bit of pain so I refused said impulse. She gave me a deepened look and shook her head. She pulled a chair from the corner from the room and set it right next to my bed and sat down. She looked down at her clip board and muttered something I could barely make out. Now that I think about it all my senses seem to be a bit off. My hearing was a bit fuzzy, my eye sight wasn't what it normally was everything that I wasn't focusing on was blurry. I felt like my nose was stuffed full of crap and I could feel much. I could get the base feeling off the cloth blanket but no real texture stood out. I didn't taste anything but that was normal.
I began to sweat a bit from the sudden screwing of my sense, but I soon felt a slight pressure on my right arm. I looked over to see that the nurse was the owner of the offending appendage, I looked over to her and saw concern and intrigue in her eyes.
"Mr. Booth you need to calm down, tell me what's wrong so I can help you, please calm down," she all but pleaded with a low tone of voice. I managed to let a short nod come from me and I began to take calm breaths. After a minute of working on making my body calm down, I finally found some semblance of calm in this raging storm that was my mind, and like a sailor I held onto my raft like a mad man. Once that was squared away the nurse took her hand away and she went back to her clip board, after a minute or 2 she looked back up at me and with a pointed look told me.
"Mr. Booth now that your awake I'm going to ask you some questions, I need you to answer as honestly as you can be." She said with a tone the broke no argument, so I did what I only could and that was nod my head. She smiled at me and looked down then right back up.
"okay now then, do you feel anything unusual. Like a tingling feeling or a large amount of pain?"
"Well just a few minutes ago my body felt if I had been dumped in a bath filled to the brim with scolding water, but as of now I can barely feel a dam thing."
"How about vison and the rest of the senses, any abnormalities there too?" she prodded.
"Well the rest are a bit jacked up as well, either I've lost a good a mount of said sense or it gone. Thankfully it seems that it's the former that is the most abundant." I replied.
"Do you remember anything, anything after you entered the forest" she asked. And I replied with a shake of my head. She nodded and began to write what I can only assume to be the conversation so far. Not long after she began to write my mind began to wander, specifically to the hell that I just escaped. The shadow creature that had the vague form of a wolf, and it dual tone voice. The sweet and loving female voice and the strong, cruel and demanding male voice. The encounter was all to real for me to believe and thankfully I was out of there. But the thing that really confused me were its word choice, like referring to it self as 'we' instead of 'I' and that it threated me to send my corpse to someone. I could remember for the life of me who that was. I was once again pulled from my mind when I felt the pressure on my arm again. I looked over to see my care giver was looking at me with concerned eyes.
"Mr. Booth I've been calling your name for some time now, I was worried that you`d slipped off again." She told me. How? Was the only thought that ran through my head. I've been only pondering what felt like a minute at best, but here I was being told it had been much longer. I shook my head rather violently and I focused on the woman besides me and told her that I was sorry and that I was ready to continue with the questions. She pauses for just a moment, only a moment before we continued and in that brief moment, I saw something in her eyes. And that I saw was strangely fear. Fear of what is the question, could if be for my wellbeing or something else? Before this train of questions could come to fruition, she had asked her next question.
"Okay since you can't seem to remember much, I'm going to give you a quick rundown that was based off a report from one Konrad Sherwood. You were sent to watch the perimeter of the camp for the next handful of hours before you'd switch with someone else, but before this could happen you for some reason went into the forest. For what reason I don't know but that's besides the point, at some point the camp heard the sound of your rifle go off and they rushed to find where you were." She recited. "When they went to where you were supposed to be patrolling and found you to be no where in site. They soon found your tracks and began to follow, once in the forest they found rather large wolf like paw prints next to yours. They soon found you in a clearing with a large "wolf like" beast tearing into you. After this they attacked the beast and it soon ran off. Then they took you to the other doctor on site and sedated you." She finished.
And just like someone flipped a light switch on it all came back to me. The beast and the clearing, the gun shots and the pain. without a moment's hesitation I tore away the bed sheets and lifted my shirt up and looked at my chest. And there right in the middle was a large patched up wound mark. I could still see the stiches that were holding it together. I was shocked to see such a wound, it looked like I was mangled rather than bitten by a wolf. It was horrifying to be honest. That this could have happened to me. I slowly lowered my shirt and looked up to the metal celling with a hazed look in my eyes. Wait metal celling? I looked over to my nurse with a question in mind and I asked, where was I?
With I tired expression she answered me "You're on the U.S.S Tyler and were on our way to your home." With that I just stared at here, I was being sent home. I was being sent home. On one hand I want to jump up and give her the biggest hug I could, on the other I wanted to cry. I was leaving my friends and comrades in the hole, to fight the good fight without me there to keep them from dying. Of course, I couldn't forget that doc was still there but still, for all his expertise on the field he would eventually fall to stress and then had hit the bottle. If there was one thing that none of us wanted was for him to hit that bottle, he made us promise to him that wed not let him touch it.
He told us his story of how he wanted to change, for the betterment of him and his family. And with me gone that would have become harder for the poor sod. Then there was Konrad, I was his left hand if you would. I was there to help reinforce his will, now he wasn't so jack ass that force his will when it came down to it. He was respected enough by the men for no one to question him, no it was the greens that were the ones to look out for. Don't get me wrong some of them knew what they were getting into, but sadly the others were just a bunch of hat heads. Thinking themselves the hot shots due to making it through basic training and of course the propaganda. But that's beside the point, it just didn't feel right to leave my comrades.
We all had one goal, just one that we could all agree on. And that was to help each other get out of that hell hole, and return home. If I could I would demand to be sent back but, if command was sending me back then that went, I wasn't fit to serve. I don't know if it was due to me being out or if that creature did a really big number on me. I sighed, what to do, what to do. From my stand point I had two options. One was hard to do and the other was hard to swallow. First, I could demand to be sent back to the front to help my friends but I doubt they would turn this boat around. Especially if I was being sent back on some one's orders. And number two was just to sit back and go with the flow, and that was hard to believe.
"What's the probability that we could turn this boat around and send me back to the front?" I asked. She looked at me with surprise all over her face. Apparently, that wasn't what she was expecting me to ask. For a good minute she had a look of complete and utter shock, this eventual lead to her shock to fade to contemplation. For a couple of more minutes she just stared off into space with an unreadable expression. After the third minute had passed, she looked back to me with a grim expression.
"In all reality id say zero percent chance. Now before you say anything, I don't know who order you back home, but I do know that you've been given a purple heart congratulations by the way. And we are checking if you have any forms of shell shock." She relayed. I was in my own form of shock after this. A purple heart, that was surprising considering what had happened, and the shell-shocked part was believable. I've seen my fair share of shit in the meat grinder. No thanks in part to Konrad, the crazy bastard. And I guess that paired with the attack this could cause shells shock. I mean I've seen what it does to men in combat. The freezing of the limbs, the look of abject terror in their eyes, and finally the screaming. Now from what I've seen after the aforementioned stage was reached two things happened, number one they would stay locked in position or fall to the found and cry. Number two they would go into an almost berserker rage and attack. If occurred in combat than the life expectancy went from a medium almost to zero.
I relented after this was given to me and begrudgingly excepted this is what would happen. She gave me a smile and got up from her chair and went over to the window. She looked out of it and looked upwards.
"Its around midnight and I should be getting some rest, but first I have to give my report to doctor Asher. And you should get some rest Mr. Booth." With that she pulled away form the window and went to the desk with the lamp on it and turned it off. Once that was done, she walked over to the door and was just about to leave when I asked.
"What is your name if I may ask?"
She turned around and gave me a smile.
"Took you long enough, my name is Keira O'Connor and I'm your nurse. And I wish you a good night Mr. Booth." And with that she left with a smile on her face. I smiled back and when the door was closed, I began to get ready for bed. Once I was all nice and snug, I began to think on what so far has happened in my life. My parents are dead, I was the sole heir to their fortune and few people would approach me like a normal human being. Then I was drafted by the government to fight in this war. And finally, I was attacked by what could only be called a daemon from some sort of ancient pagan myth. With a dry chuckle I felt my eyes grow heavy and they began to close. If I wasn't so dam tired, I would have noticed the blood red eyes that were looking at me from a corner in the room with enough rage that it could melt me with its intensity.
"Soon very soon you will be ours, and then the fun will truly begin." It gave a quite but smooth sounding chuckle, before it seemed to melt into a shadowy liquid form and slithered up onto the bed and sunk into Williams skin.