Horizon
Suns and moons of varying size and luminescence danced a slow, circuitous ballet above the wintergreen sea. Consciousness came and went, and it was unclear how much time had passed. Pile knew not whether he slept or merely lost himself to feverish staring. At some point he ate—a moldy hunk of bread and three small chicken bones hidden within his supplies, washed down with mouthfuls of snow—and he knew he left the safety of the cave once to relieve himself, but otherwise he had remained curled up in the shadows for an unknown period of time, nursing his wounds.
It was there that he sat now: naked and shivering one end of the cave, staring intently at all he owned.
The burlap sack that had once held everything lay open, spread like a tiny tablecloth on the dusty ground. Everything inside lay scattered across the rough material, lying in several disorderly heaps without rhyme or reason. His uniform lay crumpled nearby, stained and bloody and torn beneath the shadow of his Nagant, which leaned royally against the cave wall. His bayonet glinted faintly in the middle of it all: bloody steel surrounded by stacks of various ammunitions—most of which would fit his rifle—two Dutch Stielhandgrenates and a Soviet F1 fragg, bootlaces, an small, empty bottle of vodka and antibiotic, two condoms, a tin of German cigarettes, tobacco, rolling papers, a tin of sardines, and a cracked pair of binoculars.
A goldmine in the city… but here…
What was he going to do with condoms?
Lightly, Pile ran a finger along his side, wincing as it ran across his ragged, healing flesh. The punctures in his arm were blackened and sunken, but were less painful and hopefully not infected, and the burnt fissure below his ribs only clawed him when he moved. It was a godsend, really. Not moving was one of the things Pile was trained to do.
He was okay at it.
Sunlight shimmered in the corner of his eye, setting a divine spotlight streaming across the dirt floor. Angelic specks of dust tickled his skin, and Pile finally dressed himself, roughly pulling everything together: pants, shirt, coat, consciousness. The otherworldly dirt caking his ragged clothes felt oily against him, and he shuddered. Standing up to his full height, the sniper snatched up the old binoculars and walked further into the morning light.
Pile approached the edge of his own mountain shelf, and gazed upon a slice of Heaven: an ocean of snow-capped trees stretching onward to the horizon. There was something though—something he had spied on the climb all that immeasurable time ago—a metallic glint to the north, at the forest's end. A quick scan along the edges of his new world with the binoculars confirmed the sniper's suspicions, and he sighed.
It was a weathervane, and weathervanes meant a building or a town, and a town meant people… people who cared about the weather.
There was a town at the edge of Heaven.
Pile wasn't alone, and he didn't quite know how to feel about that. It made sense that more people could have escaped judgment—refused to let go—but who? How many? Did the Germans make it? Pile's comrades?
Maybe he wasn't dead at all.
The revelation hit him hard, and the sniper lowered his binoculars for a moment, simply choosing to stare unaided across the cold, quiet land. Death had been an easy explanation: the best one. But what if it was something else? Pile had felt nothing but intense pain since arriving, and all the stories his father told him made it seem impossible to be hurt after death. There were dangers… but no pain. Hurting came later, after judgment.
Of course, Papa Vetrov could very well have been wrong.
Epileptic seizures weren't exactly death, now were they?
Maybe this wasn't the transition, and he had been reborn… as a starving twenty-year-old soldier in Stalin's Glorious Red Army. Maybe there wasn't a transition.
Pile shifted his feet and felt his stomach clench. Growling to himself, Pile ignored the gnawing pit in his stomach and tried to come up with some rational reason for his presence there. His eyes glazed over, and the ground fell away as his mind turned inward on itself.
*gr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r*
Fuck it.
Vetrov spat in his hand and rubbed it in the dirty lenses of his binoculars before taking another look at the slowly turning weathervane and the misshapen, snowy lumps that spread away from the gleaming edifice like acne. The place definitely deserved a closer look…
Another wet gurgle emanated from the corporal's belly, and he lowered the binoculars.
He would explore, but first he needed to eat.
Time to go hunting.
Shapes moved in the forest.
They weren't the flowy, shadowy shapes Rarity was used to catching—writhing in the corner of her eye while she worked on a particularly difficult stitch. She had taken to leaving the windows closed throughout the day to minimize distraction… but they weren't closed today.
"Rarity? What are those things?"
Lithe and tall, they bent and moved among the trees, and the porcelain fashionista thought she could see the glint of metal amidst the snowy vegetation.
"I don't know, Sweetie, but I think… I think you should stay inside today. It's very rare for something from the Everfree Forest to come this close to town without provocation."
A warm presence brushed up against her coat, and Rarity shuddered involuntarily as her little sister perched on the edge of the windowsill. "But they're just trotting around at the forest's edge. What are they doing?"
Decisively, Rarity raised a hoof, and with a sharp tug the shades fell across the frosted glass of the Boutique's rear window.
"Whatever it is they're doing, it is of little consequence. Animal things, Darling. Nothing to worry about." With a gentle tug of the hoof, the pristine unicorn put on a strained smile and pulled her younger sibling away fro the opaque portal. "How about I make some hot chocolate while you be a dear and tell me about your day?"
Sweetie Belle squealed happily and bolted toward the kitchen:
"I'll boil the water!"
Sister gone, the warmth drained from Rarity's smile and she turned back toward the window. Blue manalight glowing faintly, she bent one shade downward and looked out into the wild, wintry arbor beyond:
Still and silent as the grave.
Perhaps she had just imagined it along with her sister—shared hysteria: she'd read about it in one or two very well to do magazines, she was sure.
No matter. She promised Sweetie that she would—wait...
"Sweetie Belle! Don't—"
The fire alarm whined and beeped its clarion call from the kitchen, and Rarity sighed.
"—touch the oven…"
Stillness is an art.
Tranquility of the muscles; the body; the mind; the soul—it promotes an almost ethereal aura around a skilled practitioner of the statuary arts.
"I am invisible: a phantom amongst dogs."
Breathing slows to a near standstill, and the beat of one's heart is the only thing that reminds an artist of his true mortality.
"My will is law; my rifle, its instrument."
Every sight, sound, and smell is amplified. Pile perceived all around his in his stillness, and, as snow fell in rapturous waves from the sky above, his finger tightened on the trigger.
A distant yowl stayed his itching finger, but it was two far away to be of any consequence. The Guardian was nothing to him—a god in his moment—and Pile focused on ending his stillness.
He lay in a thicket downwind of a small clearing, smeared in all manner of mud and filth. The salty smell of sardine hung on the breeze, and the sniper pressed carefully down upon the trigger of his rifle: comfortingly solid against his thin shoulder.
In the center of the open ground—in the center of Pile's crosshair—lay a small mound of sardines. Further on, his prey, a pair of curious raccoons, stood warily beneath the tree line.
Snow in his mouth to mask the warmth of his breath, Pile remained invisible, and the furry pair moved closer.
"Woe betide all who draw the attention of my instrument."
Thunder rocked the clearing, and red mist stained the snowy air. Rough squeaking and crunching frost signaled the retreat of raccoon number two, but Pile ignored it, as new, wrathful cries could be heard to the east. They drew closer.
The Guardian. It knew.
Rising from the bushes, Pile quickly made to gather his dinner. Tonight, he would feast, and tomorrow...
He strode to the opposite tree line, lifting the nearly headless raccoon by its limp, bushy tail and shoving it into his empty bag. Careful of blood, he slung the whole thing over his back. He turned west, and made for the high ground: his home above the horizon.
Burlap men never sleep, but tonight Pile would dream: dream of civilization and beautiful company.
… tomorrow, Pile would scout the town.