Die Crawler im Inneren (german for the crawler within)
The weather was very soiled and fogged as we held against the French. Castle Focher Blacher was a strong point and the road to Vienna had to be held at all costs. Once it was a beautiful estate, and now it's a shadow of its former self. The castle was crumbling, mice and rats were all over, stealing food from the pantries and giving our soldiers a rough time ,and it wasn't helping the poor building that artillery shells fell like a mouse trap onto the neck of a mouse. The French Army was initiating a siege with all their artillery, wherever the shells landed they always made a giant fountain of soil, shrapnel, and the mutilated bodies of trees and living things.
As captain of one of the three regiments I ordered my men to open fire on the charging French. Slowly one by one men started falling, in rhythm with the Maxim Machine Gun. The French opened up with artillery once again and soon our position was being taken under fire by a French artillery company. I saw a shell impact the earth right on top of 3 men, once the dust cleared there were no body parts, no evidence that could prove those men existed, the only thing I heard was screams and a digging sound.
The next few hours were uneventful as the two sides made truce to collect wounded and their dead. We only had 1 hour left until the truce was broken and I stood there talking to my opposite, a french officer. Even though we were at war we talked peacefully about life at home and what we were going to do after the war. Once the truce ended we were back at it again. The French started doing an artillery curtain for their advancing soldiers. Soon a shell hit nearby but didn't seem to do any real damage, other than the fact that a couple of soldiers disappeared and the same sounds as before.
It was technically dinner time as we sat down to eat our daily rations of sausages and bread, we heard a grunting noise, not any type of grunting noise, an unhuman grunt. We checked it out and there was only a trail of blood and a strange substance. There were then soldiers coming up to us to check the hospital as it had been attacked. Once we arrived it was carnage, blood, organs and a cold tingling feeling that ran up people's spines. Again the grunting noise, and a muffled scream for help. We rushed over a little too late. A dying doctor on the floor started gasping and was pointing to something. We couldn't see anything, as I debated whether to save him or leave him, the slimiest slobber started to pour down on a soldier. We looked up to the source and we saw the ugliest thing to exist. It started to attack, cutting through our ranks, I took a couple of soldiers, nurses, and doctors and ran. I warned everybody and told them to evacuate. One of my men asked "but sir, Vienna will be exposed we can't... leave", i responded "the French can deal with whatever this demonic castle holds we need to LEAVE". "COWARD" I heard as a run and then the blood curdling screams of the same soldier, karma i thought. A cacophony of gunshots and screams and the roaring of the beast as I was running i was thinking, maybe it was protecting something, maybe it was only defending its territory, I started to feel bad and wretched at the realization that we, humans, have taken its natural home.
BOOM
The French saw dismay running in and out and screaming, so they ordered a charge on our lines. We were too busy with the creature to notice the french cannon fire.
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
*ARGHIRRORRR*
BOOM
BOOM
Until
BOOM
*black*
I woke up with blood in my vision and the business end of a french rifle
I tried to warn them in a raspy voice.
Der Crawler ist drin (german for The crawler is within)
They laughed, stupid austrians they thought.
Then I got picked up by the French into a field hospital and kept as a POW. They thought I was shell shocked, and admitted me to an asylum in France. I have nightmares of slobber and glowing red eyes and wake up with a jolt.
Epilogue
The first disappearance in 26 years a young boy was taken when out hiking in the Austrian forests with his parents.
The gothic era mansion Focher Blacher was built by Count Vermillion Von Blacher. The scene of many battles and anomalies, it was taken by the French on August /14/ 1915 after defeating the demoralized garrison.
Documents show 5 companies of the 3rd army corp that have disappeared without a trace. The Austrians never tried to reclaim the castle. On September 26 1978, declassified documents showed many disappearances of tourists, agents, and government supported strike teams of the Soviets and the Americans. A survivor of the Battle of Focher Blacher, Karls Hobmster says in his only interview before his death 10 years later, "the "crawler" was awakened by the forces of war. It didn't like the big booms of artillery. It has gained the natural right to live there and has only been protecting its territory of which we had taken its home". The legend grew as pictures related to the monster started to circulate online. Since the last disappearance in October 10 1994 there have been no anomalies inside the castle according to the owner and his wife.
More information as this story develops.
*growl*
I didn't use character development that much as I would have liked to. I am not the best at development. My characters were kinda bland, not going to lie, and I mainly wanted to focus on the crawler.
My conflict for the characters is whether to save yourself or help others and sacrifice yourself in the process.
The setting is set in world war 1 to represent the carnage that woke up the creature that awoke from the battle. The castle is one of the main settings as it was once glorious and now it is a scene of battle.
The theme is a mix of Gothic/War. I used the chaos of War, added with the gothic style setting and monster made for a chaotic and bloody story.
Words I used meant chaotic, gore, or a mixture of both, I wanted to make my monster pop out from the story.
The weather was awful and gloomy, which is the personification of the inhabitants of earth at war and the planet earth in pain and crying. As for setting and timeline the First World War took place from 1914-1919. I guess in my book if there were no advanced way of communication, I would count it as old. The castle also adds to the old gothic theme and setting.