The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war
The sound of gunfire was deafening. In the dark there were flashes of light as guns released their prizes and the sound of screams were drowned out by the sound of machinery. One man ran through the midst foolishly but desperately. He had to move fast. There were hundreds counting on him to make it to them. His pack was running low but these men needed him. He could see it in his eyes. His supplies were dwindling and he hated the thought of what would happen if he ran out but he persisted forever onward. These men needed him and while he wanted to be a healer he had no idea what he was doing. The enemy had butchered their only medic and now it was up to him the drop out med student to save a group of boys. Bullets whipped past him and nearly missed him as he ran from one trench to another with his gun constantly going off. He shoots blindly trying to escape all of it. There is a sense of desperation in his movements and his eyes are scared. He is just a boy, a lost little boy who signed up for war with ideas of grandeur. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He was supposed to come in and kill a few people of the opposing team and walk out a war hero. They never said anything about watching friends die and watching as the men you called friends all fell down; their eyes glazed and body parts missing. They never said that there would be hell to pay and they most definitely never said they would be on their own. He wanted to fight for his country and for the freedoms she gave to them but this was too high a price. It rained that night. The night it all went to the crapper. To say it rained is putting it mildly. It stormed ir raged it was a bloody disaster. It is as if Mother Nature knew of the disaster that was going to happen to her family and raged and wept for them all. The ground was slick with the tears she cried and the air thick with tension that only a heavy and deadly storm can produce. The clouds were as black as the Devil’s own heart and it was hard to see anything through the crippling rain. It came down in sheets and it was cold. It was the middle of fall and the rain was cold. It was the take your breath away type of cold. Even the painted stallion had a hard time breathing but he had to get to the center. He had to stop all of this. He could hear the screams, even now. Veteran Soldier was still a mile out. He knew he needed to close but through the pelting rain and the thunder he could still hear the sounds of his brothers dying. The sound ripped his soul apart and he grieved for their actions and his inability to stop them as he ran towards them. His neck stretched out and his tail up as his hooved hit the dirt. He moved quickly as quickly as his worn body would allow him to. The ground was slick and it was honestly a pure miracle he didn’t slip but he had something in his corner. A thing that was cheering for him and there was a tinge of hope clinging to him desperately and he refused to let it go. He had tried to warn them. He had tried to save them from their own actions but they would not listen. Veteran Solider had hoped with all of his heart that he could save his friends, his brothers, his family! Yet, he couldn’t and that was his burden. The horror that lay before him as he arrived made him weep but he had no time for tears. The blood painted a horrific story. Each stroke told its own story. The ground was a bowl for the blood that seeps from the wounded, the dying and the dead. The stones, the boulders, the walls that surrounded them all were caked in spatters and in vivid over the top strokes. Fur laid here, bone there and all around laid flesh and bone. It was like a butcher job gone horribly, horribly wrong. The sight of it all broke our delightful stallion. It tore at his soul and all the sins he had committed come to light, killing even more of his heart and destroying his soul. Lightening flashed as he emitted a heart breaking scream for the brothers he had lost and for the brothers he would have to take down. Even now he could hear their laughs ripping through the thunder. He could hear the men he had called family taunting him from the back of his mind. Even with the ranging thunder and gusting winds. He knew they called to him and he was loath to ignore them. They had what they deserved coming and he was going to make sure that they get it from him. It was only right he takes them down. Memories consume his soul. Veteran stands tall in the dunes as he loses himself in the past. The night has fallen all around him but he doesn’t seem to notice. It isn’t until he feels himself shivering that he realizes that the temperature is dropping drastically and that he needs to start moving before he freezes to death. Giving his strong head a good toss he shakes his coat and picks up his feet to begin the perilous journey to the border. He has been neglecting his duties lately and that was bad for business. He needed to try to stay on top of things but lately his past has been haunting him more and more. He is beginning to believe that the dunes, the place he calls home knows about his sordid past and is now out to destroy him. It’s all folly really, but he still believes it like an abductee believing in Aliens. The silence is refreshing as he makes his rounds. It soothes his broken soul and puts a temporary balm on his blackened heart. Old eyes watch from afar and take in the scenes before him now. They don’t expect to see much. This land was quiet and bare of most existence. There were a few souls here and there but not much to cause much worry but enough to keep him company. It was small but it was quaint and for the time being he had no complaints. Then his eyes catch upon a sight of a ghost. Her white coat gleams in the moonlit sky and her scent brings back painful memories. Her scent is like a faded perfume on an old lover’s note and the balm that had soothed his heart breaks and his blackened heart screams in rage. Old wounds fly open and our once content and relaxed soldier goes into a fighting mode. He flies down the sandy bank, kicking up clouds of sand as he moves quickly. Ears are pinned back and there is a god-awful deafening scream released. He has for the first time in years felt the need to destroy and he doesn’t know why but in his state he isn’t about to question…why. He draws up short of the mare. His nostrils flaring and ears still pinned tightly against his skull. The once far away and ancient look his eyes had held have disappeared. They are now bright and alert and the perfect soldier’s eyes. While they are alert and taking in her every move, they are devoid of any emotion. He isn’t afraid to do what he must. He has his soul and his land to protect and he isn’t about to let a spy or a female that has ruined his balm destroy any of it. “Who are you and why do you haunt my lands?” His words are growl like as he forces them past his lips. In his angered state he doesn’t believe he is speaking to a real mare. He believes she is a ghost. He most certainly believes that his mind or a person from his past has found a way to taunt him with his misfortune and to remind him he is not the good man he tries to be these days. Veteran is angry, confused, and broken and he does not like the idea of a ghost existing to remind him of the monster he had been, will be and is. That doesn’t sit right and if he has to destroy the ghost to get his sanity back, he will. He will go back to being a monster if it means another decade of peace. Silence like a cancer grows. |