This was my winning entry for the AoTW contest a little while ago, I fixed all the little grammar mistakes and made some slight changes, and now I decided to post it separately from the AoTW thread so other people can read it. The theme we were given to work with was "
Cherry Red", so you'll see how it relates to the story once you read it. Comments are appreciated.
~Too Young to Die~
I hadn’t been ready for it.
Until now, it hadn’t seemed real. Hell, it hadn’t
felt real; I had thought it was an abstract reality wholly isolated from my safe and predictable world. But now I realized I had set up illusory barriers, hopeful mirages, in order to detach myself from the world. Ironically, my pathetic attempts at escapism only served to augment the impact the truth would ultimately have upon me.
The earth shook in blazing anguish.
I closed my eyes and reached desperately for cover as the cacophonous roars from outside shook the poorly constructed walls of the room, threatening to bring the unbearable pain from the outside world into my small haven.
The room around me seemed to be spinning; the windows vibrating with ominous force and barely allowing a pale, opalescent shaft of light to enter and penetrate through the dark and dreary gloom. Dust had collected along every surface, giving the place the appearance of having been abandoned for some time; an assumption confirmed by the shredded, dismal appearance of the curtains, the cobwebs which hung flimsily all around, and the presence of a shattered mirror sprawled on the splintering wooden floor.
Another roar. This one more violent and deafening than the last; my ears rang painfully as the windows exploded in a crystalline shower of glistening gems. The dust in the room whipped up with surprising force, and the walls began to crack in defiant protest against the merciless beating they received.
Then came the silence. A brief pause to gather my thoughts.
Beside me, a poor soul groaned in writhing agony, I didn’t know him; but I knew he was going to die. The man’s side was stained in a deep crimson, which seemed to seep and spread with each painful grunt that escaped his lips. And it was the crimson which caught my eye; I knew that with each drop of the sacred nectar, the man’s life inched ever closer to dark and cold oblivion.
His eyes seemed to plead…or perhaps reminisce? I couldn’t tell, I was a stranger to death, and the man’s pain was lost on a kid like me, who couldn’t fully comprehend the poignancy of these final seconds in his existence; what’s worse, I found myself not focusing on the dying wretch, but rather on myself, and my own survival, and it left me with a sick and disgusted feeling of guilt.
I looked away briefly, my eyes scanning the now destroyed window for any signs of movement. By the time I turned back, the man was gone, and the pool of coagulating gore had spread to my fingertips; it was warm and sticky, and in the darkness of the room it was a rich scarlet. I felt my throat tighten and a burning feeling of grief grip my chest, and there it lingered, threatening to suffocate me and tear my very soul as the tears swelled to my eyes.
I realized just how real war was.
It had all happened so fast. Most of my platoon had been wiped out in a single blow, while the rest were either shot down in cold blood, or struck down by the hailing debris.
It had been chaos. The dust had blinded everyone, and the incessant, thunderous crashes had been more than enough to disorient the men. Nobody had known which way to run, where to fire, or where to hide.
That’s how I learned that confusion and fear are much more effective weapons than bullets or cannons; they kill men’s hope, they kill their spirit, and they kill their morale, and after that, killing them physically is like shooting panicking dodos.
I held my breath for a moment. The silence was both relieving and troubling at once. I felt alone in the darkness, my lips trembling both from the terror and the cold. I erected myself and crouched furtively towards the window, taking scrupulous care not to stick my head out too prominently. My eyes worked, but my heart froze. The enemy soldiers were everywhere. They seemed not like men, but like beastly demons, prowling in the umbra, their eyes shining with a carnal bloodlust; their teeth, like monstrous canines, hungry for the dying flesh of their enemies. I was completely surrounded.
I held my breath.
I had never been religious, but I found myself calling to every deity I had ever heard of; pleading frantically with the omnipotents to shelter me from the world. I closed my eyes and began thinking of home; I thought of my mother, who had always nurtured my wounds, both mental and physical, my father, who had never been a man of words, but had cried in solitude when I had received the draft notice, and my sister, with whom I’d always pick fights with, but whom I loved dearly.
Before I knew it my cheeks were warmed by moist and salty tears. I cried with a morbid fervor, and in my mind I escaped to a different place, a peaceful place where war was not a reality, where death was not an all-powerful entity constantly hanging around us, robbing us of happiness with its mere presence.
I was so caught up in my own fusion of grief and delusion, that I never noticed the crashing door, the murderous screams of the callous men who stormed the room, or the clicking of safeties and the shuffling of rifles. They were here, like a pack of fierce and carnivorous wolves, their killing intent palpable in the air, visible in their maniacal smiles and demonic grunts.
I looked up, and wiped the tears from my eyes. Soon, my view came into focus, and the first thing I saw, due to its heavy contrast with the dark and musky Hades in which I’d been hiding, was the bright, almost cherry-red, armband on the soldier‘s bicep, which bore what had quickly become the universal sign of hate. And I knew I was dead. But one last flash of defiance gave me the courage to stand, and before the killers had a chance to fire their guns, I gave them the finger.
“Fuck Hitler, fuck the Nazis, and fuck you German pieces of shit”
I can’t say if they heard me; the deafening dissonance of the raging bullets might have drowned out my final message, I’m not sure. And I can’t say if the anger in their faces was a result of my comment, or the innate hatred they had for Americans.
Then again, did it really matter?
My chest convulsed and my mouth filled with blood, the pain was unbearable at first, but then, I slipped into a soporific reverie, my senses became diluted and threatened to shut down. I didn’t hear the soldier’s voices, I felt distant and detached, and all I could hear was my sister’s nagging, and my father’s gruff advice, and my mother’s ever so gentle voice. I felt my eyes go blank and then the darkness grabbed a hold of me, never to let go.
Too Young To Die 
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