Metamorphosis

Chapter Five: A Day Like Any Other Pt 2

With all eyes still upon him, the doctor walked back towards his men as if nothing had happened. As the reality of the situation finally sunk in; the young man's mother fell to her knees. She began to wail and sob uncontrollably as her husband tried to console her. Their children dared not emerge from the house as they knew from their mother who the victor was. The rest of the village watched from within their homes as the air hung with the weight of their dread.

Richtofen then approached his anxious subordinates. With a deadly grin, the doctor stopped before them and held out his gloved hand. The men nervously jumped in unison before standing to attention.

"Vhich vone of jou vould like a souvenir for our time here?" Richtofen smiled as he held out the revolver for one of them to take.

The men all looked at each other before one of them shakily retrieved the revolver from Richtofen's hand. As the young private examined it, he realised there were speckles of congealing blood and flesh which clung along the barrel of the gun. The horrific sight began to make him wretch before another lieutenant snatched it from his hand and put it away on his belt. The doctor smirked before snapping his fingers and directing their attention back onto the house they had been in the middle of entering.

The ghostly faces of the villagers reflected on their windows as they watched the young girl and her parents being dragged from the house by Richtofen's soldiers. No one dared make a sound or protest. Richtofen began to revel in the spectacle as he stood by the front door with a delightful smile - savouring the look of utter terror on the faces of his new test subjects. His will was absolute and he had felt invincible.

However, as he looked back on this memory with hindsight from the present, his reaction was all too different. Now, as Richtofen recalled these memories, he found them too painful to derive any pleasure from. He remembered with a deep pang of sorrow the look on that little girl's face. And, how he had ended the life of a young man barely old enough to be considered one.

The look of dread and despair on the faces of the young girl and her mother flashed back like lightning in his memory. The primitive growl and baring of teeth from her defensive father as the poor man tried desperately to protect his family now haunted Richtofen. He remembered the sound of the young man's mother wailing as it echoed in his mind. The look of terror on his victims' faces that he once savoured so delicately was now something to be dreaded. He recalled their marred visages on the haunting spectres that visited him the night of the fever.

Richtofen lay there - back in the darkness of the present. The weight still rested itself upon his arm yet he seeemed to take comfort in its presence. Although he did not truly know himself what it was; the gentle sounds of its peaceful slumber calmed him. He lay there as still as possible hoping he could enjoy its company for a little while longer.

But his peace was a double-edged sword. For the longer he lay there the more his mind would wander back to the past. No matter how hard he tried to keep his mind in the here and now he was constantly reminded of his troubling past. And it was not long before he was forced to journey back to those times in the odyssey of his mind.

The cold French winter from his memory was reflected in the present. The freezing stone floor reminded him ever more of that winter. The freezing air stung at his skin sending a shiver down his body within the cosmonaut suit. The blackness of his surroundings reminded him of those cold dark winters at night. No matter how hard he tried; he was reminded of that very winter. And the hell he reigned down upon the people.

The strings of his heart panged like a tightly wound instrument at the remembrance of the little girl. The small innocent child he had subjected to horrific amounts of torture. His chest tightened with a sharp stab as he recalled her large dark blue eyes welling up with tears. Her little hands lifting to her eyes as she rubbed them with a monstrous grimace contorting her mouth. The recollection slowly cracked at the stony walls he had erected around his heart. Her whimpers echoed his own as a child. But he had never seen it this way until now.

All these years of inflicting agony and torment upon humanity had only poisoned the wounds from his childhood. The glorious vengeful crusade he had embarked upon was never enough - because it could never atone for what he himself had lost. The faces of everyone he had ever hurt reflected his own trauma back at him. And now the red mists of hatred had cleared he could finally see it.

Now in the present, he lay here blinded by the darkness with a mind full of clarity. But he could not change the past. It had taken a lifetime of malice to finally realise yet none of it could ever be taken back. Their souls could not be resurrected and the trauma the survivors carried could never be washed away. Instead, the punishment for his crimes would be the weight of guilt shackled around his heart - tormenting him for the rest of his life as the realisation finally began to sink in.

Though, Richtofen had more than just his crippling guilt to trouble him as not all of his victims had been so powerless to fight back. In fact, not all of them were as helpless as he had believed. Richtofen's victims came from all walks of life - not just the peasantry. No one was safe from him. But some hornet's nests were best left undisturbed as some even possessed wealth and influence of their own. And for the first time in many years; the cloak of invincibility Richtofen proudly paraded would soon be taken from him - taking his powers with it.

It would be at that same village a living specter would pay him a visit...

End of part five...