Creative Writing

War: Shell Attack

WHIZZ. "There goes old Benny," Sighed my fellow Commanding Officer, rubbing the dirt from his face with his muddy, earthy fingers, making him look like a root vegetable, freshly pulled out from the ground. We heard the high frequency of screeching above us. Shell attack.

"Tuck and roll!" "Hit the ground!" "Scatter!" Screams of warnings filled the crimson stormy sky of bloodshed. I watch in awe as my brothers gracefully twist their bodies in midair, much like the grace of a ballerina, in attempt to land perfectly in the dugouts. Distracted. I am the last to find cover. Not only that, I am the closest one to the shell, the unexploded shell. Panic seizes control of my functions. Why hasn't it gone off? Fear, crawls up my boney spine, perches itself upon my left handicapped shoulder, the width of my neck firmly grasped within his hands, choking me, pinning me to the ground. Paralysed. I cannot move. The blood in my veins drained out of me. The energy I had not too long ago, faded, like an old childhood memory.

It was as though time had frozen. A loud, unexpected BANG! confirmed my unanswered question. I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the impact to hit me. It never did. I rolled onto my back, slowly heaved myself up to see what had stopped the explosion from reaching me. My bones cracked as I mustered all my upper body strength to turn. A wave of nausea and unease washed over me, causing me to stumble as I made my way closer to where the shell had landed, dragging myself, forcing myself to see. I stopped dead in my tracks. Cold, skeletal hands, midnight blue cloak, the very face of, Death himself. As you could've imagined, my eyes popped out of my sockets, "Did such things happen, like this, to others?" 

Glued to where I stood. My veins shrank as Death glided towards me, his icy breath hitting my face like a gust of wind on a snowy winter day. That same wave of nausea and unease overtook me once again. Intensified. I crouched down onto my knees, clutching my stomach in my hands. Acid dripping through my numb fingers. Heartbeat increasing. Sweat pouring down my face. Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Heart in my throat. Fire in my nose. Blood in my mouth. The ear deafening Silence screaming for his lost lover, his blissful Peace. I felt myself drawing found my voice to protest, to beg for my rightful mercy. But I was too late.

"Rest." Death outstretched his long hands, his index finger on the centre of my chest as I lay on the ground; flat on my back, staring into Death's lifeless eyes.

I felt him extract my soul from my body. Pulling it out from within me. My nerves that were all connected, all bonded, ripped out by it's roots like a child pulling out grass from the earth. My heart exploded within my ribs like the shell did not too long ago. My hidden veins came to surface like worms on a rainy day. Clear. Evident. Visible. I couldn't resist anymore! I screamed, "You're killing me!" My veins, over loaded with pressure, burst like a water pipe. Death was killing me or was I already dead?