Page 5 - KJS_English_Storybook_3Pascal_2022

War Story
By Filbert Grady

Blood spilled and entrenched the battleground. The smell of men plagued the battlefield. The taste
of sulfur signifies the devil’s presence. The laments heard for the wretched souls. No one was
appalled, no anyone was prepared. The corpses at the battlefront at peace and away from
Beelzebub’s cause. The living wished for the same tranquility that comes with death.

The most valiant of soldiers fell without enquiry. Their prowess may be marked upon the book of
war, for anyone alive to bring the tidings of their beast-like courage. Far from the truth, no one
escapes the grip of the reaper. Death is timely measured, awaiting whether the soul flights to the
luminous gates of heaven or trapped in clutches of Acheron. The porters of hell grow old and
exhausted whilst the angels of heaven rests, from the turmoil of the mortal world filled with so
much blood and sin.

My mind was heated. I fear of you, death, yet I stand in your harm. I fear to kill yet I held a rifle in my
clutches. The entrails of my heart, full of human kindness. Providence gave it, for he would implore
and peak through heaven to cry if I were to kill. These thoughts are as new worn garments, only
washed away once used to. To kill or be killed.

I was fazed. The dead vibrate, their bodies shook in agony along with the living. An explosion
erupted atop the soil that covered my head. Naught good could be hoped. Naught quenched the
drained life, naught cleanse the mind, as it was occupied full of scorpions. The day is the nightmare. I
had to resolve the tight feelings that tormented my inner self.

“Behold any renegades. Defectors and deserters are no more than rubbish. Possessions of no use,
better discarded than alive. Your folk here, Brooklyn thought of the same. Consequences are
teachings to hardened the weak. This weakling bounded death for his treason,” a Field Marshall
spoke.

I tilted my head. Volunteers of man holding sight on that poor lily-livered boy. The gun recoiled and
shells come out of the barrel. The bullet penetrated his body leaving pools of blood. Death in my
young eyes. I had still not known woman. It fuels my desire to become a usurper, wishes too high for
a commoner. The reigning God bestowing death to man. It fuels my rage, to end the child king.

Behind was a snoring noise. A communication officer in his swine sleep. He enjoyed the rare act of
forgetting, in the time of alert. I scanned the room, a combat knife stabbed into a whetstone.
Stealthily, approaching the knife with a watchful eye. Slowly, cautiously, I grabbed the knife. His
disguise is a vizard to many recruits, I could reach the frontlines with his outfit. I leaded forward and
sliced his throat just like milked cow’s death.

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