Trench Warfare
I approached a trenchhhhhhhchchchch.
Ping.
A bullet hits a rock lodged in the trench beside me, and its ricochet lands between my legs, burying hot in the dirt just a few centimeters shy of my gonads. The dirt is black and swathed in red, and above, the sky blooms with explosion and flashes of hot light. I lay back against the side of the trench, my helmet tucked down, and my carbine across my lap, waiting, staring at the cracked stone that had just happened to be in the path of the bullet.
I breath, the air is hot and sticky even on the cold night, and the depths of winter does not pull a lull in the fighting, no, it merely makes it hotter, it makes it wet, the ground slick with frost and snow and tire-treads. Gunfire rages, to the left of me - to the right, and I still keep my back against the trench wall. Holding the gun tighter against my chest, waiting, waiting.
I act. Throwing myself from the wall, I lift the sites of my rifle up and take long aim - a loud CRACK sounding from the old polished metal and chrome. Crack! The rifle spits fire and lead, the slugs aiming true and spiraling towards my target - towards the squamous creature not a hundred meters off. Crack! Again I fire - the technology is old, but the weapon is true as I fight on this hot winter night.
An explosion falls - the fugging bees falling short - living bombs that fly until they impact a target. Thankful, I duck down as one explodes - a squad mate is not so lucky as the explosion spits the virulent acid into his face m- melting skin, exposing bone - his eyes turning milky and dissolving like milk spilled down his face. I whip a sidearm out and shoot him in the heart - if only to spare him the lingering agony as it eats away into his frontal lobes. The lucky ones die fast. I've seen those unfortunate enough to live through the process - and I would rather swallow a bullet.
Another blast - a wash of the acid falls across the side of the trench, and I duck low, throwing dirt up behind me to stop the wash. Some lands on my hand, eating through the glove which i ditch in a hurry. Though too large, I pull a spare from my dead squad mates hand - I don't want to get frostbite. Another explosion - An entire wave runs down the trench - it's a warm up for a long fight. I wasn't planning on sleeping on a December night.
My gun is raised again, and I stare in horror - one of the mammoths - a purple, pustling mass that's halfway between an elephant and a rhinoceros, with two meter long tendrils form shoulder and hips adorned with great hooks and claws - and trampling feet reinforced with a bone-hoof that can crush a mans skull with a single step. The thing rushes - the thick, leathery skin rippling from the gunfire from the heavy guns behind me - even the shot of a tank merely impacts and lodges deep - but does little to stop the terror as it charges. It's not coming for me - not directly - but still I run, the instinctive fear overtaking me to get away - to escape the leviathan of land and flesh. I am glad, for a moment, that I am only a land-based combatant. Not of the oceans - not the black tar-like monstrosities that consume ships and devour crew as I would devour a fry off a plate. Transports, ships, command vessels, it doesn't matter.
SHIT!
Overhead, I watch the pilots engage in mortal combat - the great waves of fighter drones engaging against the black clouds - living masses of insects bound together by a hive mind. Certainly, they couldn't crack a windshield, they couldn't break through steel - but a thousand of those bugs can lodge into a machine - shorting it out - and never mind what it can do to the face, the body of someone unfortunate to get near them. Needling, they call it. I run faster - one of the drones falls behind me, sparks, explodes, washing my back in heat. The trenches run for a hundred miles, and I still couldn't run far enough to escape the war and fighting.
Pain slams into my skull - my helmet knocks free and I land, crumpled in mud - my face buried as weight lands atop me. Pain blossoms, shoulders, back, and I am being crushed and drowned - forced underneath and flailing, struggling - I don't want to die today! Not today! I push up, but I can't lift it. My ribs ache, threatening to snap like twigs - my spine is crushing. And then it steps off - and I turn, gasping for air, into the face of the 'the ravagers - no bigger than a dog - but heavier than tow men - muscled, strong, leathery - with claws, and a mouth that can puncture steel. I raise my gun - thank it for the back pain with several shots into it's open mouth. It explodes, the skull vanishes in a puff of bone, meat and blood - and I choke on it as it lands in my mouth. Entirely too bitter, I spit, vomit - I gasp for air and nearly expire on my own bile.
I drag myself back up to my feet, had I laid there five or ten minutes? I wasn't molested in that time - for what thanks I can give, and I drag - seeking shelter as rain starts to fall - snow wouldn't dare cover such a carnage as the great battle of Chandelier. Shelter comes as a half-sunk tank - the long barrel of the rail-cannon holding up the main mass of the vehicle, the weight sinking the stone gradually. Eventually it'd land fully into the trench, but for now, it's perfect shelter. I hide under it, shivering - and reach for a bite of my nutrition bar. Tastes like boot - bland at best, but it keeps me alive. In this hell.
Wings. I look out and duck back - as the winged terrors fall - another of the enemies horrors clawing for me - reaching for me with it's great hands, claw like in the extreme despite the wings that support. Bats are ugly, but I'd rather kiss one than get licked by the spinney tongue which wrapped my throat - pulling me for the maw. I slash, my knife pulled out - and it digs into my foes tongue. The beak snaps, clawing my cheek and tearing it - but missing anything important. I pull back, kick it in the wing - and it screeches and lets go - leaping away from me. Gunfire takes it down - its head pulled from above the trench side. I lean back - the face stings, the neurovenom making everything hazy. I can survive this.
DistORTion.
Light flickers above me again - and I try to open the sleft eye - everything is hazy for me as I feel myself lifted - dragged, pulled. Mud wraps around me - and I look about - my face burns from the venom. It's potent and I halucinate - I cannot fight like this, and no medical, no medic, could dare come this close to contested front lines. No, the lines for help are too long - it's better to haLUCInaATEEee instead. I've had WORSeeee thaahaahhn this. Faaaaaar worrRRRrse.
DraaAAgged, pulled, iambeingdrawn out from cover - but the ground iSNtttt movinininininining I am. I fumblfumblfumble for my reye-ryful-rifle, and lOOoking doWwwwn thhhscope shows nOOthing difererernt. I can survive thisisisisisis. I can survive thisisisisisis. I can survive thisisisisisis. I can survive thisisisisisisisis.
Distortionnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.
The venom lasts between twenty minutes and an hour. I don't know how long I was gone - only that I'm not where I was. I am stripped, naked, and curled against a warm, pulsating floor - flesh touches me, covers me, rolls against me - like a womb, or a blasphemous throat. I am not swallowed but I am drawn through the tunnel - and I want to scream, but cannot. Small cuts cover me, and I find it hard to turn, to ease the ache of my spine - to look around in the faint glowing red of a living tunnel. I am pulled, suckled down - and deposited down onto a floor with a wet plop - the sphincter muscles clenching closed behind where I was deposited from, and in a weakened state, I cannot resist the pull of the black tendrils that pull me up - and another form approach with a slither of serpentine tail. One of the masters - the dark gods, leaders, the brains of the squamous armies. Long claws extend out, a high cerebral basin - a lot of eyes stare down at my sprawled, naked form, and a hand falls upon my chest, pushing me down into a recess that's perhaps a few centimeters deep. The skin, the hide of this reptilian creature, this long snouted and needle-toothed horror shows a curious smile. Do they smile? The fuckers don't feel a thing.
It does not speak to me - no, not even when a claw slips into my abdomen, injecting me with heat, fire, pain. I reach up, but am restrained as the claw slowly opens me - sliding down - cutting flesh and sending me into shuddering convulsions. Perhaps a few centimeters at most - the hand pulls back, and I can all but see the heat of my insides as I gaze down into the bleeding hole. And then to horror - the thing draws back - the creature stares at me - observing me - and is impassive when I scream. I do not scream for pain - I do not scream for fear. There is something primal - a fear of the dark waters - that happens when one of them gets hold of you - when it inserts into you. In the hole in my abdomen, I watched a slime covered black tendril raise from the floor - covered in its virulent ichors, and push into me - and though it could have, it did not pierce my guts. Not directly.
To horror - a horror - the dark water horror fills me, as I watch the long and emotive digit spread through my belly - watched it push, prod, pull, move organs to its satisfaction. It pushed into me and I groaned, feeling my guts moved, my liver pushed aside. The feeling overcame me and I pulled at that which held me down - I felt adrenaline pump, but it was as impotent as a general in the bed with one of his wives. I struggled and fought against the bindings, horrific sounds coming from me as it probed deeper, twisting and pushing and sliding through me like a tongue into a mouth. I wanted to vomit - but nothing could come up.
The thing stayed in me - a warmth flowing in as it sealed the blood from my injuries - as it dried, scabbed, and became sticky. I looked up, pleading for death in my eyes as the tip of the tendril tickled my lungs - and I whimpered, even as it reached forward with a long hand, and pulled its fingers down - the long digits pressing around my left eye. It pushed, the things scraping across the surface of my iris - and slowly pushed inside - making me shake, and nearly convulse. And then I was numb, the wonderful release of shoooocckckckckck.
"STAND DOWN SOLDIER!" I looked at my hands - blood covered them. My gun was broken over the skull, the helmet, of an officer and several guns were trained on me. I shook - hands grasping like claws, my fingers felt strange - numb - but the cold don't disturb them. I stared down at my hands, the blood and guts thick around them with a strange taste of copper in my mouth. My fingers were claws - and the voices changed, as I stared upon these intruders, who were violating home - threatening the whole. I screamed, launched myself at thememememememem.
I could see my body. I was being drawn open - and I couldn't understand why it didn't hurt. I was sprawled, my mouth filled with a long organ - my belly open and my intestines hanging down - their weight distending the injury. My skin was turning leathery - and the long fingers extended from my hand, raised by the horror who had taken my left eye. He worked at my skull, a long, thin finger pushed in through the empty socket, and Iiiiiiiiii...
Peace.
There was peace.
No more fear. Pain was a distant sensation, as I looked up, and upon the face of God. God looked upon me, and I stared down, the mighty mind overshadowing mine, and I felt whole - without fear terror, or pain. My hand, distorted and changing, lifted to touch the face of the Great One, and I touched along the surface of its home. It touched my thoughts with its own - and I understood, understood that I had a purpose and place. Even as I changed - my thoughts were my own, like they had never been. I touched higher, feeling the warm and inviting flesh - and sunk myself, my whole being, into it, becoming one with God.
And as I looked over the face of the world - I was content to know my place - and so gazed upon the oncoming terrors - in shells of metal and chrome and blistering heat, and quietly crept down the side of the mountain. Though I had been given but one eye - it would be enough to stare down upon my foes. I crept closer - my long fingers digging into the stone and mud and dirt, and approached a trenchhhhhhhchchchch...