Of Falling Stars and Distant Hills

Chapter Seven

*Disclaimer: This chapter contains war depictions, intense sequences and violence that may bother more sensitive readers.*
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"O little root of a dream
you hold me here
undermined by blood,
no longer visible to anyone,
property of death.
Curve a face
that there may be speech, of earth,
of ardor, of
things with eyes, even
here, where you read me blind." —Paul Celan
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Plink.

Plink.

Plink.

Water droplets fell in cold, cruel splats onto Tramp's skin and drew him out of unconsciousness one at a time. A patchwork of noises worked into his eardrums, distant barrages, rain pounding on the ground, car engines and a chorus of voices. Tramp's eyes opened slowly and he looked around the hellworld he found himself in. He instantly wished he hadn't.

It was her. It was the last day he'd ever laid eyes on her; the girl of laughter, the girl of warm feelings and future thoughts, the girl he missed more than air.

Tramp stood on a deserted field with nothing but mud and barbed wire beneath his feet, the flat gray sky wept without pause as cannonade rumbled in the distance. He ignored the lifeless forms in the corners of his vision and looked down at the one directly below him. The rain continued to fall in cold sheets, freezing drops trickling down the brim of his helmet. As he looked his body became a mere vessel. A vessel of boiling anguish and guilt, as if a witch had poured her toxic, bubbling brew into his body. His features should have been twisted with sorrow and tears should have been down his face but all he could do was stare. He just stood, blinking apathetically at her. One blink. Two. Three. It was an odd sensation, his insides aflame and his exterior hard as stone.

Tramp couldn't bring himself to look at the entire picture of her on the ground. He stared at the space between her ear and her temple, at her pale skin and the baby hairs by her ear as they transitioned into the wet darkness of her curls. It was too much. He envisioned her alive, smiling with confidence, yet the bitter reality set in. Tramp went to turn away in anguish but his body remained frozen in place, his eyes glued open no matter how he tried to shut them.

The feeling of utter destruction in his chest was hot as a branding iron. Like a fool, there he sat whispering to himself repeatedly. "She's gone. She's gone and it's your fault." He watched droplets fall into her hair, and he felt his gun slip from his fingers into the sludge. The squelch it made on impact, prompted the edges of Tramp's vision to darken.

He thought he would be stuck staring at her forever but, blessed, darkness bled into the memory like an ink stain. It blotted out all his surroundings and dulled his hearing, then simply...began to vanish. His emotions fell away and everything was as it was before. Endless black and the sound of heavy rainfall was his only reality, the rain caressing his skin one at a time.

Plink.

Plink.

Plink.

"—amp."

"Tramp!"

The rain continued to fall as Tramp opened his eyes. He was met with colors; circles of gold, dancing silver and a swath of black. His hearing came into focus but along with it came a great, deafening whoosh! he couldn't identify. Where am I? What the hell happened? He thought.