Short Stories

Irreversible Change

A stab to the heart.  A bullet to the head. Two effective ways to bring an end to life. Death is not a wish for most, but for the man who lays clutching at what little remains of himself, it is the only wish he can think of to end his suffering. 

The pain of his trauma is like none other. He lays suffering in a pool of confusion, despair and unbearable pain of what feels to him as his limbs being torn away and the tearing of his flesh with each rip of a limb. As his pain intensifies his mind is slowly being lost to the madness locked deep within. Like a play dedicated to him, he watches in horror the distorted hallucinations his eyes force him to be the audience to. 

In a response to the hallucinations he thrashes his head to shake them away, however this only results in his vision blurring, sending him into a state of panic. As he frantically darts his head around he notices a trail made of an array of dim colours following the path of his arms as they sway in slow motion. His eyes begin to focus on what is present past his arms, but once he witnesses what he cannot describe he wishes he had never looked as they form a swarm around his pitiful self. His arms continue to move in a desperate manner despite him no longer being able to feel them. His confusion only increases his level of panic into hyperventilation, which in turn causes him to scream out for help. Yet all he achieves is a splutter of blood, followed by the splutters of him repeatedly choking. He needs to turn. To roll over. To cough up what is lodged in his throat. However all attempts are fruitless as his body refuses to comply with his feeble attempts. His only option is to lay there; on the cold, unforgiving ground as his throat and mouth fill up with a warm gooey substance. The same substance which has since seeped into the earth beneath him, mixing with the dry hard dirt to create a squelching, crimson death bed. 

The agonizing pain being experienced by this man slowly but surely disperses into a sensation of absolutely nothing. The gradual feeling of such torture being dispelled into numbness, followed by the inability to move is enough to send a man into a rage of utter panic. However the panic is already present. The panic of dying, of being unable to control his own body and being unable to stop what can be seen is enough to kill a man itself, yet he holds on. He grips to what little of himself he has left, he watches visions of his past re-enact themselves before him. Like a dream he watches his child self run in the open field, he watches the time he adopted a stray, such a tiny little thing that had no chance of survival without him. His first love appears before him, her arms open to embrace him as her face molds into his wife’s. His wedding day, the vows, the kiss. His first born, the crying and the laughter, the love. But also the sorrow, as he no longer has any recollection of these events, the people or the emotions he felt. The scenes being played for him no longer have meaning, they are just motion pictures being played on repeat. A single tear mixes with the crimson fluid on the ground. With each repetition of the forgotten memories they change, another tear is mixed. With each repeat they become distort, more tears become one with the crimson. Faces are blurred, the view is hazed into a grey until eventually there is nothing left to remember, all is forgotten, all is a sea of black. The tears come to an halt. 

Opening his eyes, he looks up. He watches with intent as the dark blue hue of the sky transforms into a soft golden glow. Yet the morning glow is far from soothing. The glow that bears down on him only enhances his last surviving emotion. The surviving hatred swells up within him. He is no longer the man he once was, he lacks any recollection of his past. He no longer remembers his wife, his children, his home, nothing remains in his mind to give him a purpose. The initial thought would be to make the assumption that his torturous end was the cause of his unwavering hatred. A hatred that now makes him want to cause the pain he endured onto others, to have them know and to understand what he went through, to lose everything such as he did. To become just like him, laid in a pool of his own blood, paralysed and numb to the world around him. Only his hate and a newfound lust for the blood and death of others by his hands remain. 

But in order for him to carry out his desires, he must first join those who caused his suffering. He must stand and follow them, to create more of what he has become. To fulfill his wish of hatred and blood lust, he must stand and join the endless horde that created him.