A Hint Of Relief

War is hell.
That was the only thing I could think of after my very first engagement with the arch enemy.
Of course, nobody at home would have put it like that, and none of the young men that left, ever came back to tell people about it. ''It is a glory to serve in the guard'', they said, ''I was to fulfill my holy duty towards the Imperium and its people.''
''The God-Emperor will protect your faithful soul'' the priest told me.
What a joke. I had only grown to be 16 years old, and as I layed in the mud on some distant hellhole of a planet, waiting for death to finaly take my pain go away, was far from the adventure that was promised to me.
No glory. No hint of honor or noblity was to be found on this dead ground. I don't know what kind of god would lead his faithful legions on a world like this one. The very earth had been torn appart by the endless bombardment of the artillery and the hellish inferno of the napalm and the ruthless flamethrowers deployed by my comerades aswell as the enemy.
The things we fought where almost as cruel and heartless warefforts. I didn't know what I was supposed to fear more, so I just scraped away the horrors and kept running.
I couldn't see from where the bullet came, but after a few horrible hours of running, taking cover and shouting at the xeno-scum in front of us, I felt its shattering impact on my right leg, and the agony that came with it.
I cried out, stumbled backwards falling into the trench we just emerged from. None of my companions offered me help. There was no medic in sight, and I didn't expect anything else. A soldier in this war possessed nothing and was worth even less. It would be a waist of time and resources to help a wounded man, if billions more where born every day. Humanity was a growing stock of material, and with the overpopulation on planets like my homeworld, there is always engough meat for the grinders of the military industry.
I tried to lift myself up, but the pain dropped me to the bloodsocked ground, as I cried out in pain again. I couldn't move my leg, and I felt the terrifing coldness climbing up from the wound, while I lost more blood that I could have imagined.
There was no use in crying for help, so I looked up to the sky, searching for anything that would distract me.
When I joined the military, they told me I'd see the blue sky. Underneath the thick smog of the capital city of my homeplanet, the sun was never shinning, but I spend most o my time in the depth of the habitaton blocks or the narrow tunnels of the underground-districts anyway. The ''sky'' abouve me was a grey malestrom of smoke and poluted rainclouds, in wich the sunlight was only a faint shimmer on the muddy planes of this cursed world.
I'd say that dying with fresh air in your lungs was better than being stabbed in some dark tunnel, but the stench of sulfur, rotting corpses and burned meat lead me to a revision of that idea. I was only glad that I didn't smell the chlorine-gas used on the other side of the frontline. And after all, it was at least real air. Not the infinatly re-used stuff inside the endless, dark hallways of my crowded home.
I then realised that i had allready lost to much blood to ever get up again, and the cold feeling of death had slowly crawled up to my hips. The chilling sensation established itself inside my guts and I willingly welcomed it, as my head became heavy and my mind grew soft.
The pain was gone, my torment was nothing but a distant memory, and as I looked up, I thought to myself that now I might be able to feel real tranquility. The mashinegun fire and the artillery bombarment became less and less loud until they faded into a far away melody of sweet death and peaceful harmony.
While a cool wind caressed my face, my sight grew dimm and I closed my eyes for the last time.
The final seconds of my conciousness where filled with an beautifull emotion that was completely new to me. Peace. And filled with antisipation of the long, dreamless sleep awaiting me, I rested for the very last time.