Astartes Wish

Shooting out a broken shattered window the enemy's ammo impacts my armour. I don't even flinch they are outclassed and they know it. They are the last of a defiant defense the last brave few strong enough to face their death fighting. I admire them in a way, I would never admit it to my brothers of course I know their opinion on the cattle. I aim my bolter up at the man who got a lucky shot off on my pauldron. In the split second before I pull the trigger I see the hate, fear, and disgust. The face screaming in rage, the eyes wide in fear, and his stance disgust. Then boom no more emotion. His head exploded into a viscera of skull and brain matter. Lowering my bolter the last screams and booms of battle echo out of the Hive block. I look around the carnage with my exposed eye. I grunt out a casualty report request. In times past my helmet would have updated me but it has long stopped being a machine and now is a rusted part of me. Once I was able to take off my helmet, now it is as much a part of me as my blood. Now and then I will catch a glimpse of my face. A mucus-filled grey eye exposing itself out of my damaged rusted helmet, the rest is covered and for that I am grateful. My deadeye doesn't give away my emotions it simply can't. I couldn't even frown if I wanted. Father Nurgles blessing may have changed my looks and pain but he couldn't rid me of everything.

Would it surprise you if I said we sometimes dream? I imagine to some it would to others it wouldn't. After all, we are above mortals perfectly built genetic organisms. We do dream it is rare but we do. Some take their dreams as meaning that they are messages from their betters, me? I dream of a life long long past. I am recalled to a time when survival was the number one objective. It's a strange feeling to remember a past long gone and so far from my current situation that it is entirely alien. I know the legs I stand on and the hands I use to rummage through the mud. I know the lungs that burn with each foul gasp of my breath, the way the very atmosphere is killing my body. My dry bloodshot eyes were desperate for moisture and my tongue dryer than any desert world. I couldn't tell you my name that is lost to me forever. I have had many titles in my life but only three names. The first is lost to me and I doubt nor care I will ever recover it, the boy that was is now dead. My second name was after my ascendance, when I was picked by our Lord to follow him into hell and we did, gladly. We followed our lord to countless world's doing His bidding for His empire. My brothers and I rejoiced in our new bodies, our new skills. For me, I fully knew what we truly were once I put on my mark III battle helmet. As it slowly descended over my genhanced face I could smell the odour of lap powder, the sound of serfs rattling around me with the swoosh click of the armour sealing itself. Fully encompassing my face and sealing at my neck the targeting array jumped to life. Going through my first checks and making sure my vox was set up for my fellow battle-brothers. My dream always stops there always at the helmet. I never get past that. Flashes of a weak child clawing at the mud desperate for life to an angel of death desperate to end life. One would think it rather poetic would they not? I see it as the day I stopped being human.

The dream could very well be my last vestiges of humanity clinging on to remind me what I was. I despise it. I am more than human, I am more than Astartes I am a warrior of Father Nurgle and a bringer of his gifts. I should hold no feeling or attachments to the past yet beneath my mask times I do wish for one simple thing.

My brothers suddenly emerge from a destroyed wall. Their large swollen forms unable to use a door any-more, each as twisted and bloated by gifts much like myself, each fused to what armour is left clinging to them after the great change. I give a brief nod to my fellow brothers and continue into the broken derelict, inside I find a lone survivor clinging to what fragile grip he has left of life. It is a follower of the Corpse emperor, his attire is that of the Ultramarines cobalt blue in places where his blood hasn't stained the armour. His face exposed to the air, he gasps at life. I look at him with cold hate as he does with me. Time slows as I aim my bolter up at his exposed rage-filled face. My brothers ignore him and continue on their way to the objective while I take stock of this warrior. In a way, I envy him, not for how his predicament is or who he is. I envy him for what he is doing. Breathing, breathing the air. Even at the end of existence, he gets to have his face exposed to the air, free. my bloated finger pulls the trigger and the freedom I so hate and will never get to feel again exploded from reality. Turning to follow my brothers I give my mortal wish some thought. I wish I could remove this helmet and feel the air again.