First chapter of a horror story
Hi guys, below is the second chapter of a horror story I have been working on. Please let me know what you think. If people like it I will post the first and following chapters as well in the coming days.
The nightmares had been a recurring event since his return from a tour of duty as medic in Afghanistan. He had never been on the battlefield himself and as such was free of the shellshock that haunted so many of his compatriots on their return. However, he had seen all the ugliness that this godforsaken war could muster on his operating table and had heard a great deal more from the accounts of recovering patients. There was one story, more of feverish hallucination than of grim reality, which had gripped him and followed him back to his cosy Jersey home in these constant night terrors. He heard many versions of this story during his four years of duty, alike only in the constant presence of death and the glooming insanity of its narrators. One he remembered especially well, as it happened soon after beginning his tour of duty.
An officer was brought in unconscious with severe shrapnel wounds after his Humvee had triggered an IED and left all but him dead and torn apart. Marcus performed his medical duties and the soldier’s situation had stabilized, though he was still not out of danger. When the victim awoke from his narcosis, Marcus was first introduced to the cacophonous madness instilled in man from witnessing death in such great and bewildering detail. His screams filled the field hospital and Marcus was first at hand to see what had happened. He found his patient awake and tried to comfort the man both with morphine and soothing words. The soldier told him his name was John and accounted the events leading up to the explosion that ripped him and his squad apart. Then he told him of the last moments before he lost consciousness, moments clouded by the instant, deafening shock of gore and explosion yet turned lucid by a surge of adrenaline and pain. He told Marcus of a faceless figure so faint it could hardly be seen, yet so horrendously erratic in its movements and proportions that it could impossibly be mistaken for anything in our mortal world. As his conscience slipped away he saw its grotesque limbs caressing the faces of his fallen friends, but could recall nothing more before waking up on a stretcher that night. Marcus was a proud Christian and it was not hard for him to dismiss John’s vision as the visualization of traumatic experience in the mind of a broken man. Nevertheless, he was not able to sleep that night. It was not long before he again heard screams coming from the patient’s beds. This time it was a sound he had heard before; the final bellows of a dying man. He ran to the operating room to find John bleeding from the nose and mouth. Later a final shard of shrapnel was found behind his lungs, which had dug further into him as he lay tossing and turning in his hospital bed. Amidst his final, bloodied breaths John recognized Marcus and grasped for him with all the strength left in his then eerily white body, uttering words that would follow Marcus in all his waking and sleeping hours after. “Oh god help me, I see it now!”
It was this image of faceless abomination that haunted his dreams even back in his warm family home in America. He had seen many wound and injuries that would haunt the nights of most but had prepared for and accepted that even before he joined the military. Having followed years of training and education no gore or physical abomination could shake him, but this bizarre and morphous visualization of the psychological impact horror made on the minds of man had been carved into his conscious mind beyond any means of repair.
The nightmares had been a recurring event since his return from a tour of duty as medic in Afghanistan. He had never been on the battlefield himself and as such was free of the shellshock that haunted so many of his compatriots on their return. However, he had seen all the ugliness that this godforsaken war could muster on his operating table and had heard a great deal more from the accounts of recovering patients. There was one story, more of feverish hallucination than of grim reality, which had gripped him and followed him back to his cosy Jersey home in these constant night terrors. He heard many versions of this story during his four years of duty, alike only in the constant presence of death and the glooming insanity of its narrators. One he remembered especially well, as it happened soon after beginning his tour of duty.
An officer was brought in unconscious with severe shrapnel wounds after his Humvee had triggered an IED and left all but him dead and torn apart. Marcus performed his medical duties and the soldier’s situation had stabilized, though he was still not out of danger. When the victim awoke from his narcosis, Marcus was first introduced to the cacophonous madness instilled in man from witnessing death in such great and bewildering detail. His screams filled the field hospital and Marcus was first at hand to see what had happened. He found his patient awake and tried to comfort the man both with morphine and soothing words. The soldier told him his name was John and accounted the events leading up to the explosion that ripped him and his squad apart. Then he told him of the last moments before he lost consciousness, moments clouded by the instant, deafening shock of gore and explosion yet turned lucid by a surge of adrenaline and pain. He told Marcus of a faceless figure so faint it could hardly be seen, yet so horrendously erratic in its movements and proportions that it could impossibly be mistaken for anything in our mortal world. As his conscience slipped away he saw its grotesque limbs caressing the faces of his fallen friends, but could recall nothing more before waking up on a stretcher that night. Marcus was a proud Christian and it was not hard for him to dismiss John’s vision as the visualization of traumatic experience in the mind of a broken man. Nevertheless, he was not able to sleep that night. It was not long before he again heard screams coming from the patient’s beds. This time it was a sound he had heard before; the final bellows of a dying man. He ran to the operating room to find John bleeding from the nose and mouth. Later a final shard of shrapnel was found behind his lungs, which had dug further into him as he lay tossing and turning in his hospital bed. Amidst his final, bloodied breaths John recognized Marcus and grasped for him with all the strength left in his then eerily white body, uttering words that would follow Marcus in all his waking and sleeping hours after. “Oh god help me, I see it now!”
It was this image of faceless abomination that haunted his dreams even back in his warm family home in America. He had seen many wound and injuries that would haunt the nights of most but had prepared for and accepted that even before he joined the military. Having followed years of training and education no gore or physical abomination could shake him, but this bizarre and morphous visualization of the psychological impact horror made on the minds of man had been carved into his conscious mind beyond any means of repair.
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