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A thud. The piercing coldness of the snow had still managed to annoy Mads as he was fighting for his life, beneath a runner that had tackled him straight to the ground. He was kicking at its stomach, while also holding its wrists, desperately trying to prevent it from overpowering him and ripping him apart with its bare hands.
Mads felt the strength in his hands waning, he knew it was over for him. He turned his to the side, looking wherever he could. In his peripheral vision, he saw silhouette of a man with a sabre and blond hair rushing over towards him. Seems the most of his teammates are probably slipping and sliding on ice already, strifing with zombies. Very easily noticeable especially with the landscape being nothing but snow and a very dark sky. It gave him some relief, though that was short lived. The runner’s hands lurched forward, closer to his neck, its nails grazing the collar of his uniform. But he managed to stop it in time, but he can’t resist forever.
“HJÆLP MIG!!” Mads yelled, hurried footsteps followed, maybe three of them. His comrade—Ren—has arrived, alongside two unwanted guests, and Ren? maybe not in time.
Ren raises his sabre and slashes downward with all his might, slicing through the zombie’s back, but staying lodged mid-way. Ren drags his sabre out, and prepares to kick the zombie off his comrade, just for two entities charging towards both the Danes. Thrown into fight or flight mode, Ren gives Mads one last glance then steps away, preparing his sabre again, but one of those zombies stumble onto Mads’ left, the other shambling towards him, dropping on its knees and mindlessly grabs his arm and scratches it. Mads squawks like an imbecile and flails around uselessly. One of them already going straight for the kill, opening its mouth and about to bite into his throat.
Fight.
Ren dashes forward again, ignoring any fighting techniques and swings his sabre onto both runners, hoping they’ll die before his mate.
It does buy him some time, the runners pause upon impact, but Mads is still beneath three zombies at once, screaming and begging for Ren to save him. He’s trying.
Not long after, Mads can’t even hold off against them, his legs barely doing anything to runner no.1, his arms hitting and punching at runner no.2 and the singular shambler, but quickly overwhelmed as runner no.2 sinks its teeth into its throat, the others impairing him.
Ren kicks one of those entities as hard as he could, but they barely budge. He raises his sabre again—
—Just for the runner to pull its head up, with what looks like something tube shaped that’s pink/white-ish covered in gore, sandwiched between the zombie’s teeth, fresh blood dripping from its mouth.
The dark arctic sky gazes down upon Mads’ unmoving, and maybe, dead body. But— his fingers twitch. Once. Twice. Until his eyelids drift open, the piercing coldness of the snow on his back being the second thing greeting him, first being the sky.
He doesn’t know how long he was knocked out cold, it was a long time maybe? Maybe not. The pain in this neck is nothing but a dull ache for the soldier that just woke up and barely avoided death. He’s weighed down by tiredness to even register that his throat’s gone. Mads’ eyes look left to right, nobody in sight. None of those shambling zombies, no Ren, just a shed nearby. He looks back up. He feels so dead, yet so alive at the same time. His arms twitch, then, he slowly moves them. Alright, I’m alive!
The northern wind blows, hitting his fresh and exposed injury, sending a sharp pain that lances through his body. Hands instinctively covering his throat—flinching upon touching something warm, wet and slimy—only for it to hurt even more. He draws his hands away, wiping them on his coat, red handprints smearing across them. He tries coughing, he physically can’t.
He tries calling for help, but nothing came out, and nobody came. Vocal cords decimated. How would he speak?
He breathes in a mouthful of air, only to regret it. The cold air stings his broken throat, the air coming through his mouth scattering out from the hole, barely filling his lungs. Just pain and oxygen deprivation.
With his remaining strength, Mads flops onto his stomach and gets on his knees (somehow.) rising to his feet. He sways as he stands, feeling like he could lose balance any moment, but he persists. Mads walks forward very slowly either way, into the shed. Cold wind continues to blow all around the island, stinging his throat which bothered him deeply. He continued with moving, hands guarding his neck now, making sure his hands didn’t actually touch his throat.
He took long slow steps tp move, almost like he was one of them. But the alive ones—if they ever saw him—could tell something was wrong, that, he wasn’t blight struck unlike the others.
The only thing keeping him alive was his determination, that being the reason to why he could drag his body through the tundra even without the needed oxygen.
Ren wanders outside of the church, just beside the graveyard that is situated beside it. Ren prepares for the the bell to ring, taking out his musket and he begins reloading it. When he’s almost done reloading, the faint noise of the snow crunching in a repetitive rhythm of footsteps are heard in the distance, audible even with the wind. Ren lowers his musket, looking around confused, thinking another soldier decided to hop outside, yet...
Endnu en kammerat hjælper mig med at besejre denne kirkegård? Hvorfor hører jeg ham komme...
Ren could see the silhouette of another soldier, coming from near the MASSIVE pile of snow behind the church. Their gait sluggish, as if they were injured heavily.
Maybe because they are.
derfra...
Ren tightens his grip on his musket now on high alert, but not about to aim. Not yet.
Ren squints his eyes as the features on the silhouette man start to get more visible the closer he gets. what he can make out is a suspiciously “young” and familiar looking man, brown hair, with red stains on his coat.
Umuligt.
Panicked, Ren searched for the trigger on his musket, finger fumbling but managed to pull it back slightly just in time. He lifts his musket, level to his shoulder and tilts his head.
Mads stops in his tracks and raises his hands in surrender. Ren seeing Mads draw his hands up as if he were still alive causes his breathing to get funny. Mads’ reaction was too human to even be considered as any of those shambling monsters. Usually they’d proceed either way.
No clear signs of rot, eyes aren’t glowing, he isn’t acting upon his instincts, his face showing fear instead of the blank look of animalistic aggression.
No reason for you to be pointing that firearm aimed at him.
Ren lowers his musket, eyebrows knitting as he looks his “dead” mate up and down, surveying him like a scientific specimen. Ren’s own eyes lands on Mads’, noticing the subtle look of betrayal and ...fear? then his eyes drift to his collar; where a lot of blood soaks the soldier’s coat. Ren’s eyes linger on there too long that he sees it again, the gaping hole in his neck—Ren blinks and internally cringes, he could feel his own throat starting to hurt. His guard is lowered.
Mads lets his hands drop to his sides, watching Ren lower his musket, believing Ren mutually surrenders, not wanting to fight. Mads’ vision starts to swim and his legs feel like they’re about to give out anytime soon, but eith the remaining energy left, he takes a step forward. He yells something to Ren—but nothing comes out of that mouth without vocal cords. Catching his breath for wasting a lot of oxygen hurts even more, he tries choking, even EVEN worse. More blood gushes out of his throat.
Ren winces just by looking at him, then takes a step back, for some reason feeling Mads is a threat somehow. Ren doesn’t think twice when he does this, but his musket is raised again, trained on the “dead” soldier’s head, finger pulling slightly harder on the trigger. But, it doesn’t pull back any further than that.
Ren hesitates, something in his head is yelling at him to shoot, end his comrade’s suffering. Something else is telling him to lower the musket and alert the team’s surgeon.
Hvad vil kirurgen gøre? Han vil dø af en halsinfektion under alle omstændigheder.
Ren sighs, about to lower his musket yet again. Suddenly, against his will, his musket remains aimed at Mads, his finger squeezes the trigger that he feels the Musket shake in his hands as the shot rings out.
Ren’s eyes widen, before he could do anything, the bullet has already pierced through Mads square in the head, punching a hole through him and blood splattering out from the back of his head.
“Åh gud.” Ren whispers. The weight of his actions settling down on him, his chest starting to ache.
They both stand there, frozen—Ren in fear and disbelief, Mads... because he’s fucking dead.
Before collapsing onto the snow, Mads’ dead body manages to give Ren a glare of absolute hatred—unintentionally, but Ren interprets it as a look of pure hatred—before it’s knees buckle and falls onto the snow. Død.
He’s a soldier... He’s seen worse things than this. So, why is he feeling more emotional than ever at the sight of a throat-less body with a GWS in the head?
...
"Jeg tror ikke, jeg vil forsvare kirkegården..."
Not in the mood for defending the graveyard.
There are plenty teammates that could go and defend it anyway.
Ren turns around, traipsing back to the church with his musket dragging on the snow. He’ll never get the image of Mads’ torn out throat and him getting shot square in the head out of his mind. It’s going to haunt him.
Undskyld.
Epilogue.
Ren jumps over the barricades the sappers have built, entering the church. The lit candles does little to warm the soldier, almost like the temperature outside is no different to inside the church. Ren approaches the surgeon—wearing a red greatcoat and funny looking hat—though not for any form of medical assistance.
"Kan du være så venlig at forsvare kirkegården."
The surgeon raises an eyebrow at Ren, noticing his uneven breathing and trembling hands.
"Hvorfor?"
"INGEN FORKLARING, VÆR VENLIG BARE AT FORSVARE VÆRFTET."
"Fint." Ari—the surgeon— answers, they pull out their own sabre, exiting the church and jumping over the barricades.
They won’t understand why a throat-less body was THAT horrifying for Ren. Nobody will.