The Fiction Thread

[Akira 0]

The Rules Per Major Fubar:

1. It will not be a pinned topic, so it may slip to the back of the forum unless people keep submitting new fiction or passing relevant comments on the fiction of others.

2. No spamming or flaming will be tolerated. Such posts may be deleted and the posters WILL be punished. If the thread gets too bogged down with spam or flaming, it will get locked.

3. The thread must not break any other forum rules, most especially the Rules of Content and Rules of Conduct.

4. Use some common sense when posting - member fiction needs to be loosely related to OFP or other militaria; no pornographic or excessively distasteful content; no personal attacks on real life persons or forum members; no disguising a political comment as fiction (post your opinion in the relevant political discussion thread).

5. Feel free to post praise or CONSTRUCTIVE criticism on the fiction of others. Any criticism such as "that was crap" or "a 5 year old could do better" is NOT constructive criticism, and will be treated as flaming, with all attendant punishment.

I would also like to mention that ficiton does not mean just prose. Feel free to post scripts, poems, whatever you have written.

I found a radio drama that I had done awhile ago. I need to fix it up, and then it will be the first one I post.

EDIT: Oh I should mention that all material remains copyright of the poster

[astatine 0]

Great Idea, ill post a short story in a short while :

[ran 0]

J'ai changé tant de fois de nom

J'ai joué trop souvent au con

J'ai tellement déconné

J'ai vraiment abusé

A quoi bon encore prier ?

Puisque de Lui je doute

Personne pour m'arrÄter

Pour continuer ma route

Je veux me foutre en l'air

Mais je peux plus rien faire

Tu dois me haÄr

Je te sens souffrir

M'aimes-tu encore ?

De moi tu dois douter

Mon amour est encore trop fort

Pour juste te laisser filer

Aide moi, je t'en supplie

Pardonne moi je te prie

Je t'aime encore

Toujours aussi fort

Toi, ma seule raison de vivre

Toi, qui m'empÄche de mourrir

Qui par ta présence me rend ivre

Tu ne dois jamais partir

Vois-tu oů j'en suis

Tu es ma survie

Ne t'en vas pas

reste avec moi

This one is now a bit more than a decade old, I wrote it to my ex-wife ... (it apprently didn't work as intended)

I still keep it as a memory of my mistake. I'll work on a translation when I have the time so you can enjoy the cheesyness

[stevevcb 3]

This is based vaguely on a mission I played with my squad, but I had to rely on artistic license to spice it up and take the rough edges off. If any of the lads from VCB are reading this, apologies if I got your sections wrong, I've been intermittently drunk and hungover while writing this.

I'll post the other chapters if people like it.

Prologue

One hand after the other. I paused for a second and pressed my body tight against the rock face. The cold and damp was more of a shock than a relief to my sweaty, itchy body as I gingerly wiped at my forehead the best I could before beginning to climb again. I don’t like heights. That is, I don’t like climbing heights. I love aircraft and all that sort of thing, but give me a ladder and a house and I’ll be shitting myself on the third rung. Give me mercenaries, give me drug-fuelled militias, give me stints in the jungle with all sorts of creepy crawlies scuttling over my face while I’m crawling through the mud and filth. Just don’t make me climb any fucking cliff faces.

So there I was, climbing a cliff. In the dark. With a gale threatening to test my faith in the safety line. And rain. Rain like you’d not believe. Horizontal rain. I kid you not. It was almost as bad as hailstones.

I was climbing this cliff on the southeastern of some godforsaken island somewhere in the North Sea. At the top of the cliff was (indeed, is) a sheltered little copse. This was the RV point. 2 Section were due to meet us there at 0300 after doing a little bit of a spring-clean of enemy vehicle crews in a laager three miles west. I was quite aggrieved to have missed out on that, creeping about in the dark with Heckler and Koch and fighting knives.

3 and 4 Section were standing off some ten miles from the coast in a Royal Marine Sea King, ready to hammer in to back us up. 1 Section, the gang I was attached to, were scuttling up the cliff face south of the town of Attonnes, having infiltrated by Rigid Raider. We all had our own little objectives, but the gist of the operation was to bring the enemy to their knees before the invasion. 1st Platoon, 1 and 2 Section, we were tasked with the elimination of Major Gregov Katarovic and his staff, who would be tucked up nice and snug in their HQ in the town by now. 2nd Platoon, 3 and 4 Section, were there to assault the small docks some six miles up the east coast.

First things first.

One hand after the other. Another few inches.

One

I finally reached the top of the bastard cliff, throwing my arms out and grabbing clumps of grass, digging my hands into the dirt. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth and hauled my sorry arse, beltkit, my patrol pack and my weapon over the edge. A hand grabbed me roughly by the back of my assault vest and dragged me up. Horizontal at last, I rolled onto my back and looked up to see a familiar face.

“Alright cunto?†Lance Corporal Hogg whispered with a flash of teeth. “Sorry, Sarnt Major Cunto,†he added with another grin.

“Ey up lancejack†I replied, gasping a bit.

Hogg, or “Bam†to everyone in Echo Company, was a foul-mouthed bastard. He got his nickname from his less-than-diplomatic approach to most problems. There was a rumour he ended up in with us after sticking the head on his old lot’s CO. Probably untrue, but credible all the same.

“Woofer and Lilty are having a shufty at the town about 100m that way†he whispered, pointing off into the dark. I nodded, having released myself of the safety line and got my trusty LSW in my hands. Woofer was ex-infantry, solid bloke, especially behind a gimpy. Lilty likewise, but with a comedy Welsh accent. Bam carried on. “Shadders and Couga are stagged out.â€

Shadders and Couga were quite new to the battalion, the latter having joined us straight from the Swedish armed forces. Not enough fighting for his liking, or so he said.

I nodded again for good measure and heard a slight grunt behind us. Sergeant Ash, my 2iC, was just reaching the top. Myself and Bam grabbed him by the arms and dragged him up. Ash was a spot-on bloke, hailing from Liverpool. He scratched his moustache and sorted his shit out while Bam gave him the same spiel as he’d given me, but with “scouse bastard†in place of “cunto.â€

With all present and correct from 1 Section and 1st Platoon HQ, Ash got his Clansman out and sent a message to the ops room on board HMS Ocean. Quite why they’d sent us in over the Royal Marines I still don’t know. Maybe green berets don’t look as good on news reports as khaki ones, who knows? But we’d been sent in to do the job and that was all that mattered.

At the same time, Bam was on the net to let the rest of the company know that we were at the RV. We got our acknowledgements, two under the din of rotor blades, one in the form of two bursts of squelch. 2 Section must’ve been getting rather close to the enemy.

Woofer and Lilty crept back into the copse and shuffled over, taking their NVGs off and squinting in the dark.

“The town’s not as well defended as I’d have thought†Woofer said in a particularly nonchalant tone. Here we were, a kilometre away from the enemy HQ, deep behind enemy lines, outnumbered, probably outgunned, and with no chance of a retreat if we were compromised, and he was talking about it like he was passing the time of day at the checkout in Sainsbury’s. “We’ve got a single armoured vehicle, a BMD-3, parked by the church on the southern outskirts. Crew were nowhere to be seen, probably in the tent next door to it.†Lilty was evidently disappointed. He’d lugged a LAW80 up the cliff and had obviously wanted a more challenging target. “We saw at most three four-man patrols, two going clockwise around the perimeter, the other in the town itself. There’s one VCP on the road that leaves the town to the east. Six men on that, two sandbag bunkers either side of the road, one with an HMG and the other with a 23mm triple-A gun. Sentries scattered about. They all look a bit lax, swanning about with their weapons slung and with fags hanging out of their mouths.â€

“Did you see the HQ building Woof?†I prompted, whilst trying to imagine these features on the aerial photos we’d seen aboard the Ocean.

“Yep, big three-storey, town-hall type building.â€

“A few sixty-sixes and a few rounds of UGL through the windows…†Ash started, before Woofer shook his head.

“There are civilians in the town still. They’ve not been moved out, contrary to what our intelligence said. I suppose they’re guarding against an airstrike,†Lilty explained.

“Looks like we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way then,†I grumbled.

2 Section, a motley little gang led by Tim, a baby-faced lancejack and comprising of Jack, Rappy and Al, were meanwhile killing the enemy QRF troops as they slept at a vehicle laager a few miles west. They’d silently killed the sentries using HK MP5SD6s, and were now moving from tent to tent with their commando daggers. It took them no longer than a couple of minute from the first shot to the final wipe-down of blades, according to Tim. I had no reason not to believe him. He got on the net and let us know they were on their way.

[Acecombat 0]

I dont understand french and besides isnt this a english only board? Plz post your stuff in english ran to me right now that poem or whatever it is just sounds like a lot of french (food dishes name or something ).

[astatine 0]

Ah well, hope this isnt too big..

*EDIT* - Its set on D-day, I wrote it in june around the anniversary.

Slowly and painfully he sat down on the coarse sand and coughed fiercely. The salt water, mixed with the acrid burning smoke pouring out from somewhere behind him was causing his lungs to rebel in a violent manner. Each splutter sent a thousand tiny droplets of water coursing off his body as he fell forward in fiery pain. The heavy cloth of the soaking wet clothes wrapped around his frame, constricting movement to an uncomfortable necessity to relive the pain of each subsequent cough. He shivered as the wind made its way slowly across the beach, its chilling arm disturbing the small items that lay there. A loose piece of paper was blown to his side; it was a letter of some sort, written in German. A wry smile appeared across his lips as he crushed it in his hands and produced a silver lighter. The flame licked the bottom of the page, causing the paper to morph trough brown to a perfect black, until nothing but grey ash remained. The fire served to aggravate further his already angry lungs, causing a fresh onslaught of coughing.

From a short distance away, another man was watching, the ink on the tag tied around his wrist was smudged, arcing across the across the card like blood mixing on the surface of water. The only intelligible word was Lewis. He stood tall on the dunes, watching the last slithers of flame vanish from the twisted paper. It made him want a cigarette, so he reached into his pocket to find the crumpled packet there. As he withdrew a narrow tube, he noticed a long cut on his hand that was bleeding slowly. Dropping the cigarette in panic, he looked around for anyone that could help him. The medics were busy and he didn’t feel like asking for their help. Seeing no other potential assistance, he walked towards the sea to wash the wound clean. The water stung him sharply, with a hundred miniature incisions that stole the air from his lungs. An abandoned knapsack was bobbing slowly in the freezing water and he pulled it up quickly and searched in haste for something to cover the wound. The blood was coming quicker now, and Lewis became worried that his makeshift bandage would not be enough to hold back the tide of plasma so desperate to escape. He pulled a cloth tighter over the wound and ran up the beach, desperate to find help.

His limbs carried him almost blind panic, stepping over the dead and dying, looking for comfort. He ran straight into Steve Warren, who was himself rushing around, escorting a doctor through the rows of wounded. Warren was knocked to the floor, landing in a pool of seawater between the bodies of his comrades. An apology was murmured and Lewis ran on, stumbling and tripping as he travelled up the sand.

Warren sat up slowly and tried to take in what had happened. He watched Lewis’ shambling run continue for a moment, and then turned to look for his new friend. The doctor was in fact a German who had been ordered into action by his captors. Although he could speak little English, Warren was growing to like him and he respected the difficulty of his work, something he himself knew was beyond his own powers of compassion.

He had been ordered to shoot the doctor should he attempt escape, but both men knew that this would not be necessary, for this man had no-where to go, they were both there at the end of the world. The beach was a mess, there were men and bits of men and equipment and debris showered all around so that the sand could hardly be seen anymore. It was what Churchill and Roosevelt would later call a field of gracious and honourable sacrifice, but Warren knew an abattoir when he saw one.

This view was shared by the lucky few who overlooked the scene with shock and awe from the top of the cliff side. Up here flame and wretched smoke belched from burnt vehicles and shelters. Behind them, the enemy was retreating; men forgot their roles as soldiers and concentrated on survival, trying to get away before the invaders could catch up with them. Most were happy to let them run, they had seen enough death for one day, but Ferguson was not one of those men. As they ran for cover across the flat French countryside, he fired shot after shot, eager to kill as many as he could. He was enjoying himself. As aware as he was of the horror of what he had just come through, the desire to see the job through led him to fire and fire on the pathetic figures that sought only to hide from the storm that had been unleashed that day. There were no feelings of vengeance in Ferguson, there was no need in destroying them simply to satisfy his own feelings, instead this was simply the business of war, and it was no more strange or wrong than for a builder to seal the walls of the house he had just built.

As another man dropped to the floor, he decided it was time to stop. Ammunition was short; he only had a little left with which he could defend himself, should he need it. Besides, he was himself growing tired of killing and was beginning to worry about his comrades whose friendships he had so hastily forged. Reluctantly, he turned from his firing position and began to walk back towards where what was left of his unit were looking through the bodies, trying to distinguish dead from wounded. He had only walked a few paces when the bullet impacted on the back of his skull, sending his body lurching forward in a shower of bright red glue, causing the few bullets and crucifix he kept faithfully in his top pocket to fall out into the mud.

There was little time to waste Warren knew as he dragged another casualty from the freezing water and onto the beach, where his friend sat coughing and spluttering from the vicious concoction of water, salt, smoke and blood that was amalgamating in his lungs. Although no external wounds could be found, the German doctor who had looked him over said that he was suffering some sort of internal injury, the effects of a nearby explosion. When he asked if his friend would live, the best the doctor could offer was an innocent shrug of the shoulders. Still, he had a better chance than most of the others in this godforsaken place, a thought that comforted him as he took the silver lighter from his friend’s hand. The small pile of grey paper ash was still blowing around, coating his boots in a thin film of charred sentiment. The panting was audible even above the roar of the sea, and Warren decided that it was time to suspend his duty of escorting the doctor to find some sort of help for his wounded friend. Besides, he knew his prisoner wasn’t going anywhere.

A few hundred metres along the beach, the first supplies were beginning to be unloaded. A crowd of desperate medics, walking wounded and friends of the dying gathered around, hoping that there would be enough materials to go around. As it happened, bandages and medicines were low down on the list of priorities, and it was crates of boots, shovels and tank ammunition that were first ashore. As Lewis stumbled through the crowd, desperate to find out exactly what was coming, and if he could make any use of it, he felt a cowardly anger rise through him. There was little chance that his hand wound would be seen to, there were others there far worse off than him, but this couldn’t prevent him from being impotently annoyed at the circumstances that had conspired against him to rule his painful cut totally worthless.

He recognised the face of Warren moving also through the crowd, and although he did not know the man, he knew he should apologise for knocking him over before. His uninjured hand tapped on Warren’s shoulder, causing him to stop momentarily to look around. Lewis mouthed an apology at him, which seemed to be understood, and a quick nod of the head was all he got before the face was again lost in the crowd, pressing forward to try and find something from whatever they were bringing ashore. On reaching the front of the assembled masses and seeing the useless supplies that lay there, Warren decided that there was little point in him waiting there for the unscheduled arrival of the important goods.

On walking backwards towards his injured friend, something caught Warren’s eye in the sand. The reflected light from this object imprinted his fragile retina with burning lines of neon blue and he raised a dirty hand to protect the eye from permanent damage. This revealed the object to be nothing more than a pair of spectacles, held curiously intact in a motionless hand despite the destruction around. Warren approached to see that they belonged to a medic, who was probably barely of conscription age. His head was set at an unnatural angle, which Warren meticulously corrected, setting out the body as though this were the funeral and he the grieving relative reluctantly giving away his loved one back to the earth. To his surprise and delight, he found the body had not yet been attention of the grave robbers that were now discretely scouring the beach for anything of value. He took from the top pocket of the satchel that lay nearby enough morphine to make his friend comfortable until they could get to some proper medical attention.

Proud of his find, Warren left the peaceful corpse and continued to walk over to where he now saw his friend lying down in the sand. The jerking chest movements had subsided and the only sign of movement was a frigid hand shaking uncontrollably in the pile of grey ash. As the realisation diffused within him, Warren began to run across the hard sand, frantically unwrapping the package held in his hand to reveal a thin, fine pointed needle. Futility held his heels back as the realisation came to him that there was nothing that this needle could provide to save his friend. He was right, for when he arrived by the side of the rigid body, the spasm had subsided and there were no signs of breathing.

There was nothing Warren could do, but panic had restricted his capacity for logic, and rather than save the precious drug for later use, he plunged the needle into the motionless leg, unloading the calming liquid in a last ditch hope that it would bring his friend back from a place where no human hand could reach.

Lewis counted himself lucky as he reached the front of the amassed crowds. The boat carrying the much needed medical supplies could be seen making its approach to the beach, green crates with red and white crosses scrawled untidily on their sides were packed impossibly high on its unstable deck. It landed hard, sending some of the boxes flying forward, splitting like rotten fruit and projecting packages of crisp clean bandages onto the dirty cloying sand. One such package landed at the feet of Lewis, who charged forward with a selfish vigour to grab the white cloth. He picked it up, and surprised with the ease of his find, began to walk away from the crowd to a place where he could apply the dressing. He stepped over men in far worse condition than himself, but didn’t feel compelled to give over his precious package.

Onwards he walked, trying to free himself from the desperate stares of the dying, whose gaze followed his careful steps over their incapacitated bodies. So wrapped up was he in his attention to their plight and the thoughts of his own guilt that he walked past the skull and cross-bones sign that was lying in the sand. He did not notice the half concealed metal plate as he sat down on the ground to attend to his wound. The bandages came away easily from the package and soon his hand vanished beneath a carefully wrapped mask of white gauze. As he stood to return to the beachhead, the heavy leather of his boot touched the cool green metal of the half concealed plate that lay silently at his feet. The mine clicked, and Lewis had a short moment to contemplate what might be going on in between the layers of impassive steel before the dull green erupted into an angry shapeless bulk of flame, earth, smoke and blood.

The sound of glass shattering disturbed the silence on the bridge of the waiting ship. I cursed as I kneeled to gather the remains of my binoculars, a present that I had pulled from the neck of a dead German sailor on my last tour. Only one lens had been damaged, they were probably salvageable. I pulled them to my eye and looked back at the spot on which the mine had exploded. There was nothing left, just a silent plume of black smoke that rose innocently into the morning air. Shock still gripped my body, and I left the bridge to try and bring myself back from what I had just seen. Vomit welled in my throat as the sharp sea air charged into my lungs. Covering my mouth with a quaking hand, I headed to the side of the boat, where I retched, releasing the pale liquid into the sea. Leaning over the side, my binoculars dangling freely in the morning air, I could still hear the sounds of explosions and gunfire carried from the beach.

It was still going on, that event, those moments that couldn’t be erased. I could still see him, the placid expression on his face as the bandages entwined around his wounded arm, and then the few confident steps back to the beach before smoke and fire had engulfed him. I hadn’t seen what happened next, the reflex of surprise had torn the binoculars from my arm. I inspected them again and decided that I wouldn’t have them repaired. I couldn’t bring myself to look through them again, I would always see those few frames, replayed in my head. Without second thought, I released my grip and they fell into the ice cold water, sinking without a trace or sound.

In my quarters I looked over the map that hung upon the wall, detailing every fact and figure of the invasion, summarising the plan in a few lines drawn in blue ink. It was a success, but I had failed them, stood on the bridge of the ship they had left only an hour before, I was powerless to stop the carnage that took place through the sights of my binoculars. Not even I had imagined it to be like this, with men ripped from the earth even after the battle had ceased. I hung up my officer’s coat on the back of the wooden door, careful to hide the stripes from view, this was not a time for acknowledging one’s responsibility. The small chair creaked and groaned as I sat and reached for the spirit bottle and tumbler that stood with a binocular case on my narrow shelf.

[ran 0]

I dont understand french and besides isnt this a english only board? Plz post your stuff in english ran to me right now that poem or whatever it is just sounds like a lot of french (food dishes name or something ).

It doesn't even make much sense in French you see ;)

And it's not exactly realted to military so ... (well, the reasons I had to write this poem were, somewhat).

I have weritten a few small things on paper a while back, I'll have to find them back and translate them... but I'm lazy these days ;)

[killagee 0]

East Timor

Subsistence living

from a memory of slaughter

to schools built by a foreign man

ridiculous bird proud on his arm

Sticking its beak in long

wherever there’s wrong

to keep the worms away

from their tumbled dry gardens

Never at ease

these Timorese

memories burned in the brain

an instant recall of pain

Only a few quick years

separate their peers

slaughtering like beasts

families fuel their feasts

This has gone for decades

our Leaders led us away

to the sunny side up

fresh eggs are pointless

when spread on burnt toast

Better late than never?

waiting for this bus

shelterless raining fire

I am a proud man now

proud of my little country

and the big difference it makes

Kia Ora Bro!! A pigmy chorus

Aqua! Aqua!

Sorry boys

come to my house

you can bath in it

I shower in water

and turn down my food

It’s not free

to wake up smiling

This roof over my head

has been paid for in the blood

of homesick foreign men

they deserved our women

My neighbor won’t kill me

I shall earn your days bread

before I butter my own

I shall toast our men and women

and thank my lucky stars

I shall remember the lives

of men I never knew

What can I say to their mothers?

Sorry

Thank You

[SpecOp9 0]

I'm not sure I know what this thread is about...

Do we write fiction stories and poems or what?

[Akira 0]

I'm not sure I know what this thread is about...

Do we write fiction stories and poems or what?

It's to share any fiction writing you might have done. Perhaps "ficition" is not the right word. "Prose" would be better. Any poems, stories, scripts, anything that you have written.

[Akira 0]

Sorry it is taking me so long. I looked through my stuff and found nothing having to do with military matters. I am currently working on a 40s style radio drama script which the first act I hope to have up tomorrow or Thursday at the latest.

Kooky go ahead and post your other chapter(s). That way it can be evaluated as a whole.

Astatine, I'm going to read yours right now.

In the mean time I'll cheat the rules and post this. This is from my first or second year of college. Can't remember its been so long

The man walked across the dead landscape. He splashed in the puddles of boiling blood that littered the plain. The ground was dry and cracked, devoid of any plant life. His twin guns slapped against his side as he walked, head bent, into the oncoming heated wind. Dust blew around him as his feet hit the dirt plain. The wind brought the smells of the decaying landscape to his nostrils, forcing him to wrinkle his nose. He walked on across the plain, occasionally looking up to scan the horizon for the individual he chased. He saw the alchemist was heading for an ancient ruined city, now nothing but a large funeral pyre, burning for the days long ago. The alchemist was almost in the conflagration.

As the man walked on, scavenger birds flew above him, waiting patiently for him to join those that had already perished. Birds hopped about the broken ground, eating the carrion that lay strewn about the plain. He was mindless of the birds as they took flight from his passing, circling until he was far enough away from their former prize that they would land again and resume their feast. He ignored the irritated squawks of the birds, moving silently and purposefully towards the city being consumed by flames.

He had been following the dark alchemist for six months now, never seeming to get closer, cursed to always be a day behind in the chase. The alchemist was important to him, and humanity. He held secrets and knowledge that could explain the reason for the carnage that he strode through now. He had heard that the dark robed one could set everything back to the way it was. Once, he heard, the landscape was green and teeming with life and animals, not just the carrion feeders who roamed the plain now. He had followed the alchemist through countless makeshift villages that contained the remnants of humanity, dirty, diseased souls that clung to their precious lives as though it were their last crust of bread. He heard the frightened, superstitious talk of the inhabitants of the villages. Coming out of their cardboard, metal sheeting, and wood lean-tos, they would surround him, pressing on him with their scraps of cloths, and pussing burns and sores, and babble to him about the passing of Death himself. Telling tales of how people would die from touching his robes or looking into his eyes. How he had walked through, not stopping, but pushing onward through the village and back out into the dead plains. He dismissed the ramblings as the product of superstitious and feeble minds. Until the fateful encounter that started the chase.

He first saw the alchemist as he himself was passing through one of the small towns. They came face to face in the middle of the village, neither moving aside for the other. And then the alchemist had looked at him. He had stared an eternity into the hollow red eyes of the alchemist, and had seen the disaster that had befallen humanity, had seen the destruction of the old way, and the birth of the man he confronted. Born from the blood, bones and flesh of others he walked the land, the only answer to the riddle that had fallen on humanity. He had collapsed to the ground from the sights he saw in those eyes. And the alchemist had continued on, walking right over him and disappearing into the plains. He was aware of the village bursting into flames as the alchemist disappeared; of men, women, and children running about, on fire. He had passed out then. When he came to, he was lying in the middle of the plain. He could see no sign of the village that had stood there before. He had gotten up and seen the alchemist on the horizon, not moving, waiting. He started toward the figure. The alchemist turned and started walking. The chase began and had been going for six months with no foreseeable end.

The man looked up from his thoughts and saw the alchemist standing at the edge of the burning city. He seemed to beckon at him and then disappeared into the middle of the pyre. The man hunched over and doubled his walk. A meeting was in the future.

He reached the edge of the city just before the sun disappeared under the horizon.

The city would burn forever until the nightmare came to an end. Flames reached thousands of feet above the buildings, kissing the abandoned heavens. Thick smoke rose from the flames, pouring into the sky, turning it black. A rain of soot and ash fell on the landscape, turning the brown, cracked ground to a blackish-gray. A burning wind charged out of the center of the city, blasting out across the barren landscape of the plain. The wind had grown in heat and strength as he had gotten closer to the city. Now he had to protect his face from the burning intensity of the wind, and had to kneel to avoid being blown over from the force.

The man found a street that led into the center of the city. The wind was blowing down the street and out into the vast plain with the intensity of a shotgun blast. He made his way into the city, struggling and crawling against the wind to the center where his mind said the alchemist would be. Hours passed in the inferno before he finally reached his destination.

He entered what most have been a large plaza of the city. In the center, an old fountain stood, half melted, half decayed. Fire shot out from its center, sending a geyser up a hundred feet, and sending small fire droplets down to earth. The fountain stood in the center of a circular park, now scorched beyond any possibility of sustaining vegetation. Radiating out from the park, streets extended out to all directions of the compass. The wind could be heard roaring and hissing its way down the streets amid the crackling of the fires. The man pushed into the opening and suddenly fell face forward. As soon as he had entered the center, the wind ceased. No wind bothered the center. An eerie stillness lay over the plaza. The wind started where the plaza and the streets met. In the center of the plaza, under the raining fountain, sitting as if in meditation, was the alchemist.

The man walked to where the alchemist sat, ignoring the hissing and stinging of the fire rain.

“You know why I have come. This all must end, and what is wrong made right again,†the man’s voice sounded harsh and quiet from the heat and lack of use over the months.

“Impossible. What is, is. The end has come. Nothing has been made false. The natural progression of life is unchanged,†the alchemist said. He kept his head down and remained sitting. He spoke in a whisper, forcing the man to lean forward to hear.

“This is not how life is meant to be. The natural progression has been changed and you are the cause. You will make what is wrong right, or your blood will join the blood of those already spilt.â€

“Your guns hold no fear to me. I am and will remain, the ruler of this land and the bearer of death as is my destiny. Events are as they should be, as I have seen, and as I have wished. Man brought this down on himself. God is not pleased. Fire rained down from the heavens, smiting the unholy and destroying the unbeliever. It is as it should be. Judgment is upon us,†the alchemist looked up with his red eyes and stared at the man. “We are forever linked. No end will come to our chase, and no end will come to the misery man has brought upon himself. The chase will continue.â€

The man pulled his guns out and fired, emptying both guns in the body of the alchemist. A long laugh echoed through the city, carrying across the empty plain.

“Do you believe me now? We are linked, neither to die, but to continue the chase for eternity. Perhaps someday are paths will split and your precious past restored. Perhaps it is you that will find the end of your suffering and my duty,†a gleam flashed across the alchemist's eyes, “or perhaps this is eternity. You will only discover the truth by accepting your fate. So let the chase continue.â€

As the last words died on the alchemist's lips, he raised his hand. Fire swept into the plaza, fueled by the freed wind. A roaring hiss filled the ears of the man. Fire converged on the man, exploding with a fierceness that leveled what remained of the city. The man fell unconscious.

The man awoke to the smell of burnt flesh and smoke. He opened his eyes slowly. Smoke forced its way into his half closed eyes causing tears to stream down his soot covered face. He looked around. The city and any evidence of its existence were gone, blown away by the force of the explosion. Only the plain and its carnage remained. Charred corpses of scavenger birds littered the ground, being fed on by other scavenger birds drawn to the new feeding ground. He looked to the horizon. The alchemist stood at the edge of the world, looking in his direction. The man got up, sending dust swirling in the air. He started after the figure that was already disappearing over the horizon.

I've started to rewrite and rework this a dozen times, to try and draw it out and rework the beginning as I don't like the string of simple sentences. Then I found King's Gunslinger series and muc to my dismay discovered far to many similarities (I hadn't read or heard of the Gunslinger series before I wrote it). Oh well.

[DracoPaladore 0]

4. Use some common sense when posting - member fiction needs to be loosely related to OFP or other militaria; no pornographic or excessively distasteful content; no personal attacks on real life persons or forum members; no disguising a political comment as fiction (post your opinion in the relevant political discussion thread).

I don't know about it being real militaria. It does relate to the Cadians in the Warhammer 40k games, which I'm fond of. The story isn't really developed, and it's been on haitis for a long time now.

[DarkLight 0]

I dont understand french and besides isnt this a english only board? Plz post your stuff in english ran to me right now that poem or whatever it is just sounds like a lot of french (food dishes name or something   ).

It doesn't even make much sense in French you see ;)

And it's not exactly realted to military so ... (well, the reasons I had to write this poem were, somewhat).

I have weritten a few small things on paper a while back, I'll have to find them back and translate them... but I'm lazy these days ;)

Hehehe

It does make sense if you ask me

i don't perfectly master French but i speak it well enough to understand texts and to have a conversation with someone.

I think it's a pretty good poem, lots of feeling in it...

It's better in french, i think french sounds a lot better than english.  It's a harder language (well for me it is) but i think it's a lot nicer than english. The same thing in english just wouldn't be the same