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It was a slow day.
One of the very few they got,a quiet drone of serenity against the fleeting,drab background of wartime.A crumpled,half-smoked pack of Woodbines,too many soldiers in the trenches ,and a lousy excuse to get out of wetwork.The nurse on the grounds,who obviously did not believe that Eriche had caught deadly lice,was sympathetic enough to let them get away with it.That's really all they needed,downtime.
"Lice really?" Eriche exclaimed
"Oh get off it,I got us out of wetwork, didn't I?" Munroe replied, nudging Eriche playfully.
"Sure thing,Munroe,I have no idea how she lets you do whatever you want." The other man said
"I don't do whatever I want!" He protested
"Last shift,you stayed until lights were out and she didn't so much as blink an eye!" Eriche retorted
"Yeah,well,at least I don't accidentally gut the bodies,Eriche,you're shit at wetwork,it's a goddamn miracle you're still getting assigned shifts!" Munroe responded,with a brazen grin.
"Oh whatever." Eriche rolled his eyes,clearly not bothered by the sentiment before placing a sloppy,open-mouthed kiss on Munroe's lips, both of them chuckling too much to be able to slot their lips correctly.
Eriche had laughed so hard that the smoke half way down his lungs found its way out of his lips,effectively choking him.Munroe's eyes misted over watching his companion chortle through their cigarette;its hearty sound reverberating against the walls of their auld lang room.He can't remember the last time he heard it,feeling a familiar blooming in his chest.
Waving his hands to signal 'no more' Eriche passed over the remainder of their last cigarette,which Munroe accepted graciously, taking in a long drag before crushing the small orange stump in a makeshift ashtray.
He adjusted himself on the yellowed mattress,leaning closer to the other,the tattered cushioning moving with his weight.
The other soldier's eyes widened with remembrance and humour.
"How pissed do you think Harris and Wright are about covering our shift?" Eriche giggled,with barely contained glee.
It was Munroe's turn to burst into boisterous laughter,one of the blokes once alluded to their private activities,he said, he recalls quite clearly:
"it ain't right what's going on between you two, it's against God " the bigot spat out,lips curling in distaste.
And since then they had kept their distance from Eriche and Munroe,even if they were right,how was it any of their business what they got up to when they're alone? The severed relationship with their bothersome roommates didn't really trouble them,they were better off without their sneers and glares of disgust.
The thought of their irritating roommates being stuck doing their work,which they were more than capable of doing, whilst they smoked cigarettes Munroe had stolen off some poor unassuming soldier had sent them into more fits of giggles.
The laughter from the two men had died down into stagnation. Lapsing into a long, agonising silence,Munroe had noticed that these elongated periods of time between them had stretched in length compared to before; however,he was wary to ever mention it or else the delicate balance of an unknown coming would shatter into ugly shards.
Minutes counting down to doom,the sound of ruffling jostled in the still air, Eriche shifted to face the entrance.The door to their dingy room was nothing short of ragged;years of damage had been crudely painted over,though the splintering of wood was relentless and had prevented the door from ever closing all the way and prevented the two friends from having some much needed privacy.
Even more minutes had passed,or was it hours? He never kept track anymore,not since his fourth or fifth death,but something must be said or else Munroe will lose his mind.With a sudden start,he cleared his throat.
"Eriche." Munroe muttered
"Hm." Eriche had only hummed in response, finding his knees a much more interesting sight than Munroe's angular face.
"Are you angry?" Do you hate me?
Eriche lifted his head from where it was planted between his knees to face the other man.
"What makes you think so?" Said the other, seemingly indifferent.
"Your face." Munroe faltered
Eriche swallowed,his face had gone slack, save a furrow in his eyebrows.
"It isn't your fault." mumbled the other man,hardly coherent and back to avoiding Munroe's eyes.He hated when Eriche did that.
Truth be told,Eriche forgot to register Munroe's presence after that,instead slipping into a vast crater in his putrid mind.
It was nasty battle that one,they were running out of ammunition,soldiers were dropping dead like flies before even getting a single shot at the enemy;however,that wasn't the most wretched thing about the whole ordeal,not the brutal deaths dealt to undeserving men yet with blood on their hands,not the sinister machine dabbling in matters of life and death, tearing apart the soldiers to place their parts as it sees fit,for if there was one who could find himself in the looking glass,he was bound to be turned into an unfamiliar amalgamation of those before him,those who had also believed they could hold comfort of knowing oneself in unscathed palms.
But it was sitting in it all, surrounded on all sides. Eriche could swear that the mud beneath his feet warped in ways unnatural to ground,the fact that he was standing without putting in conscious effort to do so was a miracle.It was as if he'd died and exited his body to watch over the violence inflicted on their "Great Nation" without his beating heart ever stilling.He didn't have time to think this over when he was blinded by an impossible light,quickly followed by complete assault of the senses.
He couldn't hear the sound of his skin tearing itself,revealing bare flesh,over the unbearable sonorous ringing;tolling against his ear drums like that of a church bell,but he could feel it.Laying flat on his back,while those around him scrambled to safety;he felt more inconsequential than he ever had,since he signed up,truly just a cog in the machine,another brick in the wall.The pain,which had not ceased tormenting him,had intensified with the new discomfort of an unblinking eye, due to the marred skin on the left side of his face,missing an eyelid to be able to blink,there was no way to alleviate the unbearable dryness as well as clear away the debris from the unexpected shell.He had attempted to get up mere minutes ago,before collapsing back down,a wet thump against the trenches' mud —a futile attempt of saving himself.How much longer will I lie here? Do they even know I'm not dead? Does it even matter? Does anything matter around here? He thought aimlessly,until the throbbing in what had remained of his left eye returned with more vigour than before.
That's when he's heard the cry of a familiar voice.
"Eriche!" The voice wailed. Munroe.
He had tried to call out to Munroe,signaling him to where he lay;however,his voice came out as no more than an incomprehensible whimper,but the other man spotted his battered body anyway;he always knew where to find him.
Munroe slowly approached him,uttering grievances the whole way.
"I'm so sorry,Eriche...I swear I didn't mean to leave you like that,I turned my back for a moment and...You were gone,I even asked around,but-but then the worst came,and...I couldn't...I'm sorry." Munroe croaked a second apology before kneeling down next to Eriche,careful not to apply any pressure to his already wounded body.
He gasped softly upon closer inspection of Eriche's face,a vulnerable mass of tissue and sinew with only a flap of skin hanging off,his translucent blue eyes,even more crystal-like against the bloodied canvas. Munroe shakily brushed his fingertips against the exposed flesh,staining his greyed fingers crimson.
Eriche shuddered against the contact,feeling the sting in his very nerves,but was grateful for the touch regardless,a human thing in this bleak wasteland.The ache hadn't dulled one bit;however, having his friend next to him had eased his mind off the horrific nature of the incident,he'd never tell him this,though sometimes he thinks he could bear to live another day if Munroe only stayed by his side.
Without warning,Munroe jerked against him, unsteadily fixing himself to hover above Eriche,both knees on either side of his torso,which had also been struck,although his head took most of the damage.He could hardly blink using his lone eye,not quite discerning Munroe's facial expressions,but he could swear that he saw streaky tear stains down his cheeks.
"I have to do this...For you." He mumbled,more to himself than anything,as he reloaded his rifle, pressing it onto the other's chest. He should've seen it coming,it wasn't uncommon to kill yourself—or in his case,be killed—and avoid healing a particularly ghastly wound,but he couldn't help the way his heart thrummed against his ribs, threatening to burst into indistinguishable viscera.He had died too many times, truthfully,he'd lost count of the times he'd been blown into pieces,but the fear took over his body anyway,like an instinctive chemical thing.
He braced himself for the impact of the bullet,the brief pain and then the comforting blanket of Death,it was better that way,less painful,yet it never came.They stayed like that for quite some time;he can't tell the exact duration Munroe's firearm rested against him with how increasingly muddled his brain had become.He could feel himself waver between consciousness and oblivion,the last sound he heard before giving in to the darkness caving in,was Munroe's broken sob before slumping down next to him,limp as a ragdoll.
"I really am sorry, Eriche." Munroe whispered to no one, his apology falling on deaf ears.
The air in this room never moves,it's been days of suffocation. Eriche was still out cold,half of his face wrapped in gauze,the other twisted in disconcert,he's probably having another nightmare. Munroe can't even blame him,anyone would struggle to sleep having survived that Hell. Munroe,who was let off his duties for the time being, considering the state of most of the soldiers, hadn't so much as stirred,simply sitting next to Eriche's unconscious self—splayed out on the stark white bed sheets, contradicting the usual state of their bunks.
Guilt gnawed on him like an ulcer,time passed slower in the flicker of the hospital lights,he prays the race is worth the fight,a million thoughts took over his mind, despite his passive state.What will Eriche think of him now that he has to wear Munroe's failings on his face? What will he do now, knowing his fate fell in the hands of a coward?
Eriche's slowly opened his eyes,which he immediately regretted as the bright overhead lights hit his retina,not even giving him a chance to awake without a headache.He hadn't noticed Munroe's desperate eyes, pleading that he doesn't remember what he did to him,still taking in the unfamiliar surroundings.The maimed man reflexively went to rub the sleep away from his eyes before letting out a low hiss.
"Don't touch that!" Munroe warned,voice loud enough to pierce through Eriche's morphine induced haze,but not enough to scare him.
"The nurses said touching it will just make it worse..." He meekly said, voice dying in throat.
Eriche had only absorbed the reality of where he really is,but struggled to recall why, shouldn't he be in the machine?
"What happened?" Eriche asked, voice gruff from misuse.
"The mortar shells headed for the Southern front changed course last minute and you were just... In the wrong place at the wrong time." the other replied
Eriche's face remained contorted in confusion.
"Yeah,sure,but why am I here?" He said,vaguely gesturing to the infirmary,again, shouldn't he be dead?
He was silent for a moment, contemplating on how to respond,but it was no use trying to hide the truth.
"You didn't die,I dragged you here around dawn...I'm sorry,Eriche." his breath hitched,hands trembling in his lap,he couldn't handle it,and he's not the one missing half of his face,God, he's such a coward.
Eriche did not respond to this,instead choosing to stare at the looming wall,eyes glazed over.
"When am I getting out of here?"
"Oh...Today should be fine, probably in the evening though, they'll have to check your vitals and stuff."
"Good,this place stinks of chlorine."
"Oh yeah? Imagine breathing it in for days!"
"You've been here for days?" Eriche's eyes dilated in disbelief.
"Well, of course?" Munroe was embarrassed by this,but honestly offended that Eriche would assume that he wouldn't wait for him just for a few days. I'd wait for you until the end of the world,he thought,before brushing off the insolent idea.
"Then we ought to get out of this place, don't you think?" he said with an impish grin.That's new,part of his mouth fell slack when he smiled, drooping slightly.It was sort of charming?
"Don't want to lose my sense of smell,now do I?" Munroe snickered, they're okay,for now at least.He's still his Eriche.
And that's how they snuck out the infirmary without any extra checkups;they probably shouldn't have done that,but it should be fine,as fine as possible anyway.
Eriche has done nothing but stare at his scar for the past hour.He knows he shouldn't,they tell you to avoid reflective surfaces for a reason;it doesn't even hurt anymore, though it prickles abruptly at times.The new scarred tissue wasn't as difficult to get accustomed to as the nightmares were;the last time he woke up gasping and heaving was when he first signed up;moments of his life would flash right in front of his eyes,his younger sister chuckling as she braided his hair, weaving in too many wildflowers, which were a pain to remove later,but he knew it made her smile,his mother lecturing him as a boy for breaking a crystal vase before tenderly bandaging his bleeding fingers.
As for his father—He can't remember his father,he doesn't remember what he looked like,what was his name,what he sounded like,he could only recall the scorned expression he had when they'd laid him to rest, always an angry man,until the bitter end.He's also beginning to forget the rest of his family;it started small,not being able to recollect if his dear sister was ash blonde or white haired,to only being able to remember their cries as he set off, wiping his little sister's tears, promising he'd visit.He never did fulfill that promise.
Would she even recognise him now? Would the townsfolk still compare him to his sweet mother or would they look on in pity?
They may live on indefinitely,but not even memories are immortal.
Soon enough there will be nothing to dream of,and he'll long for those neverending nights of terror.
He should've known that Eriche still resents him for what happened;letting it fester within him like rotten fruit,but right now he'd rather Eriche scream at him, hit him,grab shears to carve twin scars onto his face,if it meant he'd stop avoiding Munroe's eyes,if it meant he'd say something, anything.
"Eriche,can you just look at me?!" Munroe pleaded
The other soldier jolted—suddenly freed from his mind,craning his neck to look at the other man.
"Yes?"
"I-um..." Munroe found tongue failing him, unable to describe his inner turmoil,his guilt,his anger,his desperation;feeling small underneath Eriche's attentive gaze.
Instinctively,his hand trembled forward, tugging the loose silver locks hanging in his face behind his ear,which Eriche did wince at the disfigured half being uncovered,but did not pull away.Munroe's fingers gently tracing the jagged scar as he'd done many times before;however,the emotion in the other's eyes was different,soft and raw,like he was waiting for the worst to come.
"Do you ever think about that day?" Munroe asked
"All the time." Eriche's voice barely above a whisper.
Munroe's face twisted into a scowl.It has been plaguing him all these past months,of course,he knew him better than that.Eriche's facade is not lost on him;however,hearing the other man admit it somehow made him feel worse,his hands falling to his sides.
"I shouldn't have done that to you,if I did what I had to— "
"You didn't do anything!" Eriche interrupted
"No, Eriche! You know what I mean,if I had went through with it,you wouldn't have to suffer." Munroe insisted,the frown on his face deepening.
"I know." Eriche sighed
"But it's not that bad right? I mean at least it scares off those snobs at provinces."
"But you didn't have to look scary." Munroe said solemnly
"Be honest with me,if I was in your place, would you do it?" Munroe asked, anxiously waiting for a reply.
Eriche was quiet for a moment, filling the room once more with dreadful silence,before speaking to say:
"No,I don't think I would've been able to go through with it...It's hard to just imagine." He grimaced before shaking off the graphic images invading his mind.
"So we're alright?" A small,tentative smile appeared on the other soldier's face.
"Yeah,we're alright." He huffed a laugh lacking in humour,but full of something else.
Munroe,happy with the response,leaned forward,their lips brushing for a few seconds,before planting a firm kiss on Eriche's lips.He still tastes of those cigarettes,he mused— which,to be completely frank,is the only reason he started smoking,but he'd never tell him that.
They'll still be alright,even after all this time.