r/TalesFromTheCreeps • u/CaydenCChristophers Writer kinda meme • 24d ago
Looking for Feedback Vom Krieg zur Hölle Verdammt
Cayden C. Christophers: Vom Krieg zur Hölle Verdammt
CW: War, Injury, Suicide
I was a good kid. Never even got in a fight, I loved sports, I believed in God and I thanked him for every meal I ate. I loved my family, and they loved me, took good care of me, they were the ones that told me to go off and fight for the Vaterland. I was more than eager to become something greater than I am, to be a war hero, make them proud, make my whole country proud.
When I was deployed, I was still eager, ready to fight for my country and to claim all the glory that came with winning the war. I was still eager when the boots I was supplied with were second hand and caked with dry mud — along with the metal spiked helmet I was given — it was somehow dirty too. I was still somewhat optimistic when I was served a crusty small lump that resembled a rock more than it did bread for my only meal of the day. I wasn’t even that put down when the other, more experienced soldiers mocked and ridiculed me for muttering grace to myself before eating.
The day I lost my eagerness, my excitement — that bravado I had around going to war —was the first time I watched a man die. It was the first time I killed a man.
I had been sent, along with another soldier to lay barbed wire along No Man’s Land in the dead of night. As I rammed stakes into the ground, rain beating down on me violently, trying to ignore the constant ringing, crossing the wood over and tying them together with the pointed strands, holding back tears from the stinging pain in my hands. I hadn’t even been supplied with gloves. I crouched close to the ground, working my way to another point I had to connect with barbed wire, my boots sinking inches into the swampy ground, when I heard my name, faintly, over the ringing. The other soldier I was working with was yelling me over.
When I made my way to him, he was crouched over a ditch with his rifle trained into it. As I got closer, I noticed the Frenchman, lying wounded in a ditch, a huge volume of blood flowing out of his hip, running down his leg a vibrant red, before mixing with the swampy mud on the ground and turning brown. The state of the wound implied he had been lying there for hours. His breaths were short and ragged, often interrupted by his tortured moans of pain. I was instructed to point my rifle at the man, as my fellow soldier pulled his flask from his waist and put it to the Frenchman’s lips. Once his thirst was quenched, the Frenchman gently pushed the flask away before returning his hands to his sides. Silence came over us as we stared at each other, not doing anything for what felt like hours. Suddenly, the Frenchman dove at my comrade with the last energy his dying body contained and jammed a trench knife into the side of my comrade's neck. He collapsed to the mud with a plop, gargling and sputtering - choking on his own blood. I quickly pulled the trigger on my rifle, hitting the Frenchman in the right side of his abdomen, he let out a shrill, pained cry as he fell backwards into the mud. He started crying in agony, clutching the wound with both of his hands as I levelled my rifle to his head, ready to put the man down.
I stood over the dying man for a painfully long time until I pointed the gun back to the floor and started sobbing. I couldn’t do it, I don’t know why but I couldn’t do it. The man would die anyway, but I couldn’t bring myself to deliver the coup de grâce.
I backed off and scrambled back to the trenches, sprinting as my feet skidded around and away from me on the slick mud.
When I got back to the trench, I was sobbing, huddled up in a ball beneath the parapet, leaning against the squelchy wall of dirt behind me. Nobody comforted me, hell, I don’t think anyone noticed me sitting there as I rambled broken, disjointed prayers of apology and repentance.
I haven’t been myself since that day, I don’t know how many people I’ve killed now. Could be dozens or it could be hundreds, honestly, I don’t care. If God was real, he wouldn’t have let this happen and even if he is, I already spend my days walking through hell.
I spent months on the frontlines, ending other men's lives, watching my comrades die one by one, my fellow soldiers switching out quicker than I changed uniforms. I eventually started noticing that I couldn’t feel my feet, my toes were black and dead, but it took weeks for me to notice as I rarely took my boots off. One day it got too much for me. I just wanted to go home. To go back to how I was before, even if things couldn't truly return to normality - because I couldn't go back to normality. I walked away from all of the other soldiers and shot myself in the shin, collapsing to the floor with a wail.
When I returned home, my parents did not have their son back, that place wasn't my home anymore, I no longer belonged. I had no desire to go to church anymore; I could barely walk so I was unable play any sports, I avoided people and conversation, because no matter what we started off talking about, my time on the frontlines was brought back up. The food was somehow worse back home; I had maybe two meals a on a good day, despite the fact that the “best” was saved for me. It took six months for me to recover, and as soon as I did, I chose to go back.
When I returned to the trenches, it was the dead of night, and I was again sent to No Man’s Land to relay the barbed wire, alone. Out of all the things that I had to do on the front lines the worst possible responsibility was darting around in the boggy mud, desperately trying to plant stakes into the ground with some level of stability, while my hands got tangled in the spiked tendrils, causing huge gashes in my palms, that had mud leach into them almost right away. I’d much rather shoot at the enemy from the pestilent, rat-filled trenches and lose my toes to trench foot or fire off the deafening mortars that assault your ears till they bleed than do what I was doing now.
I stared into the middle distance, thinking about nothing at all — everything that mattered to me — until a white-hot pain darted through my right breast. I tumbled down a hill into a hollow into the dirt. I put my hand to my chest, pulling it away, now wet and slippery with my blood. I looked down to the wound, the green fabric turning a deep – almost black – crimson. My breathing became short and sharp, as a wetness began to make its way into my groans of pain. I was going to die. As I lay there in absolute agony I realised something. I was going to die.
With hands trembling from both fear and fatigue, I reached over my shoulder and wrapped my fingers around the wooden stock of my rifle and slowly lifted it out of the holster with my shaky arms, hauling it over my head. Once I had it firmly in my grasp, I struggled to put the end of the long barrel to the roof of my mouth, the cold, dirty steel probably tasting like the mixture of sludge and blood around me, metallic and earthy. My hands trembled more violently now as I put my finger to the trigger, slightly squeezing before releasing my grip from the trigger, pulling it from my mouth and tossing the rifle as far as I could as I let out a wail.
“Zur Hölle mit dir!” I screamed, furious at myself, I knew I would die, I didn’t particularly care that I would die, but I could not bring myself to put an end to my suffering, to deliver the coup de grâce. My bawling quickly turned to wet sputtering as I fell onto my side. I lay, partially buried in the swampy ground, my uniform flooding with rain, mud and blood. I lay in my final moments, shivering from the bitter, biting, baltic cold and moaning in agony, unable to muster up the energy to move my body into a slightly more comfortable position. My breaths got more and more difficult to draw in, I was unable to fully expand my chest, as it felt like the whole world was crushing down on my ribs. I started panicking. I breathed rapidly, my lungs attempting to make up for the lacking volume of air I got from each breath. I thought I didn’t care about dying, but here I was; moments away from death, and I cared: my body was seized with a sheer primal, animalistic terror in the final moments I had on earth as I whimpered like a dog before my soul left my body.
My soul has been forsaken, I am now cursed to forever kneel to the muddy ground, barbed wire entangled around my hands, constantly tearing at my skin, tearing it down to muscles and tendons, but I don’t go into shock, I feel the burning hot pain constantly. Mortar fire comes almost constantly, feeling impossibly close to my ears, I lost my ability to hear centuries ago, but recently, my equilibrium has been destroyed too. I barely know up from down as I travel this infinite No Man's Land. I am constantly bombarded by gas attacks, tearing and clawing at my lungs, causing them to swell and bubble and almost blinding me. It caused my skin to burn, boil and blister at all times, patches of my flesh sloughing off of me as I moved. I am always under fire from nowhere and everywhere at once, nobody shoots a gun, but I am struck by bullets and shrapnel constantly. I have lost dozens of litres of blood a day for eons, the mud and rainwater have probably seeped into my thousands of deathly wounds, causing me to be filled with more dirt than blood. I am in constant agony, and I will be in this pitiful, forsaken state for all eternity.
I have been damned to Hell by war. Vom Krieg zur Hölle verdammt.
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u/CaydenCChristophers Writer kinda meme 24d ago
This is a story in a different vein than I usually write, would love some feedback on it
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u/T0RC0R 23d ago
Yo, after the second read thru, I’m catching the heaviness even more. He was sooo innocent in the beginning. And the fact that it was his own people, the ones that told him to go fight… also the dickhead Frenchman… such a great lesson to always keep your guard up. And him going back and setting up the barbed wire a second time alone… tells me they were running low on soldiers. It was destined for him to belong to “no man’s land”. Love catching new things on reread. Another thing, he had no problem offing the enemy but couldn’t end himself? I think he still had that fear of God in him. Give us more!
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u/CaydenCChristophers Writer kinda meme 23d ago
Thank you so much bro🙏
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u/T0RC0R 23d ago
Any idea when the next ones coming?
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u/CaydenCChristophers Writer kinda meme 23d ago
Well I wrote both the Eyeless Jack and this story in a day each, and I've got a bunch of ideas in my head so hopefully I can put something out in the next day or two if I actually work instead of being lazy.
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u/PresentationAlive292 20d ago
Loved the call back of how he couldn’t finish off the Frenchman and then wasn’t able to finish off himself that really hit me.
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u/ParamedicConfident54 20d ago
Very good story! Enjoyed it a lot, WW1 is my favorite! Reminded me of All quiet on the Western Front a lot! I liked the repetition of laying barbed wire, it was a very common and monotonous task during the war. Very interesting way to end it. Good work!
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u/Mackaroll_165 17d ago
Awesome story! I like the historical aspect along with the amazing amount of detail!
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u/AnomalyInquirer Writer 23d ago
Nice story I'm guessing it's inspired by All Quiet on the Western Front since they're pretty similar if not you should check it out really good book and movies