On your feet, Private.
With those words, I bolt upright, feeling a sudden rush of life and air surged back into my lungs. I claw at my throat, ripping at the sick, filmy caul, still wet and dripping. Then I feel a memory that never happened to me.
I'm 23, my name is Andrew Franklin. There's another man here, in this convenience store with a gun, holding it at a co-ed. Part of me is heroic, part of me is stupid. A little bit thinks I might get lucky. As he starts to pull the trigger on the crying twenty something, I sneak up behind and tackle him. We struggle, but he gets the gun under me. I hear something in the distance, and I look up and laugh, thinking it's over. He doesn't, though, and isn't trying to run. It feels like a goliath punched me in the chest, and my smile fades as I realize I've been shot. The police sirens are the last thing that I hear, along with the girl and the clerk screaming in Chinese.
Reacting, I put a hand to my chest. It wasn't me in that store, but I feel like I felt it anyway. The shot that killed me was five inches to the left. It's already healed up. The blood is still there, my shirt still torn. I run a finger along it as I catch my breath, then feel one of the other five shots. I managed to stop them from being so bad, but these ones will still leave scars, already looking like they're months old.
That's the first time that's ever happened to me. I didn't expect it to be so intense, somehow more real than my own deaths, living someone else's. Then I see the last girl, and realize I have more important things to do.
She's wearing a miniskirt that's pink and green pleats and loud in every sense of the word, and a little top that clings to her in a way that her mother wouldn't want it to. Her stockings are long and stripped, though dirty now, and ripped. She looks like sex and sweetness and all those things little girls try to be thinking it's 'adult'. Before that bastard came home, she was clinging to me and crying and begging me to stop him from hurting her. Now she's covered in Death, and her body just feels empty, soulless.
I swallow, trying to get a lump out of my throat as I lift up her clothes. He beat her, bruises all over her body. I don't know whether it made her 'taste' better or if he just wanted to torture her first for the hell of it. I come to her skirt, and I can't go any further. I've seen enough.
On your feet, Private, the Unknown Soldier orders again. His voice is a calm, but I know there's always fear and trepidation underneath it all. I cross myself, and say a quick prayer for her, then get to my feet. I come up too fast, too angry, and too soon after coming back, but I need to go after him.
I take a look around, leaning against a support post. I'm in the basement. Everything is sparse, and there's no light. The girl is chained to the wall. There's a parts cabinet, and a workbench, with melting candles as the only source of light. I don't even want to look at it, covered in blood and sigils. It's bad mojo. I've seen enough shit to know blood sigils and soul eating aren't the hallmarks of a priest or a saint. I avert my eyes, and in the flickering light, I see something that makes me smile.
It's the pipe I used to beat that bastard before he shot me. There's a bit of blood on it, but even better, it reminds me there's a tooth somewhere around here. It doesn't take me too long to find it, and slip it into a white handkerchief.
Now it's time to get busy. I run up the rickety wooden stairs fast enough that I'm afraid they'll break, then start busting open doors until I find a desk, then I rummage through it for a marker. I lay the tooth, still covered in dried blood, down in the middle of the handkerchief, then start tracing magic symbols around it, invoking Jesus and Hades and anyone else who's ever been in a death myth. I could say it was something I learned from a legitimate source. A Vatican priest, or a Kabbalah rabbi. I got it from a video game. In the last few years, I've realized it doesn't matter what you do, as long as you do something. Just one more thing to finish it off.
I've been chanting throughout, but now I need complete silence. Quietly as I can, not even disturbing the wind, I reach out my left hand. The pipe is there again as soon as I close my fingers, and it feels good to have it. I wave it like a magic wand, and say the words only in my mind. With a gentle tap on the tooth, I feel my blood run cold. It feels like I'm bleeding out again. I involuntarily shiver. I tie my makeshift bag, filled with a tooth, some silly writing, and a bit of dirt, and let it dangle on the string. It gently moves, tugging a bit.
hat means it worked.
I'm halfway out the door before I realize I look like shit, and I'm covered in blood and dirt. I rummage through the rooms of the cabin and find a shirt, putting it on and fixing myself up in the mirror. He's going into town, and I don't want to stand out.
How many times have I died now, I wonder. It's been three. This is the first time I've ever died up here, though. Dying in the land of the dead, that doesn't really 'count', now does it? The first time I was shot in some hellish hospital by one of the nurses, and came to naked up Above in a broom closet. Second time, some wannabe Lawmaker threw me into the River of Scorpions. And now this is three deaths.
Four the Soldier says. Confused, I look into the mirror, and can almost see him there. The Unknown Soldier. Wearing BDU and a red-coat. With warpaint and dogtag eyes. His mouth is a knife wound, and his nose a gunbarrel. Sometimes he carries a Lacadanion sheild, and others European greaves and a samurai sword. He has no expression, but that slit of a mouth repeats You've died four times, Private.
I nearly forgot. The first time I died. I was seventeen. That was a world away, lifetimes. That was someone else who died. Some young kid going out tagging and getting hit by a car, watching as it hauled ass to get away from the dying kid, leaving me to bleed out.
It was then that I met the Soldier. I'd heard him before, or maybe others. I could never make out words, but I'd get the gist of it. They wanted me to do this, and that. The unquiet dead. I lay there bleeding out, and I slipped into that other world, that place of ghosts. I grew colder as my blood filled the curb, and stained the world around me. Everything was pale. Buildings were different. The old ones were solid, but some of the new ones weren't even there. And the Soldier stood over me. He hadn't been there, but then he was. Just fading in, as I faded out.
On your feet, Private. But I couldn't stand. Do you want to die? It was said in that same tone as always. Giving an order, but scared of it. Someone not used to power, but trying to use it properly. Someone about to die, but not letting on to the people now under him.
You have a chance to live. And the pipe dropped down from his hand. I looked up, and saw him. I might have pissed myself if I wasn't dying. I think I pissed myself because I was dying. Take it, and keep fighting.
I don't know why I did it. Why I reached out and grabbed that pipe and pulled myself up. Why I became Bound to this spirit of those lost in battle, dying for nothing and everything. Sometimes, I regret it. I regret it when I see a young girl beaten, crying, begging me to stop him, and not being able to. Other times, I don't. Times like when I beat that bastard to death and tear out his eyes.
"Four deaths," I say to myself in the mirror. They say when you die Below, it just makes you crazy. Nothing a little piece of mind can't get you back. But when you die Above, when we die Above, it shreds our souls, makes is closer to monsters. Someone else dies each time. I cross myself again, and say a prayer for Andrew Franklin. Let's make sure he doesn't give me his life in vain. "Keep fighting."
My pipe is back in my hand, and my knuckles are tight gripping it. I'm going to find that bastard. I head out, and raise up the bag, letting it gently rise in the direction he is. I'm not going to let him take another girl's soul. He killed me once, it's time to return the favor.
