An End To It (Story that was withdrawn from comp)
Here is the story that I withdrew from the writing competition, thought I may as well post it just for the hell of it!
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About 800 words
An End To It
A short story
by CrackedAxe
Schmidt crawled slowly over the blasted earth. A moonless night had closed around him so completely that his world consisted only of the cold mud beneath him. The soft breeze was the only other thing that moved, and it was a malignant presence, regularly assailing him with the stink of sodden corpses.
He stiffened at the sound of a distant gunshot, a sharp sound that cracked the night. The shot was too far away for its hostility to be focused on himself. He released a shuddering sigh onto the mud. Just some nervous sentries' resolve broken by night shadows, no doubt.
He continued crawling. It felt like he had been here for hours, inching his way deeper into the slumbering terror of no-mans land. Yet it had probably been no longer than ten minutes. Still, he felt excommunicated from the world of sanity and reason: a world of glowing fires and spoken friendship, a world with flesh-felt love. He could remember such things only as if they had been told to him, a morale booster between battles. But they were something to fight and die for so others could enjoy. They were not a part of his world anymore.
His existence was now consumed by the punctuated horror of slipping like a night beast into the wastes of no-mans land, to wait for daylight and the chance to terminate some distant target.
Eventually, he reached his spot; a bullet ridden tree-stump that jutted obliviously from the ruined ground. Sprawled in the mud behind its cover, he unslung the sniper rifle from his back.
He knew the weapon intimately, and the darkness couldn't stop him from caring for it. The wind reached through the damp parts of his combat dress as if he were naked there, but his hand never faltered as he caressed clean the steel lines of the rifle with a cloth.
Then some movement caught the corner of his eye, his head snapped up from the weapon and he peered into the night - there was a light in the distance, flickering like a phantom in a void. Quickly he steadied his weapon against the stump and squinted down its scope. Just as he brought his aim near the target, the light went out.
Schmidt steadied his breathing and waited. The scope brought nothing but darkness to his view, but he peered down it with the instinct of a predator nonetheless.
Sure enough, the light flared up again. He brought his aim to bear on the flicker, finger poised over the trigger - just as it went out a second time. He cursed silently, but still he kept his aim.
He had done this too many times to notice his quickening heart. He kept his breathing steady and even, his shoulders relaxed, and waited.
The light flared a third time, now within the deadly circle of his scope. He brought his crosshair to bear on the yellow flame and his finger gently took up the first tension on the trigger. Then stopped.
He hadn't mistaken the light, tommy was lighting his pipes, passing the treasured match from man to man - its treacherous light reaching out each time one of them puffed at the pipe for the flame to catch the tobacco. Some things were worth the risk. But Schmidt hadn't fired.
There was a face captured for that fatal moment in the ruddy glow. Schmidt had seen such faces through his scope dozens of times before: Sad faces, faces of pain, masks of terror or resignation. He had seen them and ruined them all. This one was different. It was stretched into an expression Schmidt had all but forgotten; a smile. An eye wrinkling smile with a pipe clenched between yellow teeth.
The light had gone out, the target veiled from harm by the darkness. Schmidt relinquished his aim, and propped the rifle against the stump. He sat down heavily in the mud, and tried to cry.
He hadn't witheld the shot out of consideration. No, that momentary flame-lit face had revealed to him how much he had lost. He felt pretty sure he would never smile again.
He sighed heavily, and brought out of a webbing pouch some tobacco and a piece of paper. In the darkness he fashioned a rough cigarette, then stood up.
With the smoke between his lips and matches in his hand he faced the night-hidden enemy trenches as if to declare some arcane intention. For a second he considered the craziness of what he was about to do, then with a grunt struck the match roughly and lit the cigarette.
Schmidt savoured the lung-caressing nicotine and his few last moments. The steel-jacketed round reached him before the sound of the shot ever could.
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