Stage 01
The Cabin

Stage 01 – The Cabin
Bakahir, the Lost Continent --Harrison Ciccarelli Stage 01 – The Cabin
-Edmund Canuck, January, 1923. Somewhere North of Calgary:
Action will always prevail over inaction; this is the way of things. So, what then becomes of a man who’s lost the drive to make what he can? I mused this as I sat in the snow with a mouthful of jerky. The woods whispered and shook as the bitter cold of the winds carried daggers across my face. I brushed the snow from my beard; It was good to be home. Must be three years now since I retuned from overseas. Times a funny thing, ain’t it? A lifetime ago I was sittin’ at the bar with my buds, discussin’ which backwater corner of France we were headed to next. Three years back and I was bored already. Now, let me tell ya: Choppin woods as honest a work as yer certain to find. But after enduring spectacle and horror in equal spades, there aches in yer heart a void so terrible that one might be foolish enough to miss the danger.
I rose to my feet, dusted off the snow that was building on my arms and made a mental note to send old Dax a letter when I delivered my lumber in’ta town. Yes sir, choppin’s honest work. As I drove my axe into the pine, the echo that rung across the forest sent a gaggle of geese honking across the fridged sky. One of the damn foul that was skimming the ground nearly bashed me in the head as it spooked. As I shooed away the damn birds, the pine that I was working gave a disconcerting crack. I cursed my own sloppiness; Cracked timer sells, but reputations splinter. *KURRA* A deep crack echoed out in the distance. Could’a been blasting from the mine down the road, but after considering that notion a second, I recalled that the mines been ‘a closed since the war. *KRUUUAA*There was another crack, a higher pitched that echoed and reverberated across the mountains. Fourty-five caliber acp, no doubt about it.

I tensed up… The enemy was near…. The enemy was coming…. The enemy was going to riddle me full of tungsten and steel!... I stood and dove into the snowbank next to the tree and there in the frozen powder did I search under the old trick, grasping for a rifle. The enemy was near… The enemy was numerous… The enemy must die!...
As my hands turned red with cold and black with grime from the undercarriage of the truck, I felt as if my head was being targeted. The roar of a Vickers cut through the icy pond next to my cabin, the dark and icy waters churned with vile impulse. The void was calling me. My trembling fingers reached the grip of the rifle nailed in place to the underside of the engineless truck. I snapped the stock into my shoulder and took aim at the machine gun nest in the hillside. Fifty and five meters, light wind, aim for the head and fire th--- *shh-click*. The rifle cycled half way before the cartridge jammed. Left with nothing but a club I braced myself for the roar of steel to rip through me.
A minute went by, then two. My eyes felt as if they were staring at something hundreds of miles away, my head grew heavy and I stood there halfway up the hill staring at the outcrop of rocks I had thought was an MG nest… How much time had I lost? What was the cause? Focus damnit! Lock in! Center yourself! I chided this fool of a deadman. I looked at the rifle in my hands. “Eight years’ worth of jams and you still have a wicked sense of humor, ye damn thing”. I muttered to myself, bemused at my fortune. Had my battered old Ross rifle not jammed I could have hurt a lot more than my pride…. I did a once over just to be sure I wasn’t missing anything important.
I sighed and stood to my feet. Gripping the rifle near the lower receiver with both hands like a club, I took aim at a sturdy tree and swung with gusto. A loud crack echoed across the small valley near my cabin. The cartridge came free and with a straight pull, I cycled out the following round and disarmed. I berated myself as I slumped against the tree trunk. “This worthless bastard’s even jumping at the sound of his own axe, huh? Split wood or a Vickers gun, what d’ya make of a man who can’t tell the difference?”. This wasn’t the first time I’d jumped at shadows and I ain’t lucky enough for this to be the last time either. I grit my teeth and gripped my axe knowing there was no pride in slouching on work. Feet planted, blade in place, I wound up one more for a horizontal chop…. But a wave of terror crept over me, eyes everywhere. What if I was being attacked and continuing to chop would mask the sound of their approach and kept me from retaliating.
My vision turned white, as I punched myself in the forehead, using the pain to focus. I recoiled and grabbed my aching temple. “Lock in! Gotta clear my head. I suppose the trees will be there later….” I made for a sorry excuse but I couldn’t bring myself to push on any further today.
I stowed my axe back in its guard and propped it against the steps of my cabin. It was a simple thing tucked at the foot of a small mountain. Inside was not much more than a bed, desk and stove. It wasn’t much, but she was honest. From the front door, I looked around and breathed in the crisp winter air. I gazed to the peak of the snowy hill that stretched a hundred feet above my humble abode. At its base was a small pond that made for a half decent skating rink. Though it was covered in light layer of snow, there shouldn’t be too many snowbanks to get in my way. I walked down the small hill and shuffled onto the pond. My boots were mostly worn, but if I dug in my heels, I could get grip enough to skate forward. I did a few laps around the pond like this, reminiscing about the days of chasing schoolmates around with stick. It would always start as a friendly game of hockey, but a rough game of escalation quickly ensued as one good tackle earned another. The trick to a good ice tackle is a strong and low kick-off. Fixing for a bit of speed I dug the worn heel of my boot into the ice and kicked off with a burst of speed. With one kick I traveled nearly the length of the pond. A soft smile must-a been pushing up the corners of my beard. “Lock in” I muttered and tried to fix those memories to the forefront of my mind. “Remember the instance and make that your focal point. With this you are never lost…” I muttered this to myself a few times under my breath. I didn’t know if it would do any good, but the scholars in the far east like to write about repetition of mantra so I figured it couldn’t do no harm to practice.
I spent the next quarter hour passing back and forth on the ice, drilling those memories into my distorted mind. My serenity was then shattered as another loud crack rang through the air, followed by another. Using this brief and rare clarity of mind I began rationalizing my surroundings. The ice under my feet wasn’t cracking; That was not it. The echo of an ax into wood?; No ones close enough to be heard here and my axe is by the cabin. As I began to count down what the sound wasn’t, I was quickly running out of plausible excuses. “Surely the enemy can’t be that close?” “Surely I would have heard the field guns by now?” “Those men I killed aren’t coming back, the cant find me here; THEY WONT!” I shouted these things in madness as the Vickers on the hill above me opened fire on the icy pond. The sound of bursting bullets popped and penetrated my footing. With deathly chill I plunged into the water under the ice and found my self drowning into the depths…….
I opened my eyes; I could hear nothing but screams. I could see nothing but explosions. With a powerful shockwave detonating beside me, I regained my senses and took note of the muddy trench surrounding me. My familiar rifle was held firmly in my grip as it always had, and I stared into the distance at the mountain which marked our objective. I struggled to recall the briefing in my head, trying to remember our orders. We Stormtroopers were to throw ourselves at the ridge until it was under ally control. The 20mm guns would provide a creeping barrage for our advance.

Yes, that’s what must be done, I mused to myself. This is what will be done. I shouldered my Ross rifle and charged down the trench.

--- --- --- -Inue Proudfoot. January 1923, somewhere Northwest of Edmonton.
My eyes opened and I witnessed the luminous moon above me. I lay in my bedroll and admired the southern night sky. The deer brayed softy against my head as she shook free a thin layer of snow that covered us all. I turned to my older brother who was wide awake and watching intently for danger. He and three other hunters from the tribe had defied both my father and the elder mother to join me in my Exile. Those wounds were still fresh in my mind and I curled up and silently cursed the horrible burden I had brough back from that cavern. If only I had left it in there, if only I had died from the fall….
No! I told myself. Now was not the time for such thoughts. I could not change what had already come to pass, and so I must try to move on, one foot at a time towards my future. I clutched the mask of Kugan-Jaad close to me and reminisced of the events that led us south………………………………………. I had begun my journey in solitude, my face iced over with numerous tears. I wandered alone with noting but my spirit masks and a pack full of supplies. As I traveled across the lonely tundra, I noticed a pack of mice following me. The little critters walked where I walked and stopped where I stopped. I though the whole thing to be quite peculiar. After tossing the mice a small bit of food they encircled me and excitedly and scurried off towards an icy Fjord nearby. A whisper on the winds told me that I should see where they went, and with nothing left to lose I walked after them. The mice ran towards a small plateau overlooking a small crevasse. I could see far and wide across the tundra from this vantage, and yet there was nothing to see. Endless fields of ice stretched out in all directions. I had no certain destination for the burden I carried, but I wished my journey to take me far away from this endless expanse of cold lifeless torment. A strong wind caught me off guard and I lost my balance. I fell forward and slid on my front downward into the icy crevasse.
I dug myself out of a snowbank and shook the snow out of my parka. I looked up at the icy slopes around me and felt utterly lost. There was no way I could climb back up, there was no way I could move forward and there was no way I could complete my quest, so alone as I was…
“Cry not child, for you are not truly alone.” A voice echoed in my ears but my heart. I looked around for the caster of the voice, but I was all alone at the bottom of this cursed canyon. I felt a warmth at my waist and looked down to see the Mask of Kugan-Jaad glowing with an aura of swirling indigo. The aura was terrifying, but deep in my heart I knew it was nothing to fear. In the great stories passed down from priestess to priestess, the mouse woman was a being who helped guide travelers to their destination. I stared at the mask and with shaky hands, placed it on my face.
Upon donning the mask, I was suddenly engulfed in the snowbank I was previously sitting in. I scraped and clawed my way to the surface and gazed around. By some distortion of my view, the canyon I was trapped in seemed even larger now. As I tried to make sense of what I was experiencing, I heard a loud chittering noise behind me. Fear gripped me and I slowly turned around to find myself staring face to face with a massive mouse! I screamed and fell backwards out of the snow pile and onto the ice. The giant mouse was startled and scurried down towards me. I screamed again, louder this time as I prepared for the end of it all... But instead of eating me alive, the giant mouse bent down to see if I was alright. I clutched my head and felt the Mask of Kugan-Jaad bathed in a warm and comforting glow. As the warmth comforted me, more giant mice began diving out of the snowbank and surrounded me. Though they were just as tall as I was, they appeared to be ordinary field mice… I recalled a story of how the mouse woman was able to approach the mighty Raven by becoming smaller. I took off the Mousewoman mask and in a flash of light I found myself standing in front of the same field mice that had guided me here. They were gently nuzzling against my boots. I felt a warmth of hope, the ancestors were here with me, guiding my way. It would be disrespectful to give in now.
I donned the mask once more and the mice excitedly directed me towards a dead tree that had fallen into the crevasse and gotten stuck in the ice wall. The swarm of mice crawled into the tree trunk and I followed them, awestruck of the massive world around me. The tree was hollow on the inside and full of fungi and moss. I followed the swarm of friends towards a light as we ascended the tree trunk.
As we reached the top of the tree trunk, I gazed at the tundra before me. There was a large cliff at my feet that stretched fifty feet to the other side. I had ascended to the top of the ice wall but I wasn’t out of the crevasse yet. If I wanted to continue onwards, I would need to cross this gap. As I peered downwards, I saw an icy slope twenty feet below me, which slid back towards the pit I had just gotten out of. I doffed the mask and stared at my mice friends who were excitedly jumping at my boots to urge me further. The mouse woman was a protector of journeys and I seemed to be faster and lighter than normal while wearing the mask, but even so there was no way I could make it across the gap. I considered the other two masks I had at my waist. Arctic Fox and Raven. I donned the mask of Raven who brings the sun, and felt as if I was light as a feather. Looking down at the mice, I hadn’t shrunken but I could feel the raven whispering to me. She called for me to soar, to chase the sun, to complete my journey finding happiness therein. I didn’t entirely believe her, but I decided to give it a shot. I climbed upon a short rock nearby and jumped off it. To my amazement I descended from the rock as light as a feather and slowly drifted downwards. My heart swelled with bravado and the warmth of sunlight overtook my sense of reason. The little mice friends chittered excitedly and with a running start, I jumped towards the gap.
The wind caught under me and I could see the ground far below me. Arms outstretched I slowly drifted forwards towards the other side of the cliff. My head felt uneasy from the vertigo of looking downwards, but the Raven’s song echoed in my head and put my mind at ease. Before I knew it, I had landed on the other side of the gap. Amazed at the power of the great spirits, I felt hope for the first time in many days. I looked on ahead to where I could go next to get out of this icy crevasse and continue on my great quest, when something even more amazing occurred. Just ahead of me at the top of a large cliff was a silhouette of four men riding on deer. The soothing sound of a wooden flute caught my ears and tears welled up in my eyes as I cried with joy: “Brother!”
“We found you little mouse! Wait right there while we find some rope to bring you up to us!” A great sense of relief welled up inside me, if my brother was here, then perhaps I wouldn’t have to undertake this journey all alone after all. Firstly however, I would need to find my way up to them. I looked around me but there was nothing but an icy plateau at my back and a rocky wall to my front. From the corner of my eyes, I caught a glimpse of some sort of ice effigy. I walked towards it and saw an Inukshuk made from blocks of ice. A landmark of stone or ice made in the shape of man: they were made to mark sacred spots for the people of the north. Something inside me told me that this monument would aid me, and I reached for my third mask, the Arctic Fox. As I donned the mask, I could hear the howling of the winds as clear as ever. Stretching out from the Inukshuk like strings of luminous threads were the northern lights, spiraling like a coiling serpent of smoke up into the heavens.
With the sprits as my guide, I reached out and touched the Inukshuk and felt myself being dragged upwards to the sky. With the crisp sound animals trotting on fresh snow, I felt myself pulled along the stream of light like a fish caught in a stream. Before I could make sense of anything, I landed with a thud right at the feet of a braying deer, who licked my softy. My brother picked me up and embraced me. “Father will be angry if we are gone for too long, but we will help you as much as we can dear sister. The others can only go as far as the snow keeps on the ground, but I will go with you for as long as it takes to deliver your burden.” ---That was several months ago….
As I reminisced on the events of the journey that had brought us this far south, I noticed that my brother who had been standing watch was gone. *KRAAAAAAKKKK*. Suddenly the sound of thunder echoed loudly nearby. The sky was calm and I could see the stars above us, so I though the sound quite odd. “Nanook??” I shouted my brother’s name. Tarkik, Siku and Innik, the other three hunters from our tribe stirred slowly awake. Siku grabbed his bow and crept into the dark woods to find Nanook.
The deer stirred restlessly and a few moments later I could hear Siku loudly whisper to the others for help. A moment later Siku returned to camp supporting my brother under his arm which was covered in blood. Nanook softly muttered that he was okay, but that we needed to flee immediately. I rushed over to my dear brother and saw the massive stream of blood dropping from his shoulder. I clutched him and asked what had happened, but he gently pushed me off and spoke: “Grab your things, get onto the dogsled and start running, now!” His words were soft but carried immense eight, the look in his eyes told me the dire situation we were about to be subjected to. “They want the stone you carry Inue… They will kill us for it. You must run, we are right behind you.”
I had a million questions to ask, and I wanted to begin treating his wounds, but Tarkik was already strapping the dogs to the sled and rallying the deer. Using his good arm, my brother hugged me dearly and lifted me onto the sled. I checked to make sure I had Fox, Raven and Mouse with me as well as the cursed stone that we were about to be killed over. A warmth filled my soul and somehow, I knew that I must not let go of this artifact. Siku helped my brother onto the back of his deer and handed him a bundle of tomahawks. I wiped the tears from my eyes and steeled my resolve. I shouted at the dogs to mush and they took off as swiftly as the winds. The others were right behind me and flanking me on either side they held their bows, spears and knives at the ready preparing for war…
The dogs barked loudly and pulled with all their might through the dense forest of trees and onto the snowy road. We seldom had the benefit of roads back home, but ever since descending further south they had proven swift and efficient methods of travel. In the distance the roar of an unnatural thunder, like a polar bear scraping its claws against stone. Something big was coming for us.
The dogs darted left and right along the winding trail before the trail forked and met up with a wider dirt road. The southerners apparently called this a highway due to its elevation above the ditches on either side of it. My brother looked behind us as we rode for our lives. He was losing a lot of blood but his face didn’t show any pain. His eyes held a strong sense of determination. I prayed to the ancestors and placed all my hopes in him.
In front of us, far in the distance were two cones of light shining in our faces. With a flash of light and a reverberating crack of thunder, darts flew from the light source and instantly killed Siku’s deer in a fountain of blood and viscera.
All of us screamed as we watched Siku fall to the ground and roll into the ditch at the side of the road. I could see him recoiling from the fall and trying to stand to his feet. There was a rustle in the bushes next to the road beside him, and he took aim with his short bow and fired. A man dressed in green and holding a staff fell out of the treeline with an arrow sticking out of his breast. However just as swiftly as the man fell, two more green men strode from the woods and stabbed Siku in the chest with knives. Nanook cried out in great pain as Siku’s body slumped to the ground to join the ancestors.
The voice of another man came from behind the cones of light to our front, he shouted loudly in his native tongue. “One of them has the stone! Kill them and take it no matter the cost!” My brother was the only one of us who had learned a bit of the southerners’ languages from the few small villages we had passed through on our journey so far, but I didn’t have time to question how I could understand them clearly.
From the woods. Men on horseback holding swords trotted out and began chasing us down the road. From behind the first cones of light came another, and another. Each cone of light illuminated the shape of beast in front of it. A half dozen metal wagons that stood as tall as a polar bear on its hind legs blocked the road ahead of us. Each one filled with dozens of men armed with their terrible weapons: The fired Arm.
Those of us still standing were stunned stiff. Even the dogs and deer were braying and barking. My brother threw a tomahawk right next to the lead dog on my sled and shouted “Run sister!” in our mother tongue. I slipped on the mask of Kugan-Jaad and the dogs bolted like lightning, running off the road and deep into the woods. A barrage of fired arms rang out behind me but I could not bare to look back. I simply curled up and tried to stay conscious from the unyielding fear that was trying to suffocate my heart….
Once again. I was all alone….
--- --- --- -Edmund Cannuck, January 1923. Somewhere northeast of Calgary.
With rifle in hand, I charged down the trench line. The hill we were supposed to climb was looming high in the distance, upon which could be heard the roar of artillery guns raining hell over the muddy field below. I creeped down the trench line and spotted a soldier. My boot splashed loudly in the mud and the faceless soldier turned to me and shouted “Intruder!” auf Deutsch. In order to survive this hell again, I must be better than these pig farmers and schoolboys; Their lives vs my Ambition. I aimed my rifle and pulled the trigger with practiced discipline. *CLICK*… Just my damn luck. The soldier fumbled his rifle as he tried to aim at me with shaky hands, but it was too late for him. With a swift bash over the head, the stock of my rifle cracked the man’s skull and he crumpled into the mud. The impact freeing my jammed cartridge.
As I pilfered the downed soldier looking for weapons and munitions, I was suddenly knocked off my feet and blown forward into the trench wall. My ears run with the familiar smell of powder and copper heralding the ten-millimeter shell that had landed behind me. Unable to hear a damn thing, I looked at the wooden wall in front of me. It was shoddily built from scrap lumber with a makeshift door to block off the rest of the trench. I peeked through the eye-slit and saw a few soldiers lined up on the other side. I cursed and wished I had brought my axe with me from the cabin back home, I searched for anything to pry the wall open. I reached behind me to shoulder my rifle, when I noticed a familiar wooden handled hooked into my holster. I was momentarily mused by my good fortune, and quickly went to work chopping down the door with my trusty axe. Shells rained closer and closer to me. I could hear the screams of soldiers on both sides making the final hurrahs. I paused momentarily to consider why I was doing this; But as soon as the final beam was splintered under my blade there was no more time for doubt. It was business as usual cutting down those who aimed their guns and blades at me. I didn’t not have time to hear their cries and pained death throes. With bullet and blade, I cut my way through a few faceless men and once I had made it through the trench, I leaned against the wall to catch my breath. In war there are only two kinds of men: Those who make it home and those who don’t. I no longer had anything to go home to, so why did I continue to press on? My mind wasted time on foolish questions like these, while my legs carried me further, one step at a time.
I came to the base of the ridge and I didn’t not recognize the path before me. This was Vimmy, wasn’t it? The landscape was distorted and stonework structures a hundred years old protruded from the mountainside. As if someone had dropped a castle or two from the heavens. I ascended up the path to the top but found the way forward blocked by felled stone. I took a moment to admire the craftsmanship of this fallen French tower. I peered around for another way forward, the path I was on was elevated high above the muddy fields, there were no other paths to the top aside from this one. Looking down from the path were pits full of sharp jagged rocks. One wrong step would leave me mangled beyond repair. Several feet from the path, sticking out from the rocks over the spikey put was a series of stone ledges which seemed to lead up towards the top of the ridge. I decided to take my chances and try leaping to the nearest ledge. I breathed deeply and muttered to myself: “hell or high water…” I broke into a run and leapt.
As I reached the apex of my jump, my despair grew; I wasn’t going to make it. Barely halfway to the safe of the ledge, I would soon be brutally impaled on the spikes below. A flood of thoughts raced in my mind. How had I gotten here from my little cabin back in Alberta? Had I truly lost it this time? Just earlier I was calmly skating on the pond next to my abode, cutting trees and imagining gunshots. If I had enough clarity to ponder these things, then I might as well steel my resolve to do the job right.
I willed my fractured psyche to focus. I thought about skating and wished that it was ice under me instead of a deadly precipice. The spikes were growling closer and the ledge was now at waist height…. And the, the damndest thing happened. My feet caught grip like I was making and ice tackle, and I slid forward the rest of the way right into the rock. The sudden burst of speed caught me off guard and I clumsily caught the ledge I had given up hope on reaching. My stomach was bruised and scraped bloody from the sudden impact but I had made it. I clambered to safety, caught my breath on top of the rocky outcrop and swore loudly.
I surveyed the ground below me, the soldiers were firring uselessly at each other across no-mans-land. Not a soul seemed to see me up here on the ridge side and perhaps that was for the best. I began studying the path ahead of me. The next jump wasn’t as far, but my earned caution made me reconsider my position. If I could “remember” my ice tackle, would I be able to launch myself to safety? I grit my teeth and crudely spit down the drop. There was only one way to find out… With another leap I focused my hardest on “remembering” the ice tackle, and how I had managed to launch myself just moments ago thanks to the maneuver. Nothing happened. My hands flailed and my fingers dug into the side of the rocky platform, I hung there with my boots were inches from a spike.
I once again pulled myself up and dusted the mud snow and blood from my legs and prepared for the next jump. The rocks jutting from the cliffside stretched upwards to what appeared to be the battlements of a castle which had become swept up in a landslide. The turret of a French castle hung precariously above me. It seemed sturdy enough despite being so terribly out of place, so it was as good a place to climb towards as any. From there I should be close to the top. After planning my route, I once again looked forwards to the deadly drop between my footing and the next stone I had to jump to. Were I to jump the furthest I could, I would still be five foot short and my body would be hopelessly mangled on the rocks below. If I was unable to launch myself as I had done previously, I would die. Nothing left to do now but try. I backed up a few inches as far as my limited footing would allow and I focused on the feeling of skating around the pond near my cabin. I jumped praying and pouring all of my focus into “remembering” that instance in time…. While mid-air, I felt as if my worn boot-heels had caught grip on the ice and with a whoosh of speed I landed safely on the other side. As I landed, I shook free my doubt and worry like a dusting of snow. There was no time to question why or how. I had to keep moving forward. From one rock to another, I leapt across and upward. The ruined ramparts were almost within my reach and my pace quickened. I held the memory of the ice dash in the forefront of my mind as best I could. As long as I focused, I could remember that “Scene” and bring it forth. Moldy rotted wooden scaffold, jagged walls and rubble. Nothin’ I hadn’t trampled underfoot before. “Don’t think; Just advance. Standing still gets yuh’ dead. Four men, backs turned. Each man a dozen feet from the next. Need to close the gap. Need to stop them from reacting in time.”
A battering ram would work, haven’t used that plan since… *Ziet! Auf, Auf! * A round cracked the banister I had just finished climbing over. The wood splintered and ell down the cliff below me. I ran as fast as I could towards the first faceless soldier. He cycled his Martini and prepared to shoot me in the chest. I dug my heels into the ground, trying to gain the kind of speed you get on the ice. My boot slipped on a puddle of water and I lost my balance. I began to fall forward until my other foot caught the ground at the same time the gun discharged. My gut was warm; Always a bad sign. I was still breathing which means I wasn’t dead yet; Good enough reason to keep going. I was launched forward and tacked the man to the ground. I swiftly grabbed the axe from its holster and cut the man’s throat with the blade. Next man ten feet: Dash forward, crouch low, slide like the ice, cut the man’s neck with the axe. His body slumped to the ground and the last two soldiers charged me with knives.
“Weigh the axe, throw overhead, aim for the tree stump, nail the target. Follow through.” The corpse fell forwards driving the axe further into its chest. The last man gave a guttural shriek that sounded more demonic than Deutschland. Screaming like a banshee the soldier charged me, stepping on the backs of his fallen comrades and moving erratically like a puppet on strings. What insipid disrespect for his brothers in arms. Even in the face of death… No; especially in the face of death! What a sad sack of honorless crap.
The soldier with a sunken face gave a terrible wail and swung his blade overhead. I stood a full foot taller than this soulless husk, so I wound up and put my boot through his guts with my full weight behind it. The mans momentum stopped just as his blade gouged my sleeve. The force of the blow causing him to stagger and fall flat on his arse. I grabbed his collar and drove my fist into his face: Once, twice, thr—Suddenly I was out of breath. The mans face was caved-in bloody mess, and my knuckles were sore. Took me a moment to snap out of it. “Jobs done, must progress onwards. Lock in, Lock step.”
The fallen castle ended and the mountain continued. I was near to the top now, but I was surrounded by the buildings of a small town. Wooden houses covered in snow, most of them ruined by shellfire, stretched out along a dirt road towards a white building at the end of it all. To my back the cliff dropped sharply downwards and the sound of rifle fire continued to echo. I had been here before; that much was certain. The last time I was here, my unit was tasked with storming a church where some key enemy leaders were gathered. We were supposed to storm in, kill them all and deal a hefty blow to the enemy’s war effort. There was no time to question why the village was up here on the ridge. There was work to do. I started to look around for a tree to knock the door down, but something odd caught my eye.
I walked towards myself: A man wearing the same coat and helmet I had wore that day. My eyes weren’t sunken and my beard barely grown. The shadow of myself didn’t seem to notice me. The young bastard turned his back to his men and ordered the felling of a large tree. The Shadowman and Bravado felled the tree while the rest of the squad checked their ammo. Ten arms grabbed the tree’s trunk and prepared to charge the church door. Just as had been done before, I watched the Stormtroopers shout a rallying cry to the heavens and barrel forward through the door with a *KRASHH*. The front doors burst open and arms opened fire. The same as had been done before, the room was cleared and the momentum of the charge carried us through the stained-glass windows at the back of the church and down into the snowbanks below.
I got to my feet from watching this Scene from an unfamiliar angle, when I heard a cry from within. I crept forwards with rifle aimed at chest height. The door was blown free from its hinges and inside were bloody corpses everywhere. I kicked over the body closest to my feet and looked at the mans face: German Strategy Commissioner. Kill confirmed. I kicked over the body next to him wearing green: American? His uniform was nothing like Bravado and Shadowman’s…
There were two dozen corpses on the floor, and most of them were dressed just like this man. I did a quick search around the room and tried to find the highest-ranking officers. The green men’s patches and gear were odd: quite advanced, fancy materials and high-quality graphic design. “WHERE IS IT!??!? WHEN DID IT GO??!!?”. A man was crawling across the ground covered in blood and pine needles; The poor bastard must have been hit by our ram. He turned to me, eyes as sharp as a meat cleaver. “WHERE DID YOU SENT IT YOU BASTARD! I CAN STILL WALK IT BACK! I CAN STILL SAVE MY MEN! GIVE IT TO ME SO I CAN FIX EVERYTHING!!!”.
The man was hysterical, screaming with a hoarse voice. His green army helmet had the words “Born to Kill” written on it in black paint. He grabbed a black box from his waist which crackled with static like the wireless. “All men down. The grain is gone. Need immediate evac! Use heilos: No time for subtlety.” The mans face was twisted with pain of losing his men. His eyes were blue and wide as the torrents of the sea. He stared at me dead in the eyes and cursed repeatedly. The trembled below me, my reality was cracking underfoot. I was falling, the church full of corpses was gone. I was underground trapped under dirt; There was a skittering…..
I looked around me in pitch black darkness, smelling dirt and mildew: Must be a cave. A million beady red eyes glowed at me through the darkness. Insects chittered and surrounded me. Strange creatures, legs of metal, bodies made of primitive shapes. Their bodies were a perfect cylinder, their tail was a squared hoop undulating erratically. The were inches from me and one by one began to leap onto me, digging in with their sharp triangular pincers. They ripped and tore and pulled me deep through the threads that span all things. Just when I had lost all sensation from my nerve endings being devoured by creeping crawlies: I felt the chill of winter snow.
The cold and wet were a kind of comfort to my reeling mind. I lay there a moment trying to center myself. It was dusk now; I had lost a lot of time. I stood to my feet and dusted myself off. I did a once over to make sure I hadn’t hurt myself. There was dried blood coating my forehead and this turned out to be the worst of the damage. I could still feel a million dog sized insects chewing, biting, devouring me alive, but as I took a few deep breaths I pushed them out of my mind. I could still hear gunfire ringing in my ears, but I was too exhausted to pay it any mind. It wasn’t real and so it stands to reason that it shouldn’t bother me. I kept muttering this to myself unconvincingly, but the gunfire was getting louder; Rapid MG fire….
I studied my surroundings. I was standing on the road 300 feet from my cabin. I turned to my right and saw bootprints scattered all over the deep snow. I must have been staggering around for quite a while. My brain ached something terrible. I swear I could even hear the sound of dogs barking. There were dim lights coming down the road towards me. I shook off the haze and stared to move onto the roads shoulder. I didn’t see the sled until it was too late. The dogs pulling the sled tried to swerve to avoid me but the wooden frame slammed hard into my legs knocking me off my feet.
My brain hurt, my legs felt like they had cracked, and I was once again lying in the snow. I groaned and stood to my feet. I looked for the driver. The dogs were making a racket in the ditch with the overturned sled. Unconscious and laying in the middle of the road was a women dressed in white furs. Musta been an eskimo from the far north. She carried a rusty iron spear on her back and had three crude hand made masks tied to her waist. “Eh? You alright there miss?” I limped over to her and grabbed her shoulder to see if she was still breathing. She stirred awake and muttered in a weak voice: “The grain… Where is it?” I had no clue what she was on about, she must have taken quite a fall from the sled. She was still reeling from the crash; I helped her to a sitting position and told her to breath. I scanned the impact site and lying in the snow a few feet from her was a smooth stone the size of a baseball. She looked around her in a daze while I walked over to the stone. As I approached closer I could see it was made of a glassy obsidian. It gave off an odd aura: One of premonition and absolution. A thought came to mind as I stared at it, just inches from my grasp.
>If I were to grab this now: There would be no more rest for my tired soul. There would be nothing but hardship on the road ahead. And there would be absolutely no turning back from here….
My ambition got the better of me and I grabbed the damn thing. …
I was crushed under the weight of everything and my mind was split open with a hatchet. …
--It was then that everything occurred at once. --Every scene was presented thusly. --Time is a river with many eddies --In most versions of events…. I end up grabbing the damned thing…
A lifetimes worth of visions flooded my head and drowned me. I couldn’t make heads nor tails of a damn thing. I tried to center myself and find my surroundings. The girl rushed over to me and brough her face close to mine. “You… Touched it? And you are still alive? Are you hurt?”. She looked a year or two younger than myself, but her eyes told of the many hardships that brought her here. She wore a look of concern, and bewilderment. I managed to mutter through clenched teeth “Aye, My head feels like it’s been split with an axe, but I’m still breathing.” I was still reeling from the shock of the memories; I felt as if someone was flooding my head with water far past the point of bursting. My vision was fuzzy but I could make out two faint lights coming south down the road. I staggered to my feet and handed the stone to the girl. She stared deep into my eyes for a moment, but her attention turned behind me and she froze. I spin and squinted into the dark, there were two sets of headlights coming down the road barreling towards us. “Friends of your, Eh?” She pulled her fur hood over her eyes and wiped her tears with her sleeve. “Th… They want that stone. My brother…. D…Dead…”
I grabbed her shoulder and looked into her eyes. “Run. Now. Don’t look back. Flip that sled and run like hell yuh’ hear?” She hesitated, knees quivering. Her face was too kind to have seen a fight, and from the sounds of it, there were two trucks full of men coming to finish something. I ran through the scenarios in my head and I couldn’t come to a single conclusion where this lady with a spear was a threat to two dozen riflemen. I dug my boots in the snow and shouted at her: “MOVE IT, NOW!” She scrambled to get the sled up righted and she begged me to run with her. “Please run! Those men will kill anyone in their way!” She pleaded that I come with her.
I let her shout and plead at my back; I didn’t want her to see the fear in my eyes. I hadn’t been in a real fight in a long time and I rattled my brain for a plan. I could see the trucks clearly now in the evening darkness. Military grade half-tracks, seemed much fancier than the ones I knew, must be a protype. The trucks were fifty feet from me now and they weren’t slowing down. From up atop one of the cabs a gunner cocked his MG and fired at my feet. His shots were accurate and the message clear. This would be a hell of a time to have a nice log or caber.
The trucks were twenty feet from me now. During my mania earlier I was able to *remember* things and since I was about to be hit by a truck, I figured there was no harm in trying. I dug deep into my memories; I recalled shouldering the felled tree to storm the church with my squad. I remembered the feeling of the rough bar, the snowy pine needles and the dirt caked to the roots. I could see the tree clearly, and so: I grabbed it.
The top of the tree dropped into the snow and I shouldered the trunk near the base. A split second later the truck made impact. The trunk of the heavy tree softened the blow, dented the trucks grill, and I flew backwards and lost consciousness.

When I came to, I was in my cabin. My bones ached and as I stirred, I found myself bound and tied to a chair. There were three men staring at me: American Military by the look of their uniform. I groaned and spit blood from my mouth. “Who the hell and you bastards?” The ranking officer, I Corporal, turned to me and slipped on a pair of knuckle dusters. Guess it was questioning time… Without uttering a word, he slugged in the gut a dozen times until I was winded and wheezing. The man was green, his strikes lacked conviction: I was in luck. “Where is the stone? Where did the girl go?” The man was short of breath but his words curt. These definitely weren’t his question, and based on the blackness outside the windows, it had been a while since the truck crash. He must be stalling for his commanding officer, so I had to act fast. “Stone? Look out the window, there’s a mountain back there.” The mans reply was a punch to my jaw. “Where’s the girl!!!??” The man shouted, clearly running out of patience. If I could just get him to swing something sharper than words…. “Girl? If I had a date I wouldn’t be sitting here with you smooth faced sods.” One of the privates standing behind him drew his boot-knife and ran at me before being stopped the Corporal. “Cool it Ramirez, the Colonel will be here in the morning. Boss seems to think this leaf is the guy responsible for dropping his *stone* all those years ago.” The men spoke amongst themselves and I recalled what I had seen earlier. I remembered storming the church with my squad, but I had never seen that American man shouting and screaming for his dead comrades. I was starting to doubt my own insanity. There was no way I had run into these guys before; It’d me much easier to blame insanity. What a hell of a day this had been….

I sat and considered my options. I needed the greenhorns to get headed enough to stab me. “Oi! You work for that pathetic sobbing bastard from the Church in Scarpe? HAHA. I remember running that asshole down with a tree. Kicked the stone right out of his hands and laughed all the way home.”
It was a bold-faced lie, but both privates grabbed their knives and dove at me. I threw my weight to the left and the chair I was bound to tipped. The one called Ramirez stabbed at my thigh, the blade caught flesh but as I was falling, the sliced the ropes around my legs. My legs were free and so I made it their problems. I kicked Ramirez in the knees hard enough for him to fall jaw-first into the post on my bed. The room was small and the other two were scrambling. The corporal swung a haymaker and I backed into the stove. The remaining private drew his gun and aimed at me over the corporal’s shoulder. My arms were still tied to the chair which was straining under the stress, I lifted my boot and kicked as hard as I could, like putting your foot through a fence. Both men fell backwards and I followed up by jumping overtop of them and rotating onto my back. The chair shattered on the corporal’s rib cage, the man underneath him gave out a pained cry. The wood had shattered enough that I was able to break free from the ropes. The men were reeling and groaning on the ground. I wound up and curb stomped each of the men in the head to make sure they wouldn’t be following me. I scanned the room for a weapon for a weapon. My Axe and rifle weren’t here. I could hear more men shouting outside my cabin door. I tried to reach for the fallen men’s weapons, but the door slammed open. I thought hard about the tree I had managed to produce earlier, about the memory of the bark, the mud on the roots, the snowy pine needles. I reached out and grabbed the tree. I shouldered the tree and charged through the door. I plowed forward knocking down the soldiers crowding the doorway. There were a dozen more of them standing out in front of my cabin. They aimed their guns at me, their eyes full of fatigue and range. They all looked rather green, not much battle experience. The corporal standing outside shouted: “HVT. Take him alive no matter the cost. Boss wants to deal with him personally.” They lowered their guns, which were high quality and stamp pressed steel of advanced models I had never seen before. They replaced them with pipes, clubs and sledges. The men I had knocked down weren’t getting up, but next to the cabin’s steps lay my weathered axe and rifle. I picked up my trusty tools and faced the soldiers.
I recalled the feeling of sliding on the ice from earlier, I found that *instance* and glided forward to the closest man, drove my axe into his neck and turned to the next man. My memories began converging, memories both familiar and not familiar filled my head. Ever since I touched that stone, I had been feeling odd. I recalled the hellish war I had fought through with my brothers in arms, and felt myself experiencing the same highs I had felt back then. The rut of mundanity was becoming a distant memory. If I continued to direct my will towards victory. There would be no obstacle to stop me. I willed myself top slide forward like the memories of ice: and so I did. I willed myself to grab the trunk of the tree-ram: and my assailants were steamrolled. Every time I grabbed that tree, I could hear the faint whispers of Shadowman and Bravado standing behind me. I felt alive once again. I pulled back from my train of thought and stared at the bodies surrounding me. Most of the men had been delt with. I had sustained minimal damage up until now, but the impact of the sled and truck were still reverberating in my poor bones. I was out of breath and I hadn’t gotten this worked up in years. I was out of practice. The remaining Corporal drew a double-barreled shotgun and aimed for my legs. He was inches from me and I was too tired to move as fast as I needed to. If only I could delay the attack…
*BUKAHHHH!!!!* Both barrels fired. I crossed my arms over my chest and willed the incoming damage to take as long as it possibly could to harm me. The cone of 12-gauge bird-shot flew from the gun and the tiny pellets dug into my legs. The pellets lost momentum as soon as they broke flesh. I felt an immense pain that caused my vision to turn white. I ground my molars and screamed to maintain consciousness. The pellets were stuck into my calves as if they had dropped into the snow and began sinking. I could feel them slowly digging deeper and further into my legs: piercing flesh, bursting veins, denting bone. The pain was immense and yet my legs hadn’t given out yet. Whatever this *delay* was, it was to my advantage. The corporal panicked and fumbled two more shells into the breach of his gun. The red color of the shells indicated that he was fresh out of warning shots. I couldn’t survive buckshot at point blank. “Shit, you’re a forther huh?” The man spit, and reached for a black box at his belt that crackled with white noise. He spoke into it like some kind of hand-held radio console. “Target is attuned! Scenes! Just killed two dozen men. Need all units for containment!!”
I staggered forwards, vision getting increasingly fuzzy from the pain. I kept all my focus on delaying the impact of the pellets into my legs. The man’s gun was loaded and pointed at my chest. Shame for him, I was as close as I needed to be. I swung my axe in a wide horizontal arc and the man’s head was cleaved free in a shower of viscera…. Certainly not a peasant act, but survival demands for of will…
I took long shaky breaths, the adrenaline from the fight was beginning to wear off. I allowed my focus to lapse for only a moment, and entropy resumed its march of progress. The pellets that had been digging into my calves pierced straight through, but I didn’t feel any additional pain… My entire body ached and my legs felt like they were on fire, screaming from the pain of being shot.
What was going on here? Why was I able to “remember” things well enough to make them reality? Why was I able to delay and stretch out the impact of a shotgun blast? If I wanted any answers about what was going on here I had two choices. I would either have to ask that Inuit girl from earlier, or wait around here for whoever this “Colonel” guy was. With only one viable choice, I limped over to the soldiers’ trucks which were still parked on the road.
One of the trucks had its front grill smashed in with a large dent in the dirt road where the tree had snapped under the impact. The other had broken its front bumper from crashing into the back of the former but it seemed otherwise operational. The trucks were half-tracks with two front wheels and tracked treads in the rear to crawl across difficult terrain. The trucks looked well made and appeared to be fancy military prototypes. I climbed into the cab and grabbed a med-kit from under the seat. I used a wad of gauze to wrap my bloody legs. There was a bottle of white pea sized pellets labeled “painkillers” so I popped a few into my mouth.
I searched around for the keys. Under the sun shade I noticed a small truckers log as well as a glass-like square full of black string. The trucker’s log was full of service information, recent oil changes and caliper adjustments, but for some reason the book contained service dates that hadn’t happened yet. There were written accounts of maintenance work done as far into the future as nineteen sixty four. “Damned American date formatting” I muttered as grabbed the key from the books front page and threw it behind the seat.
I stared at the glass rectangle full of black threads. “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” was labeled on it. “Must be some sort of whack religious rhetoric these punks follow.” The black threads inside the glass box looked almost like the film they press moving pictures onto. I looked around the cab for some sort of light projector to view the film, but the only thing fitting the size profile was a rectangular slot on the dashboard. After three wrong tries the glass box was pulled into he dashboard with a mechanical whirl. I turned the keys and fired up the engine. Music began to fill the cab: evil bastardizations of guitar and drumming poured forth in a satanic ritual of sound. Appropriate music for the hell I was about to step into. Whoever these guys were, they were dangerous, technologically superior and very pissed off at me and that poor girl. I put the truck into gear, and left my home for the final time… --End Stage 01--