# Screaming in The Dark



## demonlord24 (Feb 9, 2012)

"Heren? Where the frak are you!?" John was still deaf from the motor shot that hit the inside of their building his squad was held up in. He could see his comrades screaming in pain or running to and fro wounded soldiers to administer morphine or last rites. His sergeant was shouting orders at other soldiers that were in cover and had no medical experience. John felt a hard tug on the collar of his shirt.

"Get down!"

A bolter shot barely skimmed his forehead as he was pulled to the ground. Heren was behind him and hugged him.

"I'm right here, now grab your gun and help us stay alive."

She shoved him a lasgun and dragged him to his feet. John quickly sprinted to cover and listened for his orders.

"John, Heren, Combri, cover our left flank! Jefferson, get me a line to command, and for Emperor's sake, stay down and in cover!" yelled the sergeant.

"Another wave of Chaos Space Marines coming in! Get ready!" yelled the sergeant again.

John said his prayers as he heard the heretics before he saw them.

"Blood! Blood! B-Blooood! More Blood!" A whole squad of chaos marines began to run towards their position and abandoning their weapons, grabbing whatever close combat weapons they could find.

"Fire all guns! Focus on the front!"

As soon as the word "Fire", the rest of the sergeant's words were drowned out by the lasguns. John's soul was being lifted as he saw more and more heretics fall to their guns.

Then the worst situation that any Imperial guardsman fears. The enemy brought armor and they had no way to combat it.
It was a land raider.

"Damn! Abandon positions! Get the Warp ou-"

Las cannon fire brought down the building.

As rubble came down on the doomed squad, Heren and John jumped out of the way just in time to see more heretics rush out of the dust storm.

"Heren? I love you, I really mean it this time."

"I know John, I do to-"

She could barely finish her sentence before her head disintegrated in a red mist. John couldn't speak, all he could do was just touch the head of his former lover. He slowly turned as he saw one of the Khorne Beserkers raise his axe.

"Love, what a pathetic thing."

All John could do was scream as the Beserker's axe came down upon his head as the darkness took him over.



Spaced out paragraphs to aid reading - DTH


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## HOGGLORD (Jan 25, 2012)

Wow. Brutally short but nicely written. If you can find a way of adding to this, but without harming what is already a great story, that would be awsome.
One thing, I am not sure that _'warp'_ is an expletive that would be used by the imperium. But if anyone knows otherwise, please correct me.
:biggrin:


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## Dave T Hobbit (Dec 3, 2009)

A moving vignette.

The one thing that did not sit quite right was the naming of Kharn: as the story is form the view point of a guardsman who is unlikely to know Kharn from any other CSM it weakened my suspension of disbelief.


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## Ambush Beast (Oct 31, 2010)

*Hi*

I don't totally agree. If the enemy is yelling "B-Bloooood!" I think the average guardsman could figure it out pretty quick. 

Not bad writing in any case. Still lots of work to do, but not bad.


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## Dave T Hobbit (Dec 3, 2009)

Adrian said:


> I don't totally agree. If the enemy is yelling "B-Bloooood!" I think the average guardsman could figure it out pretty quick.


That is it Kharn? That it is a CSM who worships Khorne maybe; but given how tightly actual knowledge of Chaos is restricted it seemed too unlikely that a specific person would be common knowledge.


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