Frozen bodies littered the foggy valley. Gunnar’s ragged, cold breath got warmer as he rose to consciousness. He felt immobile and the sky was as black as onyx. Only a streak of morning sunlight reached him.
Somewhere on his skin he felt a thin stream of blood. He was still alive; of that he was certain. The stench of decomposing flesh made his stomach gurgle as he tried to move in a seemingly tomb-like structure. But the structure was made of his fallen brethren.
With a grunt of exhaustion, he freed his right arm and went to push aside the corpse above him. Blood started to flow in his arm again as he put more effort into freeing himself from death’s grip. A gaping hole in one of his boots let in the cold November air. He had beginnings of frostbite at several of his toes.
The big man above him had long, dark blonde hair and a reddish beard. Gunnar didn’t know whether the man’s hair or beard was dangling in his mouth, but something hairy caused him to gag. He pushed the hairy monstrosity out of his mouth with a big puff of air.
The body above him seemed to move away from him slowly but steadily. He didn’t feel his left arm at all. His heart thundered at the realization that maybe his arm had been severed in battle or another fallen brethren was on top of it, constricting the flow of blood.
The eerie, morning sun showed its big grin to Gunnar as the young man finally pushed aside the mountain of a man above him. It dawned on him that the bodies of his fallen brethren were what allowed him to survive the chilly night.
A phantom pain in his body caused him to squint his eyes. He then pulled his left arm from underneath another massive man. The man’s face was frosty and stiff, but his piercing eyes were still open, looking at Gunnar with disbelief, fear, or both. Half of his jawline was missing, and worms had already begun to decompose the insides of his mouth.
Gunnar plucked out a wooden splinter from his torso. The riveting pain coursed through his body, reminding him he was still in the land of the living. Blood dripped but it wasn’t too bad. He checked himself for other more critical wounds but didn’t find any. He had some cuts and bruises but nothing comparable to what lied around him.
The final obstacle was to free his feet. Standing between him and his goal was the frozen body of a woman with long, blonde hair. She sat horizontally on top of his feet, her face planted in the dirt. She had been cut down with a large axe across her back. Gunnar saw her exposed spine and broken shoulder blades. He thought he recognized her from somewhere, but memories were too much of a pain in the ass, so he pushed her aside with little effort.
A few bones in his body crackled as he rose to his feet, wobbly and in disbelief at the sight around him. There must’ve been around a few hundred dead Vikings in the now sun-drenched valley. Gunnar tried to weep but no tears fell. He nearly tripped on a round wooden shield that instead cracked in half when he stepped on it. The noise spooked away a crow that tried to gauge out the eyes of an older fallen Viking.
Gunnar used his remaining strength to move up the hill to his right. He gasped for air at every step, his right foot still feeling somewhat stiff. His back hit a tree, so he laid himself down to look at the battlefield from this vantage position.
Dread gripped every fiber in his being. The slaughter scene was terrifying to behold. He wished he had lost his eyes in the battle which his side had clearly lost. The size of the disaster reached his heart even though he tried to block it. Tears started to flow uncontrollably.
“I’d say we passed the test,” someone muttered, “but we could’ve done better.”
Gunnar jolted up, trying to grab an invisible weapon strapped to his hip. He bulged his eyes but there wasn’t anyone in sight.
The voice continued. “I’m inside of you, Gunnar.”
The sudden realization transported the young man deep within the bowels of his mind.
“It took you a while to figure it out,” the shadowy entity said. “It seems that every time you call me out you experience a temporary memory loss.”
Gunnar floated around in a mental dimension he created to store the giant, demonic entity. He furrowed his eyebrows, his face hardening.
“Why are you looking at me with such hatred? We passed the test, and you had your revenge on the man who stole your wife. I’d say that next time we can take on an even greater army,” the demon added, exposing his serrated teeth.
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If you enjoyed this short horror story, you could also read “The unseen man”.
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