Fear

Trex was nervous. He had been nervous before, there was nothing wrong with that. But this time it was different This time he knew what was coming.

Truth be told, he had always known what they were fighting. The shadows had revealed themselves more than once, but only for a few seconds before they disappeared like sand in the wind. It sowed a certain kind of disbelief and skepticism in the troops when they couldn't see the enemy. An "If I haven't seen it with my own eyes there's nothing to it" mindset that was ingrained in the young Metzerkais boys from they were twelve years old.

The problem with a mindset like that became apparent when the enemy finally showed itself. In an all out attack they dropped their alien cloaking technology, and marched towards the trenches. For when creatures so laden with tales, rumors and infamy reveal themselves to be just what everyone would have feared, if they weren't so ignorant with disbelief that they denied themselves the weakness. When they appear not as shadows, but as beings of flesh bone and terror... When that happened, Trex knew true fear for the first time since his childhood.

Trex dared a peek over the edge of the trench, using a fiberwire optic that he had nicked from Ethan, the image displayed on his heads up display was a grim one. The enemy was stalking the area outside of the trenches, assimilating corpses and scanning for any sign of life. Occasionally a scanner would beep angrily; this was allways followed by a loud pop, and then the smell of ozone and the disgusting reek of boiling flesh.

Trex wasn't the only one alive he could hear rail-fire from the south and west, and he knew a few friendly soldiers were still lurking in the vicinity, he had seen a team pass trough an auxiliary trench few moments ago, but he hadn't dared to signal them. The enemy had sharp ears, and it took all of Trex's effort to keep quiet. The team had passed out of view, and all too soon Trex had heard the frantic sound of a railgun fired on full auto, and the methodical pops of hostile weapons, and then that reek of boiling flesh.

He still couldn't accept his fear. He was nervous, and there was nothing wrong with that. In the Historium, one of the mandatory books was a novel written by the ancient philosopher Ërbert. The novel's predictions for the future was utterly absurd, like many other works of the Ascension Era, but it was in in the writing that Trex found strength.

Fear shall not take me
Fear breaks down any mind
Fear is death hidden, but death absolute
Hide your fear like it hides itself

Translated a dozen times, trough half a dozen eras, the words still rang true, and in those words, Trex could feel how the truth affected him. Fear was abhorrent, a heresy to the true principles of life. Fear would not take him. But the worm crawling trough his spine was something very familiar, it made its way up his back, past his hearts and coiled itself around his neck. It whispered memories from before his teens, before he had learned the truth about fear. It was a grotesque animal, part Trex, part history. No matter how hard they tried, humanity could never free themselves from the shackles of evolution, the humiliating past where people accepted their role as animals. And now Trex could feel a primal power spread trough his thoughts, take root in his heart of hearts, and anchor itself to his actions. It was not the bravery of the terphan or the stealthiness of the cat, not the calm of the acrodyl or viciousness of the hounder. It was cowardice, the retreat of wounded vermin, the fear of a loyal pet.

And Trex had realized realized that you could never truly destroy fear. All of it was there, from the day he turned twelve, when he had volunteered for the Republican Defense Force, to the liberation of Aborginia, when he had become a war hero at the age of fourteen. From his promotion to sergeant at twenty one, to his demotion after the events in Seattla. From the zep trip two days ago, to the dry, filthy corner of a trench in the Slovenian dustplains.

Fear had been with him all his life, and even though he thought had destroyed every trace of it, blotted it out of his mind with a hundred mantras, calmly rushed enemies more ferocious than a roaring beast, fear persisted. All because of the simple revelation that nightmares are as real as dreams come true.

As he plucked the scope down from the edge, he rememberd some of the historical texts he had read. Merely two eras ago, fear perpetuated nearly every facet of life. A woman would fear for her marriage, fear that her partner was cheating on her. A boy would fear the playground, for in it awaited other children, vicious and mean. A girl would fear the passage of time, because leaving behind the easy life of a child would be akin to leaving behind everything she had ever known. A man would fear death, for death was the end of everything. Now Trex feared death, he realized that as he turned around to glance at the dark skies above Slovenia. This time, death would be the end of him.

He would die a slow and painfull death at the hands of the enemy, his flesh boiling slowly as he screamed without a sound. Then he would wake up as an unfinished shell, lacking lungs and heart, and again he would die a slow and painful death. As his mind registered the lack of proper bloodflow, his chest would ache like a freight train had run him over. As his nerve endings searched for their twins, failing to connect, he would feel every inch of every strand burn like on fire. As his organs worked without purpose, his body would be filled with toxins and artificial matter, he would melt slowly from the inside. He couldn't even imagine what he would feel like if he woke up without skin. And meanwhile, the cloning plant would fight to keep him alive, and it would do so until the enemy destroyed it, or until the power ran out.

Fear had paralyzed him, fear of death had reduced him to tears, but now another change happened. As his body glowed with fear, he felt the hands of purpose guide his feet, and he started to walk. Towards the the end of the trench he walked, crouched and quiet, not guided by the sense of his human mind, but the instinctive and logical animal that was him. Towards the airfield he traveled, intent to end his rebirth before it happened.

For if he were to die, this would be the last time. Filled with a fear that in a strange way comforted him, he was ready to face mortality

(to be continued)

Please tell me what you think, it's the only way I can improve.