Chapters Birds... Mark heard birds. softly at first but they grew louder and louder as his hearing returned. Suddenly the memory's of that day came rushing back, His eyes flung open and were assaulted by blinding light. It took him what felt like a couple minutes for his eyes to adjust to the light. The first thing he saw confused him greatly... Trees! There were trees all around him. "Where the fuck am I?" he muttered to himself as he looked around. Last thing he remembered he was in a city where all the trees were burned to a crisp due to the nuke that had been set off near them.
Tons of questions raced to his mind 'Where was he?' 'How did he get there?' 'How was he even alive?'. He seemed to remember putting a bullet through his brain. Shouldn't that have killed him? or at least made a mark? He felt around his head and body for anything to indicate that he had just been through Hell. Nothing not blood, not torn cloths not even any bruises. He looked beside him and found his trusty magnum on the ground. He found it Full of ammo which confused him greatly. Hadn't he used it all. upon further investigation he found his HK-416 also with full ammo, his knife 4 Fragmentation Grenades 4 Flash Bangs and a gas mask which he remembered he had on before shooting himself.
He got up off the ground to inspect the area around him. He seemed to be in a clearing with trees as far as the eye can see. He had no idea where to go. He suddenly remembered that he had a compass in his pocket, which he promptly pulled out and used. Which way did they say to go when you were lost? North? He shrugged, picked up his weapons, put his magnum in it's holster and decided to Go North.
After what felt like an hour of walking he heard a sound other than the wind or the occasional bird. Screaming. Though faint he definitely heard screaming. He set off running toward the direction of the screaming. What he found blew his mind. A lion with giant bat like wings and a scorpion tail. Attacking what looked to be three... Horses?! No they were to small to be horses but they were definitely equines. Their eyes were as big as saucers and full of the purest terror he had ever seen. His brain couldn't comprehend what he was hearing their mouths were moving and he could hear screaming. 'But Horses don't scream' he thought to himself. He was stuck there watching the scene play out when he heard one of the horse things TALK! Well not talk more yell. But he definitely heard It speaking English!
He raised his weapon and fired off a round that hit the lion thing in the Paw it flinched and roared in pain. Mark stepped forward out of the brush that was hiding him and fired 3 more rounds. 2 hitting it in the side and 1 hitting square in the face. It dropped to the ground dead, a small pool of blood forming under it. He turned his attention to the three equines whose eyes seemed impossibly bigger. He took a step toward them to which they responded by running away screaming. This day was getting more insane by the minute.
Mark was surrounded on all sides by the walker. He started spraying with his HK416. But it was futile there was just to many of them. He desperately searched for a way out, the walkers closing in fast. There was no way out. He fired off bullet after bullet until he heard the one sound every service man never wants to hear. *CLICK* "Shit" he muttered. He took out the empty clip and dropped it on the ground. he searched desperately for another, but there was non left. he dropped his weapon and pulled out his side arm. A trusty 44. magnum. he had exhausted all the ammo long ago. All except for one round. he placed the weapon to his temple and cocked the hammer. And then waited. He was waiting for the last minute to pull the trigger... Time seemed to slow down around him, the walkers moved in slow motion, a lone drop of sweat dripped off his forehead...
He pulled the trigger.
The last sound he heard was the tolling of a bell
Mark and his family moved to America when he was 16. When he was 21 he joined the military. He was assigned to a unit with 4 other people a tall man with brown eyes and blond hair named Private Herrold "Phoenix" Mcpatterson, a short dark skinned man with green eyes and black hair who just went by Spear Chucker, a tall women who always wore sun glasses with Brown hair named Lt Charlotte "Deadeye" Jones and a tall friendly muscular man with hazel eyes and a brown afro who was known simply as Bob. Mark himself was a short well built man with blue eyes and black hair.
Mark and his unit grew closer with ever mission that went by Bob and Mark became especially close friends. Which is why it was such a tragedy when Bob was killed. It still chilled Mark to think back to that day.
*FLASHBACK*
The rocket seemed to move in slow motion. Seconds ticked by as the rocket edged ever closer. Mark was frozen in fear. Finally he managed to shout a warning to Bob. But by then it was to late. The rocket exploded on impact vaporizing his friend out of existence. He was blown back by the blast and severely wounded. It had taken him months to recover both mentally and physically.
That was only the beginning of his friends dying. Next to die was Herrold. That one stray bullet finally catching up to him. Then Charlotte and finally Spear Chucker who went out with a bang.
After that Mark developed fell into depression. That took 2 years and a trip back to his home country to get out of. He joined new squads but never grew attached to any of the member not wanting to feel the pain of them dying. He was always distant and didn't talk much.
4 years after he rejoined the military came the fait-full day where he took his own life.
Back in his home country Mark was told the stories of the angel of death. He was told that the angel was the one who took your soul after you die so it could be judged. He also believed that if you prayed to the angel and sacrifice 1/3 of your daily meal he would sway his fellow angels to allow you to enter Agartha, a place where you could live out your wildest dreams and have eternal bliss. But one teaching always stood out to him. The teaching to never abuse the bodies of the dead or else you would be taken to a place of eternal pain and suffering. His father always told him to remember one thing, that the sign that the angel was near was the tolling of the bell
"Ask not for whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee."
Mark had woken up in a forest, discovered 3 equines being attacked by a lion, bat, scorpion hybrid, killed said hybrid and discovered that the equines he saved could speak English all in about 3 hours, needless to say he felt like he was on a bad LSD trip. But he decided to follow the trail the three equines made with their hooves. After about 10 minutes of walking he came to the edge of the forest and saw just beyond it were the three equines talking to six other very concerned looking bigger equines.
He couldn't make out what they were saying but he could guess they were probably talking about him. After a bit of watching them talk one of the equines, a strange looking very bouncy one with fluffy pink hair and an all pink body, seemed to say something and point directly at me. I quickly ducked down to try and get out of sight but I could feel their eyes, Very intelligent eyes looking at me. Suddenly I hear what sounded like one of them walking over to me. Clip Clop Clip Clop. I looked up to see a purple pink haired, light purpled body equine with a unicorn horn and... WINGS?!? standing over me. Its horn seemed to light up a darker purple and I felt myself moving. I was surrounded by the purple glow and was lifted up from by position on the ground. Now I would like to say I took the discovery of Magic well but... I didn't. At that point I started flailing my arms and legs trying to break free of the magical grasp but it was no use. It brought me over to the rest of the ground and by that time I had given up and had crossed my arms so I looked like a child pouting. I heard the purple one ask the three equines from the forest if I was the "Monster" they saw. They nodded their head in response. There was a bright flash and everything went black.