Pietr awoke from his fear induced stupor amidst the remnants of his comrades. In a one hundred foot radius around him were scattered the broken bits and pieces of his friends. A hand here, a terror painted face there, a leg to his left and everywhere around him mutilated pieces of red meat in every size and shape. Meat; for they were no longer identifiable as human remains and could onlybe defined as bits of bloody meat.

The last thing Pietr could remember was riding in the Hind-E on the way to the landing zone with the rest of his unit when something suddenly knocked the helicopter from the sky. Opposed to the concussion and explosion of a rocket propelled grenade or a surface to air missile slamming into the chopper, it was more as if some unseen force had plucked the aircraft from the sky and then thrown it to the ground like a child discarding a toy.

After the crash, he and his comrades were once again overtaken. As Pietr crawled out of the wreckage on his bleeding hands and knees, the men in front of him seemed to explode before his very eyes; then another man ten feet to his left met the same fate and only seemed to vaporize before his eyes into a chunky, red mist.

Still, as Pietr 'hit the deck' and layed flat to the earth to protect himself, he had heard no gunfire. As the chaos continued to ensue around him that was eviscerating his unit before his very eyes, his ears pricked to pick up the distinct 'rat-tat-tat' of the automatic .50 calibre that the Chechens must be using to beat the hell out of them, yet as Pietr listened, not a single sound came except for the distinctive shattering of bone and the ripping of flesh around him.

When the smoke had cleared and all seemed finally safe thirty or so minutes later, Pietr found himself alone in a field of human dismemberment. Despite the carnage, he himself had been left untouched as though he had been shielded from the chaos by a protective bubble.. As Pietr rose to his feet and wandered the killing field clutching his Kalschnikov, the scene sickened him despite the fact that he had seen carnage before. Afghanistan, Bosnia, BelaRusse and even while serving unofficially in Kosovo, he had seen and even personally rendered humans into pieces. Still, it was nothing like this, as this was quite beyond the realm of typical warfare. Clearly, this was not the work of rebels, regardless of the extent of the tactics employed by the Chechens, be it in the field, inside the shattered city of Grozny or even within the bustling subways of Moscow where the Chechens planted terror into the heart of Russia. Clearly, this was not the work of some political cartoon enemy that appeared on the Moscow nightly news or within the pages of Pravda, but something greater.

A fear arose in Pietr's head as his heart leapt to his throat when the Chechen's protector appeared on the horizon, moving towards him as if movinging on the wind.

This was no man, Pietr was sure of that as it drew ever closer, for the thing appeared with an explosion of bleeding entrails and fragmented bone as it rocketed towards him above the wind bent, golden grass. From the bowels of hell, this thing with gleaming fangs and razor-like claws had come. Of that Pietr was certain.

As Pietr raised the Kalaschnikov and readied himself to pull the pin on the grenade still attached to his chest, he could only mutter to himself.

"Today is a good day to die."

©2002 Kailleaugh Andersson

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Kailleaugh Andersson's Gothica
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