TotW 145: The Gate of Death - VOTE NOW!

**Shankbot de Bodemloze** · June 25, 2012, 10:40 AM

The Gate of Death

3 VOTES per person.

The Tales...

Submission 1

The Gate of Death

Alkaios open his eyes. The sight that met his eyes did not surprise him; barren land as far as the eye could see both behind and in front of him, with only a large river a few paces away breaking the monotonous landscape. Squinting, Alkaios managed to spot a boat slowly making its way towards him. An old, disheveled man powered the vessel forward, all the while staring straight at Alkaios with fiery eyes. Those eyes pierced Alkaios' soul, but for now they were too far off to worry about. For the time being, he would sit on the shore and recollect why he now found himself in this place.

In Greece, few were as skilled with the sword and shield as Alkaios. The lucrative pay he received from his work abroad earned him the hatred of his fellow Greeks, but it did not concern him. Excelling in his craft, his art, was all that mattered to him; money merely bought him supplies and nourishment, and the rest found its way to friends and relatives. So long as the enemy was worthy Alkaios would accept the offers. One such offer, to help bring civilization to Thrace in the service of a small Greek colony, especially intrigued him; though his enemy would be barbarians, their savagery would be a welcome test of his abilities. Fate had brought him a new challenge, one that he would welcome with sword in hand.

However, what Alkaios did not count on was the inadequacy of the militia guarding the colony. The Thracians, hearing of Alkaios' coming, charged the unfinished walls mere hours after his arrival. One, two, three, five, twenty barbarians fell to Alkaios' sword, but for each man he slew three of his fellow Greeks were torn apart or pulled away in chains, prisoners to be sold at a foreign market. The town fell, but Alkaios did not; he would not live a slave's life. Was fate punishing him for his arrogance? He had never boasted of his feats. As the last of his breath began to leave him, he found time to place an obol between his teeth. The barbarians did not know Greek customs, and Alkaios would not go to the underworld unprepared. Though he lasted hours past the fall of the colony, at long last his body fell limp to the ground, bones broken and skin pierced with spears.

The obol. Alkaios finally remembered to pull it out of his mouth. The ferryman had finally crossed the expanse of the Acheron, and was reaching out his hand expectantly towards him. Alkaios placed the small coin in old man's palm, and slowly stepped onto the boat. Whatever fate had in store for him, there was only one way of knowing.

Submission 2

Gate of Death (Age of the Council; First Oriental Union Civil War; 1862 A.T.F.)

Private Hui Kuang was scared. Hours ago, he had fought with the forward platoons that got ambushed by Separatist tanks. He had seen tanks before, but had never heard one much less see one in action. At Iduan, he heard them and he was terrified by the sound they created. The Separatist tanks sounded like roaring lions, and moved at a snail’s pace but it was that speed they were moving that was more terrifying. The tanks seemed to move towards him and his comrades without any hint of hatred or any other emotion, they moved with zero doubts and were in no rush.

Hui was only nineteen years old, a whole life ahead of him, he couldn't die. That would not be fair at all. He had plans. Once his two years were up, he was going to open up a bakery in Hwangdo. The gods were not going to let a 19 year old die on some battlefield. He had made this his mantra and had constantly repeated these things to himself the entire time his comrades were dying at Iduan.

In the middle of that mantra he kept repeating, a bullet drove through the helmet of Hui’s friend, Shi, who was younger than Hui and also had similar dreams. That bullet had torn the bonds that chained him to this world.

Shi’s death greatly affected Hui. The bullet that pierced Shi’s head splattered blood on Hui’s face. Feeling the warm liquid on his face, Hui had looked at his dead comrade. With the blood of his comrade streaming down his face and the corpse right in front of him, Hui’s faith that his life could not be taken by neither blade nor bullet was shattered.

He had hoped the brigade that he was with would retire to rear, but an hour after he had fought at Iduan, he learned that he was going back into action. The brigade he was in would attack the Southwest Gate of Hijuan. How in the three hells could he or anyone get to that gate? The Separatists built trenches in front of the gate. The trenches were not the only thing to fear, there were also the machine guns and artillery pieces that lined the walls. It was suicide!

“Fix bayonets!” officers yelled.

Reluctantly, Hui grabbed his rifle, took the bayonet out of its sheath and attached it to the rifle. Must this be my fate? Hui thought. Tears started to well up. Why do I have to die? It’s not fair!
“You! Go to your platoon.” An officer ordered him. Hui meekly walked over to join his platoon.

Silenced reined for minutes, it was broken by the sound of whistles; the order to charge had been given. Hui resigned himself to his fate, so he stood up and ran, however as he started running he felt a sharp pain and then everything went black.

Submission 3

The Gate of Death

I sat in my hire car with the engine running, waiting for the man to come out of the crumbling tenement block that he lived in.

He was an old man now, but a man who was responsible for the deaths of my family and for countless other innocent people. It had taken me years to find him, but at last I had.

Here in Argentina.

I had equipped myself with a fake passport and passed myself off as a young German, trying to find his Grandfather who had fled East Germany when the Reds had taken over.

In reality I was a 27 year old Israeli, with a burning desire for revenge, and today I would finally take it.

The old man came out of the dirty building, his shambling gait, a memento of his torture under the NKVD, before somehow he had escaped their clutches.

His stature was stooped, his clothes torn and unkempt, a man who had been a camp commandant, and who had taken the lives, wealth and dignity of thousands of people, now had none left himself.

I shook myself from the last chains of conventional morality that bound my heart, this man may look old and harmless now, but he was still a killer, a mass murderer, a man who deserved death.

His fate now lay in my hands, my hands which now gripped the steering wheel, until my hands tuned white.

I waited until he was crossing the road opposite his building, and I gunned the engine, letting the handbrake off, with a squeal of rubber and burning tyres, I slammed my foot hard down on the accelerator, and aimed for him.

I felt the impact as I smashed into his body, he slammed into the front of the car and then the momentum of the vehicle took him back under and could feel the wheels bumping over him, I slammed on the footbrake and looked in the rear view mirror.

He was still moving.

I gunned the engine again and reversed back over his broken body.

I got out of the car and looked at the man who had destroyed my family.

I checked his pulse, he was dead, and although the desire for revenge was now sated, the hatred I felt for this demon in human form remained.

I had discovered something about myself.

I could do this again; did that make me like him?

No, I would only kill vermin, not the innocent.

Maybe, just maybe, if I had time on my side and the strength to carry on, the Gate of Death would now beckon the men who really deserved it.

Submission 4

Denial of Service

You'd be surprised really, that the workers didn't display more hatred towards us. After all, they had been ripped from their communities and transported here in stinking, cold, dank wagons across the whole continent to work on arms and clothes for the men at the front. Fright, terror, oh yes, you could see that, especially in the children's faces when they are torn from their families and separated into male and female workers – but then we need male workers for the heavy manual labour and the women for lighter work and it's easier to make that distinction before they get settled in their huts, they don't need a family unit they just need to work and that's why we separated them.

What was most sad to me was the look of resignation, the wretched acceptance of their fate, did they not realise that we would treat them fairly? Work hard, they'd be fed, with a bed and roof over their head, some of our own citizens are bombed night and day and they don't get a roof and food for free, but their spirit wasn't broken like these. We took the chains off the carriages, stripped them of their filthy clothing and hosed them down, dosed them with delousing powder and allocated them to their huts. Yes it was not dignified but we can't be there giving each a bar of soap and towel as they step from the showers, again, it was a necessary action based on scale.

What you ask now, is whether I am sorry and whether I regret my actions, well to be frank no, as I said I was not a guard - simply a uniformed attendant. We needed whips and guns as sometimes, some of them would get angry with their treatment, and we would use the guns to just encourage a more sociable behaviour from them. The more servile and willing to follow orders, the quicker we would get them out of their rags, showered and into clean uniforms and if we had to use whips and, yes, unfortunately, a few times, some would be shot dead, but we had to maintain discipline. You must remember that there were far fewer of us attendants so we needed to make sure we had authority.

So once they were separated out, and cleaned up, we would march them to their huts through the brick gates and under the sign that has come to represent all these lies you tell about us. I heard some of my colleagues call it The Gate of Death, but it was a joke, don't you see? Arbeit Macht Frei – work makes you free, it was simply the death of laziness and sloth that was all, we didn't want so many to die, they were just sickly and weak that is all. We were just following orders.

Submission 5

The Gate of Death

"Next!"

I could clearly hear the pleasant, almost seductive voice and only barely make out the words but could not see its source. The line of people in front of me disappeared not too far away into the amorphous haze enveloping everything around us. I turned, expecting to see others behind me, but to my surprise found a closed portal. Heavy silver chains, as thick as a man's leg, were hanging casually from the latticed grill of the gates. There were no bars, no lock, nothing. What was the purpose of all this or, for that matter, where in Fate's name "this" was, I could not fathom.

The man in front of me coughed and mumbled something, his words coarse and cryptic. Not any stranger than his appearance. His clothes were torn almost beyond recognition and thoroughly drenched in something that suspiciously looked like blood.

"Hey, you!", I took a cautious step forward and, against all common sense, shoved a finger between his shoulders.

He flinched and pulled away, turning precariously on one leg, swinging heavily while doing so. When he finished the apparently difficult maneuver and faced me, my heart stopped. There was a…livid, gaping wound running across his upper torso, deep enough that I could easily see…the broken bones and pulsating flesh underneath.

"What do you want", hatred seeped through his eyes as he swiftly appraised me from head to toe, "Cimbri?"

Seeing my astonishment he started laughing so hard that bits of flesh erupted from the horrifying gash and fell down his chest. The surreal scene was more than I could bear and, stumbling backwards, I tripped on something and lost balance. Trying to recover it I desperately flailed my arms in the air and my fingers found a fleeting purchase on the gate behind me. It was promptly lost and I fell heavily on the ground, rattling chains and all, and raising one Hell of a cacophony.

"What is the meaning of this?!", the distant voice inquired, all trace of pleasantry gone from it.

"Apologies, love", the man in front of me bellowed, "It seems our newest guest has not been properly introduced yet."

One moment I was laying on the ground, my back hard against the cold metal of the gate and the next both my strange companion and I were standing in front of a breath-taking dais manned by an…impossibly beautiful woman.

"Shut it, Thrakian", she shot him a menacing look then turned towards me; my innards froze as my mind exploded in carnal delirium, "My bad, Sesithacus, please accept my sincere apologies. There has been a misunderstanding, it is not time for you yet. Now if you'll excuse us, we have business to discuss with this brute here."

She waved her tiny, perfectly shaped hand for whose touch I would have killed and burned my own mother and the next thing I remember was the blinding pain shooting through my brain and the hard touch of the freezing ground beneath my buttocks.

Submission 6

The Story

Good luck everyone!