Echoes

Monsters

Echoes

Dream

  It was an old dream, the memory of an event that twisted and churned in his mind. He was in the bare troop compartment of a Russian Hind-D helicopter, camouflaged men where pressed in tightly on either side, their faces hidden behind bulky gas masks.

  His ears where filled with the roar of the engines, so he didn’t hear the bullets penetrate the helicopters armoured skin. Bright spears of tracer fire criss-crossed through the cramped troop compartment.

  All around him bodies jerked and thrashed as the heavy calibre rounds tore them apart. Blood sprayed across the compartment, splattering across the eyepieces of his mask.

  For a brief moment the helicopter began to spin to the right as it lost control, before snapping around to spin in the other direction.

  The weapon strapped across his chest pressed into him painfully as he was forced back against the seat. Faster and faster the helicopter began to loose altitude, forcing his stomach up into his throat.

  Another burst of fire hit the stricken aircraft, the bright phosphor trails burning themselves into his vision as pain exploded in his back. He screamed but his voice was lost to the roar of the engines and the rush of wind through the fist sized bullet holes that adorned the Hind’s fuselage.

  It was then that he noticed the woman that had been sat across from him. She was dead, he knew she was dead, her uniform was blood stained and the smashed remains of her mask hung loosely from her face.
  She was sat forward in her seat, resting her elbows on her knees and staring straight at him with piercing blue eyes. She smiled slightly and her lips moved, but he couldn’t hear what she was saying.

  As the helicopter fell his panic grew, soon it would crash and he would die never knowing. Desperately he reached out to her, his gloves stained with blood. She looked at it for a moment as if confused and then spoke again.

  Their eyes locked but there was no comprehension; only the tortured, thunderous scream of metal that jolted him awake.