“The Svalski, the denizens of the dark.”

“You know of these…things?”

“Unfortunately so, though I thought they were just a legend. When I was just a lad back at the Hub, the Svalski were bedtime stories. You know, scary stories tah keep them kiddies in check.”

Zhukov peered back down the stairs, into the darkness.

“You know what, I didn’t really want to go to the Hub anyways.”

“Oh, ye backing out like a bloody pansy now eh?”

“These things took out a whole damn village!”

“Oh shit, you don’t mean?”

“Yeah…”

“Goddammit, but we still have to go down.”

“Riches last forever, a life does not.”

“It’s more than that you daft fool. Whether you are with me or not, I’m going down.”

Grundolf descended down the stairs.

“Skreebit bring smarts for treasures!”

“Wait, on second thought I want to keep my life!”

Some sort of horrendous rat thing in armor sprinted down after Grundolf, dragging an unwilling gremlin along.

Zhukov stared in bewilderment. Behind him Jack and Sergei were arguing about the rifles they found.

“Look! It’s bloody magic!”

Jack put a fresh clip into his rifle and began ejecting the shells from it one by one. Before the sixth shell could be ejected, the clip fell out of the bottom of the rifle. Jack raised the rifle high into the air looked to Sergei, expecting praise. But Sergei merely smacked his head.

“It’s a Carcano you dumbass!”

“A car canoe? Are you drunk again Sergei?”

“Carcano! It’s the standard issue rifle for the Italian army. It’s loaded by an en-bloc clip and holds six rounds.”

“The Italians were wielding magic rifles then! Maybe those damn gremlins were helping them out!”

“No dumbass, your magic trick is just how the rifle functions. When the last round is chambered, the en-bloc clip drops out of the magazine box.”

“But what if you don’t have an en-bloc clip?”

“Then you’re shit out of luck. The en-bloc clip is an essential part of the rifle. Which means if you don’t have it, then all you’ve got is a single shot rifle.”

Jack was intrigued. After putting a single bullet into the chamber, he pushed the bolt forward, then back again. The bullet ejected, landing with a clang on the floor of the ruins.

“Magic!”

Sergei smacked his face again.

“You can do that with any rifle!”

Zhukov stared at the two, dumbstruck. When he came back to his senses he had a sudden revelation. He looked at the dense forest woods that surrounded them.

“Oh shit, I don’t know the way back!”

Zhukov grabbed a rifle and an ammo pouch from one of the corpses and ran down after the dwarf. The others looked around in confusion, but soon they too grabbed supplies and descended. Yakov and Vasily had grabbed the remaining rifles.

“Was zis one forgotten?”

Hans looked over the bodies and found no weapons for himself.

“Oh vell, I always have zese guns!”

Hans started to shadow box while he was alone. In the middle of his session he heard growling coming from the forest. Hans stopped and stared at his fists, then at the woods, then at the corpses.

“Eh, I don’t want end up like zese Frenchmen.”

Hans chased down after the others.

…..

When the group reached the bottom of the staircase they were greeted by a long, seemingly endless, tunnel. Torches shone light upon the brick walls, revealing more tunnels that branched off of the main one. The main tunnel wasn’t very wide, allowing only three men to stand side by side.

Gunshots, screams, and screeches echoed throughout the halls. It appeared the Italians above ground had been separated from their comrades below.

Zhukov took point with Sergei and Jack, while Vasily and Yakov took up the role of the rearguards. The group advanced through the halls, following after the sounds of combat. For all they knew Grundolf had gotten caught up in the heat of battle.

They went down one of the branching paths, thinking it lead to the origin of the conflict. But, much to their surprise, it was a dead end. They turned back and tried another one, this time leading them in an endless loop. Another attempt sent them to another seemingly endless tunnel, much like the first. The place was like a maze.

After a lot of trial and error, the group grew closer to the source of all the commotion. The sounds grew louder. Bloodstains appeared, splattered on the walls and smeared on the floor. Then they started finding corpses, nearly all of them man. The human corpses were in a horrific state with gaping slashes and missing limbs. Their bodies were as broken as they rifles they lied next to.

Two corpses in particular had their interest. The only Svalski corpse in the hall appeared to have tackled a man to the ground, only to have been speared by his bayonet. The soldier had died too, but his valiance had probably saved many of the lives of his comrades, as the trail of corpses ended with his.

At the end of the hall they found a large open room with no other paths connected to it. At the end of the room were numerous men, their faces weary. They held rifles with shaky hands, pointed to a single man who stood at the center of the room. Their target, Grundolf.

The body of Joxil, the gremlin, lied nearby. A single bloody hole decorated his head. Grundolf stared at his corpse, seemingly in a daze. Skreebit was nowhere in sight.

Zhukov acted quickly, ordering his group to stand down as he advanced, alone. He left his rifle with Hans and walked to the center of the room, arms raised to show that he wasn’t armed.

The Italian soldiers didn’t lower their rifles, instead moving them from Grundolf to Zhukov and back. It reminded Zhukov of Stalingrad. His unit was part of an offensive to reclaim a section of the city. Their actions ended up relieving a garrison of Russian soldiers, who had been separated from the main force. The look on their faces was similar. It was the look of fear. The fear of death.

“Don’t worry, we are here to relieve you.”

He told them the same words he’d said to the scared soldiers in Stalingrad. One of the soldiers nearly broke down after hearing those words. Tears streamed down his face. He looked young, even for a green soldier.

“We…we…we can go home then? Away…away from this nightmare?”

Zhukov smiled, bringing tears even to the faces of those who were still wary. They broke out into a cheer, hugging each other. Perhaps it was the darkness, or maybe their fear had dulled their senses. Regardless, they didn’t seem to care that their savior was from a different nation. Nor did they ask about their missing comrades, perhaps having already assume the worst. Zhukov planned to have the others bury the corpses outside before they returned back to the world above. He couldn’t bring back the dead, but he could save the living.

Though it seemed they wouldn’t have a chance. Tremors reverberated through the floors. The wall behind the Italian soldiers began to shake.

“Get back!”

Zhukov shouted out for them to run, but was in vain. The wall collapsed and a monstrosity emerged. It was eerily similar to a human, but the differences were easily seen. It was gigantic, its biceps alone were bigger than a man. It had no head. With a chest that was wide open, ribs expanding and contracting, looking almost like a mouth. It’s skin color looked like raw bloody flesh.

With a single sweep of its arm, multiple Italian soldiers were sent flying. They crashed into the walls, blood spraying out of their mouths as they fell to the floor. They didn’t get back up. One of the luckier ones landed into Zhukov, he sustained only a broken arm.

Some of the soldiers managed to regain their bearings, beginning to fire on the monstrosity. Their shots seemed to do nothing more than anger it.

“The chest! Aim for the vitals!”

Zhukov’s companions joined in on the fight. They unleashed a barrage of bullets into the chest, ripping the flesh straight from the monstrosity. But it was as if the creature didn’t have any organs at all, their shots seeming to do little more that annoy the monstrosity.

The Italians were putting up a good fight, but it all seemed to be in vain. One by one they were killed. Those who weren’t thrown like rag dolls, were crushed under its feet. The unlucky ones were ripped in half by the mouth on its chest.

The soldier in Zhukov’s arms couldn’t just lie there as his friends died. He brought his broken body back up, out of Zhukov’s arms, and charged back into the fray. He stopped at the body of one of his fallen comrades. He took a satchel from the corpse and tore it open with his only good arm, pulling out a red canister from inside. After pulling a pin out of the canister and ripping off a lever on its side, the soldier ran straight for the monstrosity.

The creature saw the approaching soldier and stomped on him. An explosion of metal and hot lead was sent straight into the creature’s leg. It fell over, its leg ruined. But it was still alive and crawling.

In the middle of all the madness Grundolf was still sitting in the middle of the room, apparently unaware of all of the chaos going on around him. His eyes were still fixated on the corpse of his old friend. Next to him, the grenade satchel was still laying.

“Grundolf, grab that canister!”

Grundolf continued to stare into the abyss, unaware of Zhukov’s voice.

“Dammit!”

Vasily threw his rifle to the ground and strode forward, toward the monstrosity. He rustled around his uniform and retrieved a bottle from one of the inner pockets. He uncorked it and shoved a piece of cloth inside. After the alcohol had soaked up to the top of of the cloth, he lit the molotov with a match. Then he threw it, straight into the mouth of the monstrosity.

The creature burst into flames. It screeched as it attempted to put out the fire by bashing its body into the walls and floor, but it was futile. The fire continued to burn strong, sending a black smoke rising up to cover the ceiling. It crawled back into the hole from which it came, still on fire.

Vasily went after it with the rifle he’d retrieved. Firing as fast as he could from the hip until the clip fell from the magazine box. But the creature was gone, leaving only corpses and a solemn silence. Vasily cursed as Zhukov’s shoulders slumped. Not a single Italian had survived the carnage. But they were quickly proven wrong, as a weak voice was still crying out.

“Ho..home…gotta…gotta go…home. I…can’t…I…I…I don’t want to die…not here.”

Vasily was the first to find the owner of the voice. It was the young soldier from earlier, slumped up against a wall. His leg had been torn off and he was lying in a pool of his own blood. With hazy eyes he stared into the abyss. It was a miracle he was still alive. But there wasn’t much they could do for him, other than ease his suffering.

“Mot…mother…I…I’m sorry. I…I don’t think…”

Vasily put a single bullet into the chamber of his rifle.

“Don’t worry child, soon…you will see her soon.”

He raised the rifle, the barrel pointed at the soldier’s head. The soldier’s eyes seemed have glazed over. Was it a hint of acceptance, or the dullness of pain? Regardless, it was too late to stop now. Vasily moved his finger into the trigger guard. He hesitated for a second, and a second was all it took. Zhukov put his hand on Vasily’s shoulder, pulling him back, away from the young man.

“We have killed many men Vasily, but your hands will not be stained with the blood of this one. Let the ones with the bloodiest hands do the bloodiest work.”

Vasily struggled inside. If his eldest daughter had still been alive, wouldn’t she have been of the same age? He gripped the pendant around his neck, turning his back to Zhukov and the soldier. He squeezed his hands in anger. Anger at his own weakness.

Zhukov took the knife from his waist and held it up.

“May you find peace, at the end of all the suffering.”

Zhukov covered the young man’s mouth with his hand and plunged the knife into his chest. The young man whimpered, eyes open in shock. From his eyes, fell a single tear, which dripped down onto Zhukov’s hand.

“Don’t fight, go gently into the night.”

Zhukov twisted the blade, sending more blood seeping out of the wound. The young man’s eyes began to droop. Then they closed for the last time, never to open again. Zhukov pulled the knife out and stared at his bloody hands. Once again, he had snuffed out a life before it began.

“One day I will weep for you. Until then you must wait with the hundreds that have come before, and the hundreds that have yet to come.”

Zhukov sheathed his knife and rose up. Before turning back he mumbled to himself.

“More and more I find myself wondering. If war is hell, then are we the damned, or the demons?”

For himself, he already knew the answer.