DN Concept - “Shells”
Working Title: Shells
Fandom: Death Note
Genre: Drama?
Concept: Enemies aren’t supposed to have faces - that’s probably why everything’s going wrong. (World War I AU)
Notes: Um, completely random plotbunny that attacked me on a walk at two in the morning a couple weeks ago, at which point I returned home and immediately wrote this. I have almost no idea where it would go, but part of me likes it. OH and also a big warning - I haven’t researched this yet, so it may be full of historical inaccuracies. O_o
It wasn’t until hours after dark that the artillery stopped. They’d been shelling the woods where they knew the German soldiers were hiding all evening, trying to either wipe them out or flush them out, and only now, with the moon high overhead and a bitter chill in the night air, was it quiet enough to hear the sounds of the woods.
Drawing his jacket more tightly around him, breath misting before him as the cold numbed his lips, Mail picked his way slowly through the trees. He knew it was dangerous to go walking around alone like this, but he knew with just as much certainty that camps and soldiers and guns twenty-four hours a day were driving him slowly insane - so he’d been slipping out on quiet nights with more and more frequency. Here, in the woods, he could forget about the war for a little while and imagine he was free.
Until he saw the bodies.
Cursing to himself, he ducked behind a tree - because he’d had no idea that there was a German camp this close; he didn’t even have a weapon with him. But he needn’t have feared - peering out after a moment, he realized that it was nothing but bodies - nobody left alive. One of the shells must have hit square on; the small clearing was filled with debris, blown-apart trees, and burned, bloodied bodies - some grotesque, some unrecognizable, all dead.
Stomach turning, Mail began to back away, then stopped suddenly. On the edge of the clearing closest to him, from under a heap of splattered dirt and downed foliage, emerged a slender arm; a white hand lay palm-up, almost glowing in the weak rays of the moon that filtered down through the destroyed trees; the shimmering dew beginning to gather on the curved fingers gave the impression that it held a cupped handful of liquid moonlight.
Mail couldn’t help it - he stood, he stared, and he wanted to cry. It was possibly the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen; this strange, delicate, lovely white hand buried in a scrap-heap of midnight death. He wanted to leave, he wanted to run away, but part of him never wanted to stop looking.
Pale fingers twitched like a heartbeat.
Fandom: Death Note
Genre: Drama?
Concept: Enemies aren’t supposed to have faces - that’s probably why everything’s going wrong. (World War I AU)
Notes: Um, completely random plotbunny that attacked me on a walk at two in the morning a couple weeks ago, at which point I returned home and immediately wrote this. I have almost no idea where it would go, but part of me likes it. OH and also a big warning - I haven’t researched this yet, so it may be full of historical inaccuracies. O_o
It wasn’t until hours after dark that the artillery stopped. They’d been shelling the woods where they knew the German soldiers were hiding all evening, trying to either wipe them out or flush them out, and only now, with the moon high overhead and a bitter chill in the night air, was it quiet enough to hear the sounds of the woods.
Drawing his jacket more tightly around him, breath misting before him as the cold numbed his lips, Mail picked his way slowly through the trees. He knew it was dangerous to go walking around alone like this, but he knew with just as much certainty that camps and soldiers and guns twenty-four hours a day were driving him slowly insane - so he’d been slipping out on quiet nights with more and more frequency. Here, in the woods, he could forget about the war for a little while and imagine he was free.
Until he saw the bodies.
Cursing to himself, he ducked behind a tree - because he’d had no idea that there was a German camp this close; he didn’t even have a weapon with him. But he needn’t have feared - peering out after a moment, he realized that it was nothing but bodies - nobody left alive. One of the shells must have hit square on; the small clearing was filled with debris, blown-apart trees, and burned, bloodied bodies - some grotesque, some unrecognizable, all dead.
Stomach turning, Mail began to back away, then stopped suddenly. On the edge of the clearing closest to him, from under a heap of splattered dirt and downed foliage, emerged a slender arm; a white hand lay palm-up, almost glowing in the weak rays of the moon that filtered down through the destroyed trees; the shimmering dew beginning to gather on the curved fingers gave the impression that it held a cupped handful of liquid moonlight.
Mail couldn’t help it - he stood, he stared, and he wanted to cry. It was possibly the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen; this strange, delicate, lovely white hand buried in a scrap-heap of midnight death. He wanted to leave, he wanted to run away, but part of him never wanted to stop looking.
Pale fingers twitched like a heartbeat.