Last Day in Hell
by Sevastian Winters
The mud is thick and cold, and it clings to your skin, pulling at you like the hand of something long dead, something desperate to drag you down into the earth with it. The taste of blood and dirt mixes in your mouth as you try to breathe, but the air is thick with smoke and the acrid scent of burning flesh. Not yours. Not yet.
But you’re getting there.
You can’t move. You can’t feel your legs. You know this, but you won’t look down. If you look down, it becomes real. If you see the blood pooling around your waist, the jagged ends of bone sticking out of what used to be your legs, the truth will swallow you whole. The truth that this—this moment, this muddy, hellish trench—is all there is. All there ever will be.
But it’s not. It’s not.
You’re supposed to be somewhere else. The arena. The Trials. You can feel the hum of magic in your veins, that electric pulse of power waiting just beneath the surface. You were so close. So damn close to becoming the champion. But then the curse came, and now you’re here, trapped in a place where magic doesn’t exist, where the only power is in the hands of men who can pull triggers and send others to die.
Your breath hitches in your chest, and for a moment, you think you might scream, but no sound comes out. Only blood. The copper taste coats your tongue, and you choke on it, coughing weakly into the mud. Your hand twitches, trying to reach for something solid, but your fingers scrape uselessly against the wet earth.
Where’s Charlie?
Your mind races, trying to piece together the moments before the blast, but it’s like grasping at smoke. Charlie was there. He was laughing. He always laughed, even when things got bad. Especially when things got bad. His jokes kept you sane, kept the fear at bay. But then the whistle blew, and you were moving, moving over the top, into the gray, and—
Then nothing.
Now there’s just you and the mud and the blood that won’t stop pooling around you. Your heart pounds in your chest, too loud, too fast, as if it’s trying to pump out every last drop of blood it has left. And you can feel it slipping away, leaving you hollow, leaving you cold.
You’re so cold.
Something shifts in the corner of your vision, and you snap your head up, eyes wild, searching for an enemy, for a threat, for something you can still fight. But it’s just Reed. Standing there. Pristine. Perfect. His boots clean, his coat immaculate, like he’s just stepped out of a garden party and into this nightmare. He holds a delicate porcelain cup in one hand, steam curling from the surface of his tea. He’s always drinking tea. Even here. Even now.
"Still fighting?" he asks, his voice smooth, calm. Like nothing’s wrong. Like you aren’t lying in a puddle of your own blood, dying in the mud.
"I can’t feel my legs," you whisper, but the words are slurred, thick with blood and exhaustion.
Reed smiles, a slow, almost pitying smile. "You don’t need them anymore."
The words send a jolt of panic through you, sharp and sudden. Your breath catches in your throat, and you try to push yourself up, to see the damage, but your arms are weak, trembling from the effort. You manage to shift, just enough to glimpse the truth.
Your legs are gone.
Not just injured. Not just wounded. Gone. Blown to bits by the shell that hit Charlie, the same shell that should have killed you too. You can see the torn fabric of your uniform, the shredded remains of flesh and bone, and the blood—so much blood—seeping into the mud beneath you.
A scream builds in your chest, clawing its way up your throat, but it dies there, strangled by the shock that hasn’t quite hit you yet. You can’t feel anything. Not pain. Not fear. Just the cold, creeping up from the ground, seeping into your skin, into your bones.
"I have to..." you mumble, your mind spinning. "I have to get back. I need to get back to the Trials."
Reed sips his tea, watching you with that maddening calm. "There are no Trials, not anymore."
"No." You shake your head, but it feels heavy, too heavy. "No, I’m supposed to be... I was going to win. I was going to be the champion."
"You can’t win if you’re dead," Reed says, almost as if it’s a joke, but there’s no humor in his voice. Just that same infuriating calm. That same unshakable stillness.
You try to move again, your hands clawing at the mud, but your body won’t listen. There’s no strength left in you. Nothing but the slow, relentless pull of gravity, dragging you deeper into the earth, into the cold.
"I can help you," Reed says, setting his teacup down on a nearby crate—clean, untouched by the chaos of war. "But you have to stop fighting."
"I’m not..." You cough, spitting out blood. It’s filling your mouth now, thick and warm. "I’m not fighting."
But you are. Your heart is racing, your mind a whirl of frantic thoughts, trying to find a way out of this, out of the mud, out of the blood, out of the darkness that’s closing in around you. You can’t die here. Not like this. Not before you win.
Reed crouches beside you, his face inches from yours. His breath smells faintly of mint and tea leaves, absurdly out of place in the stench of the trenches. "You’re holding on too tight," he whispers, his voice soft, soothing. "You need to let go."
"I can’t," you rasp, your voice barely more than a breath. "I have to get back."
"Back to what?" Reed asks, his head tilted slightly, like he’s genuinely curious. "There’s nothing to go back to. The Trials don’t exist anymore. The magic’s gone. It’s just you, here, now. Dying."
"No," you gasp, your chest tightening. "No, no, no. I have to... I have to win."
But the words sound hollow, even to you. The Trials—the magic, the tournament—they feel so far away now, like a dream you can’t quite remember. You were there. You were winning. But now... now you’re here, in the mud, in the blood, in the cold, and none of it makes sense anymore.
Another explosion rocks the ground, distant but close enough that you feel the tremor in your chest, rattling your ribs. You flinch, instinctively, but Reed doesn’t move. He doesn’t even blink. He just keeps watching you, his eyes calm, his expression unreadable.
"You’re already gone," he says softly, his hand resting on your shoulder now. "You just haven’t accepted it yet."
"No," you whisper again, but it’s weaker this time. You can feel the darkness pressing in, the edges of your vision blurring, fading. "I can’t..."
"You can," Reed says, his voice almost tender now. "It’s easier if you just let go."
Your head spins, the world tilting around you. The mud beneath you feels like it’s swallowing you whole, pulling you down, down, down, into the cold, into the dark. You want to fight it. You want to scream. But there’s no air in your lungs, no strength in your body. You’re slipping. Fading.
Reed stands, his hand slipping away from your shoulder, and you feel the loss of his warmth like a blow. He picks up his teacup, takes another slow sip, and looks down at you with something almost like pity.
"You don’t have to be afraid," he says, his voice fading as the world begins to blur. "It’s over now."
You blink, your vision going dark at the edges, the cold creeping up your body, wrapping around your chest, squeezing tighter and tighter. You can’t feel your legs. You can’t feel anything anymore.
And then—
There’s a flash of light, blinding and sharp, and suddenly, you’re not in the trench anymore. You’re standing in the arena. The roar of the crowd is deafening, their cheers vibrating through the air, shaking the ground beneath your feet. You look down, and your legs are there. Whole. Strong. You can feel the magic humming in your veins again, thrumming through your body, filling you with power.
You’ve won. You’re the champion.
The curse is broken.
You raise your hands, and the crowd goes wild, their voices blending into one massive, deafening roar. You’ve done it. You’ve beaten the curse. You’re free.
But then you look down.
And the mud is back. The blood is back. Your legs... your legs are gone again.
The arena dissolves, fading into the smoke and the dirt and the cold of the trenches. The roar of the crowd is gone, replaced by the distant thunder of artillery fire, the screams of dying men. And Reed is there, standing over you again, his teacup in hand, smiling that same calm, infuriating smile.
"It’s time to let go," he says softly.
You close your eyes.
When they find you, hours later, you’re lying face down in the mud, what’s left of your legs tangled in the remains of your uniform. Your body is cold, stiff. But you’re still here. You try to speak. You can’t. Eyes wide open but unseeing, pupils blown wide as if you stared into something beyond the trench, beyond the shells, beyond death itself. The blood around you has long since mingled with the mud, turning it into a dark, viscous pool. It clings to you like a shroud, the final mark of this place. They’re lifting you. You can’t feel it. “Wait, I’m not dead!” You try to scream. You cannot speak. They cannot hear you.
One of the two men, assigned to collect the dead, stares into your eyes for a moment, as if he sees you through his brilliant blue eyes that remind you of summers at Camp Ogallala. He stares as if he gets you’re still alive, But he doesn’t. “This poor fella died hard” you hear him say. The other just shrugs “Is there an easy way?” Their eyes tell you they are used to this. They’ve seen worse. They’ve seen bodies torn in half, limbs blown far from where they belonged. They’ve seen men vaporized into nothing, a memory and a name erased in an instant. But again, there’s something about you that makes the one with the blue eyes hesitate. “I’m still alive”, you try to scream. no sound. No movement, He doesn’t see you.
Another young soldier is here now– a private, young, barely old enough to hold the rifle slung across his back, is kneeling beside your body. His hands are shaking. He’s new to this, not yet numb to the endless carnage around him. He brushes the mud from your face with the back of his hand, careful not to look down at the shredded remains of your legs. He knows what’s there, but he doesn’t need to see it.
“Poor bastard,” the private mutters, his voice barely audible over the distant rumble of artillery fire. His companion, an older man with a face like cragged stone, grunts in response.
“They’re all poor bastards,” the older man says, not unkindly, but with the weight of a thousand other bodies in his voice. He nudges you with his boot, checking for any sign of life, though he knows there won’t be any. “C’mon, let’s get him outta here.”
But the private hesitates, frowning as he looks down at your face. There’s something off, something wrong about the way you’re lying there, eyes wide open, mouth just barely parted. The mud has caked around your lips, the blood dried in streaks across your chin, but there’s something almost peaceful about you. Like you weren’t screaming when it happened. Like you didn’t even feel it.
“What do you think he was looking at?” the private asks, glancing up at the older man. “Before he... you know. What do you think he saw?”
The older man shrugs. He’s seen enough death to know there’s no point in wondering. “Nothin’. Just the sky. Same as all of ‘em.”
But the private doesn’t move. His gaze lingers on your eyes, wide and blank, staring at something that wasn’t there. Or maybe it was. Maybe, just before the end, you saw something the rest of them couldn’t. Something that broke you in ways they’ll never understand. He shivers, his skin crawling despite the cold.
“Let’s go, kid,” the older man says, his voice rough, impatient. “Ain’t no use wonderin’. He’s gone, same as the rest.”
The private swallows, nods, and reaches down to grab your arm. Together, they haul your body onto a stretcher, your legs—or what’s left of them—dragging limply in the mud behind you. The private tries not to look, but he can feel the absence, the gaping void where your legs should be, and his stomach twists.
As they lift you, something falls from your pocket, landing with a soft thud in the mud. The private bends, it’s a fake thumb with a handkerchief wadded up inside– part of a magic trick– one you used so many times to entertain the children in the villages you encountered in your journey through this pointless war.
You’re in the back of a truck now. More bodies are being piled on top of you. It’s gone fully dark now. You’re suffocating. “Mommy…” you manage to mouth as your consciousness fades forever.
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