I Am Dead

This story is part of the community effort on the Emperor's Nightmare chapter.

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My name is Brother Captain Theo Maximilian of the Emperor's Nightmares

That is my first thought as I fully realize that I am about to die.

Dying isn't so bad though, I will miss my comrades, leading them into battle, but at least they are with me now, in my final moments. Here I am, my squad all around me, my friends...my family.

There is Brother Marcus, his pauldron still marked by bolt damage, his head is bent....it's alright, I lived well, I die for the Emperor

The chaplain enters my view from the side, he turns to me, his words, my last rites, are but a murmur to my restless mind, he takes my hand in his. Humans don't realize how gentle an Astartes, even in battle plate can be.

I look into his eyes... when did he remove his helmet? ...I see regret there, that after all my centuries it has come to this.

I look past him at my comrades one final time as his words fade into almost nothing, I slowly draw in one final breath, and I close my eyes.

I am on Raimana IV, I have served in the third company, for 48 years.

We've been here for two weeks, fighting against these traitor marines, curse them to the pits. I raise my bolter to kill a cultist in partial battle plate, clearly a pretender.._-The cultist explodes I, what?, clearly I shot him but..when did....oh

"BROTHER JAROM!!"

"What? Can't you see I'm busy here?"

I rise from my kneeled shooting position, I turn to face Jarom, or Jarr as I call him. He's aiming at a chaos marine with a Marine Portable Lascannon in his hands and a crude metal plate over his torso which, moments later is engulfed in a bolt explosion.

"It's happening!" I shout

Jarom turns. Oh no.

The world is blurring now, darkness taking the corners of my vision, as Jarom rises to stand over me and guard me, just like we practiced, I see the traitor rise behind him, his Lascannon as leverage...

His MKIII plate held.

I raise my boltgun, too tired, too dark, can't make out the targeter on my visor, need to resort to the iron sights...

I take aim, pointing at the center of his torso, years of training, practice with these iron sights that the others called me paranoid for coming back to me. An expert shot I could make a kill from twice my weapons range. As darkness closes in so that I can only see the sight and the torso plate I aim center of mass.

I blow his left arm off

The traitor falls backwards and darkness claims my sight, sounds muffle, my knees start to buckle as what seems like centuries of exhaustion take hold of me, darkness may claim me, but I have done my duty.

LIGHT, SOUND, TOUCH,

My senses are overwhelmed, my knees are still in the course of buckling, my grip on my bolter still loosening. This moment of clear consciousness before true sleep, it happens to many marines, humans too or so I've heard, just one moment before you pass out completely. I see the world, Brother Jarom running towards me, the sunset behind him lighting up a burning vehicle, a fighting dreadnought a...a traitor with a lascannon!

Back lit by the red setting sun I watch as the one armed traitor marine regains his ballance and not so much lifts as throws his lascannon up one handed. He sweeps it wildly towards Jarom, throwing his whole body into the motion...

I need to shoot him again, I try to aim down my sights, to pull the trigger, to....to.......to...........

My hands tighten on the gun and I collapse to the ground.

I've served the Emperor as a Marine for exactly 748 years, and for the last 700 I have missed brother Jerom. He was cut in two by a lascannon strike and I could do nothing to save him.

Now I'm on Martain II. I'm a Captain now, and we're here to support some Blood Angels. We're a relative stones throw away from their home world and we've been helping clean up after their incredible stand in their chapter's darkest hour.

I'm standing with a squad of my brothers, I moved away from my command squad when I heard reports of chaos marines popping up, just when I thought we'd cleaned this world of one kind of filth another shows up.

I'm overdue rest by more than four months and my apothecaries are getting worried, to be honest so am I. I haven't felt tired in the slightest, in fact I'm jumpy and energetic.

I see a number of humans charging me, civilians mostly, they look scared, wait their not charging they're fleeing. As I watch a beast of some kind, easily waist high on me leaps a good three meters into the air to come down on a human woman as she runs past my legs...I spin in a way that my teachers would have called stupid and kick the thing out of the air.

I stumble.. maybe the teacher would be right after all, righting myself I finish the beast, some kind of giant cat, and turn at the sound of plasma bursts.

To my left are massive figures, clearly chaos marines, two with plasma cannons and one.....with a lascannon.

One marine stands between me and them, he's aiming at the plasma on the right, I take the left, but I almost miss as my vision darkens.....oh emperor, not now

I REFUSE!!!!

The world snaps back into focus as I fall to a knee to regain my balance wrenching my helmet off as I do so. I aim down the sights, I fire once, catching the traitor in the gut, he stumbles, but he's in MK III armor just like the one.....

I fire again, I catch him in the chest and he staggers, I rise to my feet and I march towards him

I fire again as I pass my one armed comrade

I fire again as I pass his lascannon, dropped as he retreats

I fire again.... Click

My gun is empty......

The traitor rises, his armor covered in craters as I draw my chainsword which he manages to bat away before I can use it...then i punch him.

I punch him again

and again and again and again and again and again and again

I beat his fixed, grilled helmet to scrap I beat his skull into red goo, and then I beat his armor till my gauntlet is a wreck and nothing remains of his head but liquid leaking through my gauntlet and onto my hand.

Since that day on Martain II I haven't had a moment of sleep, it's been a year and a half.

I open my eyes, I am dead

Sleepless from this day onward, I am an instrument of the Emperor in a whole new way; a walking corpse waiting to finally taste the rest of death.... I saw the Emperor once, though nobody believes me, in a dream as I fought against the beasts of chaos.

I turned to see a bright light and I moved towards it. I threw myself into battle against his enemies, and when they were all smote I looked to him. I asked him where he was going, if he would ever return.

He said nothing, and as I watched that light shrank, a grand golden storm roiling towards me as the now tiny light fled. It touched my soul for a single instant, and then I knew.

The Emperor is the most restless of all. His power battles for us always, but his mind, his soul, his heart of hearts carries in it a great pain, hurt by some regret, something he could have stopped, he would give anything to correct....I knew this in that moment of contact.

And then I awoke.

And I never slept again.