I received some advice today from MicroPen, and I wanted to post a short story I wrote a while ago that I'm pretty proud of (or at least I remember being proud of it at the time.). I'm sure there are a few errors throughout, but I've done my best to catch most of them. Enjoy.
Marius woke with a start, noticing immediately an aching pain in his back. He moved his shoulders to possibly massage the area against the bed, then, realizing he would likely just have to deal with the pain, he stretched his arms and legs as he rose from his bed.
With his feet on the floor, Marius began to survey the room. The room was not any he recognized, though there was something vaguely familiar about it. The floors were concrete and the walls had a striped wallpaper; it was too dark to tell the color, though. The room was empty, spare the bed, which had a stretched hexagonal shape, and a small table in the corner. There was a door on one wall.
As he attempted to recollet the events of the previous night, he began to realize that he couldn’t remember anything, even who he was. No, he knew one thing: his name. Marius Streicher. He looked down at his body to see his clothes. He was wearing what looked to be a suit that he assumed was black with a lighter colored tie.
Marius approached the door, hoping to find some answers on the other side. He placed his hand on the knob, twisted it, and pushed the door open. On the other side was a room lit by a fire. There was a large sofa and a coffee table in the room, as well as several paintings on the walls. Most of the paintings were war scenes and portraits of soldiers. One of the paintings caught his attention and he moved to it. It showed a group of soldiers raising a German flag on a rock. He wasn’t quite sure why he was drawn to it, but it interested him. He stood there for a moment longer, but nothing came to him.
He sighed and moved on, walking swiftly to the door. He pulled it open, but the room on the other side was not the same as it had been. The room before had been dark with a concrete floor and striped wallpaper, but was now well-lit with hardwood floors and wood walls. He stood there, perplexed. He was sure that he had not seen this room before, but thought he might be imagining things. Either way, it gave him an uneasy feeling and he started to close the door. However, before he did, he had the idea to call out to see if someone could hear him.
“Hello? My name is Marius and I think I’m lost.”
There was no response, just the crackling of the fire. He closed the door fully and turned back to the paintings. Something in the back of his mind told him that he needed to open the door again and go through it. His gut feeling was usually right, but he still had an unsettling feeling. Marius placed his hand on the doorknob and hesitated. It was cold to the touch, like ice. Despite this, he took a breath and pulled it open. On the other side was yet another different room. It had metal walls and a wooden floor. There was a window on one wall and several pieces of furniture strewn about the room.
As he stepped into the room, his body felt heavier. He looked down to see himself wearing a soldier’s uniform. He raised an eyebrow in confusion, as he could have sworn he was wearing a suit before. A feeling of anxiety washed over him and he reached instinctively to his vest for his handgun. It wasn’t there, which only made the feeling worse. He searched his vest frantically, hearing voices from outside the window. He finally found something and rapidly pulled it out of his pocket. It was a beaten up photograph of a young Japanese-looking woman. She was in a field medic outfit and smiling at the camera.
She was so familiar, but Marius couldn’t remember her name or why he knew her. He placed it back in his vest, feeling slightly more confident, though again unsure as to why. Approaching the window, he peeked out and saw a burning airplane in the distance. It, too, gave him a feeling of deja vu. The voices were getting closer now. He had to get out.
He went to the door that he had come through, trying to twist the knob. It clicked and would not turn. It was locked.
The voices were closer now, near enough that he could decipher what they were saying. It was in English, and the voices sounded American.
“Where do you think he went off to?”
“I don’t know, but he probably ran. Nazi Pilots usually aren’t dumb enough to siege a camp alone.”
Footsteps accompanied the voices now, and they were getting closer still. He tried the door one more time, finding it to still be locked. Adrenaline rushed through his body as he hurriedly looked for an alternate exit.
The voices were at the door on the other side of the room now, even clearer.
“I won’t be surprised when we hear from Colonel Smith about our ‘failure to capture an enemy asset.’”
“Heh, yeah. We’ll never hear the end of-”
The soldiers opened the door and froze as they saw Marius. They gave each other a quick look of shock then one pulled his handgun and aimed at him. Marius felt through his vest for anything that could help him, but to no avail. He tried the door again, and this time the knob turned. He threw it open and sprinted through. The soldier ran behind him, shouting and discharging his handgun. The shots screamed past Marius. He kept running.
There was no room on the other side of the door this time, just open land covered in tents. Marius moved quickly from side to side in an attempt to dodge the bullets. He could hear bells above him, sounding almost like church bells. It didn’t make sense to him. Nothing really made sense. He kept running, trying desperately to escape.
Suddenly Marius stopped, a burning pain shooting through his chest and flowing through his body. He fell to his knees as he struggled for air, clutching at his heart. Blood poured onto his hands, and he grunted as his knees hit the ground. His vision faded and he fell onto his back. He looked down and was once again in the suit. Looking back to the sky, the somber bells continued to sound as what looked to be the lid of a coffin lowered over him. He was hoisted into the air and his eyes closed, feeling finally at rest.
Marius woke with a start, noticing immediately an aching pain in his back.
