Black out

Nightmares can appear with open eyes

It's always the same.

The acrid smell of stale gunpowder envelops his nasal cavities, just as dozens of bombs and shells explode all around him, their lethal wraths of destruction disintegrating everything unfortunate enough to stand in their path.

The sounds of whimpering cries and piercing screams surround him, as more groups of honorable men take their last breath.

Flinching as yet another shell smacks the ground, the vibrations of its remorseless actions shaking his whole frame, clutching his gun closer towards him, the machinery being his only source of protection.

His sanity on the verge of extinction as he's forced to look around himself, the ground strewn with stray limbs and decaying bodies scattered across the battlefield, once fine young men who now are no longer recognizable as humans.

Each body that plunges to the ground is a lost child, brother, friend, husband. Just one more figure to add to the long line of wasted lives, all for a senseless catastrophe of guns and gore.

It was supposed to all be over by Christmas, but now Christmas was nothing more than a long-lost deceitful dream. And that was two years ago.

Then the gunfire starts up again as if none of this really matters.

"Captain, watch out!" A scream of terror yells out, seconds later he feels a firm grip tightening around his shoulder, pushed to the floor where he merely misses a shell exploding somewhere above his head.

Taking a minute to register who had saved him from a brutal demise, he manages to raise his head just enough to look into the familiar face of his childhood best friend, Tristan, the man who had been by his side his entire life. However, he wasn't looking at the person he knew. Gone was his confident demeanor, his warm talkative manor and his witty sense of humor. Instead, he was next to a petrified man practically huddling against him, just waiting for the moment a weapon to hastily rip his life away.

Then in a blur of seconds, they're off again, the enemy are attacking, then suddenly his gun jams up as if it were exhibiting shell shock symptoms itself. He has to get the bullet in, but no matter how hard he tries, he simply can't. Then from the corner of his eye, he notices another gun next to him. Looking up, he finds Tristan attempting to tug out a different gun wedged firmly into the ground just a few metres away.

"No, take cover! The Germans are shooting, get down!" He cries, scrabbling halfway towards his friend just before his footing fails him.

"Come on, get down, please, get down with me!" He tries again, more urgently than the last. "For god sake, leave the gun!" He adds just as more shells explode beside them, moments later poking his head out just enough to shoot at the enemy, unsure if it had made any sort of difference.

But before either man could take a deep breath, an abrupt high pitched sound came shrieking through the air. "Run!" The captain yelled as both men clumsily began to make their way to wherever they could.

He thought they had gotten away, escaped from entering death's door for another day.

He couldn't have got it more wrong.

It was just a matter of mere moments after the massive scare, when a vicious explosion following the attack caught both men hugely off guard, bits of dry mud were abruptly dislodged into the open air, huge chunks of it whipping the captain so hard he tumbled face down onto the ground.

Spitting out the bits of mud that had gotten into his mouth, he then sprang up to look for Tristan, but what he saw wasn't the way he'd liked to have seen the last of him. His eyes widening to the size of saucers as he fearfully absorbs the sights of his best friends disfigured form.

He was gone. No longer would he be able to laugh at their shared jokes, he would never hear him talk or see him walk again. Death had claimed his life and devoured it.

What made it worse, was it was all his fault.

He can't take it anymore, he needs to get out of here, he has to get out of here!

All he wants is to go home, when would all this ridiculous carnage end?

When!

The captain now succumbed to the intense rush of panic circling his veins, tension grew in his facial features as his breathing becomes more rapid, his shallow breaths making it impossible to control himself, his vision now blurring as the overwhelming impact of the sheer horror of it all hits him like a runaway train.

He can't go on with this, cant cope with the guilt, he can't face this alone.

Then it dawns on him.

He's going to die, he doesn't want to die, he has so much back at home to live for.

It's all too much, he can't go on, someone make it stop! Please, just make it stop ...

Jolting upright as sweat rapidly dripped down his forehead, Captain Darling yanked the blanket over to his mouth, biting it to prevent his shrill cries from escaping and grabbing General Melchetts unwanted attention. His twitch going at a million miles per hour, some of the facial ticks so sharp his neck had cracked multiple times, and painfully at that.

Attempting to calm himself down, Darling flopped his head back onto the pillow and drew the blanket right up to his chin.

Involuntarily scrunching up his facial features as an army of tears began to well up inside his sorrow ridden, lost blue eyes, his efforts to scrub them away went unsuccessful as a few stray tears had already trickled down his cheek.

Scanning the cupboard sized room as he places a hand on his heart, hammering inside his chest so fast he could have sworn it was seconds away from leaping out from his body, Kevin exhaled a shaky sigh, turning over to his right and squeezing his eyes shut as if to block out the current situation.

It had happened again.

This wasn't the first time, nor would it be the last.

He thought time away from the trenches, away from all the senseless killing and the hostility of it all would rid his soul of the horrendous things he'd experienced. It only took such a little thing to trigger the worst of memories, then once he was trapped in its clutches, there was no escape, forced to relive those ghastly times against his will.

This office job was supposed to give him a peace of mind. Instead, he lived in constant shame, frowned upon for not being out there with the rest of the brave souls, fighting for their king and country.

In their eyes, he was nothing more than a desk sucking, pen pushing, blotter jotter who's too much of a coward to pick up a gun.

Then there was Blackadder.

He was an entirely different story, and one he had no desire to write a book on.

Letting out a world heavy sigh as he wearily rubbed at the bags underneath his sleep-deprived eyes, the exhausted captain shifted himself into a more comfortable position before slowly closing his eyes, in hopes that the very slim chances of no more nightmares occurring would be granted.

But from personal experience, the worst of nightmares can also appear with your eyes open.