Louder Than Words (Short Story Anthology)

Final Fight

It was quiet, peaceful even in the sun filled room that Rhett had been laying in for the past few days. Even with all the beeping of nearby machines and the soft breathing of people he barely recognized now, it was peaceful. The warmth of the light filtering into the room was like a comforting blanket draped over his ever chilling skin. It warmed the cold that seemed to hover around his entire being. That icy feeling had been lingering for days regardless of how beautiful and warm the spring days had been as of late. 

As peaceful as Rhett may appear on the outside, his mind had become a concoction of flashbacks from his entire past. Life with his family, the days his children were born, even the very day he propose to his beautiful wife Leanne had raced through his mind. It was like someone was playing a movie of all his memories on both rewind and fast forward all at once. 

Though, some of those memories being played, he could have done without. 

While his dulled green eyes stared up at the pale white ceiling of his room, visions of wars and battles he had fought flashed through his racing mind. Rhett could see himself as clearly as he could any day. His once thick chocolate hair had gone silvery white, thinning with the onslaught of age. His once smooth skin, dirtied by the filth of a battlefield had lost its youthful gleam. Now it sat upon his skeleton in loose wrinkles and aged scars he received from war. . . and some stupid moments he had pulled showing off in his youth. His hands had long since lost their delicate appearance, his time in the military not the only thing that left them aged and callused. Years of hardwork and growing up had thickened his skin, roughing him up with life experience. 

Rhett, however, could still hear those bombs dropping around him as he skittered through the trenches. Bullets that zipped by his head, only to narrowly miss him, allowing him to live another moment in the warzone. He could easily remember watching his long time friends from school dropping to the ground like flies as enemy soldiers managed to take them from the world far too soon. Others lay screaming for help, lying in pain from their own injuries sustained from the battle they were trying to win. 

The chaos was very fresh in his mind, as if he were living the moment today. His heart rate spiked, racing while tears formed in his ever vacant green eyes. The memories becoming an overwhelming burden that rested heavily on his heart. 

The monitors that monitored his vital signs easily picked up the rapid change in his heart rate without any problem, beginning a new type of screaming that startled whoever was in the room with him. 

"Papa?" 

Even as the tired question left the unknown person's lips, Rhett's heart rate continued to climb to dangerous heights.  His breathing came in short sporadic bursts, his lungs burning from the lack of oxygen they were getting. The sensation only reminded him of how painful it had been to breath when smoke and gas had taken over the battlefield he had fought on so many times. The struggle to gain even a single breath to continue moving, to continue fighting was a nearly impossible one. 

Movement from within his room had been ignored, Rhett's mind once more lost within his past. It was a place he had become stuck in quite frequently the previous few days. Even when words were being spoken to him from his bedside, he could barely make out what was being said above the explosions and gunfire happening within his mind. Terror and panic were consuming him, his breathing having come quickly as a beaded sweat broke upon his wrinkled brow. . . until something gentle rested upon his shoulder. 

Rhett's breath caught in his chest, his dull green eyes slowly widening as if hearing the voice speaking to him for the first time. An angel having come down from the heavens to guide him into his eternal slumber. That was what he had seen this new voice as. 

"Papa, Papa, it's okay. You don't have to fight anymore." 

The voice was gentle, coaxing him from the darkened place within his mind. It was one he suddenly recognized, but he could no longer place who it belonged to. He knew he could trust it, knew whoever it was, was someone that brought his world warmth and undeniable happiness. 

"The war is over now, you've finally won. You can rest now, Papa." 

The voice speaking to Rhett sounded broken, sad even. It was as if they had been holding back from sobbing, maybe in a way as to not alarm him. It confused Rhett, but the angel speaking to him, their words brought a sudden peace to his warring memories. 

As the door to Rhett's room was quickly thrown open and doctors began pouring in, his body relaxed for the first time in the past couple of days. A single breath wisped from between his lips while what light had been held within his distantly dulled eyes slowly dimmed into nothingness. His chest stopped moving and the monitor screamed a constant beep as a flat line raced across its screen. 

Rhett was gone, a soldier fighting all his life was now left to rest in an eternally peaceful slumber where war could no longer haunt him. He didn't have to fight anymore, he didn't have to worry about being plagued about what was happening to his brothers in arm. He was free to walk among the fields of serenity heaven was given him. 

Rest easy soldier, the war is finally over.