The brave soldier – fanfiction by Refugnic

It was a peaceful evening in the town of Redford.

Kasper had recently returned from duty at the nearby military base for his weekend off and was just kicking back on the couch, while his sister Laura was busy in the kitchen preparing food for them both when the doorbell rang.

Laura chimed from the kitchen, “Can you go and get it please?”
“Sure thing!” Kasper shouted back, heaving himself up from the couch.
From a force of habit, he first checked the door spy to see who was standing in front and bile rose in his throat as he saw a young man in a suit and flowers in hand.

He opened the door and asked, “Yes, may I help you?”
“P…pardon me, but this is the residence of Laura Barrington…right?”
“…so it says on the doorbell sign. I’m her brother, Kasper. And you are?”
The young man straightened up but was still a head short of the towering and intimidating Kasper, who was still clad in his camouflage pants and wore a beige shirt.
“My name is Gary Hollingsworth and I would like to…”
Kasper interrupted him, “Get lost, kid. She’s not interested.”

Suddenly Laura sounded from behind him, “Who is that at the door, Kasper?”
Kasper rolled his eyes and replied, “Just someone, who got the wrong address.”
He then turned back and gave Gary a death stare, who almost wet himself right there.
“You…you’re right. Silly me, how could I mix this up. Sorry about that!” he blabbered quickly and all but ran away.

“Strange…I could’ve sworn that was Gary’s voice,” Laura commented as she came to the door himself.
Kasper feigned ignorance and asked, “…and who is this Gary?”
“Err…my…boyfriend?” Laura admitted carefully.
“And I’m hearing of this the first time right now because…?”
“Well, you see…” Laura started, twirling in her ponytails with her fingers before saying, “…you were always to busy at the base and I didn’t want to bother you with such minorities.”

Kasper hunkered down a little so he was on face height with his sister and replied, “Laura, you know damn well that there are no ‘minorities’ when it comes to you. Not for me. And aren’t you a little young to have a boyfriend yet?”
“Aaaand there’s the other reason why I haven’t told you…listen big brother…I love you and I really appreciate all you’re doing for me ever since…but I’m a big girl now. I can take care of myself. Okay?”
Kasper snorted, got back up and tousled through Laura’s hair and replied, “Yeah, sure you are. But I still worry about you and nothing you can say or do will change that.”

He pulled Laura into a light hug and smiled at her, “Okay?”
“Sure thing.”

The same evening, Laura and Kasper sat on the couch together, watching an old movie when the phone rang.
Laura was the first to get up and fetch it.

After a few minutes, her cheerful expression changed and got replaced by an angry one. After hanging up, she stood directly between Kasper and the TV, forcing him to look up to her.
“What’s up?”
“Say, this person who ‘got the wrong address’…was that a young man around my age? About this tall, brown hair, green eyes?”
“…what of it?”
“Because Gary’s mother just called…she told me, that he went to see me and ask me out for dinner, but came back completely terrified. You wouldn’t know anything about that…would you?!”

Kasper sighed and admitted, “I may have told someone who fit that description that I don’t think too highly of him visiting you…but then again, how was I supposed to know that he was your boyfriend?”
“Hello?! You could have asked?!”
“That was unnecessary. That guy was clearly no good. No spine whatsoever.”
“Argh!” Laura cried out in frustration, punching Kasper into the shoulder with all her might, however she missed the soft spots and instead hit the solid bone, hurting her hand.

As she shook it, she pointed to the door and demanded, “Get out! At once!”
“No.”
“Kasper Barrington, leave my house this instant!”
“…as far as I remember, I’m paying the rent for this, so this is my…hey, where do you think you’re going?!” Kasper asked while Laura began to storm off.
“Packing! If you won’t leave, then I will! Honestly, this is why I’m not telling you these things!”
Kasper got up and shouted, “I’m just trying to protect you here!”
“Yeah well, screw yourself! I don’t need your protection! I can take care of myself, just fine!” Laura shouted from the top of the stairs before slamming the door to her room.

While she was packing however, the alarm sirens from the base and also the alarm of the town began to sound simultaneously and the TV immediately switched to the emergency broadcast.

“What in the…” Kasper asked, as he turned to the TV.
Laura also came to join him, her anger disrupted by the sudden signal.
“Kasper, what…” she began speaking, however Kasper merely motioned her to be silent as the broadcaster said, “Our nation has come under attack by an unknown aggressor. Enemy agents have begun appearing all over the countries, laying waste to cities and settlements with unknown weaponry. So far, every countermeasure has proven ineffective. All citizens are advised to stay at home and lock their doors and remain near the TV for more information, we will tell you…”

Kasper switched off the TV and asked, “Laura, how far did you get with packing?”
Laura asked, fear in her eyes, “I…what the hell is going on?!”
“No idea, but this siren means that I’m supposed to report for duty…and you’re coming with me. Now get your stuff. We’re moving out in 5.”

Laura, now terrified of the serious expression on the face of her brother hurried up the stairs, almost tripping over her feet, threw whatever she thought she needed into her open suitcase and came back down, where Kasper was already waiting, dressed in his uniform, his dogtag around his neck, the rifle in hand and his favorite knife in its holster. The very sight made Laura feel faint, as a devastating scream echoed over the noise of the sirens.

Gunshots and explosions followed.
And just shortly after, there was silence. The sirens had died, and no more gunshots could be heard. Only occasionally the sound of a small explosion disturbed the silence.

Kasper commented, “Not…good…”
“What…what’s happening?”
“…I don’t know, but I don’t think the ‘state of emergency’ is over…okay, change of plans. To the garage.”
“But…but the base…aren’t you supposed to…”
“Screw supposed, right now there’s only one important thing and that’s your safety!” Kasper yelled, dragging Laura with him to the garage of the small house, where the jeep of his father was kept.

He fumbled with the keys but eventually got them into the lock. The aged machine sprung to life while Laura opened the garage, but as she looked outside, she became paralyzed by fear.

The base in the distance was on fire, which quickly spread and dead people laid all over the place. And then she saw it. A hulking creature clearly not from this world.
And, even worse, it saw her as well, licking its maw as saliva dripped to the ground at the prospect of yet another meal.

Laura wanted to scream, but her throat made no sound.
Eventually she was ripped from her paralysis, as Kasper drove next to her, spotting the enemy and emptying his clip on her, however the creature remained completely unfazed and simply kept moving towards the two at a slow pace.

Kasper’s eyes widened as he stared the creature into its eyes. Despite every cell of his body telling him to run, he still jumped from the jeep, grabbed Laura and threw her into the back.

Just when he wanted to get back in himself, a strong pull tore him away from the chassis.
“Kasper!” Laura screamed, trying to reach out to him from inside the jeep, but he was already out of reach. She tried to get out, while the creature slowly pulled Kasper closer, its hot breath tickling in his neck.

Kasper struggled, kicked and screamed for Laura to get away, but Laura didn’t listen.
The creature raised Kasper high as if it intended to swallow the grown man whole, when one of his feet landed a kick against the snout of the beast, momentarily irritating it.
Kasper managed to free himself from its grasp and tried to get back to the jeep, however before even making two steps, he fell as the creature grabbed his foot, heaving him into the air upside down and forcing Kasper to face it.

Laura grabbed Kasper’s hand and tried to pull him back, but the creature simply pulled her into the air as if she had no weight at all.
“Let go!” Kasper commanded.
“Never!” Laura replied, tears streaming down her face.
Kasper forced Laura’s hand open, causing her to fall to her feet before grabbing his knife. He bowed upwards and cut open his boot to free his foot. He fell to the ground, where he rolled over.

The creature dropped the boot and instead went for Laura, who fearfully inched backwards. Kasper jumped to his feet and held the open claw back with all his might, as he groaned, “Laura! The jeep! Now!”
Laura nodded and ran for the jeep, when the beast decided that playtime was over and slashed at Kasper with its other claw. Fortunately for him, Kasper managed to evade the brunt of the strike by jumping backwards and the claw only grazed him, otherwise it would likely have cut his head off clean.

He staggered against the metal door of the jeep and slumped to the ground in a daze. Laura reached over the frame and pulled her big brother in before jumping into the drivers seat and hitting the gas pedal all the way to the ground.
The creature gave chase for a while and just for a moment it looked like it would catch them, when someone else screamed, diverting the attention of the creature.

As Laura recovered, she asked, “What…what the hell was that?!”
Kasper sat up and watched in terror as the creature tore into one of the other houses, “I have no idea. But…but I think we shook it.”
“Your eye!” Laura screamed as she realized the gaping wound in her brother’s face.
Kasper reached for the bloody streams over the right half of his face and said, “I’ll live…don’t worry about it.”
They drove in silence for a few seconds before Laura asked, “Wh…what’s going to happen now?”
“…I don’t know…but whatever happens…I’ll protect you.”

After the first wave had passed, the world laid in ruins and Kasper and Laura found themselves in the company of a few of the other lucky ones, which could barely be any more colorful. Yet up to this day, they had failed to find any way to battle these ‘demons’ as they had come to call them.

Yet a glimmer of hope returned to Kasper’s eyes, as he began to hear stories of a few people who managed to slay these demons. And these days he would meet them if all went well. Maybe then, he would be able to learn where these demons came from and, more importantly, how to send them back to hell.

 

Author: Refugnic
See this short story on Deviantart.

10 comments on “The brave soldier – fanfiction by Refugnic”

  1. Refugnic Reply

    Oh, a little bit of trivia for the attentive reader.

    The town of Redford I took from ‘the red fort’ (if the town exists, I’m fairly sure they had the same idea :P), a massive fortress structure from the 17th century in India.

    I believe what I most struggled with were the frigging surnames. I’m terrible with names and surnames are even worse, because you just have them from your ancestors and you never really need to think about them. Oh and of course the fight with the demon. How to get away from an invulnerable enemy, who is intent on eating you alive…fun stuff. But I think I pulled it off decently.

    However I said it once, I’ll say it again…this demon was playing with its food. If it had been hungry, neither of them would’ve lasted as long.

    Thanks for reading. ๐Ÿ™‚

    • NotImportant Reply

      Yeah, I stated it on one or more pages – they don’t treat people as opponents. Cats play with the food too and we’ve got different kinds of demons in this universe, so plenty of room for different scenarios. Thanks for the story, I think it came out great ๐Ÿ˜€

      And now you know why there are no frigging surnames on the Cast page -_-

      • Refugnic Reply

        Yeah, they don’t even care to dodge, which makes killing them a lot easier…if you happen to have the right weapon at hand.
        That one most definitely was a cat. ๐Ÿ˜›

        Thanks for giving me the opportunity and thanks for reading it. ๐Ÿ™‚

        Haha, I’ve known all along, but you know, in a civilized world, we still need them. During/After the apocalypse however, first names are more than enough. ๐Ÿ™‚

      • Dusk Reply

        I knew it. that is the first part of my theory confirmed
        now I can move on to speculation about the cast system of the demons
        I.ve been speculating that those saw so far are inexperienced/young as they don’t seem to react to their own kind’s deaths. normally I would anticipate that these creatures should they come into a situation that they smell the blood of their own others around would stop playing and get serious. ofcourse there have been demon hunters before judging by the fact that that you cannot make anti demon-weapons if you don’t know they exist. what do you think of my resoning?
        and questions on the table are
        1 where is the demon factory/ other world portal?
        2 how does Refugnic com up with such amazing fanfiction
        3 what happened to the last group of demon slayers
        4 how many years will i be left in senescence.
        to a fantastic fan fiction for a beautiful, Bloody, fearsoaked web comic that puts everything else i’ve ever known to shame. ๐Ÿ™‚

        • Refugnic Reply

          I agree that there must have been demons around before this. Most likely during the medieval ages some 500 years ago. That was when the Japanese beliefs in Demons was the strongest. It is likely, that ‘something’ existed which was then interpreted as the ‘work of demons’ and whereas the general populace was left to fear the unknown, a few might actually have known what they are doing, eventually sealing a greater evil, doing away with the demons for 500 years. Until now.

          At least that’s as good a theory as any. ๐Ÿ™‚

          1. There are two options regarding that, I believe. Either there is one big-ass summoning circle, which allows the demons passage into our word. This portal would most likely either be in the corporation Ada and Robert worked in (probably most of the employees were used as sacrifice for the ritual).
          Another option would be, that the ‘factory’ is Faust himself, or much rather ‘the greater demon’ that he made a deal with him. I believe it to be likely, that Faust serves as some sort of anchor point for the greater demon who sends the lesser demons into their world to seek sacrifices. Each life they take would then create…let’s call it Chaos energy, which the greater demon uses to increase the size of passage. Up until the point when the gate is finally strong and stable enough for the demon lord to step through in his corporeal form.
          If that were to happen, I doubt the swords of Ada and Robert would do them much good.

          2. I observe, analyze and once an idea passes by, I lean back, close my eyes for a moment, grasp the thought as tight as I can, put my fingers on the keyboard and begin to write. If all goes well, a good piece of fiction appears on my screen. ๐Ÿ™‚

          3. My theory: After the greater demon was sealed, they stuck around for a while longer, trying to purge all traces of the greater demon from the world. However, as the years and generations passed, the immediate threat faded from the collective memory of mankind and the once mighty group of demon slayers have either vanished altogether or have gone into hiding, because the world forgot their purpose and would call them heretics and possibly even hunt them for their pagan beliefs.
          I would not rule out, that one of the descendants of said demon slayers sold the swords to Robert.
          Heck, for all its worth Ada/Robert could be descendants, which would explain their resilience against the demonic infestation as well as their affinity for magic.
          4. If I understood your question correctly, then I cannot answer. God alone knows that after all. And my name is Refugnic Eternium, not ‘God’. ๐Ÿ™‚

          Thank you for the praise, thank you for reading and I’m sure NI appreciates the praise as well. ๐Ÿ™‚

          • Dusk

            i think that you and i are theorizing the same thing only you have had more time to think. also sorry that i didn’t think to explain that the “question board” is meant to never be empty because if it did i would get bored and move on. if a story ends by tieing up loose ends then an empty question board equals a dead story and honestly i won’t say this about any other story but THAT WOULD SUCK because this story has more potential than most long running anime and television series
            also i personally wouldn’t assume that their IS one big boss monster there may just as likely be a group of boss monsters( i honestly dough that the humans could handle a unifyed force even with all the lvling up in the world inless some yet to be introdused character is a monter of sorts him?her?self. but who knows maybe their will be more than just a small group of hunters even an army them selves ๐Ÿ™‚

          • Refugnic

            I don’t consider this question board to be ’emptied’, but much rather I threw some food for thought at it. It’s not like my opinions are absolute or even ‘canon’. You’re right about one thing though. If every question in a story is answered, it is the end for this story. You can, at any time, reopen new questions and start a new story with the same characters, but, as it stands, as soon as all major questions are tied up, the story is over and should be allowed to rest. Otherwise it may just become a distortion of itself and no story deserves that.

            Well, I’m assuming that there is ‘one’, because of the first page (Red skies), where Robert has some sort of vision about him and Ada killing Faust, after trying to get some answers from him. Faust mentions ‘This is what demon wanted’ (grammar pending :P) or something. Demon. Singular.

            What’s more, it’s rare that you make a pact with more than one demon so whereas more than just one greater demon might exist, I’m thinking that the story revolves around there being just that one in our world. The one that made a pact with Faust for an unknown reason.

            At least that’s what I’m thinking.

            Regarding the time: I tend to come up with answers on the fly when asked, considering what I know.
            Despite what it may sound like, I’m not constantly sitting somewhere, mulling over the background of Replay. ๐Ÿ˜€

        • NotImportant Reply

          Praise much appreciated, happy you like the comic~!
          I don’t really want to answer any question that will be later answered in the comics but about demon slayers and demons in the past – just think about it, every culture has something like dragons in their legends. Yet there are none nowadays. And they have built traps, sophisticated weapons and such, there had to be a reason right?… This, or people all over the world like fat, flying lizards ยฏ\_(ใƒ„)_/ยฏ
          Anyway, I imagine that demons left human realm at some point, driven out by powerful wizards and such. And then, wisdom and knowledge about magic was left forgotten, as there was no worthy successor and no need to pass it down as demons were no longer part of the world. Or something. This question probably will never be answered in the comic – no time for it and they have no way of knowing. But I’ll probably throw some theories.
          Thanks again for reading. You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear something like this โ™ก

          • Dusk

            that is the very point of the table the questions are more rhetorical as it would spoil the fun if they were answered so please the questions only exist in the case that it is never answered in the story. you answer only proves that the story is as great as i thought ใ‹ก

          • NotImportant

            No worries, I would never spoil the fun this way เนโ—กเน

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