The Girl on the White Horse

By 8th of June 1916 forces of the Russian Southwestern Front took Lutsk. The Austrian commander, the archduke himself, Josef Ferdinand, barely escaped the city before the Russians entered. By then the Austrians were in full retreat and the Russians had taken over 200,000 prisoners. The initial success of the offensive resulted from a thorough planning and a short yet precise use of artillery which decimated the Austrian lines. Seeing as how the Brusilov offensive lasted up to the end of September that year. Troops were station all over the reclaimed Russian lands.

Cleaning out the remains of the Austrian force out of the reconquered lands was the easy part for the Russian troops. The Great War had brought about far greater terrors than the mere loss of men to machinegun rounds. The utter neglect for human life had awakened ancient, perhaps even dark forces during the Great War. Long forgotten rose from the graves to reclaim the world that was once theirs.

Reinforcements that had passed through Lutsk were sure that the poor condition of the soldiers stationed at the town directly resulted from the horrors of the massive conflict. An understandable assessment considering they did not know of the girl on the white horse that roamed the lifeless streets of the town at night.

The girl on the white horse was first spotted by Yefreitor Yevgeny Belsky during one of his nightly patrols at the eastern edge of the town. Assuming the rider was a wandering peasant or an enemy scout. The young and weary soldier raised his rifle into the air and shot a bullet into the sky. The rider stopped, and the horse turned towards Belsky.

Black vapor was escaping the animal’s mouth as it slowly made its way towards the soldier who in his shock at the unusual sight turned aimed the rifle at the rider and ordered it to stop.

The rider halted but remained silent, a cloak concealing her face; Belsky began questioning the rider who maintained her silence until he threatened to shoot her. The rider, she merely raised her head and looked directly into the young soldier’s eyes.

Upon seeing her blue colored, tri-ring decorated irises, a cold chill ran down his spine; he muttered the words, “Dear God” and attempted to make a sign of the cross only to be interrupted midway by the whistling of bullets passing right by him.

A nauseating sensation rolled up the soldier’s dry throat as he realized he was inside a trench, along with his fellow countrymen, some of which he was sure had fallen in the battle over Lutsk. The world began spinning all around him. The screaming of fallen men and the sound of bullets flying overhead mixed into a grotesque symphony of destruction that made his head throb with unimaginable pain. Belsky felt the urge to throw up all over himself but just as he was about to, he felt a punch in the gut. Something took the air out of his body. A steadily increasing feeling of burning pain pulsated out of his belly. It was getting worse by the moment, but he did not dare look down. The seconds passed, and the pain began so bad, Belsky could no longer stand.

He fell.

Clutched at his gut and felt the warm liquid escaping from within the gaping wound in him.

Everything began turning black at a steady pace while the sounds of battle were slowly fading out.

Belsky muttered meekly, “Im… possible…”

It all turned black.

Gunfire roared all around the young soldier once again, a terrible pain rocked the contents of his skull as he opened his eyes once more to find himself in the middle of the trenched hell.

His already increased heartbeat hastened dangerously so. The soldier’s vision was getting distorted, and the ringing of his heartbeat in his ears drowned the sounds of war around him. “I just… die...d”, he quietly recalled to himself. One of the other soldiers must’ve overheard him as he remarked whilst loading his rifle, “No, but you fucking will if you don’t shoot down those Fritzes!”

Belsky completely lost and distorted began loading his gun, “Yeah… I’m just tired…” he responded to his comrade shaking his head as he aimed.

“Aren’t we all?!” The other soldier shouted back at him while shooting at the enemy soldiers.

Belsky steadied himself and pulled the trigger.

*Bang*

*Bang*

*Bang*

*Bang*

His targets fell one by one, after all; the Austrians were so surprised they weren’t able to reorganize themselves. Entire units surrendered without even firing a single bullet just a few hours beforehand.

Belsky blocked out everything but his eyes locking on his targets and the feeling of recoil his rifle provided with each shot.

In mere minutes, most of the soldiers in the Yefreitor’s vicinity had fallen, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was too focused on the soldiers ahead.

Clear the line of side and advance.

A singular goal in the youngster’s mind; none who knew Yevgeny Belsky before the war would believe that this young man would be able to stay focused. War, however, it has a way with youth. It kills innocence even before it kills humans.

*Bang*

A sharp pain ran across Belsky’s shoulder.

*Bang*

The air left his lungs; he felt the blood running down his abdomen.

*Bang*

The young soldier felt as his ribs tore into the soft tissue of his left lung, he spat blood.

*Bang*

Shot missed.

Belsky tried his damnedest to ignore the pain and to continue shooting down the Fritzes in front of him.

*Bang*

“Another one down…” he muttered to himself.

*Bang*

He could almost see the bullet fly towards him.

A single moment of terrible pain in his right cheek, unlike he had ever felt before, and everything turned to black.

The screaming of men in agonizing pain awoke young Belsky once more; again, he found himself in the middle of a trench leading up to Lutsk.

Fear crawled up his spine. Making his head spin as he tried his best to reason whatever was happening to him.

A loud whistling noise broke his train of thought.

A diabolical whistle that no soldier ever wanted to hear up close.

*Boom!*

A crushing feeling had overcome Belsky before he lost the feeling of everything below his fifth rib.

He could see the ground fly upwards.

Everything blinked out into total darkness for just a second.

Belsky felt delighted during that blissful second. He felt as if he was in heaven, no one comes back from taking a mortar blast at a blank range. He knew this; he welcomed it. As long as he could escape the trenched hell that seemed to be keen on attempting to shatter his mind. The young soldier did not care if he had to die as long as he could escape the chains of that abyss.

Crushing pain dragged him back to the world of the living.

Everything around his torso burned, and he could feel the dirt touching, almost crawling up his guts.

The young soldier opened his eyes only to be greeted by the lack of half of his body. Feeling some sick urge to feel around his viscera, he began probing at his intestines. The rest of his nervous system exploded as his pain receptors reached a boiling point. He felt as if his body was thrown to the surface of the sun but he kept on probing at his insides, hopeful that the pain would kill him.

The sweet release of death wouldn’t come, however.

He tried to scream, but no voice escaped his throat; his body was on the verge of death, but only on the verge.

He was suspended on the thin line between this world and the next by some cruel force of nature.

Yevgeny Belsky laid there for long minutes hoping death would eventually snuff his flame but the longer he waited, the more certain he became that someone or something was trying to make him suffer for reasons beyond his understand.

He could feel the tears streaming down his cheeks but no matter how hard he tried to make a sound, no words or cries came out. Merely muffled gasps of moist air.

Eager to escape the torment, Belsky turned himself on his belly and attempted to crawl until the rest of his viscera fell out of him.

Each attempt at dragging himself again the dirt below him sent incomprehensible waves of pain across his body. Each movement of his arms made them feel as if his muscles were being grounded to dust.

The pain had gotten worse with each passing moment, but death did not appear to inch any closer.

After a few unbearably long seconds one of his hands landed on a corpse and Belsky attempted to see the face. He wanted to apologize to the corpse for having to step on it. In his final moments, the young soldier found the need to be polite. He dragged the head of the corpse as close to himself as he could and then, just as he raised his arm from the corpse, he felt as his hand caught up on fire.

His wrist flew into the air and the young soldier looked up in shock; before him stood a centaur-like creature with the torso of the woman sporting four hours protruding through her black hair.

One final surge of fear washed over the soldier like a cold shower, numbing out his pain completely.

The sight of the Centaur-creature clad in severed hands for a shirt and human heads for a belt made the entire world stop in its place for the young soldier. The creature simply stood there – staring with its blue colored, tri-ring decorated irises as those of the girl on the white horse. These eyes were mesmerizing him. Taking over his mind with sheer terror.

A bone curdling screaming finally escaped his throat as the surrounding universe began trembling and breaking apart like a shattered glass sheet.

Everything faded to black for a moment for Belsky, but just as he was fading out he managed to see the face of the corpse he stepped on - it was identical to his own.

Everything faded to nothingness only for the young soldier, but his peace was never meant to last as mere milliseconds later, the young soldier awakened once more; this time in a dark and damp realm, with the memory of what he had seen still fresh in his mind. Armed with a fear-fueled rush of adrenaline, Belsky tried to move his body, but the moment he budged he was overcome by agonizing pain all over as if something snapped all of his bones.

He wanted to scream but could not.

The centaur-creature materialized in front of him from nothingness producing a disgusting sound of rattling flaps of skin, sending painful shocks of anxiety across his body. It didn’t speak; it didn’t move, it simply stared at him. The beast then suddenly produced a bony bow from what seemed like thin air and an arrow made of light. Belsky in the meantime tried his hardest to move but could not. The aching of his body forced him to stay bound in place. He tried to protest vocally, but could not as if someone had removed his vocal cords from within him. That thought alone sent electric charges across his throat causing him to spasm in place, forcing even further torment onto himself.

The centaur-creature smiled at the sight of the suffering soldier and shot its arrow into the sky.

“Goodbye…” it said in a soft, child-like voice.

Belsky’s eyes widened with fear as she spoke, in his mind, such a monster could not possess this kind of voice. The presence of this being alone forced existential fear down the soldier’s throat.

The beast faded into nothingness once more, and in its place waves of heat washed over the Yefreitor’s body. Steadily growing in magnitude. Belsky tried moving about, he tried thrashing his body but nothing came of it.

He was stuck.

Something bound him in place, and it was more than just the pains of his mortal body.

The heat only intensified with passing second and by the time it had gotten to where the soldier felt like he was inside an oven. He forced himself to look upwards.

As he battled through the unforgiving pain in his cervical vertebrae, a massive shadow loomed over him.

Faced with a gargantuan sphere of fire falling in his direction, the young soldier gulped as hard as he could and prayed.

Yevgeny Belsky woke up when the first rays of the sun hit his aching skin; his back felt as if something had set it on fire. He tossed himself and turned, each conscious contact his body made with the paved road beneath him forced more ethereal burning nails into his body. He opened his eyes with a loud gasp.

It was morning, and he was in Lutsk.

He tried to get up, but all of his muscles burned as if he took a dip in a pool of lava. He immediately gave up his attempt to get up to his feet but the impact of his back with the ground below drove up more pins and needles across the surface of his body.

He groaned in pain, and his throat exploded with the same stabbing sensation, causing him to cough violently which only exacerbated his suffering.

He began sobbing to himself like a child; the pain was too much to handle. That’s when he heard the sound of hooves hitting against the gravel. Belsky tried his hardest to raise his head above the ground, but the pain was too much. Eventually, the sound of hooves was directly above the broken soldier who caught a glimpse of the girl on the white horse as she threw another broken body to the gravel next to Yevgeny.

He begged her to end his misery, but she would not, instead; she had the horse bite of his left hand. Once the equine jaws locked onto the soldier’s wrist, he wailed in agony as the blood flew out of the stump and all over him and just like that the girl on the white horse disappeared out of sight again.

His comrades found him, albeit barely alive, sometime later by the other soldiers stationed in the town. He wasn’t saved, however, none of them were. Over time, the girl on the white horse drove all the soldiers in that town insane or inflicted upon them wounds which she later infected with maggots.

None of them survived the Great War; none of them survived their encounter with the girl on the white horse.