Fear (Short Story)
Holly | Foster Primary School
Primary English | Term 1 2021
Chapter 1
My heart is pounding and my ears ring, but I swallow my fear, attempting to look bold and courageous by jutting out my chin and rubbing my hands together in mock excitement. I sigh in frustration. I shouldn’t have to do this! I only signed up to fight for my country, fight for our pride because father would whip me if I didn’t. I am a coward and a chicken and I absolutely detest it! I am just a silly young boy, not ready to fight, not ready to die. Beside me, soldier Albert Park-Deer trudges, flicking up dirt. “Albert,” I croak. As my only real friend in the army, Albert has a lot of weight to bear. “Are you scared?” He looks at me absurdly. “Of course not! We have nothing to be afraid of. NOTHING. Those crazy Germans can’t fool me,” he shouts defiantly. I shiver like a leaf in a thunderstorm. “Honestly Charlie, look around you, it’s not like they can blend in!” He’s right. The dirty, barren landscape around us reveals all, hides nobody. Suddenly, a sharp whistling fills the air and then, everything is exploding. Run, I think, you need to run. But my stupid legs are frozen. But I go. I sprint through the cloud of dust, through the agonized screams, right into the enemy’s hands.
Holly | Foster Primary School
Actually, it is more than just ‘the enemy’, it is Sir Ghon Eissenhower, the German military leader. To him, war is a game, a game that he will win, that he must win. I stumble forward, catching my breath to glance up at a raised gun, pointing at my forehead. Terror pulses through my body and I freeze, my mind whirling. “Move and you shot,” his poor English accent adds to his aura of menace and once again, I am at a loss for words. “Come prison,” he has lowered his gun, thinking I am a pathetic, hopeless case. I see my chance like a single star in the night sky. Gathering up all my courage, I reply cheerfully “No thanks,” and I sprint off into the now pitiful explosion, my heart racing.
“Hello?” I rasp desperately. “Hello, anyone there?” My voice is now a screech. Survivors, that’s what I need. Survivors of the explosion, from my side. “Alpha Papa Delta! Alpha Papa Delta!!” I scream into the barren desert. A lump forms in my throat. I was using the NATO phonetic alphabet to say the start of Alberts first name, middle name and last name. Albert loved when I did that. If he doesn’t come out now, he never will. “Scaredy little scaredy cat, come out to prey, come out to prey. Scaredy little scaredy cat will eventually save the day,” I murmur sadly, repeating the bedtime song my mother used to sing. She understood. Now, nobody does.
BANG!!! BANG!!! BANG!!! I open my sleepy eyes to the unmistakable noise of an MP 34; one of Hitlers most treasured weapons. My heart skips a beat and I scramble to my aching feet, alert. I imagine the comics I used to read about superheroes and try to awaken my unrealistic sixth sense. Nothing happens, but still, I try to be as silent as a mouse, as nimble as a fish, as I really stomp through the sand; desperate for a place to hide. And then I hear the trigger of a gun being fired, feel a pain as sharp as a needle in-between my shoulder-blades, and everything goes black.
