The Price You Paid.

The price you paid.

The white static made it hard to see what was what.

 He could see his own  breath like a foggy mist while his feet and arms begged for him to stop crawling through the thick snow.  His nose caught in the smell of burnt metal and vulgar smoke. 

Warm blood poured down as his left eye squinted and winced. 

He touched his forehead only to see a warm sticky red trickle down his fingers. His head lolled to the side, before he regained his focus and continued to pull himself through the snow. 

 Hudson was already feeling lightheaded, but also felt  like the world was slightly slanted.

 Either way, it just didn’t feel right.

 “How long has it been since I left the site of the crash? Have I just been going in circles? Those trees look familiar,”  Thoughts creeped through his  mind as he was too weak to push them away. They ate his determination and hope like bugs, while only emptiness stayed.

 Everything hurts. My  mind feels like someone swung a hammer at my head, He thought. 

However, he thought about Felix, his co-pilot. Poor Felix waited at the site of the plane crash, his torso stuck under heavy metal and burnt steel. 

What makes it even worse, the whole plane ride, all Felix talked about was how excited he was for his and his fiancé's wedding. How they were going to have it at a large beautiful church. Inside the church would be decorated with white flower petals. How they ordered custom golden rings for each other made specifically in Belgium. How beautiful his fiancé would look in her wedding gown. 

Hudson’s stomach lurched at the thought of how Felix’s face twisted in pain when he tried to free his legs from under the wreckage. At how Felix had such calmness in his grey  eyes when he looked up at him. He trusts me. He respects me. 

The wind now sounded like a woman’s high pitch scream. Too much. It’s all just too much. His arms gave out and half of his  face became buried in snow. 

 He could see crimson seeping into the pure white. 

He tried to get up, but his arms gave out.

 He could barely feel the snow cushioning his face. He wanted to call out for help, but he stayed silent. He hardly knew  where he’d crashed. 

Calling out into unknown territory could lead to fatality.

 He wasn’t sure if any enemy officers were around and he didn't want to learn that the hard way. 

His  pale blue winter uniform is soaked. He should’ve worn his pilot suit all together, but due to the rush he was in he had little time to put it on.

 With all the strength Hudson mustered, he army crawled through the snow and pushed ahead. 

It was still bright outside, but he was worried that soon the sky would  be casted into a deep darkness.

 He noticed that the gash on his head was still bleeding heavily and  the tips of his fingers were making his body scream in pain. Shards of glass from a broken windshield embedded into skin. 

 Squinting his brown eyes, he could see that they were an ugly white at the tips of his fingers. 

Frostbite. 

He shivered as he could hear his teeth clattering against each other. 

He wearily looked up where he was faced with a black raven sitting on an overhanging branch. Its talons hooked the branch and its jet black feathers looked glossy in its white surroundings. It tilted its head at Hudson and squawked.

 Hudson heard a twig snap behind him, but he was too frozen to roll over and see. 

The raven squawked again and flapped its wings around frantically before it took off at the drop of a hat.

 It flew away and Hudson watched it in burning envy.

 Even the bird has places to be, He thought with bitterness. He was alone with his thoughts. 

His cold wretched thoughts. 

He glared ahead, before he rested his head on his arm, his legs feeling consumed by the cold. 

For all his life, he had just been debating, comparing and surviving. 

 Reality hit him hard and pulled him under. 

He would never have a chance to say those important words to Bill. 

His family was scattered from the war.

Some of his  friends were still yowling and fighting in the trenches, others fighting in the skies being shot at like birds, and more were dying in hospital beds, wounded beyond repair.

While only a rare few were stuck in New York, cheering him on.

Yet here he was: failing. 

All the letters he had gotten from Jack. All the sweet words from a kind man who had been never, but good to him, would mean nothing soon. The man who he looked up to…the man he had hoped to return the kindness…he would never see again. 

His heart lurched at that. 

And what about Charlie and Cassidy?

Charlie had seen him off when he was on leave. Her hug was powerful even when she cried. He remembered how she promised to write, promised to cheer him on and tell his story.

Cassidy on the other hand now had two kids and was married to Robert. Happy and blessed. 

He was so proud of her and happy.

He was an uncle.

Was.

But his thoughts turned to a different direction. 

He wouldn’t even get discharged honorably, gaining peaceful retirement. Or even recognition for his hard work. 

His body might be lost.

As well as his name in the archives. 

People would forget him.

The cold had reached to his torso now, gripping tightly around his organs while his rib cage was too feeble to protect.  

The bruises and cuts were starting to get to him as the pain he had repressed was now pulsing through him. He could feel the shards of glass poking at tissue and muscle, some even drilling deeper. 

His eyes watered, blurring his vision. His chest felt heavy and his lungs clinging onto his unstable breathing.

 Hudsons head rolled off his arm and was now laid dipped in the snow. 

He glared up at the grey sky with a blurred vision. 

Blood pooled the ground below him while the cold was now to his shoulders, biting through his uniform as it began to stab through his skin. Before numbing it. 

The world slowly grew dark in Hudson's half-lidded eyes. The pilot's breathing grew shallow and slow.

He coughed, tasting blood and bitter soot. 

“I’m sorry,” he rasped, water streamed down his bloodied and soot tainted face. 

“I tried. I really did.” 

“But I can’t get up.” 

Blood, soot, cold, glass, smoke and screams.

Oh such wonderful things.