[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/JyuezHD.png?1[/img] [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmLR8S8DYqo]Joseph Hooker[/url][/center] Hook cleaned up the galley, put the leftovers away and headed to his bunk. Abby and Badger’s men had taken care of the cargo. Hook was pretty tired from the full day’s work he put in. He was happy about that. As he lay in his bunk thinking about the day, he realized he hadn’t met the ship’s captain. His employer. As he lay in his bunk waiting for the evening slumber to take over his body, he reflected back on the day. It had certainly been a long and busy one. He found employment aboard a very fine ship. One that would take him far from this cursed planet. He was certain he hid the body well. No one would find it even if they looked well enough. Persephone is an active place. He made a meal for those fine young people seeking passage to New Melbourne. He helped store the freight they were hauling. Sleep overtook his mind as he lay with eyes closed, staring into darkness…A shriek woke him quickly. The air was stale with the familiar smell of burnt gunpowder laying low over the fetid puddles, land muddied from excessive foot traffic. A bloated corpse from a man he once knew. [i]‘Mark my words Hook,’[/i] he remembers the last words the corpse spoke to him. [i]‘Every man has a reckoning. We all must pay for our sins. The Shepard will set you straight, my friend.’[/i] Within the hour the Purple Bellies had put a hole in his head. His corpse remained out in the muck they called no-man’s-land. His left arm hung on a strand of barbed wire as though he intended to climb. His head permanently inspecting the fly infested water beneath him. His dirty face frozen with an expression of fright. A horrifying sight. Joe Hooker was wet and muddy. There was no clean. Everything filthy. He was tired. The kind of tired that no man recovers from. He could not sleep. Fear. Purple Bellies. They would come in waves with overwhelming fires. The shelling was incessant. It would pick a man up and drop him several feet away. The sun hung low on the horizon. [i]‘Stand To’[/i], his platoon commander ordered. Everyone was on the edge of the trench waiting. Waiting. Waiting. A Whistle pierced the air. The sky grew progressively dark. The darkness was the worst. The impact, a thunder-clap sensation, blowing warm air in his face. Another whistle followed immediately by three more successive artillery rounds impacting around their entrenchments. The boys from the farm hugged the muddy soil waiting for this to pass. Fear gripped their souls. [i]‘The Shepard will set you straight, my friend.’[/i] The night grew dark, but for the first hour or two, it was not dark. The artillery bursts shone brightly all along the line. There may have been three hundred browncoats stretched over a kilometer, but Joe could only see his brothers. When the artillery lifted, the seven brothers from Hera stood to peer over the earthen berm. A wave of purple bellies were right behind the shells. The boys hefted their rifles. An exchange of gunfire began. Bodies fell in front of his muzzle and to his left and to his right. With fear choking his throat dry, he focused on squeezing the trigger and reloading the magazine. He didn’t know how long it lasted, but could feel the sun’s rays warming the back of his neck in what seemed a few minutes. Joe could see the purple bodies piled up in No Man’s Land. He looked around him muttering, [i]‘It looks like dey all gone, brothers!’[/i] Joe started to feel happy. It was an exhausting night. One he knew he would never soon forget. His body ached all over, sweat stained his clothing. He felt he could sleep for weeks if allowed but not now. The fear was too great. Adrenaline would not permit sleep. Joe started to relax. He allowed himself to drop slowly to the bottom of the entrenchment. He landed on something wet and soft. With reactions deadened from fatigue, hands twitching from exhaustion and spent he looked at the lump. [i]‘Carl?’[/i] his brother had been a 22 years old tow-haired boy who enjoyed playing checkers and had a crush on the master’s daughter, [i]Penny[/i]. They worked the farm together. His pale flesh turning gray as the Reaper claimed his sacrifice. Blood dried on the side of his face, where two bullets pierced his forehead. [i]‘Noo!’[/i] Hook cried out. No one heard him. No one attempted to stifle his shout. He looked around. Each of his brothers dead in the trench line. All slumped in the mud amongst stagnant pools of water now filled with blood, the blood of his brothers. He shared no parents with these boys but grew up with each and everyone of them. They were his brothers for as long as he knew them. Hook sat in the filth of the trench with Theo’s head hanging over his left thigh and Carl leaning against his right. He wept. The tears would not flow, but he wept. He wept long and hard for these men. They were the only family he would ever know. [i]‘Why am I still alive!?’[/i] Hook said to himself. He drifted off to sleep amongst the corpses of his brothers, then woke with a shout, “Why!? WHY NOT ME!?!?” He yelled as he sat upright in his bunk aboard the [i]China Doll[/i]. A hot sweat coated his skin with his eyes wide open. He looked into his brother’s faces. They were always with him, wherever he traveled. They would not leave. Afterall, it was his fault. They are all dead and he was still alive. Must have been his fault they all died. He didn’t kill the purple bellies fast enough. Joe Hooker lay in the darkness waiting for slumber to retake him. He couldn’t explain this thought. He would bury them like he always did. [i]‘Mark my words Hook, every man has a reckoning. We all must pay for our sins. The Shepard will set you straight, my friend.’[/i] Those words would haunt him for the remainder of his days.