Name? Rank? Reason?Chapter one

   The fog rolled in across the fields, it was a thick, grey substance that looked like cotton, yet parted effortlessly as it was walked through. And walking through it someone was. He looked like a military man, from the kaki fatigues to the haircut to the body armour. He had a pair of dog-tags round his neck and was holding a bloodied shotgun in one of his fingerless gloved hands, in the other his black fingerless glove, ripped and torn, grasped a handful of shotgun shells. He stumbled to the road that passed along one edge of the field and collapsed in the ditch at the side of it. When the fog lifted people would discover the bloody massacre in the middle of the field, but for now, the fog stayed low.

  It was some hours later when an Architect, called David Gerinika, found the soldier at the side of the road; he stopped, opened the door and went to see if the man was all right. He found a pulse, and the man was breathing, so he placed him in the back seat of the car and drove to the hospital. On the way he heard a groan from the back, then felt something hard and round press against the back of his head

  “Who are you?” a gravely voice from behind him said

  “I’m David Gerinika, who are you?” David said to the man who held the thing pressed to his head

  “I…don’t…know” he replied “take me to your place of residence, now”

David u-turned and headed back to his house, he was beginning to realise just what it was that was pressing into his skull, and it wasn’t a nice realisation.

 

  Back at his house David and the soldier got out of the car and David opened the door, the soldier stepped in, scanned the room and mumbled “It’s safe” as David entered. The soldier sat on the sofa and started loading the gun, the blood covered shotgun, with the ammunition

  “Why am I with you?” the soldier said suddenly, as David sat down

  “Well, because I found you lying by the road side and was taking you to hospital when you ordered that I bring you here” David told him, his hand sliding down the side of the cushion, and gripping the Berretta M-912 stored there for protection, against a shotgun it wouldn’t be much use, but it made him feel better

  “Thank you, I think” the soldier said, then he tilted his head “don’t do that, my gun is bigger than yours, and I could kill you three times before you could shoot me”

David gasped and his eyes widened, he drew the gun and placed it on the arm of the chair

  “It’s not to shoot you with, it just makes me feel better holding it” David insisted “I, I like weapons, I collect them, they make be feel comfortable”

The soldier looked around, hanging on the walls were swords and guns from all different eras, medieval Japan, civil war, American war of independence, WWI & II, and the alliance war, the soldier could identify them all, but could not remember where he had learnt the names.

  “What does it say on your dog-tags?” David asked him, jolting him out of his thoughts

  “Eh? Oh…” he looked at them”…Cobra, experiment: - 056341, is that my name? Cobra?” the soldier, Cobra asked

  “I guess it is” David replied

 Cobra, fished around in his many pockets of his army uniform and pulled out a strange artefact, it was a layer of triangular green crystal sandwiched between two plates of metal, the top plate had a strange face, it looked like one of those sliding puzzles, only triangular. For a lack of things to do, Cobra started to solve the puzzle. David watched him, marvelling at his speed, Cobra’s fingers were literally flying over the puzzle, and the more he solved it, the faster he became. Then there was a ‘Click’ and a green light bathed Cobra’s face; he looked up just as a concentrated beam of green light shot out of the triangle and hit Cobra in the middle of the forehead.

 

  When the light faded Cobra smiled, and looked at David

  “I have remembered something”

  “What?” asked David, still looking at the green artefact nervously

  “I know some of my past” replied Cobra, “my Military career, my child hood, but nothing after one incident. We had heard that volunteers were wanted for experimental weapons research so my ‘squad’ and I signed on, we were the only ones. When we got there we were tested for…for…for…something, I don’t know what, and me and three others passed. Something happened, an explosion in the room we had just come from, and I found myself holding a pale blue fireball, I threw it at the bolted door, it melted. We ran in and I conjured another fireball, and threw it at one of the people who were fleeing through the hole in the wall, it hit him, he was enveloped in blue fire, and became a skeleton that crashed to the floor. Then after that my mind is black, I cannot remember anything after that, except another artefact, a blue circle sandwiched by two circular metal plates with a puzzle on top, and I see it in a building within a building, the big building has a sign that says ‘Far Point M…’ as the rest has been snapped off”

 Cobra sat back after that, and held out his hand, palm up, and a small, pale blue, fireball appeared there. David peered at it and jumped back when he saw the outline of a face in that fire, a ghoulish face, a…

  “Dead, soul” David croaked, he had read about them in magazines on the supernatural, but he didn’t think that such a destructive thing could exist, let alone be tamed, refined, or controlled.

  “Extinguish that please” David said to Cobra “before it burns my house down”