...

His eyelids opened to nothing but darkness. Alberich lay belly down in the mud, his face half buried. He moved almost automatically as he dragged himself up from the mud with a grunt. Maneuvering in the dark he found a place to sit and ran his hands over his scalp. His fingers were cold and wet, with what he couldn't say, and the dull ringing in his ears just kept bouncing from one side of his head to the other. For hours he sat in the dark staring into nothing; hunched over in the morning cold. It wasn't until the first light of the sun crested the horizon could he actually make out any details among the myriad bodies strewn about the ground. Their forms lifeless and twisted like broken marionettes.

"Alberich."

From behind a voice: dry, quiet, and tired. Alberich turned to look

"Golway." He grunted in reply.

The two lops stared for a moment. Golway was dressed in his officer simples. The uniform's normally stark greens and whites were faded and sun bleached. His all grey fur was stained across his entire upper body was stained thick with dried blood, even his curled mustache covering his lip was flecked with red spots. Alberich looked none the better: his fur and clothes caked thick in viscera and mud; his fingers thrumming with a painful tension. After another long moment passed they nodded and Golway sat down beside him. Their shared seat now revealed to be a particularly large dead mange thanks to the quickly rising sun.

"Anybody else?" Alberich spoke quietly.

Golway took a moment to reply, coughed, then shrugged.

"Maybe." Golway tried to shake the mud from his jacket as he spoke. "...but by now if they aren't up and moving..." Further down the way a few more surviving lops wandered lost, stumbling over the dead. "Suppose whoever was left standing had to run and lick" Golway finished.

Alberich nodded again. More out of habit than anything else. Another long moment passed between them until

"Alberich I..." Golway started "...Alberich what happened?" his voice was even quieter than before, timid even. But Alberich just let out a cheap laugh and before he could actually reply Golway continued.

"I died." Golway spoke and Alberich froze.

"I remember dying here" He croaked. "Not even an hour ago, it feels like." He stood back up, his worried hands pulling at his face like it was mishapen clay "Some drooler cunt got me in the gut" he touched his chest "I died. I was dead. And then..."

The silence lingered.
Alberich said nothing.