The doll
You are almost finished in this planet.
All the human filth has been cut down to the glory of Khorne and you feel your bloodlust at the lowest level it had in 10,000 years.
Suddenly, a kid appears from below the ruin that it was once her home looks you in the eye and offers in the most kind way her ragdoll to you.
"Dun be angry no more you can has my doll" she says as she smiles in a kind-hearted way.Something in your innards starts to feel warm and funny...
WHAT DO YOU DO?
For a moment, irritated as I am by that blow to the back of the head earlier, I consider murdering her to quench the unceasing fire that burns within me. My hand, taught to war by Khorne and turned to slaughter by my hatred for the Imperium that would have held me back from my craft, twitches in anticipation of ripping her spine out.
But it does not. For in the back of my mind, something is holding me back. Like the catch in a combination lock, finally pressed into the final alignment, an old part of my brain begins to whirr, and click. The howl of Khorne fades, and for the first time in ten thousand years, my mind is silent.
And I begin to remember. So young I was, when first I held a weapon. My father had taught me to cut wood with an axe, a heavy maul with which to cleave logs in twain and stack cord upon cord behind our cottage. From the first winter I could walk, I was helping my father carry firewood to our home, to keep it warm in the frozen cold of winter. I was a good boy. A strong boy. But not strong enough to...
I remember the sound of song, and the cheer and the laughter of the Holy-Day, when we would consume squash-pies, and eat the meat of the jowel-bird. I remember my mother. I remember my father, I remember... My sister. I remember when the beasts came, and took them from me. I remember...
I remember the doll I found in the remnants of our room, when I returned from slaying dragons with my wooden sword. I remember the tatters of cloth and the spattering of meat and gore underneath the bed, where she had hidden until the very end. I remember the beasts...
I remember taking up my axe, I was no more than twelve winters, and walking to town to join the army. I remember being told to go home, that the men of my village would defeat this army of great beasts. I remember the hundreds leaving to fight an enemy I was too terrified to remember. I remember the ragtag few who returned. I remember the fire falling from the sky, and I remember the great golden warriors coming to save my people. I remember being taken, for I was a strong lad, to be changed... Made into what I am. I remember the pain... I remember the anger. I remember my master, who also lost everything. I remember his tales, of his family fleeing bondage, his warrior-brothers slaughtered to the last, in the name of freedom, denied their victory by the Emperor...
I remember entering my room through the window, and seeing the monsters as they left...
I remember turning with my warrior-brothers, I remember slaughtering the weak loyalists with chainaxe and bolter...
I remember seeing the red boots, that had stamped themselves from my mind...
I remember watching the fields of elysium burn, and the fleet above Praxis collapse beneath our hatred...
I remember the gauntlets, crimson with gore, and edged in gold, that I could not bear to remember.
I remember Terra, the final battle, the fall of Horus, the death of the Emperor, our victory and our defeat...
I remember that helmet... Horned, of brazen steel and demonic visage.
I remember my fellow berserkers patting me on my armored back, and saying that he knew why I would not talk of my past.
I remember... who slew my people, for resisting Imperial rule 'till the last. For I am one of them.
I lower my axe, and stare. I hear the boots of my brothers behind me, as they seek more slaughter. I hear the howl again, but it is different. It is tempered. It is not Khorne's, it is *mine,* long overdue. I take the doll, and tell the girl to leave. I turn, as my brothers enter the square. No. Not my brothers. My makers. My monsters. They see me, and the child as she flees through her little crawlspace. They do not understand what is about to happen to them. They do not understand why my chest heaves, and my eyes bleed from ducts long atrophied. They do not understand, because they are not men. They are no more human than animals. No more human than trees. Wood.
And I remember... that I am the son of a woodsman.