Awakening

A Story by Anor

Short story I wrote a few years back, recently revised and edited.

"It's the Crab!-"

Thus were the first thoughts that I can remember thinking. I didn't know why, they just were so. After thinking them, there is a great gap in my memory, up to the point where I woke up on a strange island. The sun was high in the sky so I could see the area around me very well. It was a barren place with crackly red soil, rather how I had always imagined the planet Mars.
  I was at first content to just sit there and do nothing, but eventually I felt hungry and began to search for food around me. I found some strange sort of packed meal underneath a hillock a few miles in the east and opened it to find food. The thought "rations" passed through my mind. The food was somehow familiar to me, and so was, come to think of it, the whole area around me. Oddly familiar.
I sat down and taxed my memory to its utmost extent, and a glimmer of recognition came in reach. Excitedly, I tried to put all my focus on figuring out what I know about the place. I might have guessed given enough time, but sadly, this was not to be.
A troop of strange crab-like creatures was approaching from the east, and they, too, seemed familiar. Could they be the creatures that my first memories were about?
Intrigued by the creatures, I began to study them thoroughly. They had the bodies and legs of crabs, and were practically crabs, except for some minor differences. They were about as large as me, they moved as though they were swimming, and they had their eyes dangling in front of them on antennae-like structures.
The creatures closed in, and formed a circle around me. Then one of them stared directly into my eyes. I felt jolted, as though there was some sort of electric contact between us. I felt like I had been reduced to a baby again, and I wanted to run up and hug those eyes, those adorable plastic looking eyes. They looked just like the eyes of little stuffed toys.  I rushed towards them, intending to hug them, when I tripped on a rock, and everything went black.

It was frightening for me beyond all imagination. I was alone and in the dark. Something was wrong. WRONG! Flashes of white began to penetrate the sheet of black. Along with them, snatches of a conversation came to me.
"Looks like they got him bad, poor chap. I hear that they have some sort of new way of fighting by using some weird sort of dangly sticks."
Were they talking about me? I tried to move, but the moment I did, the black went away and I found myself in a strange new place. I was on top of a completely frozen ocean. The scene would have been natural, had there not been blood splattered all over the ice. I saw a body nearby, and moved over to look at it. It was mine, and it seemed to be only just alive. Frightened by the other me, I ran the other way.
I found a hole in the ice, with a fishing rod next to it. I felt hungry, so I attempted to fish with it, although there was no bait. Regardless of that fact, however, a big pile of fish steadily rose up behind me. I lowered the rod into the pool to fish again, and felt something bite. I pulled it up to take the fish. Another one of the crab monsters from before had bitten on the rod and had leaped at me!
I was in the dark once more. Again came the flashes of light, I wished they would stop, it hurt my eyes.  It was very inconsiderate of whoever was doing it. Then I heard more conversation.

"They just leapt at him out of the water and ripped at his face, must've been horrible. Hey, look, he's moving!"

Again I awoke in unfamiliar surroundings. This time the area was all red. There was no ground, no ceiling, and no walls. It was just infinite red. I had a sword in my hand, and there were strange constructs made of flesh around me. Enemies. I charged at them and started lopping off their heads, in a sort of ecstatic frenzy. I charged them all down, but this time I was prepared, in case another crab monster appeared. And my preparation was not for naught, as after I chopped off the seventh man's head, another crab emerged from his neck and lunged at me. However, I didn't let it get very far. I slashed it in half before it reached me, but even so, I was once more enveloped by the darkness.
The white and the speech returned, clearer than ever before.
"Hold him steady, I think he might just wake up!"
I felt a sharp pain and opened my eyes, although strangely, I didn't remember shutting them. I was in the white place from the dark. A hospital.

It had all been a crazy nightmare, brought on by my experiences in the war. I remembered a certain enemy soldier, the one who had attacked me in Antartica, ripped my face open, and caused me to go into a coma. There had been a huge crab emblazoned on his leather armour….
For nearly two months, I had been fighting for the things dearest to me- my mind and sanity.