Echoes Auternus

In the shadowy aftermath of the First Civil War, amidst the haunting fields of Flanders, a tale echoed—one that even the crows seemed to carry in their silence. It was the story of a boy, a drummer in the 42nd battalion—young, loyal, and long forgotten by name. But each Halloween night, his spirit stirred, and a mournful beat rose through the fog, steady as sorrow: dum... dum... dum.

They said he died a hero—cut down in a surprise attack, drum in hand, alerting the camp with his final breath. But that was the tale written in the reports. The truth, darker and buried beneath the mud and medals, told a different story.

One moonless night, the boy stumbled upon something unspeakable—a nurse, cornered in the shadows of the medical tent. She was pleading, shaking, as a decorated officer forced himself on her. The boy gasped. The officer turned. The boy ran.

Clutching his drum like armor, he fled into the night, boots slipping in the muck, heart hammering louder than his rhythm ever could. But he was only a boy. The officer, seasoned in pursuit, caught him near a crumbled trench.

No witnesses. No trial. Just a clean blade to the ribs and a shattered drum beside him. The body was dragged into no-man’s land, positioned like a casualty of an enemy raid.

Command bought the lie. A few scribbles in a logbook, a folded flag sent to no family. After all, who’d question the word of a hero?

But the earth remembers.

Each All Hallows’ Eve, the boy rises—not with a call to arms, but a lament. His drum beats low and hollow, like the final heartbeats of a child silenced by betrayal. Those stationed near the fields have heard it: dum... dum... dum... growing louder as night deepens.

Some claim to have seen him—mud-caked, face pale and streaked with blood, eyes storm-dark and unblinking. He does not wail, nor whisper. He only plays.

And those who hear him often don’t sleep afterward. A few have vanished. One was found babbling nonsense about the beat being inside his head. Another tore his uniform apart, screaming he “saw the truth behind the lie.”

The ghost seeks no vengeance. He doesn’t point fingers. He simply plays—so the fields remember, so the living never forget. His rhythm is testimony, pulsing through the soil and bone, louder than history’s erasures.

Not every ghost is born from hatred. Some rise from truth denied.

And when that final beat echoes across the frost-hushed ground, those who hear it know:

He wasn’t killed by the enemy.

He was silenced by his own.