Man at War – Excerpt No. 176

5 March 2026

Both of the men took in a sharp breath. They had seen him return with a handful of vampire fangs. In those situations he did little more than brush some dust off his shoulders. In this case Marc appeared to have been on the losing end of a fight with a pitbull.

“What—(is that?)” Heart asked.

“The stuff of nightmares and I’ll leave it at that,” Marc said. “Do you have a pair of pliers?”

a surreal and vibrant cinematic photo of a Pitbull with a fluffy coat and floppy ears, gripping a worn British officer's hat from 1915 in its mouth, the hat's brim bent and its ribbon untied, set against a soft-focus backdrop of a misty dawn landscape with hints of golden light peeking through the darkness, the dog's owner, a soldier dressed in a World War I-era uniform, stands blurred in the background, surreal photography style with a photorealistic approach, film grain texture adding to the nostalgic ambiance, the overall mood is whimsical and dreamlike, with the dog's joyful expression and the soldier's faint smile, amidst the eerie stillness of the pre-dawn hour.

Disclaimer: This novel is an work in progress and readers may encounter grammatical errors and inconsistencies. Please view this a draft and not a published work.