Tales of the Lost squad - Crossing dead river

She looked just like my beloved… The same long hair, the dress she could be wearing and similar tiny nose and chin. However her skin, gods take me. I had never seen a person, dead or alive, so deathly pale.
The young woman emerged from waters in front of me with her eyes closed. Her cold blue hands reached out to me. She whispered, no, she gurgled, she couldn’t say a thing. The dark water and mud poured from her mouth. I froze, I couldn’t raise my sword over her head.
Not her, not anyone more, she had suffered enough.
And then her fingers touched my trembling hand, the numbing shivers ran across my whole body. My heart sunk deep withing me...
I’d been in skirmishes and battles. I had lost my friends and taken lives. But I couldn’t imagine I’d be so close to the death itself.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! - a thunderous roar burst out behind me. - Snap out of it, cur! Before I kill you myself!”.
The moment after the other pair of pale arms grabbed my tabard. Without any power to resist I just fell straight into their embrace with my sword slipping away from my grip.
The water was tingling at first but then the strange calmness flowed over me. I closed my eyes and imagined. The life without war and service. Where would I be? With my darling. Was that her hand I could feel? Were those the voices of our kids? The peace at last to my struggling soul. Or so I thought at that moment.

The happy images of my family started to shake and fade away. They became distorted each time a vibration would came and then disappeared completely. I was left there with the darkness, but not for long. A heavy arm pounced on me and ferociously dragged me.

“You, scum”, - I opened my eyes. The scarred face of my officer stared right at me, as his foul breath invaded my nostrils. He paused and looked over me. He saw a broken man with barely of no use to him. He realized no threat of punishment nor “physical encouragement” would work on me at that state of mind. I started coughing out water. The orc released his grip and dropped me back down. I came to some of my senses and stabilized myself with a challenge. I thought to myself: “Of all people, why is it me and him who have survived through all of these. What is the point to this... And even if we managed to find our way back, would they claim us deserters?”.
The hulking man turned his back to me and relentlessly stroke one of the drowned with a bardiche. “Get up”, – his raspy voice spoke to me.
I felt my surroundings with my palm.
“I I lost my sword”, – I said.
“That’s 20 lashes”, – he answered back. I couldn’t see but I felt he was smirking.