- [Narrator] Nobody could
like Corporal Lawrence. That's not to say that nobody tried or that he was somehow unfriendly, merely that he was one of those few that seemed to be wired differently. However, in the trenches of World War I, normalcy was, at best, a relative term. Lawrence fought, listened to orders, and didn't disrupt the other soldiers, and that was all that was required. So what if the people felt increasingly uncomfortable around him in a place where the baseline of concern was the flesh rotting off your bones while you were still alive. A little personality conflict ranked several levels below a paper cut. Lawrence, for his part, dealt with it as he always had, and that is to say
remained totally unaware of the avoidance. The same way a man blind from birth cannot mourn the memory of color, Corporal Lawrence couldn't
bemoan the lack of company. He was quiet, as he had nobody to talk to, and still, as he had nothing to do for long stretches of time. The enemy trench, less than a mile away, had gone silent for several days. This amplified the unease that seemed to radiate off
of Lawrence like heatwaves. The worst part was that
there was no distinct reason to dislike the corporal. He was a plain man, average
height, average build, bland of voice and action. Nobody could recall him raising his voice in joy or anger. He did have the occasional
odd mannerisms, however. He tended to stare a beat or two longer than was acceptable at people. He rarely slept as well, and bunkmates said he
would mumble in his sleep almost constantly. The content of those nocturnal ramblings, when they could be understood, were often odd and potentially unsettling. One private moved to another barracks when he heard the name of his daughter pass Corporal Lawrence's lips, followed by a bubbling, muffled giggle. (man laughing) It was strongly theorized that he was sent over the
trench by his commanders, more out of a desire to have him away than for his minimal combat skill. He and 14 of his fellows were sent across the
nightmarishly scarred waste of the no man's land between the trenches to scope out the enemy trench and secure it if possible. Many seemed to hope that Lawrence
would have the opportunity to prove his devotion to his country by making the ultimate sacrifice for it. It was while he was gone that someone started asking questions. Nobody remembered him
ever talking of home. No sweet-smelling letters came, no soggy, dirt-streaked letters left. Questions started to float among even the higher
levels of the command. Nobody was able to actually
find his station orders. He'd come in with a
squad of reinforcements transferred from France, but there was no paperwork. The rest of the reinforcement squad had never seen the man before
he'd been lumped in with them the night before the trip, along with the snips and
scraps of other squads decimated by the Germans. Whispers filtered among the grunts of the corporal being a curse. Nearly every man who'd
shared a bunkhouse with him had gotten trench foot, and the rooms he haunted always seemed to smell more
musty and sickly sweet, even for the trench. The men sent over the no man's
land with Corporal Lawrence heard and cared for none of this. Just another man among many, all with death certificates awaiting a stand that
could fall at any moment. They moved fast and low, from crater to crater, slipping over slick mud and barbed wire, the only thing that seemed to
grow in that blasted waste. Charging the last spur
and into the trench, they were greeted not with the harsh bark of German orders and rifles, but a dense, close silence. Preparing for ambush, the men started to filter out into the tunnels and halls of the trench. The men, already nervous, were not calmed by their investigation. The trenches stank of mold, sweat, and a thin undercurrent of rotten fruit. A vile, clawing slime
seemed to have pooled in every divot and crack, sticky as glue and itchy on the flesh. (gasp) (vomit) Private Dixon found the first body, and managed to cry out before vomiting. They knew it had been a man only because nothing else of that size could've been there, and lay on the floor of a barracks, the entire floor. The flesh of it had been smeared somehow, spread like butter over
the rough, dirt floor. Bones, already looking pitted and rotten, stuck out at random angles, like dead trees in a still swamp. The skull rested on one
of the highest bunks, facing the doorway. More remains were found, each seemingly more unsettling and strange than the last. Unfathomable horrors were discovered, one after the next, sending men retching and
running from the trench. Corporal Lawrence was the
first to find the hole. It was small, no more
than four feet across. It seemed to be the accidental uncovering of a natural chamber, the empty blackness of
it defying investigation. Private Dixon, recovered
and blessedly numb from his previous ordeals, saw the corporal prod
the edge with his boot, then crouch to peer in, then suddenly slide in head first before the private could so much as utter a shout of question. When questioned later, he could provide little
illumination as to what happened over the two minutes Corporal
Lawrence spent in the hole. He could see nothing. The light of a torch seemingly
gobbled up a few feet into that dense blackness. There were sounds, the rustle of movement
over loose stone or rubble, an odd liquid shifting, a dry rustle that made
him think of insect husks. As he shouted for aid, there was a sudden upwelling
of a repulsive stench. And as fellow soldiers found
him retching helplessly beside the hole when they
came around the turn, it was as they rushed
to Private Dixon's aid that the hand emerged from the hole. They stopped and raised
rifles as one body, roaring for the owner of
that pale, trembling hand to identify himself. As they watched, another hand joined the first, followed by the pale, shivering
head of Corporal Lawrence. He was streaked and smeared
with a tarry, black ooze, hacking and coughing (mumbles) as he hauled his body up beside that of the gasping private. As they moved to help the man, the corporal vomited up a heavy stream of the same repulsive
slime that coated his body in smears and globs. They were hesitant to touch him, finally doing so after the
seemingly endless river of grime stopped pouring from him. He was insensible, eyes rolling and wide, body as limp as a boned fish. The men fled the trench with all the speed they could muster. Half dragging the corporal, they ran with no thought
of cover or death, only escape. They crossed in record time, falling to their home trench, gasping and shivering. One man known to have bludgeoned a German to death with a brick, curled on the floor in a sobbing heap. The commanders moved
quickly, isolating the men, and trying to calm the
most lucid for a report. What spilled out would have
been immediately dismissed as lies and hallucination were it not for the
earnest, pleading stares of those reporting. Command calmed them with
explanations of battle fatigue and strange, gas weapon tests, and shared silent, focused stares as the coward men were ushered out. Corporal Lawrence had little to report. Of his time in the hole, he could or would say little. He stated that he had slipped and fallen into what may have been some long, blocked underground pool or perhaps a buried latrine. Of the sounds and smells
reported by the private, he had nothing to say, only that he had struggled a short time, then managed to get back
out just as the men arrived. Truly, he seemed none the worse for wear. In fact, he seemed in better spirits than many had remembered ever seeing him, favoring the commanders
with a wide, giddy smile as he was dismissed with a warning not to discuss the events. Not one man from that trench
survived the Great War, although a few died in battle. A wave of sickness took the trench a few days after Private Dixon's death. It seemed to eat the flesh like acid, men waking to find
previously healthy flesh eaten down to the bone, oozing and blackened. Corporal Lawrence was remanded
to a French mental ward, transferred after several complaints from the hospital proper
where he was first sent. It seemed his behavior hinted
at a growing mental imbalance. The corporal would rant
quietly to the other patients, whispers about endless
halls, pursuits in the dark, flesh laid out like pages of a book. It was dismissed as war fatigue. He vanished several times from the ward, only to appear several hours later as if nothing had happened. When pressed, he would begin to sing my Bonnie lies over the
sea in an endless monotone until the doctors left exasperated. A stale, musty foulness
seemed to sit in the air wherever he stayed, and incidents or infection and the strange, consuming sickness that had beset his home trench seemed to follow him like a cloud. Numerous attempts were
made to transfer the man, only to be met with
bureaucratic confusion. No records were found of the man, no entry papers,
commendations, or incidents, not even a birth certificate. Through it all, he sat for hours on end, cross-legged on his bed, occasionally humming tunelessly or rambling off the
names of his ward mates between short, bubbling giggles. Corporal Lawrence and 18 men
vanished one November night between a five-minute nurse rotation at three in the morning. The room wreaked of rust,
oil, mold, and sweet-rot. Thick, black sloughs of crumbling ooze coated the beds and several of the walls, wide patches of it smearing
and eating into the floor. Of the men, there was no sign at first. As they searched, one
nurse shifted a bed aside, only to shriek and nearly trip across one of the sunken,
wreaking impressions on the floor. In a tight, perfect spiral were what appeared to
be hundreds of teeth, resting neatly on the floor. After counting, they counted
for the total of all the teeth of every living soul
in that ward, but one. The corporal was never found, nor were the men. The incident was swallowed by the constant barrage
of horrors from the front, and forgotten with ease. Still, they came, stories of strange deaths, of disappearing men found days later alive, but broken and twisted
beyond comprehension, stories of the strange, dark figures stalking the bomb-riddled towns of Europe. (intense music) (projector whirring)
Guess who will not sleep tonight...the fact that that happend in europe is not helping Either bcs am from europe too
I love it! They're a great voice actor. Reminds me of the twilight zone.
Yea his other 3 videos are quite good aswell
I always preferred the idea that the origin for 106 was 3001