Looking up, the sky was ablaze with orange smoke and glittering embers dancing placidly among it. The only noise feasible to him was the low ringing in his ears. Tears flowed down his cheeks carving paths through dust packed onto old sweat and blood packed onto more dirt and so on. His chest hurt. Fuck, his entire body hurt. He rolled slowly from his back onto his side and fell from his side onto his stomach. As if this had sent a ripple out that had just made its way back, reality came crashing all around him in waves.

Screams. The rapidity of German machine guns. Cannonballs screaming through the night air. The blunt and sickening noise of a bayonet piercing cloth uniform and sinking into the flesh concealed beneath. A quiet hiss near his ear as clouds of green gas flowed a silent river all around the air from the canister.

He knew it was gas by the noise before it had made its way to his eyes, nose, and mouth. He couldn’t move fast enough. He squirmed desperately, flailing his arms out to find grip only to find blood soaked mud in all directions, too slippery to hold onto. He screamed but it was muffled by the mucus and foam and vomit that was all coming up at once. His eyes were burning. No, they were *melting*. His entire face was melting, or it felt like it, and as mucus and blood began to seep from every orifice of his face it truly became convincing.

Flashes of home, of his mother bringing the soup she’d made from what little they had and fussing his hair up. His younger siblings running around him in circles as he tried to direct them through the daily chores. If only the leaders would fight and not send the country’s youth out in their place. Pawns. They only see us as pawns to be played for their personal gain and esteem. Flashes of warmth. Flashes of home. Flashes of pain and nauseating realization.

He wished so badly he had stayed on his back so that the vomit would have suffocated him. He could hear the footsteps approaching and the slow, heavy breathing through gas masks. He heard the unfamiliar language and the familiar noise of a machine being put together some yards away. He shakily lifted his head, completely blind, to look in the direction of the noise.

One shot, two shots, fifteen shots. They didn’t need to use the machine gun on him, but when this war came it took all human decency with it. Flashes of home. Nothingness.