Whispering.

"Listing and Trumper to the front line," Lieutenant Hoffman's voice blared. "The French are planning a heavy artillery attack and I want my best in front."

"Yes, sir," Georg replied, pulling me up with him to the front of the group of weary men.

"We aren't the best soldiers," I said quietly to my friend as we got to the wall of the trench.

Georg sighed and patted my shoulder. "Just take it as a compliment then."

"Well I don't. I think I've killed enough men for a lifetime," I responded, feeling sick to my stomach. The stench of hundreds of dead bodies on the field before me crept over the trench and I had to hold back my vomit.

"Do it for Germany. We'll be done soon enough," Georg loaded his gun.

"They told us that a year ago," I said harshly. Once again I was overwhelmed by the sights and the smell and I turned my head and vomitted.

"Good job. You know they're not giving us dinner tonight," Georg said in response to my puke.

I cursed under my breath and wiped my watery eyes. I wouldn't be able to fall asleep on an empty stomach. I couldn't live on scraps of food for much longer.

"Bereiten!" came the harsh cry from the commander. I felt my stomach lurch again. I made a quick sign of the cross.

"For Germany," Georg nudged me.

I nodded and swallowed hard. Wasn't war supposed to make you stronger? In actuallity, it was ripping my mind apart.

"Richten!" the second cry.

Georg and I aimed our guns towards the opposing French camp and I took a deep breath. I could hear the cries of the other German leaders readying their camps. I could feel the earth shake beneath me with each cannon set off. I could hear each horrible scream, each person facing their death.

Two years and there was no end in sight. Two years and I hadn't had a real hour of sleep. I had always believed that the army meant adventure. I was terribly far from the truth.

Yet there was no way of escape. I had thought of running off into the night and escaping the horribleness of it all. But then I would be deserting and I would be killed by my own people. I had thought of just letting a bullet hit me. But god dammit I was only 19 years old. I wanted a life, a beautiful life. Yet as days stretched into years, somehow I believed I would never lead a beautiful life, and what was the point of living?

My right shoulder began to ache, something that seemed to happen before every battle. Three months into the war I'd been shot there. And to think that they almost sent me home and I begged to stay and fight for my country. They removed the bullet, but I never got the medical treatment I would have recieved if I would have gone home. God, I was so naive.

"Schießen!" the last cry.

In a few seconds the ear-splitting sound of thousands of guns firing filled the air. Smoke blurred my vision, gunpowder clogged my nose, and with each shot of my gun I nearly lost my balance.

"For Germany," I said to myself and stood suddenly determined. The sooner it was over, the sooner I could put my weapon down and rest.

"Look out!" Georg cried and pulled me harshly towards him just as a bullet headed my way.

"I can always count on you to be my eyes," I said above the roar of battle and laughed sarcastically.

Three hours of dodging bullets, killing the no-good French, falling in human waste, and seeing your friends die later, everything calmed down.

The smoke cleared from the vast battlefield before us and our regiment backed away, allowing the medical help to tend to the wounded and dispose of the dead.

For hours after a battle you can hear the wounded crying and pleading for help out on the battlefield. We call that place 'no man's land,' the place that's between our trenches and the opposition's trenches. Though fighting has stopped, most people are left out there to die for fear that the French will be bastards and shoot at us anyway.

Georg and I went to our sleeping area, this little room we'd built into the wall of the trench, and took off our sweaty, disgusting clothes. Everyone walked around in their underclothes.

It was times like these that I really wished we had something to bathe ourselves in. Truthfully, I hadn't had a real bath in two years. The lack of sanitation alone in the trenches was killing people.

"You want a cigarette?" Georg asked, rumaging through his small pile of possessions.

"God, you know it," I ran a hand through my increasingly greasy hair and hoped that next time clean water was sent to us we'd have a little left over to clean ourselves off.

During the first year or so of the war, we'd recieve nice packages made by the women of Germany filled with a bar of soap, homemade candies, beer, cigarettes, paper, and writing utensils nearly every other month. Now we were lucky to get these packages twice a year.

Just as Georg and I settled into our cots and started to chat and smoke to get the edge off, Hoffman came over to us.

"Listing, Trumper, we've got some new recruits," he explained and motioned for us to follow him.

I looked at Georg with a confused expression. We hadn't gotten new recruits in ages. Usually though, they were a good thing. Being new, they were fresh and eager and had more energy then us old fighters could hope to have. Though, they were less cautious than we had become, and usually ended up getting killed fast.

Anyway, we followed Hoffman into the pitch black of the night with the rest of our troop and he introduced us to the young, anxious group of twenty new soldiers.

"They won't last a week," Georg said to me and I nodded in agreement, looking over the scrawny boys.

"Where are you boys from?" Hoffman asked, looking them over.

"We're from all over, sir," a healthy-looking blonde boy replied. He had a smile on his face.

"Where are you from, kid?" Hoffman asked the blonde boy.

"Magdeburg, sir," blondie smiled wide.

"What a pussy," I muttered.

Georg bit his lip to keep from laughing.

Just as I myself was sustaining from laughing, I caught the glance of a boy near the back of the new group of shoulders. He was tall, yet terribly skinny. His hair and eyes were dark and he looked like he hadn't slept in weeks. But despite the fact that he looked like he'd be killed in his first battle, there was a soft smile on his lips. It was almost a curious smile if you ask me.

Hoffman asked a few more questions and sent us back to our sleeping areas while he assigned places for the new soldiers to sleep.

"So what do you think?" Georg asked, stretching out on his cot.

"Of what?" I asked, staring out of the trench, up at the smoky sky.

"The new soldiers."

I shrugged. "They're nothing special."

"Well I'm hoping that maybe, if they're smart enough to not get killed, they'll boost our spirits a little."

"Maybe.."

"I mean at least they've seen the outside world in the past two years. I think they'll give us just a little bit of hope."

I took a drag of my cigarette. "God knows we need it."

Hoffman appeared at the door with two of the new boys. "You two have room in there. Time for you to make some new friends."

He pushed the two kids into our makeshift room. One of them was the cocky blonde and the other was the dark, skinny boy.

Georg grumbled and turned on a lantern as soon as Hoffman was gone. "You two are going to have to sleep on the floor. Tom and I get the beds."

"Lieutenant Hoffman says we're getting cots, too," the blonde said defiantly while the other boy quietly settled onto the floor with his few belongings.

"What's your name, kid?" Georg asked and sat up in bed, obviously a little ticked off that he was assigned to our room.

"Schafer. Gustav Schafer," he held out his hand for Georg to shake, who completely ignored it. I snickered.

"And you kid?" I asked the other one, who was currently half asleep on the floor.

"William Kaulitz, but everyone calls me Bill," he said with a yawn.

"Bill?!" I cried, nearly jumping off my bed.

Bill turned around and his face lit up. "Tom? Tom Trumper?"

I nodded and embraced him. "It's so good to see you!"

"How long has it been? Ten years!" he exclaimed.

"Tom, we've got watch duty in four hours. Wake me up when this love fest is over," Georg grumbled and turned off the lantern.

"I'm off to bed too. Keep it down, will you?" Gustav said and settled on the dirty trench floor.

"I can't believe I'm finally seeing you again!" I said and sat on my bed. He sat down next to me.

For the next hour or so I felt like I was ten years old again. He became more and more recognizable to me. For the first time during the war, I was happy. I had my best friend back in the oddest of circumstances!

He told me of how he moved back to Germany after school because he wanted to join the war and his parents would never let him. He had been traveling with the group of twenty boys for nearly two sleepless months before they found the regiment they'd been assigned too.

"Now in this crazy turn of events I'm stuck with you!" he finished.

"Oh this is great, Bill. This is just what I needed really."

"I can tell. War is bearing down on everyone's spirits, really. Even people back at home."

I sighed. "I could have guessed as much. Well, I've got watch duty in three hours as Georg said, so I must be off to bed now."

Bill nodded and retreated to his makeshift bed on the ground.

I felt like this was a turning point in my life. I thought for once that maybe the good I expected from war would come true. It's always good to hope..