Trenches

It is raining again. The shrapnel falls from the sky like miniscule daggers sent from Heaven. I cower against the cool of the earth, silently begging it to protect me from almost certain death. The tiny flecks of metal are almost as dangerous as the bombs that cause them; great, imposing combinations of metal and explosive that shatter into thousands of jagged pieces. They fall at a merciless rate; boom, crash, boom, crash. Our enemy is a wounded animal, rising from the ashes of our own attacks to form their own offense -- one that eclipses our attempts almost tenfold.

There is a man slumped beside me, motionless. He had shown us that he could walk and talk just a few moments earlier, even if he had a razor-sharp triangle of silver jammed in the far corner of his eye. We asked him if he was in pain; he told us he was not. A few seconds later his body had sagged into the dirt, his back dragging against the mud as his last breath rattled through his lungs. I feel nothing as I stare at him. The throes of war have taken everything from me, and I do not see why I should care about somebody who I have never meant when I have lost everything I once knew.

They have taken Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Great, whistling bombs that wiped out everything, they whisper. Buildings destroyed and bodies vaporized within seconds. It does not matter whether friend or foe, War takes pity on no being.

Another blast sounds, this one far closer than the last. Large, desolate clumps of mud fall around us as we hide, the dead man and I. It almost seems fitting that the earth is now reclaiming us. When her rampage is finished, War returns thousands of being to the life force of the planet. When we are buried and forgotten, the farmers will return and the harvests they collect will be bountiful. The crops become food, food becomes life, life becomes death. An endless circle of living, aided by those who give their lives to try and stop War from completing her fated journey across the country.

In the distance, Tokyo will be screaming her warning. Air-raid sirens will sing the battle-cry of the civilian. They will call them from the comfort of their homes and send them scuttling into the sewers like the common rat. Women and children alike will tread the streets dressed in their nightwear as bare feet are left torn and bleeding by the tarmac. And when they are deep underground, they will cower in fear as their cries match those of the wounded soldiers on the battlefields.

The cries float through the trenches like disembodied ghosts; whispered prayers to Izanagi, to Izanami, to Buddha, to anybody. The youngest will cry for their mothers, pressing their palms against their own severed flesh and whispering curses under their breath. War does not allow them to simply slip away. She forces them to endure long, fruitless hours of agony and when the blood loss finally takes hold, most have gone quite mad.

It can drive one quite mad too, listening to them whimpering for days on end. In the trenches, everything is a reminder of the constant fear we live in. You can step over a severed hand and realise with a start that it belongs to a man you once shared barracks with, realise that it was once attached to a body, and a family, and a wife and a child. A life, torn to shreds by man-made monstrosities. War may kill as many as she likes, but we give her the tools to do so.

The ground shakes again. The shockwaves are turning my eardrums into a quivering mess and once again, I have cowered in the corner. My body convulses as the blasts grow closer, and I jump with every successive crash. Soon, I will join the ranks of War’s successes. She will scoop me up with hands calloused and dirty from fighting and place me on her trophy shelf, a battle scar displayed proudly for all to see.

Because war stops for nobody, and Tokyo is next.