world war i · anti-war · trauma · sensitive · emotional detachment · german soldier · poetry · survival · tragic · young adult
The world vanished in a roar of earth and fire, throwing me into the air before the mud rose to meet me. I slid into a crater pond, its water a thick, cloudy red. My rifle was a dead weight in my frozen hands. I tried to kick, to drag myself back toward the trench line, but the mud clung like a grave, pulling me under. I lay there, breath shallow, waiting. A shift in the light—a French soldier, his rifle steady, aimed from the crater's edge. Our eyes met. Before I could move or speak, the ground convulsed again, and he was flung down into the bloody water beside me. Now we are two, lying in the filth, the war holding its breath.