A cold wind creeped threw the air. Rain fell from the sky, an onslaught of unceasing torment. Thunder crashed down upon the desolate grasslands occasionally, lighting up the world in its brilliant display of crimson with the occasional spark of gunfire. No one was there: indeed, no one would brave the long stretch of open land without a direct order from an officer or their duty to country and queen.

Down in dirt dug trenches, line after line of soldiers was preparing for what they knew was a death charge. They knew that after they’d gone up, there would be no chance ever of coming back down. It was either annihilate the opposition in one charge or die trying. Every single one of those soldiers knew the chance of the former happening. The soldiers, oblivious to any ray of hope they might have, continued on their grim task of preparation for the Grim Reaper himself.

I looked up and down the row of soldiers. Each one of them I knew at least by name and face; yet, within a few minutes time, I knew that I would know them no more. The order to charge would come. We all knew it. Not one person had been spared, not even the commanding officer’s son. “It is your duty to die for your queen and country,” he bestowed upon us time and time again. Duty? My duty, the reason I was brought into this life was to end it for a landmass that could never feel grateful? I somehow doubted that, yet as a soldier you never doubt your superiors. I never was quite suited to be a soldier.

With my rifle loaded and my pack geared up, there was nothing left to do but wait for that one word that would end my life and that of 50 others. Sitting on the wet, muddy soil that we had dug up only hours before, I began to wonder of the purpose of life. What would happen after this charge of sheer stupidity? Nothing would come out of it, I was sure. What would happen to my mother? I fingered the cross she gave to me before I left home. “You come back home alright, you hear me? You better come back. And take this necklace with you. It might just protect you, and… and if it doesn’t, at least you’ll be in a better place.” I wondered what this might just do to my mother. How it would devastate her. Like every one of the other soldiers, I’d departed thinking that serving my country was just, that it would make me a better person. Why then, did every single one of us deteriorate to a state of little more than a wreck of nerves and bones?