Sunday 28th May 1916
I run through the crater-filled warzone, dust flying past me and fire illuminating the night. The cold stock of the gun stings the nerves in my hand, frigid against the gash that traces the lines of my palm. A soldier springs in front of me and I slowly ease my finger onto the trigger, sending a bullet flying through ashy, sodden air. My body is tossed backwards slightly from the force of the shot and the air is knocked out of me, leaving me gasping and frozen in place. Beside me a grenade is thrown to the sooty, broken ground and I watch as it hurls shards of charred soil through the wintry, death-filled breeze of the night. The ear splitting roar that follows makes my head spin and my eyes blur. Stumbling around with no sight or hearing, I feel more alone than I have ever felt while still surrounded by people. The ground rumbles with the continuous outbreaks of conflict and misery, but I continue to lumber through the bitter air of the never ending darkness. What feels like hours pass by and I struggle to stay awake, my body falls in and out of conscienceness and my legs ache. The massacre around me never stops or slows down.
Thursday 7th June 1923
It’s been five years since the war ended and I’m 24 years old now. I was released early by medical discharge after I was injured during the battle. I’ve just found my old diaries that I wrote in every day during the war. This is the last one that I used while serving and the last time I wrote in it was the night of my injuries. I can’t even remember writing in it because I was barely conscious but reading it again made me relive the entire night, even now, it torments my brain every time I think about it. I never wanted to join the army and serve in the war but sometimes I’m glad I did. It made me look at life differently, although I still get flashbacks of the battlegrounds. The memories have haunted my dreams every night for the past five years. The screaming and crying of the wounded soldiers all around me, the maggots and rats eating away at the decaying flesh of others and the foul smell that always lingered in the air. It was a mix of death, singed clothes and the scorched earth that all tangled and weaved together to form a scent that you could never forget no matter how hard you tried.
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