Whether it was day or night we couldn’t say, for the sky was grey with soot. Where birds once chirped the call of dawn, now gunfire bellowed.

Crumbling stone homesteads lurk among the foothills, howling for the families that once inhabited them. For the men who marched here, no place ever felt further from home.

The creak of a blackened branch shot crows overhead. One man fires. The large black and white bird fell to the ground. The man who shot it knelt by his rifle. He knew full well they were far enough from the front to be in any real danger of revealing their position, but then he remembers that none of that mattered anymore. In truth he just hated the way crows scowled.

A man with faded blue ink on his upper arm rubbed the stubble of his leathery face as he watched the lifeless grass kneel before him. The urge to stomp them with a heavy boot overthrows him. He regrets it the moment it’s done.

Anger reigned in the silence among these men as they trudged along, now headed downhill, ears ringing with the screams and cannon fire that was their life up until this moment. They expected relief. They expected god rays and butterflies to fill the air, the taste of solace. But instead, their mouths were filled with nothing but ash and blood.

There’s a young man with blue-black hair, crusty with sweat and dust who limps at the back. His eyes tilted to the ground beneath his feet. If this was victory, he’d much rather have tasted defeat, for at least those who lost would surely be spared the embers of hell. In the end...the real end anyway. His gaze is interrupted as smoke cuts through his eyes. He flinches. Then when he pries open his eyes once more, the view bolts him in place.

They had slipped beneath the banks of soot and smoke to reveal a plain that stretched as far as the horizon. While skies were still grey, the earth beneath was not. He saw shimmering metal blink off the chests of decorated men, glimpses of coloured flags he couldn’t identify and various hues of emerald green, dusty blue and faded red.

A smile crept upon his face as his eyes welled up with water. There was peace here. Finally, for as far as the eye could see, there was peace. Men who gorged on wholesome meals, men who lay at rest in the warm bosoms of their wives and mothers, men who kept watch over their sheep.

He swallowed to suppress his longing, for they just looked so serene.

They were dead.

His vision rattles as a fellow slaps him on the shoulder. It's Bobby. Only now did he realise how far behind he had fallen, and how much further they still had to go.

Bobby came back for him. Bobby was just that kind of guy. In some ways, this boy wished Bobby would’ve just left him there forever, but that wasn’t Bobby.

Bobby was a blue-eyed blond. He was one of the first to volunteer for the protection of our world and one of the last to regret it. The boy could still remember the day that finally broke Bobby. A sight they all longed to see for selfish jealousy but feared and mourned when it came. You see, Bobby and his older brother just received word that their father had passed. A funny phrase if you ask me. It’s not like the old man opted out of a card game or let a second helping slide by - he died. A cancerous, morbid death riddled with suffering and angst. He was ill when they left for the front and died before they returned.

The brothers never anticipated that they’d be in the field for as long as they’d been and in truth, no one knew just how long it had been then. If you asked them now, they’d probably say longer. Bobby dealt with his father’s death in silence, but his brother turned to violence instead. Bobby would wander off from the squad at night to do God knows what and upon return, his brother would be livid. He’d grab Bobby by the shirt and fling him about like a rag, slap him behind the head, throw him down and kick sand at him. Bobby never fought back.

Well… not until that day.

⚭

The troops were camping in a wooded area just South of enemy lines. A handful of men, including Bobby, his brother, Jack (the jester), Cecil and Noah, were seated around a small fire, eating. No one knows what triggered the argument, but the running story is that Jack made a joke too close to home. Bobby shrugged it off but could see a vein bulge upon his brother’s forehead. When he raised his muscular frame to challenge Jack, Bobby got in the way. His brother was about to fling his metal plate, but Bobby grabbed his wrist shouting. His brother gave him a stern warning, but Bobby wouldn’t budge.

Next thing, his brother’s strong fingers clamped around his throat. He released the wrist and threw wild blows at his brother, but Bobby was no match. He gurgled and huffed as small veins drew red in his eyes. The men thought for sure that Bobby’s brother would kill him that night. But he didn’t. Jack told him to stop, you see. So he did. He tossed Bobby aside and lunged towards Jack, grabbing him at the back of his head. The poor boy all but yelped before Bobby’s brother thrashed his face into the burning embers before him.

I think at that point Cecil had already made a run for it to tattle-tale to one of the leaders, but in a rebel-army discipline was rarely enforced among the men. Noah’s voice broke as he bawled for Bobby’s brother to stop, but the damage was done. The air stank of burned flesh and hair. Bobby was coughing as he crawled while Jack’s tears slid down his charred cheek unnoticed.

Still enraged, Bobby’s brother had stormed off, shoving anything that crossed his path. Meekly, yet determined, Bobby followed.

They were at the edge of camp when Bobby caught up. He shoved his brother from behind and even after he turned to face Bobby, Bobby continued to shove at him, shouting with tears and spit that spattered on his chest. Some curious onlookers followed them through the woodlands, thirsty for more blood. But Bobby’s brother must’ve regretted his harsh actions from before because he didn’t retaliate. To much disappointment of the audience and later to Bobby himself, his brother retreated with every blow, raising his hands.

Bobby shoved at him with all he had, hitting against his brother as if he were a brick wall. One that had just begun to crumble. It felt as though the men watched Bobby’s brother fall backwards in slow motion. Could it be that the giant would truly lay down his arms tonight? Had things finally gone far enough for his ego to give in at the hands of his brother?

No one would ever know what Bobby’s brother was thinking at that moment as the ground gave in beneath him, for in that moment, he had stumbled backwards into a trench.

When Bobby stepped forward and gazed down into the darkness, the onlookers flocked closer. It felt like minutes before they reached his side, but it was their expressions that came before Bobby’s. He wanted to find a slope into the trench, a rope, a ladder, anything. But what he really needed was a miracle, and perhaps this is why, even though he wanted to find these things, his gaze never left his brother’s face. Bobby’s brother was going to die in that trench, not because the men wouldn’t be able to drag him out, but because there were sharpened poo-smeared spears piercing right through him, in more places than one.

⚭

The boy at the back of the marching squadron wondered if Bobby’s last words to his brother may have been that he hated him. He thought of asking, but in truth, he wasn’t sure whether or not he wanted to know. When numbness kicks in, you hunger for deeper sorrow, harsher pain and more remorseful regret just to check if you could still feel something. Anything at all. The boy received his answer to that question just before Bobby came along, back when he was taking in the view. The view of silence. Pure, impenetrable silence of the mind.

The men marched on, though one could hardly call it marching, for these lead-footed soldiers, though fearless and cruel, were nothing but ordinary men not too long ago.