He couldn't think. Not one speck of an unpanicked thought managed to sneak into Levi's mind as he sat on the damp, dreary earth. The walls of the sunken trench around him seemed to close in, as if burying him and his cowardice away from the dim sunlight peaking through the foggy haze of morning. Nothing in this hell-hole, not even those thin warm beams, could stop the dread that weighed down on his bones, making his feet drag through the muck covering the ground and his boots. All of it drove him to clutch his rosary tighter with shaking hands. Every ounce of his mind was focused on keeping himself from panicking as gunfire surrounded him on all sides. Explosions every which way, flashes of life ending shells in the distance, and panicked shouts of soldiers rung in his ears. He just wanted to crawl away on his knees, beg at any commander's feet to let him go home, his home where he wasn't walking to death's doorstep with every footfall. Another boom and everything shook around him, a quick, mumbled prayer slipped from his quivering lips: 

Dirt tumbled down from the looming edge of the trench as his heart jumped to the rhythmic pelting of bullets branding bodies. Cool air filled his lungs, drowning him in his own breath as his eyes flickered back and forth to the rickety ladder in front of him. A lump stuck in his throat the longer he looked at the damned thing. Up the ladder, over the trench, that's where no-man's-land was. The horror of humanity shoved into one despicable thing. Rotting corpses, wet, muddy earth, sink holes that would swallow you whole as your fading screams only reached the ears of the fallen. Pungent smells burning one's nose hair's right off, and screams of dying soldiers wailing for their mothers all together in one cacophony. No soldier wanted to be near there nor dare to trudge through it. But Levi had to. Had to go there, go up the ladder and face the hailstorm of bullets which would be hurling at him. He had to confront the most certain death that awaited him there and welcome it like his last supper. 

The young soldier let out a breath he didn't know he was holding, the puff of warm air fogging up the cooler breeze around him with every word murmured. Breathe in the blistering cold and sigh out the warmth of whispered pleas to God. The atmosphere began to thicken, limbs suddenly heavy, arms and legs stiffen with the weight of unseen stares, and his vision swam as all the begging voices in the back of his mind screamed at him to come home. Home to where his mother was praying every night with her cross and bible held between shaking palms, where the roaring fire awaited another body to bask in its warmth. Where he didn't feel so alone despite being crushed between sleeping, damp bodies. Restricting, everything suddenly felt so..restricting. The trench felt small, smells too much, and the noises-god the noises. Every boom seemed to shake his body and make the walls of the trench shutter. Every shell pulled his vision into a narrow blur making his breath quicken, and every cry made his own emotions want to boil over. He didn't want to die. Levi didn't want to feel bullets tear into his skin, eating him alive. He didn't want to stumble over a dead comrade's body and look into lifeless eyes as their body lay sinking into the murky terrain. He didn't want to say goodbye to the swallows or the eerily quiet moans that seemed to lull over the silence every night. He didn't want to die. 

Shouts suddenly reverberated up the trench, and Levi tore himself out of his mind, his head whipping up and ears straining to hear those dreadful words: 

The voices bounced off the walls, each echo making waiting soldiers straighten with heavy, foreboding stillness. Levi stumbled to his feet as if on auto pilot, his hands still desperately clenched around his gun as he clicked his bayonet in place with dirty, trembling hands. Waves of soldiers seemed to appear from nowhere, all clambering towards the foot of the ladders. Their faces, hidden by the shadow of their helms, radiated the same thing. Fear. Levi felt it himself as he was shoved towards the front of the crowd, closer to the foot of the ladder. Surrounded on all sides by pale green and glinting metal, shoulder to shoulder with his brothers-in-arms and confined to his spot, forced to look forward to his inescapable future. 

‘Dear God, don't let me die. Please, God...don't let me die.' Levi's rosary burned a hole in his pocket, the heat almost unbearable in the biting wind surrounding him. What good was a trinket like a prayer item now if only to sooth his nerves and ease the transition into despair? 

Then with a shrill of a whistle, soldiers clambered up the ladders, cries and hollers followed them as boots scrambled to the top of the trench. Each man tripping over themselves to find shadows to cower in, a comrades body, a sink hole, animal corpses, anything to avoid the hailstorm of bullets hurling at them, picking them off like flies. Levi felt his breath leave his lungs as soon as his boots hit the muddy earth. His mind instantly silenced, only supplying one word: Run. He couldn't spare to think about anything else. Each thought that strayed was a bullet he needed to dodge, another idea he couldn't bear to think about without risking his life. There was no room to stray from his path, he had to avoid every danger. Avoid the hurling bullets, avoid his fellow brothers-in-arms as they streaked past him, avoid the sinkholes that caught heedless soldiers off guard, avoid the shells barely missing his steps as they landed around him. Anything that wasn't himself was something trying to kill him. Yet what good was avoiding these dangers when he couldn't even avoid the danger that brought him to these doomed lands? A simple letter forced his whole life to change for the worst. He left his home behind to fight the front lands for a country that wasn't his, to potentially die and no one remembering his name, with only his papers to prove his existence-

Abrupt silence stilled the chaotic world before all was replaced with a mind numbing ring that silenced everything else, followed by a muffled, fading, explosion. Muted screams of pain ripped from Levi's throat and cut through the anguish as his vision went black. He couldn't breathe, his throat burned with raw agony as screams and groans gurgled up. Warm liquid choked his throat and coated his body, a stark contrast to the frigid air around him. Hands seized up, desperately clawing at his throat, trying to get some air through to his fading mind even if his attempts were futile. He couldn't die like this, blind as a bat while he flailed on the muddy earth, desperate for the release of the pain. Needing the sweet breath of air but only able to tear at his mangled throat and chest. Tears stung the corners of his eyes as everything narrowed down to just him, everything else seemingly pointless to think upon. 

 

The rosary yet again felt hot in his sullied garments, like it was trying to comfort him in a language Levi no longer wanted to hear. A pitiful cry spilled from his lips, coating him in his bedraggled appearance as he laid there.

"Please...I can't- " a wet choke cut through his plea, and suddenly everything went silent one last time. The world went hushed as death welcomed in another soul.