Ana

The steel cavalry rides on, the wagon of which holds the hollowed eyes of 40 who's names you will never know. The bayonets shine of a red lights glow as the siren speaks through the mesh radio of the metal shell. "You are now in range of enemy artillery". Seconds turn to eons as the rough roll of treads under the war machine continues onwards. A buzzer sounds. All rise. Face the killing floor's door. The dirt and mist of the field blinds you as you are pushed outwards of the drawbridge maw of the steel horse, crimson hits your lip as the man with the beard infront of you arches his head back in a violent manner and collapses. But you move still, pushed forward by the men to your back. A flash as you are thrown to the ground, the men at your right replaced by upturned soil. You make your way to your knees, the mist to your left illuminated, the shadow of a friend, foe, man, holds a nozzled rod which breathes a stream of hellfire. The husks of previous lives spent on this ground of wire and steel fill the trench you stumble in. Movement. Raise. Fire. The recoil hits your shoulder, red tainting and darkening the mist that surrounds the phantom, who's crumbling body will likely be buried here, his fate unknown to the wife and child he held at his home. The earth rocked and erupted with impact, trailed by the shells' whistling like the cries of a thousand tortured screams which in turn outpaced the thunder that threw them from a distant place. Run. Fire. The dirt walls up around you. All now black and still