World War I (probably) [on hold]

Chapter I Landing

It was a cloudy night, crispy with frost, and a fine drizzle, soaking us slowly. I could feel the engine vibrating gently beneath my feet, churning the water behind the lander, silently approaching the dark shore. Suddenly the sky lit up blindingly with fire and filled with smoke; a sharp bang filled our ears with buzzing as one of the landers exploded. Shrapnel flew everywhere, zinging by. Simon and I threw ourselves onto the deck. They had seen us. It had begun, other landers exploded around us, filling my vision with White and black. Then suddenly I felt the boat beneath me grind up onto the sand.

As if in a dream I stumbled onto the beach, my ears filled with gunfire, explosions, screams and shouting. I was dimly aware of Simon, crawling along beside me - he grabbed me, pulling me down beside him. 'MATT, CRAWL!' He shouted in my ear, snapping me back to the present. Suddenly it was all real. I could see the silhouettes of people falling down around me, I crawled on, more explosions, more gunfire, more death- death! I could die here, the revelation hit me like a hammer, I could not make it back. Then I was behind a corpse, no more time to think, we crouched there for awhile, listening to the sound of battle around us. I broke the silence, not that there was any, "Do you think we'll make it out alive?" I said softly. He paused then said slowly "Yeah... Yeah I think we'll make it." Someone crashed into the corpse beside us roaring "GET OUT THERE AND DIG, SOLDIERS!" "What?" I said. "DIG US SOME FOXHOLES SOLDIERS!" he yelled back. "K" I muttered. "WHAT DID YOU SAY?" he hollered. "SIR YES SIR!" Simon and I chorused, he grunted and ran out from behind the corpse yelling and was promptly shot - he fell over. We paused and looked at each other. I sighed and muttered "We have to go get him don't we?" Simon nodded "If only he looked, is that too much to ask?" he said sarcastically. We managed to drag his body behind the corpse and were relieved to find him breathing, shallowly, but still breathing. Then we grabbed our shovels, looked, and ran out and began digging madly. We were lucky, we managed to dig ourselves a hole and we huddled in it till morning when we had a quick cold breakfast from our rations and began digging to link up to everyone else's holes.

It was a beautiful day and, as it turned out, a beautiful island we were on. With the sun beating down on our heads we looked around. It was a long thin island, with bright green grass and fine white sand, when you looked around you could almost ignore the blood and bodies, the bullets littering the ground, the groans of the wounded. A big hill was in the middle with a small forest to the right, we could see our enemy's fortress on the hill with tents, trenches, and bunkers all around. It had one solid building in the middle, probably the captains house and base of operations.

The casualties, as we soon found out were huge, about one third of our troops were dead, with a quarter wounded. It was a bad situation, the sun had faded to a glare and the wind had picked up. I sighed. I was getting tired of bullets, and grenades, and explosions, and blood, and death, and basically war in general, terrifying as it was. Simon looked at me and asked, "What's on your mind?" I just said "I hate war" ... "Oh" he muttered... well... What do ya think will happen next?" Before I could answer a BOOM! shook the ground and I heard the yell "GRENADES, TAKE COVER!" As if that wasn't obvious. I ducked down, just as a piece of metal zinged over my head, then the bullets began.