The Young Man -- Origin Story Rewritten

Transfer

The enemy trench started to stir. There were more than the usual smattering of bullets. Maybe they'd gotten new supplies, or reinforcements, but they were ready to fight again.

When the shells first began to hit, I was inside. We scrambled for our rifles.

They say in moments like those, time slows down. Maybe it did, I don't know. But afterward all I could remember was mud and blood, and barbed wire tangled in among the doors. Making my way after the others and my foot sinking into something that wasn't earth-- the chest of a dead man. Metal in my mouth. A bayonet through my chest.

I didn't feel it until it was pulled out an instant later, my blood staining the metal.

It went on for hours. I took a moment, I think, to wrap  part of a dead man's sleeve around the injury, and kept going. I fired over the edge of the trench with the rest, and when we were finally called to retreat, joined the ten or so men that had survived.

Guess I didn't get to die. Lucky me.

A long walk through the freezing mud, chased by bullets. Eventually, my shirt soaked through with blood and froze up as well, the scent so thick I could almost taste it.

I don't remember how long it took to make it back to civilization. The battalion had been decimated. There was a bit of quiet. I got bandaged up, as did the others, we had a warm meal for once, and then we were shipped out again. Another group had lost quite a few, and we were smashed in with a bunch of other survivors and sent down.

Apparently the trenches over there were particularly violent.

For it's part, the bunker was much bigger. It even had a proper latrine, and each of us got a bed to ourselves. Two simple luxuries that could almost make me forget about the trench-foot that had become rampant.

Maybe a day later, I realized Dixon had been transferred here too. We exchanged a glance, but he didn't approach me, and I wasn't about to go up to him. Best to stay quiet.

Speaking of quiet, we heard nothing from the German trenches. Nothing. For days. The conversations in the barracks turned to that and only that. Word was a group of men would be sent over to investigate.