Short - The Most Wretched Moment

Obscure, surreal and hopefully visceral 😁 Welcome to the nightmare factory. Yes both in content and reading 😁 I know.. I rock lol 🤣😁

Fingers clawing into the dirt,
Crawling, dashing past openings of the trench, leaping over stiff, cold bodies, past wide eyed friends and strangers with killer's gazes..

Breathing ragged, a haggard form's splish-splashing steps through red mud puddles, the weight of death clutched in both hands, its strap dangling along rhythmically..

A distant machine gun scything across the field, a lethal, galloping rhythm as it spews breath-stilling shards of hot metal at the barely visible silhouettes darting across the gunner's view from on high.

*

Crashing into the splintered hole littered tree trunk, a brutal thump, knocking wind from the lungs.

The searing agony striking from nowhere, like a burglar at night, unforeseen.

Drumming, dizzying, head-pounding beat..

And still, howling of weapons echo the vast field.

A few more down.

So surreal, smoke draped muddy fields with the occasional, barren, stick-like groves, the yellow and orange flashing from under camouflaged positions atop the hill, fading from view.

The taste of rust and slow decay mixing with saliva.
Chest opened, breaths wet, spraying warm, thick liquid with each desperately needed inhale.

*

With night's darkness, fog settles, a thick carpet of mist with wafts of gunpowder smoke, putrid sulphuric smell.
Stirring, swirling, and obscuring from view, the roiling turbulent sea of grayed white, hiding silhouettes and partially transparent, familiar faces, shapes, darting about as they did in their final moments, some writhing in the mud, wary of the darkness-splitting red bolts shooting clear ‘cross the turbulent ocean of fog.

Even in Reaper's embrace, peace eludes them. A horrific thought for one soon to be among them…

*

Eyes glinting with shades of red and the icy, silvery glimmer of moonlight, hungry ghosts in their masses, flickering, jittering, entire bodies crazily quaking in place.

Author's Note

Thank you for reading this travesty of a piece.
😁