The pounding of my boots against the mud was all that I could hear. Well, it was the only thing I was choosing to hear while I tuned out the screams of men and the sounds of gunshots ringing through the cool night air.

My exhaustion caught up to me and I was sluggish; it took everything for me to focus on placing one foot in front of the other. I had been heading back to the barracks at the tail end of my two-day shift when the flares and sirens that signaled an enemy attack came to life. The flare was red which signified a large enemy force. If it was green then it was a small force, and if a blue flare was paired alongside them, it signified the existence of Blessed.

I stumbled and ran to find my squad, our squad mates were all we had after all. These trenches could break the mentality of even the most disciplined and eventually have them relying on the presence of their comrades to stay sane.

My squad had been assigned lookout duty at the southern end of the intertwined trenches that made up the frontline against our rival country. This was the most dangerous section to be on the receiving end of attacks due to the forest in the no man’s land that carried on as far as the eye could see.

My mind began to wander as I navigated these tunnels, but I had to force those thoughts away. I am a soldier after all. What was only a couple minutes had felt like an hour but alas I ran into signs of life.

I rounded a corner and came face to face with another squad that was hurrying towards the front. After a brief nod from their captain, we set off together. No words were exchanged. There was only solemn dread, everyone at the southern front was a hardened soldier and had seen their fair share of dead allies.

I had won the game of dice, so I was in the tower closest to the rear while my squad mates were all closer to the front. We prided ourselves in our tenacity, there has been more than one time we had escaped certain death. But this is the southern front where men get sent to die.

I had maybe a five-minute run through these blasted trenches that separated me and my comrades, but a lot can happen in five minutes. Thus, I tried picking up the pace but couldn’t due to my sluggish movements. I rounded a corner to the right, passed an intersection, and continued straight for the remainder until I hit the far end. Now I should be right where my squad was stationed but I didn’t see any.

The other squad was on high alert and was now moving cautiously with rifles drawn. It would be safe to stick with them and go to the left towards the flare, but I ran to the right because I knew my guys very well.

Not even five seconds after leaving the group did I hear Smoke’s old voice shout out, “Take that you Eastern bastards. Haha!” Always the Jolly Old Man, even during a huge raid. This was actually our first Red Flare since we’ve been assigned to this part of the front, so technically it was our biggest fight yet as this Southern Front was known for having anywhere from a Corps to a full Field Army attempting to seize your trench.

Smoke’s voice was able to help calm me down though and I slowed my pace while pulling out my rifle. I threw the clip in over the top and made sure the adjacent gel canister was empty and secured.

Continuing forward I eventually made sight of him and everyone. My whole squad was fine. Our basic Cycle formation of six people firing out of the trench while the other six were reloading or doing other such necessities seemed to be in effect. No one seemed to notice me as I was upon them. I homed in on the youngest face. Ken’s rifle seemed to be jammed and he was trying to clear it.

I strode up to him and pulled his weapon from his grasp because he was fumbling too much. As he looked up to me, I gave him my orders, “Private, what’s the status of the squad, enemies, and allies?”

That seemed to calm him. “Sir we haven’t sustained any wounds, minus the graze on Smoke’s shoulder. We’ve repelled their advance twice since the flare was signaled. They’re now in the trees taking potshots at us. We’re firing blindly though and don’t know how many of them there are. We have one adjacent squad about two minutes down the right in their Spot, they’ve already sent a runner saying they’ve sent word to request a squad to cover the hole on our left and wait for their sergeant's orders or until our superior makes it. Sir.” Ken said that as if it were all one sentence.

“Go let them know I’m here and to not waste their time with more useless messages, say it however you want, let them know to not expect any runners resupplying them any time soon I think further down the left got breached.” I swung around towards the back of the group, “You four, we need to get some sandbags covering this left side of us due to that. Get on it now.” Looking at the six shooters I realized they were already being smart by not just haphazardly unloading their ammo at the enemies. But they also hadn’t fired a shot in almost half a minute.

Ken scampered off. The other four lovable dimwits got to work building the sandbags. I took a quick scan of my surroundings for inventory purposes. We had a toolbox, some sandbags that were about to be used up, and everyone’s supplies in their backpacks that were orderly thrown along the edges. As well as a ration crate probably full of expired meals.

The Southern Front’s foremost trenches were different from the other trenches more north. Due to the huge forest spanning hundreds of miles while we’re on the downward slope, this section of the frontline was a lot more susceptible to being breached because of the cover the trees provide. To counteract this, our trenches had ‘Spots’ every few minutes that opened up into a wide area with the elevated shooting position on some sturdy wood up about two feet. Plus, sandbags on the ground to give us cover while in these bunkerlike squares. These were made for the sole intention of an easier time fighting off a breach due to us not being in such tight quarters. This means we can defend with everyone present rather than just one or two would have to fend off a single attacker.

I walked up to the line waiting for the signal, until it happened within a few seconds. Everyone fired a single shot and only Smoke shouted, “Out.” And jumped off the elevated platform. He gave me a nod as I jumped up to his post and realized how badly screwed we are. The trees were about sixty feet in front of us. The trees themselves were those big round oaks, meaning two or three could be covered by a single tree. The worst was the pitch-blackness within the tree line. There was nothing there, no silhouettes, no muzzle flashes yet, and no loud sounds.

I steadied my breath and got into the zone. I might not be the best leader, but I at least was a really good shot with my rifle. I breathed slower, focusing only on the blackness. A second felt like a minute. A minute stretched to feel like an hour. And then it happened.

A muzzle flash right in front of us adjacent to a tree trunk. We all fired as close as we could. We were immediately rewarded with the scream of a soldier. Then he was cut off midscream. I fired again and was rewarded with another shout of pain. Then they launched a volley at our position and we exchanged shots. Each shot was a calculated use of our ammo, we didn’t fire willy-nilly like other squads. The Cycle continued next to me until it was my turn to shout I was out. Ken took my place.

Dave was the first to come to me, “Sir we’re in a bad spot, we can’t see them but they can see us. “

I did my best not to hit this idiot, “I can clearly see that you imbecile, shut up so I can think.”

I paced back and forth reloading my weapon until an idea hit me. I ran to my backpack I had initially thrown down in a rush and rummaged through it. I found it. Pulling out the flare gun I couldn’t help but fancy myself a genius. I rummaged through it some more and could feel my amazing intellect as I pulled out the canister of Pink Gel.

I swung around and shouted, “Did you dimwits listen to me and buy Gel?” I was met with a grumbling yes. Ken shouted he was out while jumping off the line and then ran up to me.

“Sorry sir, I haven’t exactly made enough since my enlistment to buy it on top of the other equipment.” He managed to say while reloading. I couldn’t blame him though because this was three months' worth of everyone’s paychecks. To make sure the war wouldn’t fizzle out due to a lack of funds, we soldiers were only supplied with food, clothes, and basic ammo for free. Everything else? We must buy it from the logistics department. The flare gun is the only exception as it’s free, but the flares aren’t.

I spun Ken’s young face and body around and shouted again, “Then get your baby face back on that line! Everyone else gathers around RIGHT NOW.”

Everyone gathered around and looked at me expectantly like I was some wise leader. The reality is that I’ve only been a sergeant in charge of these guys for six months and only known Dave longer but that’s because he’s been assigned everywhere with me. As well as knowing him since childhood.

“The plan is simple guys, I am going to fire two white flares into the tree line. Then we’re launching a wild inaccurate volley into the trees with the Pink from those who bought it. Did anyone buy Blue?” I looked around. Smoke, Heavy, and Sunny were the only three who raised their hands.

“When I fire the flares the enemies are probably going to realize what is happening and charge at us immediately. While they do that we’re firing our Pink into the trees behind them. Those who are firing using Blue will aim for those who get pretty far in their charge. Any questions?”

Ken shouted, “Sir what does Pink even do? They never explained what the Gels do at basic, and I’ve never seen it used before.”

“Good question kid, Pink amplifies the speed of our bullets by a buckoo ton and gives it a nifty lil trait. Pink makes the bullets bounce around and they go straight through humans as if we were butter. I don’t know why but that’s what they do. Before you specifically ask what Blue does, it boosts the speed and penetration of the bullets to the point where they’ll go through multiple houses. Any more questions?”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Heads shook. As I was about to open my mouth I saw two, no three, oh lord nope it was four white flares going up from the left of our position. When we shoot a white flare up it signals that the shooter is about to die and that their Spot has been overrun.

I cursed very audibly. “Ken get ready for some running, Run like your life depends on it because it really does. Run down and let the next two Spots over know about the enemy’s impending charge and pass the message along. You have exactly four minutes to get back here. Now GO.” I set my stopwatch.

I turned to Smoke, “Old man your shoulder probably hurts like hell, but I need you and your Blue to watch the left trench and make sure we don’t get flanked. Got it?” He nodded.

“Positions!” I shouted.

We shook up and subsequently attached the canisters of Gel very carefully in the side slot that is meant for it to flow downward into the bullet chamber so it can coat them.

I readied my bayonet and made sure my holstered sidearm and knife were loose just in case things devolved into a melee. I noticed everyone else had done the same. I squatted in my spot on the rightmost side of the platform and threw a bunch of extra clips on the dirt in front of the sandbags for a quick reload. One canister of Gel will last approximately five clips. I prepared my flares and steadied my breathing. I glanced at the stopwatch; twenty seconds left.

I glanced at my comrades, and I could tell by the looks on their faces they were afraid. But we had a plan, and one thing I knew about my guys is that they don’t mess things up. I glanced at the stopwatch, five seconds left. I gulped my saliva back down and steadied my nervous breathing. Ken hadn’t made it back yet.

It rang. I clicked it. We all bounced up in unison and I fired the first flare slightly to the left, By the time it had reached the tree line I had reloaded and was firing slightly to the right.

Oh my god. There were dozens of soldiers waiting. Maybe even hundreds in front of my weary eyes. They were getting ready for a charge as I saw a few fixing their bayonets.

“Fire, Shoot, Go, whatever you want to hear, just kill them!” I shouted at my guys.

We fired off one volley before they realized what happened and began running at us. But it was too late and we could only watch in pleasant horror as the pink tracers whizzed around in the trees massacring them. But there were just so many they were already almost over. My twelve excellent soldiers won’t be able to stop this horde of navy-blue uniforms.

I saw flares fire into the trees from my right and saw just a horde of them come out from the trees further down the line, we were probably the leftmost side in this charge of theirs.

I was already on clip three and they were about halfway through no man’s land. Then the heightened noise from firing Blue rang out and I saw huge cobalt blue tracers wipe out lines of enemy advancing soldiers.

Not even two minutes had passed but my shoulder was already starting to burn from the recoil and my breath was no longer steady. Now I was aiming at the guys advancing to make sure they didn’t get too close. Yeah my bullets would be more efficient if I shot into the trees but I needed to prioritize living over killing, and besides these bullets would go through the enemies and would still eventually find their way into the trees.

Clip five, and I noticed the Canister was empty. I fired off my last clip at a bunch of enemies that were maybe twenty feet tops away from us. When I finished I reached for the last clip I had on the sand but fumbled and dropped it. I squatted down and picked it up and reloaded as I stood up.

It took me maybe five seconds to do that but when I had my head above the trench, I heard a twig snap close and looked to my right. I was looking down the barrel of a rifle maybe four feet away from my face. I didn’t even see the guy running there before I had ducked down.

A shot rang out and it dropped to the floor. I looked more to the right to see Ken breathing heavily and crouched with a smoking barrel himself. “You Beautiful Bitch!” I shouted laughing, “Keep doing that!”

I heard Blue go off a little too far to my left followed by Smoke’s frantic shouting, “They’re rushing us, Sir!”

I cursed the gods. “Sunny and Heavy use the last of your Blue rounds and cycle with Smoke til you’re out. Dave and Ken you guys stay back and help where it’s needed. The rest of you idiots better not stop killing these guys or we’re going to die.” I got kind of quiet as I said the last sentence because I realized we didn’t have enough ammo. I’ve already used up a quarter of my clips and my squad has been out here longer than me.

And thus, the battle raged on. I want to say we were a smooth-oiled machine, but we kept having pretty big screwups and let enemies get too close on more than one occasion. But thankfully Dave is a good shot and Ken is normally a sniper, so we were saved more than once. The three stooges on the left ran out of Blue pretty fast and just did a Cycle with two people from the sides of the sandbags and one person in the middle rotating with them.

Each of my bullets downed an advancing soldier. Thankfully after the first horde, there hadn’t been any similar pushes, just small brigades here and there were joining the advance on us. However, the advance had switched from the all-out run and instead, enemy soldiers were crawling and crouching while exchanging fire with us.

After approximately twenty minutes of downing enemy after enemy in front of us I thought we had all but won this fight. I was down to about four remaining clips, but I didn’t see any movement. Right as I was jumping off the platform I only got horrified as I saw two white flares go up from our right, with one of them being the Spot right next to us.

“Dave and Ken get on the sandbags, everyone else get ready for some fast cycling, they breached our other flank. Heavy how are you boys holding up in terms of ammo?”

Heavy was the one in their middle rotation, they had died down from frantic firing to taking careful shots at slow-approaching enemies. His short bulky stature turned around and gave me a big smile and a thumbs up. “I always come with plenty boss.”

“The rest of you quickly take some sandbags from the top and build up a wall on this opening. How healthy are your ammo reserves?” I got to work with them of course, every set of hands would make it go faster.

There were some quiet threes, fours, and five leftover clips. Overall, we were not in a good spot. I grabbed a dozen or so clips from Heavy and threw them into a community pile. We quickly finished stacking the sandbags and took our positions.

Smoke, Heavy, and Sunny were still on the left. Ken and Dave were positioned to overwatch the field and make sure we weren’t jumped down upon. The rest of us were on this right flank just waiting for them to round the slight bend in the trench. Thankfully only maybe three men could be side by side in these narrow mud hallways.

I was perched up on the sandbags on the left, we had taken out two sandbags from the second to the bottom row, so we had two guys peering through those holes, and another guy perched up on the right side of the sandbags. The remaining three men were the backups and would most likely rotate.

It was quiet and nerve-racking. My mouth was dry and I couldn’t even muster up any saliva to wet it. We were all quiet and just watched the dark hall, the moon had sunk a fair bit since the original red flare had gone off and now the trenches were awfully dark.

I was trying to steady my breathing but couldn’t seem to. I don’t know if it was because of nerves or exhaustion but I just couldn’t manage it. Thankfully John cracked a joke from the right side of the sandbags.

“Sir if I said I was in love with you, would you kiss me, my mouth is awfully dry.” His country bumpkin voice rang out in our ears and caused us all to burst into some much-needed laughter.

“Sorry sweet cheeks, but my mouth is in the same boat right now. But I got something down here that you can- “, my retort was cut off as a shot came from in front of us and John was flung backward with a shout of pain.

“Drag him!” I shouted and returned fire. Now they were pushing us at a brisk pace while exchanging fire. Because of that reckless advance though, we kept dropping them, but they didn’t seem to end.

We kept firing. They kept firing. My weapon jammed on the last bullet in my clip. John was back up and rotated with me, a bloody bandage covered the left side of his face.

Smoke’s side was exchanging gunfire at a rapid pace behind us too. Ken and Dave were starting to shoot again, albeit not too frequently.

I rotated with Condie into one of the prone positions. They were almost on us. At some point, they had started stacking their dead comrades and were pushing them forward with superhuman strength. I grabbed whoever was next to me on the ground and positioned them with their gun over the top of the sandbags. “Aim for the upper body, they’re using their dead as shields.”

Condie was almost immediately hit in his arm and had to fall back. I exchanged two shots before one of their muzzle flashes were way too close.

This is it, they were upon us.

“Ready for Melee, we have nowhere to run.” I gave the order with a sense of resignation. I probably won’t live through this, but I’ll take as many as I can.

Smoke gave me a glimmer of hope, “Boss, they’re getting pincered over here on the left, reinforcements are close.” He shouted over the sounds of his gun firing a random Blue coated bullet. There was probably some gel leftover at the bottom of the camber that somehow managed to coat a bullet twenty minutes later.

I pleaded with my men with an order, “Ten minutes! That’s all I ask, if we can hold for ten minutes, we can make it out of here.” Their faces went from looking down or praying to looking at the pile of corpses with determination.

Although I said that, ten minutes in a melee is a really long time.

Before I could say anything, an enemy soldier jumped the corpses and was immediately shot by three of us. He was then followed by more and we fired into them until after enough had jumped over we were all caught reloading the next time they jumped.

One landed and charged me, but John rammed him with his bayonet from the side. One charged Condie but was blasted by Danny. More landed, Condie retreated and positioned to shoot into them, Ken crouched down on the platform and fired into them.

Another two landed with more jumping right behind them. At this point, Heavy was shooting as many in the air to reduce their numbers.

One slammed the butt of his rifle into Danny’s face, but Danny’s lumbering self returned the favor, and the guy’s neck twisted far. Danny ducked as the other shot point-blank at him and missed. One of the others shot the guy dead.

Danny was shot by one of them in the air and crumpled grasping his chest. I shot the man dead. They were jumping faster and now we were having to countercharge.

I rammed my bayonet into one man’s chest before pulling it out and ramming it into another guy who just landed. I pushed him to the sandbags.

One landed behind me and rushed me. I spun around and he grabbed my rifle and pressed it against my body. I let go of it.

He stumbled. I drew my knife and slammed it into the man’s neck. His buddy aimed his rifle at me. John’s bayonet went right through the man’s skull with a war cry.

I saw a bunch of the others were engaged in desperate close-quarter matches where a man was atop another in an attempt to kill the other. I rushed over and stabbed two enemies atop my squadmates.

One landed and shot John. John crumpled without a sound, he was probably dead.

I shot the other man clean through his noggin. Took another quick scope around and the bodies were piling up on our side of the sandbags. However, they had torn down the shield pile and were coming over in masse.

Ken, Condie, and Heavy were the whole reason we hadn’t lost this position already, each of their shots rang true.

Two charged me. I drew my sidearm and shot one dead. The other clubbed me with his rifle. I was sent to the ground in a daze. He loomed over me aiming his rifle down, I kicked his legs and his shot rang out but did not hit anyone. He fumbled his gun and fell over me. He grasped my throat with both hands and squeezed.

After fumbling at his hands for a few seconds I started seeing spots. In a last-ditch effort I fumbled with my left hand over the mud and grasped my sidearm. I placed it on his side and pulled the trigger multiple times.

He fell limp and I was able to gasp for breath.

I managed to slowly get myself to my feet. I almost fell because I was still seeing some spots. Before I could catch my bearings, I was rushed and the butt of a rifle met my chin. Subsequently, I felt a hole ripped through my ribcage.

As I fell backward, I saw someone stab the man with a knife. Couldn’t tell who it was as my vision was increasingly blurry.

I hit the ground and could feel my strength being sapped away from me. As I closed my eyes, I felt someone grab my shoulders and begin dragging me.

The last thing I heard was an unfamiliar voice giving me some closure, “You lads did great, we’ll take it from here.”

I smiled and only saw black.