just so you know, this is unedited, and it was done in about ten mins.

the guns are silent once more, and the carrion birds descend.  This battle field which once knew so much violence and blood shed, is quiet. The acts that were committed here should never have been committed, things that no man in his right mind can conceive.  the landscape is bleak, mounds of dirt rise on both sides;  red and brown mix, the earth seems to bleed; remains of men and machines of war still litter the scene.  the eerie quiet is broken by a ragged cough, soon men who still hold the spark of life enter the landscape.  they shamble, slowly moving back to there old home.  the pace is slow but each and every man breaths heavy,  the sound of distant gun fire blows over the ridge; one man tries to break into a trot, he trips on a piece of rubble.  that simple action reveals part of a man, a groan is heard from below the earth, frantically people flood the area, more of the groaning man is revealed.  no one knows who he is, but no one cares, the men begin to feel hope,
"if a man such as him can survive an ordeal like that then so can I!"
line open line of soldiers file into the once abandoned trenches, man the once unmanned guns and wait.

a day passes and all seems calm, some wonder if retreat was really what they should have done, others wonder if the people they left behind to guard their rear were able to do more then they were tasked with.  all of this thinking is stopped as the shells fall once again.  first heard as a distant boom, then a whistle, then the shell leaves its destruction.  hearts sink, all think they will die, any hope is lost, as the first few rounds hit their marks. the one who was saved waits for the dirt to cover him once again.

BY: Robert Nice