The mud sucked the heat out of my fragile body as artillery turned the once bountiful forest around my hole to splinters. God, I hate being on the receiving end of artillery barrages. An unlucky Sherman beside me caught a 105mm shell to the turret, causing a fiery inferno, and for a moment I could hear the dying cries of one of the crew inside. I shuddered realizing that I was just beside that tank a brief second ago. I wiped the muck off my battle rifle and got ready to charge once there was a break in the bombardment. But before that moment could ever come, I spotted enemy fighters coming from behind. My gun snapped up and I shouted incoming, not that anyone could hear me, while I waited to fire. With a small prayer, I waited, holding my gun steadier than a tree. The planes sped towards me and I locked onto the one closest to me. 500ft, 400ft, 300ft, 200ft… 100ft. As soon as I could make out the pilot, I hit the plane with everything I had, eight rounds of .30 caliber bullets pierced the thin meatal but besides causing the pilot to swerve dangerously close to a tree nothing happened. I released the breath I was holding and reloaded.

As I sat there half asleep from exhaustion, I noticed that my hands started to itch, so unconsciously I began to scratch. But as I scratched and scratched, I began to hack up my lungs. With a sinking feeling, I looked down at the flesh and bones pocking out of the back of my hands. My eyes began to fog over, and my lungs burned. With each cough, I could feel fluid building up. Gas, I saw the fighters drop two capsules a piece, but after no explosion, I just thought they were empty drop tanks. I fumbled with my satchel and pulled out a gas mask before tossing my helmet aside. And with numb and almost fleshless fingers I got the damn straps over my head. With the filter working its magic, I did the sensible thing to do and got out of that damn hole. Gas tends to sink after all.

The artillery shells continued to rain down as I made my way to the tank, hiding in a hole meant death, and staying in the open meant death so my only option left was to use the tank as cover. I scaled the heated metal and made myself as close to the top armor as possible. Almost instantly my previous hiding hole got hit which sent the mud and dirt sky high. I never thought I would say this but thank god for the gas. I laid there coughing up blood and watching as my exposed skin sloshed off. I’ve been hit by gas before but damn, it wasn’t nearly this bad, how long was I exposed to it? I shakily grabbed my emergency medicine bag and began to treat myself before I died from exposure and infection.

The small dose of morphine was divine but was not nearly enough to dull all the pain, and I got to work rapping my chemical burns. The loud sound of gunfire made me rip my eyes away from my bandages and looked up, a plane was gunning for revenge. I barely had enough time to throw myself off the top before 20mm cannons shredded my previous position. The Bf-109 skirted only twenty feet above the ground when it pulled out of its dive and turned to make another go. Thinking quickly, I remembered the mounted browning machine gun on the tank was still intact, so I jumped back up and took aim at the planes turning form.

The sound of 450 .50 cal. rounds a minute filled the air and by using the tracers to judge the lead I shredded the engine sending the fighter into a deadly blaze. Before I could celebrate my small victory an explosion sent the tank beneath me tumbling. And by the time I knew what happened 39 tons of steel was resting on my arm. I was pinned but thanks to the mud and probably some divine trickery my arm felt fine. With a bit of effort, I got my arm out, minus most of my skin of course, but I still got it free. I was barely able to prop myself up against the belly of the tank, my body was racked with pain from the poison gas and after getting thrown around ten feet from an explosion I wasn’t feeling any better. I weakly looked around at the artillery craters and spotted most of my platoon was either in pieces or dead from the gas collapsing their lungs. Each breath came with a wheeze and my consciousness was fading. I stared up blankly at the full moon, as good of a time to nap as any, right? My eyes slowly went limp as and my mind drifted off into darkness. It’s been a long year.

My eye shot open in annoyance as if replaying my memories would count as a nightmare. But it's still strange that my mind keeps trying to screw me over. I looked up and saw a full moon just beginning to break over the horizon. I got to say, no matter how many times I see it, it's still beautiful. I stood up from my rocking chair and went for a short walk to get my mind off things. It started to snow a bit after an hour or two, I should probably go hunting before everything nests down to stay warm. With relative ease, I spotted signs of something large moving through, and judging by its pronged hooves it was probably a moose of some kind. But with this place, you never really know. Soon the trail led me towards a small clearing where I spotted the beast. I ducked behind a tree and observed it as the thing dug away at the ground with a set of very human-like arms. Why can’t anything just be simple?