War is the great equalizer.

It strips all of their humanity,

and leaves behind only darkness.

 

 

The siren was blaring long before Bradley McColluch awoke. As the droning sound drilled deep into his mind, he came to consciousness. Tumbling out of his cot, he quickly put on his boots. Next, his jacket and his helmet. Finally, he grabbed his rifle and was out of his company’s tent.

The madness was undeniable. Men were swarming around him on all sides, each carrying a rifle or some type of machinery. Some were standing there, dazed as Bradley was, watching the surreal menagerie of soldiers before them.

When the first bomb dropped, the ground shook violently. Bradley couldn’t see where it had hit, but he felt it deep within his lungs as the heat and burning smell made their way inside of him. The force was so great that he was knocked to the ground, and for a brief moment he contemplated staying there, dead to the world.

His dream was short lived as one of his commanders pulled him to his feet. He could not hear the words coming out of his mouth, as Bradley’s ears were ringing. His commander pushed him in a direction, pointing and yelling, and moved on to another soldier to do the same thing.

Bradley didn’t think then, he just acted. One boot before the other, clumping down hard on the packed soil beneath him. He loaded his rifle, but his eyes were locked on the horizon. There, a large group of vehicles were stationed, belonging to the enemy that Bradley had never really seen. He had heard of them of course, the faceless army that threatened his way of life, but it had always been imagined until that moment.

He allowed himself to be caught in the stream of men flooding towards the front lines. For a moment, he felt like a part of a bigger, thoughtless creature, an amalgamation of violence and death, of protection and loyalty. Each man there slowly faded away until the battle was all they saw.

There was no thinking about the pulling of the trigger or the throwing of a grenade. Each man was an instrument of death whose only goal were to kill others so that they might not die. Every life they took added seconds to their own, each heart they stopped only added vitality to the one beating between their lungs. Morality was forfeit. Ethics were forfeit. Love and logic, pain and sadness were forfeit, replaced with the burning fever of war. They only wished to kill and not be killed. They felt an intense anger only shadowed by the fear that rattled through their bones and veins. This mix of terror and fury made them shake within themselves, nerves like vibrating piano strings. None of them spoke but to relay commands, and in this gnawing silence, each soldier could see the enemy in their minds, the face of the evil that they must defend against.

All of them were killers, and tonight their demons would feast.

Bradley was past the tents now, making his way towards the gate of their encampment. To his left and right were boys younger than he, both he had never met before in his life. In front of him were more men, their faces new to him like the two boys. A woman was relaying commands behind him, her voice ringing over the dull thuds of gunfire and bombs.

They were directed towards another gate, a group of a hundred or more. They marched, their thumping boots a discordant cadence of their urgency. They followed the wall, a thing made of stone bricks and black mortar. It was older than any of the men there, and had most likely seen its fair share of war. Bullet holes were etched into the hard surface.

They finally reached the gate, a wrought iron palisade with two detached portions hung by steel hinges. They swung inward before they came upon them, and as they passed under, Bradley noticed a carving of a songbird within the stone wall. It was frail, small like a sparrow. Carved beside it was a crow, beak open mid-flight. As he turned away, it was almost like it descended upon the helpless little bird.

They were passing through the final berms and trenches when the first gunfire found them. Bradley dove to the right and raised his gun. He pulled the trigger as the enemy came into his sights, and he kept shooting until his gun was empty. He reloaded and got to his feet, his only mission to unite flesh and lead. His group was already advancing, their response having driven back the enemy.

As they walked, Bradley saw the faces of the men he had shot at. One of them was older, maybe thirty, with a long scar running down his face. Another was younger, with a square face and crooked nose.

He paused in his jog to look at the last in the line. From beneath her helmet, sandy hair poked out over grey eyes. The button nose and round lips accented by a pointed chin, and he froze as all the features came together. The skin was darker and the eyes were farther apart, but this woman looked familiar. He imagined the circumstances that might have put his sister in this woman’s position. He could see it now, her lying dead on the ground. He flushed with anger and the beast overcame him. This wasn’t his sister, she was the enemy. His comrade grabbed him and he ran off.

They were in a fury now, their guns raised to end whoever came across them. Bradley followed the two boys, and as they crossed the final trench, they fell down in the mud, a heap of flesh and bullet. He felt his muscles tense to reach for them, to pull them back from the firing line, but as he saw the staining red seep through their clothing, he pulled back and held out his arm to stop anyone following him.

He reached up to his chest, but a CO stopped him, already holding one. He tossed the grenade around the corner and pulled them back. The second of shuffling and yelling was eclipsed by the shocking thunder of the explosion. They waited a second before advancing around.

They found only the mangled corpses of the other group, and down the side of the trench, a single person limping away. The CO walked forward and raised his gun, pulling the trigger when lined up with the survivor’s head. He dropped and the group advanced forward.

Bradley walked over to the two boys, seeing their eyes closed, heaped on top of one another. Blood dripped from their lips, and they were as still as the soil beneath them. Bradley advanced on to again join his group.

They entered a small building at the edge of the clearing, not big enough for the ninety of them that remained. Bradley stood outside with about forty men, guarding the CO as he consulted squad leaders. There was a certain order to them, purely understood. On the southern side of the building, a few men defended against enemy fire, but for the main portion of their stay, things were quiet and the gunfire was distant.

When they finally had a plan, the group divided. Three groups of thirty men each, enough to defend against others in close combat, small enough to move easily. Bradley’s group was to move east and then south to protect the side gates of the compound, which could easily be flanked. The other two groups would go east and north to start forming a rough perimeter to defend.

His group set off at once, moving quickly through the sparse buildings and back into the trenches. They reached the most northeast corner and made their way along the final berms and trenches. They encountered no other soldiers as they moved, and by the time they came upon the side gates, they knew why.

The gates had been made of marble and iron, but now it was all only rubble. Across the dirt, scorch marks turned the ground black in streaks like lightning. Large chunks of marble littered the path, with twisted spears of iron poking out from underneath them.

His group edged on slowly, cautiously rounding the corner. The CO took a quick peak around and was greeted by rifle fire. He pulled back and silently ordered them to spread out. Bradley was the farthest down the line, all the way against the berm across from the wall. The CO threw another grenade around the corner and waited for them to die. The explosion shook the bones of the men, and Bradley was the first to cross the gateway and fire into the smoke.

One man was starting to rise, blood blossoming from his neck, but Bradley caught him in his sights and ended his life. Another man was starting to rise, and before Bradley could fire, he too, died. He could see the contortion of pain, and then the blankness as death put him to sleep. They rushed into the gate and split up to hid behind the two buildings on both sides of it. The men who couldn’t fit between the wall of the building and the wall of the compound went inside of the small checkpoints.

Bradley was forced into the one on the right and was greeted by a dead soldier. They wore the same colors, but he did not know this man. He was sitting in the chair at the window, and his rifle was lying across his lap. Two bullets had caught the man in the chest, and he was dead before he could even close his eyes. As another soldier came in with Bradley, he only acknowledged their fallen comrade’s rifle and took the ammunition from it.

Two more men made their way in, and along with their dead friend, all five of them stuffed the room full. The one who had grabbed the ammunition pulled out a radio from underneath the checkpoint desk and tuned it to the main channel. There was only silence.

From deep within the compound, gunfire flared up in earnest, a volley so loud that its origin was unclear. The squad leader passed by the window and told them to stay put. They were to guard the gate from the enemy and they could not fail. The rest of the group was going to enter the closest hallway and set up a defensive perimeter. Bradley didn’t even protest, he just kneeled before the desk and leveled his weapon with the leftmost gate. The ammunition thief took up the same position next to him, and the other two hurriedly moved their comrade’s body out of the hut.

They waited for a while, unmoving within the small checkpoint building. They said no words and moved not an inch, waiting for what would surely come to them.

The first soldiers showed up within the hour, and though so much time had passed, the gunfire from within the compound had not lightened up at all. The now familiar black jackets of the other army came through the gate at a steady jog, and before Bradley could fire, his companion killed the man. Another passed through right behind the first dead soldier and Bradley shot him in the head.

Both of the men collapsed and the four of them could hear shouting from the other side of the gate. A grenade came through the gate and landed past the checkpoints, but they all still hit the ground. After the explosion, they jumped back up to see more men streaming through the gate.

They opened fire, and every pull of the trigger sent a shock through Bradley. His reverie of fury was broken now, something in the grenade’s shockwave having unsettled everything that had been building in him. He still killed, but the flames were extinguished now. His only motivation was to survive.

After the flowing tide of soldiers dissipated, they all reloaded their rifles. All of them were low on ammunition. Above Bradley’s head, like an answer to their need for bullets, a shot zipped through the window and struck the man behind him in the face. He collapsed to the ground, dead, and after a brief inspection, was moved to the back of the room. They all stayed low, not knowing where the bullet had come from. A second answer came when a bullet skimmed off of Bradley’s helmet, throwing him to the ground.

The impact felt like the strike of a hammer, and the wobbling of his vision only got worse as he laid there. The ammunition thief came over to him and look him in the eyes, his mouth moving but Bradley hearing no words. He nodded, the only action that seemed appropriate to him, and the soldier helped him back to his knees. Bradley shook his head, eyes shut tight, to get rid of the dizziness. Before his head could clear, he watched the left checkpoint explode. The shrapnel would have killed Bradley then if the thief hadn’t thrown him to the ground. Their companion, the other living solider, was killed immediately, his body ruined by the stone and iron that came flying in. The smoke, still hanging thick in the air, smelled of burnt flesh and sulfur.

Bradley acted only on instinct now, and he grabbed the thief. He led them through the door and behind the building as the next bomb sailed through the air towards the checkpoint. He ran as best as he could, the world still swaying before him in deep, swerving waves. They didn’t stop, but before they rounded the corner to join the rest of their group, Bradley felt the punch of lead go through his shoulder.

The pain didn’t come at first, it was only numbness. The weight of the impact threw him to the ground, but luckily they had made it around the corner. Bradley collapsed, and the thief gave him a once over before grabbing onto his other shoulder to bring him back to his feet.

Then the pain came.

The heated metal of the bullet was lodged in his bone, and it brought with it a fire that Bradley had never felt before. It radiated through him instantly, and every vibration sent waves of agony through his veins. Back when Bradley had been in middle school, he and a bunch of his friends decided to play at war with pellet guns. Their only protection had been sunglasses and mouth guards. Every pellet that had hit its mark had left behind a dark purple welt. Bradley considered those welts to be the epitome of pain back then, and even after his first broken bone, he had cited it in his top ten.

This pain overshadowed everything he had ever felt. He did not see, did not hear, and did not feel anything besides the blaring pain in his shoulder.

He turned to the thief and said, “I’ve been shot.”

The thief didn’t hear him, or if he did he ignored the words. They were moving as fast as they could, the enemy they fought so close behind them. They entered the hallway and stopped. There were no soldiers there, none living anyways. Only gore filled the halls, a complex painting of death, colored red and blue. Their CO sat closest to the front of the hall, his eyes open but the lights gone from them.

The thief stood there for a moment, staring down on the wanton carnage before them. Without hesitation, he threw down his rifle at the feet of the CO and turned back to the entrance.

Bradley fell to the floor, too weak to support himself, and watched as the thief went to the door and knelt down. He held his hands up and bowed his head, waiting for the enemy to arrive.

Less than a minute later, they were upon them. As the thief opened his mouth to surrender, a bullet passed through it and killed him. Bradley watched silently, seeing his only companion killed without a thought. The thief collapsed to the floor like the two boys did, but his eyes were open.

Bradley, wanting so desperately to survive, did the only thing he could. He played dead. He closed his eyes and made his face blank. He held his breath and waited for the soldiers to pass. After a moment of silence, the group started making its way down the hall. A few would pause for a moment, investigating the dead before moving on. Soon, they were all gone.

Bradley laid there, unbelieving that he was still alive, and started to cry.

He cried long and hard, his tears streaming through the blood on his face to pool on the floor. When he had joined the military, it hadn’t been for glory or honor, just the duty he owed to the country that he cared so much for. Now, resting among the dead did he realized that he might care for his country, but it did not care for him. The Earth is indifferent to the plights of men, and only then did he realized the truth: that men were indifferent to the plights of their own.

Bradley waited too long to move, and before he could even turn to see whose footsteps approached, he was dead.