Dying earth

It's 1918, and I’m a 17-year-old German conscript, sent to the Western Front in the dying months of the Great War. My name hardly matters anymore—no one uses names out here. The air is thick with smoke, the trench mud clings to my skin like rot, and the sky has turned a permanent shade of grey. I arrived barely a week ago. Now, I'm crouched in the bottom of a shell crater, deafened by artillery and shivering from fear and cold. I’ve just watched my best friend, Otto, bleed out next to me. His eyes didn’t close. He just stared at the sky like it had betrayed him. Moments ago, we saw it—a British Mark IV tank, groaning like some iron beast, tearing through the landscape, crushing everything in its path. It was the first time I ever saw one. I didn’t even think machines could look alive. I don’t feel brave. I don’t feel like a soldier. I feel like a boy pretending not to cry. The orders were to hold the line. But the line is gone. The world is falling apart, and I don’t know what’s worse: dying here… or surviving. This is not a story of glory. This is the story of what war really is—mud, blood, loss, and fear. I am here. I cannot leave. What do I do now?