The slime was knee deep. Literally. It was a soupy muck, not just of mud, but of things unimaginable – rotting human bodies lay beneath your feet, a bridge to stand upon – if the gods smiled on you, and you were lucky. They kept your feet above the gore in the narrow ditch that led straight to hell. And the good Lord only knew, trench foot was just one more misery that the soldier had to contend with. If a corpse kept a soldier’s boots above the water, then good for the warrior.
The soldier had spent more than one night digging comrades out of this festering goop, and it became like quicksand if you stood or sat still in it long enough.
The soldier beside him shook uncontrollably. Once in awhile, he yelped, as if in pain, but that man had no physical injury.
“There is no sleep in hell,” he muttered to himself.
It was night. As he looked up into the dark infinity above his head, he wondered if the gods were partying, too busy to intervene in this madhouse of death and destruction.
He looked around. It really was a madhouse – tight, cramped, with walls of eroding dirt.
When would the next attack come?
He felt his stomach jitterbug inside him.
That was the scary part. The waiting. Once the fighting started, everyone and everything sort of acted without thought. There was no time to plan strategic tactics when the next artillery barrage began raining down. There was only time for action.
When the action stopped, the waiting game began again.
And then, boredom, mind-killing boredom during those down times. Boredom that threatened to push you over the brink of sanity. And while you wait, Fear gnaws your insides like acid.
He looked up once again into the blackness above.
The searing whistle of a shell blew past him, exploding nearby. The trench became a chaotic crater of mud and blood.
Someone was screaming.
Someone was pulling at his jacket.
He had to get away!
He had to get away!
Suddenly, a skeletal hand reached from out of the mud from the side of the trench where it had been buried and grabbed his jacket collar.
He woke up, clutching his pillow and screaming.