The next morning dawned gloomy, the air heavy with the stench of rot and feces. Dark smoke from mortar fire shrouded the sky, casting a morbid pallor over the desolate landscape. The weight of impending doom hung over Emily like a specter, amplifying the sense of foreboding that clung to every twisted tree and crater-pocked trench.
In the distance, the enemy-held "no man's land" stretched out like a nightmarish realm. Mortars, machine guns, minefields, and toxic gases had transformed this barren expanse into a killing zone. The enemy's relentless rotation of soldiers ensured they remained fresh and ready to inflict maximum carnage. Emily's gaze fell upon the enemy soldiers, their gasmasks warping their faces into inhuman visages, like demons or monsters risen from the underworld. This anonymizing armor seemed to strip them of individuality, rendering them mere instruments of destruction. Their superiors, too, seemed to regard them with a chilling detachment, as if the erasure of their humanity had also expunged all ethical considerations.
As they burst out of their trench, the dawn air was shredded by the staccato beat of machine guns and mortars, the screams of the fallen, and the acrid stench of smoke and sweat. Emily froze, her charge halted, as she gazed upon the carnage unfolding around her. The sheer waste of life was staggering – an entire battalion, comprised solely of black soldiers, was being slaughtered. The injustice seared itself into her mind: if even a single white soldier had been among them, she doubted they would have been sent on this suicidal mission.
A bullet whizzing past her ear, fired from the enemy's MG 42, shattered her trance. She spun toward the sound, her eyes locking onto the trajectory of the bullet as it tore into the left eye of a fellow soldier. The force of the impact sent him crashing backward, his body crumpling to the ground with a lifeless thud. Nearby, another soldier writhed in agony, his lower half severed, intestines spilling out onto the dirt like grotesque, pulsing serpents. His eyes pleaded for help, his faint, dying whispers echoing through the chaos: "Help...please...help." The stench of blood, sweat, and smoke hung heavy over the battlefield, a noxious shroud that clung to Emily's skin like a damp, cold mist.
Damilola had taken a prone position, steadily aiming at enemies with her sniper rifle and taking down gunners one after the other, her aim always true and her reloading time outstanding. But the enemy gunmen were being replaced as fast as she took them down. Boom a large explosion rocked from Damilola's location. As the smoke cleared, all that was left was half her head and a few large red chunks. Her body had been blown to pieces by enemy shells, pieces of her limbs thrown in different directions, her torso a mere puddle of mud and blood. Emily looked up as a hail of blood and dirt fell in every direction, plop something squishy bounced off her head and onto the ground, she looked towards the direction of the sound, only to discover she was starting at Damilola's eye ball her beautiful brown eye now reduced to a dirt covered orb. A soldier ran past, unintentionally running on and squishing the eyeball. Ironically, that soldier was immediately riddled with holes from the bullets of the enemy's MG 42.
