By Ella Yr 10 Creative Writing

The trench was a long, festering wound, stitched into the Earth’s flesh. John, huddled in a shallow indentation in the earth’s crust, felt the damp cold seep though out his worn out, woollen greatcoat, a consistent reminder of his loyalty yet a constant subtle embrace. The air, thick and sickly, tasted of wet soil, stale fear, and the metallic tang of distant blood, a bitter flavour that coated his tongue like rust. He reached out and pulled out a small, smooth river stone in his pocket and clutched it harshly, it was his only tangible link to the world before, its cool temperature was a fleeting comfort against the tremor in his fingers. The silence was alive, a heavy shroud woven from the absence of birdsong and the muffled screams banging like a drum in his memories. It pressed in on him, amplifying the skittering of rats and the incessant, maddening drip of water from the dugouts sagging roof to the right of him. Each drop was like a tiny hammer blow, chipping away at the brittle walls of his sanity. The distant rhythmic ‘thump-thump-thump’ of German mortars, a long, guttural heartbeat of the frontlines, was a constant reminder that the Earth that he used to know as a comforting melody, was now a monstrous beat of a drum, produced by unseen hands. He stared at the stone, its grey surface polished by the continuous hours of worry and desperation for hope. It was a fragment of a long-forgotten river, a symbol of a life that felt as distant as the stars that pricked at the bruised canvas of the night sky above. Here, the sky was like a lid, pressing down, trapping him in this purgatory. The mud was like a vicious, starving beast, that swallowed anything and everything, boots, hope, and sometimes, men. It clung onto his trousers like a second skin, prompting them to remember the grave of a thousand men beneath his feet. Abruptly, the world had torn itself open, a whistle, shrill and piercing, ripped through the silence, followed by the grotesque roar of artillery. The earth had kicked and screamed, like a wounded leviathan. Shells shrieked overhead, descending with the speed of vengeful deities, exploding with blinding flashes and concussive blasts that slammed into John’s chest, taking his breath away. The trench became a hypnotising kaleidoscope of noise and light, the earsplitting ‘bang!’ of explosions, the hiss of shrapnel, the desperate shouting of men, all a chaotic symphony of destruction, orchestrated by avengement. John pressed himself deeper into the mud, the clutched stone digging into his palm. The ground shook violently, a living tremor. He could taste the small fragments of coarse soil, the bitter taste of cordite, and the metallic taste of fear. The air became a solid wall of sound, each explosion consistently echoed in his skull. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the flashes still seared through his eyelids, he heard a man’s bone-chilling scream, which rapidly ceased to exist by the roar of artillery. His mind, a fragile glass, began to crack. The stone in his hand felt like a burning coal, then a feather, then nothing at all. He hesitantly opened his eyes, the world was like a distorted, melancholy painting. The trench walls seamed to writhe, the sandbags dissolving into weeping expressions, and the mud was no longer, it was a thousand grasping hands, reaching for him, whispering forgotten names. He saw a familiar soldier, his young face pale, reaching out, then disappearing into the thick smoke. The river stone, his anchor, was gone, swallowed by the midst of the chaos, or possibly, by his own unravelling mind. The bombardment, as suddenly as it began, had subsided.The grotesque roar faded to a ragged, echoing cough. An eerie, ringing silence descended, broken only by the pained groans of a wounded man and the slow, agonising drip of water coming from the dugout. John laid there, unmoving, his face covered in mud, and his eyes were wide and vacant. The world had returned to its muted tones, but something fundamental had shifted within him. He pushed himself up, his limbs stiff, and his body became a hollow vessel. He looked at his mud-covered hands, no longer noticing the absence of the river stone he once cared so much for. The trench was still a wound, but now it felt like his own. He had survived the storm, but the echoes of its fury would forever reverberate within the shattered landscape of his mind. The war had taken more than just his body, it had taken the river, and the man who remembered it.