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It was cold. The setting sun was casting their last rays over the horizon and painting the no-man’s-land in a golden light.
Paul was stumbling along the craters, his fast breath billowing as white clouds in front of him. He was covered in mud from crouching in shell holes all day, trying to escape the French attack. His hands were still covered in the blood of the Frenchman he murdered.
But that was not important. Important was finding his way back to his own lines and finding Kat, Tjaden and Franz and finally resting for the day.
The problem was that this field of mud and blood and treacherously deep holes wouldn’t end. He had been walking – staggering – along for the better part of three hours. (At least Paul thought it was three hours, without a clock it was hard to measure.) The exhaustion was pulling at Paul’s consciousness and he had to constantly blink to fight his vision blurring. His adrenaline from the fight had left him hours ago; the roar of battle quieting until all that was left was the eerie silence covering the field like a thick fog together with the smell of death.
Finally Paul saw his own trench line in the distance and sped up his walk. He was so relieved to see something familiar within this monotonous landscape that he nearly sprinted to the ladders and eagerly climbed down. He saw them immediately.
Franz, leaning against one of the posts to a dugout. His chest was mutilated; the skin peeled back so far that his rips were visible and glistening with the last drops of fresh blood covering them. He had not been dead long.
Paul saw Tjaden next. The older man was lying face down a ways up the trench, his lower body missing completely. He seemed to have been hit by a mortar. Bone splinters and parts of his guts were splattered all over the trench wall.
Paul takes an uneven step forward. They were dead. His friends- Just like Albert-
Then he remembered. Kat! Kat had to be alive, he had survived this whole war ever since it began, he must be somewhere! So Paul began his search, slowly creeping around the trench and looking for his closest companion. He didn’t have to look long.
Curled up in a corner of the dugout Paul saw a familiar mop of brown hair and made his way towards it. He put his hand on Kats shoulder and turned him around, a relieved greeting already on his lips when he saw Kat’s face. Or lack thereof. Half of Kats skull was missing, blasted off by a grenade and leaving only a bloody and gory mess of a face that once held the most comforting expression a man could see during a bombardment.
Paul let go, his movements slowed by his shock. Kat was dead. The body, now no longer held up by the wall or Paul’s hand slumped to the ground and hit the mud with a wet thud. Paul took a step back. And another; his eyes fixed on that gory mess until he turned around and ran out of the dugout, directly into the arms of a French patrol, readying their weapons to fire at him, in their midst the man that Paul stabbed to death only hours before-
~**~
Paul startled awake, looking around frantically. Where are his friends where are his friends-
“Paul, are you alright?” The voice is familiar. It makes Paul’s thoughts stop at once.
“Ludwig?” Paul’s voice is hesitant. Didn’t his friend die relatively early on in the trenches?
“Yes, is something wrong? Did you have a nightmare? Sorry I didn’t wake you, you were sleeping so peacefully I didn’t want to disrupt you.” Ludwig rambled.
“I…was asleep?” Paul asked, confused. Looking around, he noticed they were in a meadow near their childhood homes. Huh, so the whole war thing was just a nightmare. He sighed, relieved.
“Yeah you were. For quite a while as well.” Ludwig answers, shrugging his shoulders. “If it was a nightmare, do you want to talk about it?”
Paul thought back to his dream – well, nightmare – and shuddered. “I thought we were all gone to war and everyone I knew was dead. I found them in the trench we were in.” His reply leaves no room for other questions and despite the curious look in his eyes, Ludwig got the hint and did not ask any further.
“Well, at least we’re fine and there is no war.” Ludwig says, smiling happily. Paul nods, his lips curving to form a hesitant smile. “And,” Ludwig continues. “Without a war, we’ll always be together, won’t we Paul?”
Paul snaps his head around, looking at his friend. He’s heard those words before, shortly before he lost sight of Ludwig and found him dead hours later. They were the last words Ludwig ever said to him. But Ludwig is warmly smiling at him and Paul relaxes. They aren’t at war; nobody is going to die any time soon. They’ll grow old and die of old age late in their sixties, maybe even seventies.
Paul smiles back, this time much more enthusiastic and happy. He leans back and looks up at the white sky and-
White sky? The sky isn’t white; it’s supposed to be blue. Furrowing his brow in confusion, Paul turns to Ludwig to ask him about it, only to be met with the dead eyes of his friend, just like he saw them when he was collecting his dog tag.
“We’ll always be together Paul, won’t we? We’ll survive this, right?” Ludwig (?) says with a smile, his dead eyes following every single move Paul makes. Paul flinches back, crawling away from the corpse (?) of his friend (?), terror seizing his body. He finally managed to stand up and stumble a few steps backwards.
Ludwig (?) stayed seated on the ground, his left leg missing its lower half, the blood flowing over the ground and soaking the grass crimson. His face twists in rage, seeing Paul take those steps back.
“You promised! You promised we would always be together! You didn’t keep your promise and now look at me! I am dead! IYOU ARE THE REASON I ENDED UP DEAD! BECAUSE YOU DID NOT KEEP YOU PROMISE!” He screamed; voice raw with anger and betrayal.
“Nonononono- I-“
~**~
Paul opened his eyes and was met with the tired eyes of Kat. “Come on, found some food.” Kat turns around and makes his way over to the window of their temporary shelter somewhere in a destroyed French village. Paul sighs, gets up and follows him. He can still feel the remnants of that dream cling to his exhausted soul. The war was almost over, but the shadows of the past won’t let him go, probably for a long time.