Landmines blew up all around him. Gunfire sounded from all directions. Dicky Smith didn't want to be here. At all. The beaches of Normandy were in ruin, bodies strewn about, landscape ruined by shells, and grenades. Dicky was hiding. Trying to escape the war. He was in a foxhole, trying to stay unspotted, until a man appeared above, a loud voice accompanying him.

"Get out!" he ordered in a gruff voice, you can't hide there all the war." Dicky recognized the voice as his general's.

"I'm sorry," he stammered, trying to come up with an excuse, "I dove in here when a grenade blew up by me. I was just about to crawl out."

"Well hurry up," the general said, "We need all we have if we want to win." Dicky scrambled out, his helmet almost falling off. He stood by the general's side, looking across the battlefield.

"If we can get the Nazis to retreat, this will be a huge victory," His general said, taking a step. A landmine blew up under his feet, giving him no chance at survival. The general was blown apart. Dicky stood, frozen in fear. Landmines were placed randomly, no one knowing where each one was. That could be his same fate.

'Get back in the trench,' one side of him said. But he listened to the other side that told him to fight for the Allies. they needed this victory, and so did he if he wanted to get out of the army. He trudged ahead onto the bloody battlefield, preparing for the worst.

It was loud. Loud was the only way Dicky could conceptualise it. Screaming, gunfire, explosions, boots -- it was all noise. Loud noise. He readjusted his helmet, and moved forwards. A soldier next to him stared. He stopped. His face was sticky. Feeling flooded back to him in one terrible second. He ran a hand over his face quickly. Cold, sticky, wet. Red. It was red. Chunks of flesh fell from his hair and onto the sands below.

His general.

General Jim was stuck to him. General Jim, in pieces, when he has been standing seconds ago. He had laughed with them yesterday, pouring drinks and joking, singing off key. He stared at his hands, soiled and red, and the world narrowed to a pinpoint, ears thudding, eyes watering.

And then the gunshot came.