• Lying there in a pool of blood; agonizing pain was tearing through my body. How had I gotten myself into this mess? I’ll have to start at the beginning. I might as well I could tell it was going to take me sometime to die it hadn't been a direct hit. A hit just enough to take me down and leave in agonizing pain for hours on end until finally my body and soul would give up the fight, I knew this for some strange reason I had never stayed to watch a man die.
    It was all Becky’s fault; if she hadn’t gone off with the farmer’s lad then I wouldn’t be here watching my life slowly slip away. She had forbidden me to go and join the army. But yet she had pushed me to do it as well, coming here was the only thing that would attract her attention and it that worked she had come begging and pleading with me not go and when I hadn't listened to her pleads she had continued to send them to me everyday, I kept all the letters knowing that if I survived I would have them as proof of her undying love for me.
    Another jolt of pain came searing through my body bringing me out of my memories but it didn't last long so I was again throw into memories, it was the only way to blot out the pain.
    Then there was Ryan, it was his fault as well!
    I had been making my rounds when I heard him shout “Now I’ve got you and you know what I’m going to do, I’m going to kill you!”
    I peeked round the corner and the sight that was revealed to my eyes was a tragic one. Young Ryan had cornered an enemy and was in the process of pulling the trigger when another enemy jumped up from behind a barrel and shot him in the back “BANG” Such an undignified way to die, shot in the back the murder didn't even has the guts to show his victim his face. That sound was like a bomb in my ears the noise brought other enemies out of hiding. It was a sign to them.
    I took off like a bird to the sky. Running but the whole time I could see Ryans death again and again his body slumping forward and the victorious laugh of his killers. While I was running I warned the other soldiers to do the same, that we were being attacked, but none of them got away, they were all still stumbling around in surprised when the guns came and shot them down like cattle, I could hear the shells rattling and the noise coming closer and closer then “Bang” They hit me in the shoulder and the leg.
    I went down with an “ohm”.
    I could feel the warm blood gushing out of me, my life's supply of blood escaping my body and rushing on to the dirty and littered ground. Such a waste of 19 years, only to be gunned down and left to die and rot in a field far away from home knowing that your family are waiting to hear from you and there growing anxiousness as each day went pasted.
    While I was lying there I realised for the first time what war was really about, it was about death, destruction and an end, finality.
    For the first time, the smell of death hung heavy in the air and caught my nostrils making my nose curl upwards. The rusty, metallic taste assaulted my taste buds making my stomach, churn wanting to be violently sick.
    I could see the fields.
    The fields were dismal, littered with the dead bodies. You couldn’t take one step, without encountering a rotting corpse.
    Then I saw him, an enemy, someone to end it all; someone to put me out of misery. I coughed so he would notice me. I saw him quickly turn with a look of horror on his face.
    He crept over trying not to be noticed so that I wouldn’t notice him and the fear on his face.
    As he got closer I moved my legs, sending shooting pains through my body and crying out so he knew where to come.
    He looked down at me with a look I had come to know, he was new at this, scared, unsure of why he was always questioning what he should be doing and whether this was right to go and kill people just because the king had declared war why should all of them lose there lives in an effort to settle a score with the kings enemy. The soldier looked down at me in horror realising that he had to take my life, take away my right to live. He slumped to ground and broke out in great big heartfelt sobs I could hear his breath coming ragged and quick, my vision was dimming but the pain was still there sharpening all the focus I had lefty and what for so that I could continue to look at all the death in the world all the horror and innocent people suffering, I didn't want to die looking at that.
    “Kill........me “ I rasped out it was such an effort to say two words! I could have laughed except that my body wouldn't let me it was determined to destroy my last memories of the world.
    I was aware of the boy looking at me now with a look of disbelief etched across his dirty face.
    “Please” I finally managed to push the words outs at this the boy stood and took some deep calming breaths and composed himself.
    He looked away as I took one last look at what was left of the world and silently said goodbye.
    War is really a festering, destructible thing and if God hasn’t already left this world he will when he realises what we have done to it.
    I felt the coolness of the barrel press against my forehead pushing my morbid thoughts away. And said goodbye as he pulled back the trigger and ended it all for me.