Gray clouds.

  Endlessly wrapped overhead.

  They dim the setting sun, leaving the sky a washed-out canvas. The only difference is the shade. In some spots, the gray runs darker. In others, it flirts with white.

  But gray, they are nonetheless.

  ***

  Bullets whiz overhead, slicing the air with a sharp, tinny hiss.

  A speaker buzzes on the peaks.

  Shouts muffled between blasts.

  Boots thump and stamp around.

  Shells slide into chambers and get spat back out.

  Artillery whistles as it descends.

  Explosions tear men and dirt alike.

  A man howls as his legs become bloody stumps.

  Another drags him to safety, hands shaking as he tries to tourniquet the wound, to soothe, to save.

  A growl.

  I blink.

  A growl?

  My stomach. It growls.

  I sigh and look down at it. Hunger claws up my ribs like it owns the place.

  I twist upright from where I’m sprawled on my sofa-bed. My legs drag across the fabric with that friction whine. My feet plant on hardwood, cold seeping straight into flesh. I hook the blanket with one hand, steal the last bit of warmth, and throw it aside. My other hand still holds my phone. The screen’s glow makes the room look even more miserable.

  I set it on the small coffee table beside the sofa-bed.

  ’If I was in war, would I…’

  The thought pulls a chuckle out of me. Not humor. Just an attempt at one.

  I brace both hands on my thighs and force myself up.

  I weave through my cluttered one-room apartment, if you don’t count the closet-sized bathroom. The place is riddled with junk, like a hoarder’s den. But it isn’t hoarding I want.

  It’s a vain attempt at filling a hole I can’t reach while awake.

  Finally reaching the bastion of my food, I wrap my hand around the fridge handle and tug.

  The door resists with a tired squeal.

  Empty.

  My culinary fortress stands abandoned. No defenders. No supplies. No hope.

  I click my tongue.

  ’Gotta go recruit some, then.’

  I don my most elemental-resistant armor, aka a hoodie and sweatpants. From the sacred hand-carved Bowl! by the door, I retrieve the Key! and step beyond the gates of my low-rent apartment complex.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Outside, winter air bites my cheeks and smells faintly of car exhaust and damp concrete.

  Traffic lights. Red.

  So I wait, hands shoved in my pockets, watching cars crawl by like they’re doing it out of spite.

  Finally, the pedestrian light turns green. I cross and reach the recruitment grounds: a convenience store.

  Warm air hits me as I step inside, carrying the stale perfume of fried food and old coffee. The clerk doesn’t look up. Of course he doesn’t.

  I grab ingredients and go back home.

  I prepare myself a humble feast, meaning a normal meal, and climb back into my sofa-bed to finish the war movie I started.

  The movie is halfway done before my eyelids start losing the argument. The room feels too still. Even the hum of the fridge sounds judgmental.

  A thought, an old wish, slides into my head.

  A wish for normalcy. The normalcy of feeling. A wish where I’d do anything for.

  As explosions bloom across the screen, I finally succumb to sleep.

  ***

  BOOM!

  I jolt awake, ears ringing, vision flooded with white. A sour taste sits on my tongue, like metal and dirt. Shapes swim into focus. A man hauls me upright, shouting words I can’t hear over the high-pitched whine.

  ’Am I in an accident? This isn’t my apartment.’

  I’m lying in dirt, down in some kind of ditch.

  No. A trench.

  “H-… yo…,” the man’s voice warbles through the ringing.

  “What?” I croak, half-deaf.

  He traces letters in the air with a gloved finger. Lines of light linger, spelling:

  [ARE YOU OKAY?]

  ’This must be one of those dreams again. But, It feels too vivid.’

  “No. What happened?”

  More glowing script:

  [WE WERE HIT BY BOMBARDMENT.]

  “What? In the city? Who bombed us?”

  He stares like I spoke another language. Then his expression hardens. He shoves a rifle into my hands.

  [GET READY. THE SCUM ARE PUSHING OUR LINE.]

  My vision clears in painful bursts, and my stomach drops.

  Early-20th-century soldiers bustle around, uniforms caked with mud. My ears ring because a bomb really did land nearby, and now the enemy is advancing.

  I exhale a shaky laugh. “This is fucked.”

  Adrenaline floods my veins, every nerve sparking with confusion and dread.

  ’Why am I on a battlefield?’

  I clamp my trembling hands around the rifle, forcing my breath to steady.

  ’Okay. Think.’

  All around me, soldiers scramble through slick mud, slamming fresh belts into machine guns, dragging crates of ammo, shouting numbers I don’t understand. Anyone who slips vanishes beneath a tide of boots. No one stops to help. Defense first. Mercy later.

  I steal a glance over the trench lip. Beyond the barbed wire lies a wasteland of cratered earth, motionless and silent.

  The silence before a storm.

  “Soldier! Do your duty!”

  I whip around.

  An officer stands there, coat flapping, eyes blazing.

  “What are you staring at? Move!”

  Sound returns in jagged pieces, enough to parse his fury. I stand rooted.

  ’I’m no soldier. What am I supposed to do?’

  “Want to be shot for mutiny?” He yanks at the sidearm on his hip.

  Before the moment detonates, the man who rescued me steps between us.

  “Sir, he took the full blast of a shell. He’s still dazed, sir.”

  The officer’s glare drills through me, then softens by a degree. “Fine. Get him on task.” He pivots away, already hunting his next victim.

  My savior grips my shoulder, firm.

  “Kaizer, find your post before he changes his mind.”

  ’Kaizer? That’s not my name.’

  A spike of pain erupts behind my eyes. My thoughts scatter like startled birds, and suddenly I can’t remember what my name is.

  I open my mouth. Nothing comes out except a breath.

  “Hey, focus,” he snaps. “Machine gun. There. Arm it.”

  He points to a sandbagged nest twenty paces down the line and starts off.

  “Wait. You called me Kaizer!”

  “What?” He doesn’t even turn. “Move!”

  Sirens of shouted warnings ripple along the trench. No time. Questions can wait. Survival can’t.

  I sprint to the gun emplacement.

  Muscle memory I shouldn’t possess guides my hands. Feed the belt. Charge the handle. Sight the horizon.

  I drop behind the iron beast and brace for the inevitable wave.

  As I peer down the weapon’s sights into the shattered wasteland, the ground begins to tremble. A low hum swells until the very air vibrates. Mud shivers. My teeth buzz inside my skull.

  ’I feel it.’

  A distant roar rises, the layered howl of thousands of voices. One ragged war cry rolling across the mud.

  The tremor resolves into the thunder of boots.

  Far out on the blasted plain, a single gray speck appears. Then three. Then a dozen. Doubling with each heartbeat.

  The moment a silhouette turns unmistakably human, instinct takes over.

  I squeeze the trigger.

  The gun bucks. Hot brass rains onto my boots. The stench of burned powder fills my nose. Figures crumple, swallowed by sludge, only to be trampled by their own.

  ’I just killed those people.’

  No time to grapple with the weight of it. The gray tide keeps coming, ants converging on a carcass.

  Thirty paces to my left, the first attacker vaults the parapet and collides with the soldier who saved me, bayonet flashing.

  I stay on the gun. The line has to hold.

  The swarm surges closer until I can see faces. Eyes wide with terror and grim resolve, mouths open in silent screams I can’t hear over the roar.

  My belt runs dry.

  The gun clicks, hollow and useless.

  I sling it aside, yank the rifle up, and let that wrong, borrowed muscle memory guide me.

  Breath. Squeeze.

  Bang. One falls.

  Bang. Another.

  Reload. Too slow.

  A bayonet lunges for my chest.

  I catch the rifle’s barrel, twist it away, and draw a sidearm I don’t remember carrying. The metal is cold against my palm, slick with sweat.

  The muzzle meets his temple.

  Bang.

  The man drops, and the tide keeps roaring forward.

  My hands shake. My heart hammers so hard it hurts.

  But I’m still alive.