Mystery on the Font Line

August 1916, France

Since the commanders told us war will be over by Christmas, two years have passed. It was the hardest time on the western front since the Great War has started. Every day, thousands of soldiers were dying. However, neither of the Entente nor the Central Powers forces could make progress. My friends were out there fighting for their country. I was still in the hospital, recovering from the previous battle. That day was the day which Doctor Fischer decided I can leave the hospital and go to the front again. As I was preparing to leave, Doctor Fischer and his assistant visited me one more time to give me some medicines. While I was taking the medicines I talked with Doctor Fischer for some time. One of the medicines had a really acidic and weird taste. After I took them I left the hospital.

I was riding my horse to the Somme, where the battle was taking place. Throughout the entire journey I had a headache which I didn’t mind because I was newly healed so I thought it was normal to have some side effects. The journey lasted for 4 hours and I was very tired.

When I got to the city of Somme I could hear the sounds of battle and it was terrifying. I immediately rushed into the tent of Commander Krüger. He assigned me into the seventeenth battalion and a soldier gave me a rifle and some equipment. Our battalion’s duty was to replace the eleventh battalion’s place in the northern trench. When we got there all we could see were dead soldiers, debris and human pieces. I was horrified but not for too long because the enemy started to shoot at us. There was a very chaotic battle going on. While I was shooting at the enemy I heard an ear piercing sound and all of a sudden our entire battalion was destroyed. It was an explosion caused by enemy artillery.  I got up and looked around me and the only one who survived was me. I heard someone shouting in French “Ils sont tous morts!”. I saw the French man who was shouting and also he saw me. When he saw me he shouted “Don’t… don’t budge an inch!”. I grabbed my rifle and I started to run towards him. The moment he saw me he also grabbed his gun. We were both running into each other with bayonet charges. I was faster and stronger than him.  The bayonet pierced a hole in his chest and blood was splattering all over me. I thought I had won, however, instantly I heard a loud noise from behind me. I felt cold in my stomach; I leaned towards my front and looked at my belly. There was a long bayonet blade which had pierced my whole body horizontally. I fell to the ground and the cold feeling immediately turned into a burning feeling from my stomach. My sight started to slowly disappear just like the ring-like sound I was hearing. The hot feeling had disappeared. Now the only thing I was feeling was cold and that feeling didn’t last longer either.

I woke up in pain. I was lying down, covered with mud. I got up and saw my horse which was also lying down. I tried to understand what was going on. Hadn’t I died minutes ago? I realized that the floor looked like the horse had an accident. I started to think about what had just happened. After minutes of trying to figure out what happened I gave up and I got on the horse and started to ride her into the front which I was supposed to be on right now. 2 hours have just passed and I have arrived at the battlefield. I was experiencing the same things. The same soldier gave me a rifle, the same commander assigned me to the same battalion… I was bewildered because everything was happening exactly the same until I got to the trench. I was a little bit late in arriving at the trench because of the accident I had. The battle had already been over. The smoke after the artillery attack was slowly dispersing. In the trench there were a lot of dead bodies. I saw a French Soldier lying right in front of me. When I flipped the soldier to see his face I was stunned. It was the face of the soldier which I had fought just hours ago…

 

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