22588

“GAS!”

I still hear it in my dreams:

The panicked faces and shaking hands as shells whistle past and explode into the earth. The screams from the unlucky ones who breathe in a lungful of the stuff.

A fellow rolls on the ground, gasping, his eyes squeezed tight and water flooding from them.

Through fogging eye glasses and explosion flashes I fumble to pick him up and get him back to the doc, but he’s crazy, and pulls out of my grip. He has a bad dose: the blisters are rising on his face already. The skin on my hands itch.

“Kill me!” he begs, as he staggers, blind, towards the shelling.

Whizzt.

Blood splatters my face.

He falls backwards, a hole in his forehead.

His eyes stream tears, but his expression is kind of peaceful.

I wake up, sweating, and I’m glad to be in Arkansas, in this prison. Anywhere but those bloody fields in France.

Match the story (and the number) to the face at Mirrors.

%d bloggers like this: