this was written in the school year of my 10th grade year
The boat glided through the water towards the distant beach. The man’s knuckles looked white from how hard he gripped his machine gun. The boat tumbled over the waves along with hundreds of others of boats aimed for the beach. Gunfire ripped through the air. Sweat ran down the man’s face, although it did not feel hot outside at all. The wind whipped at the man's face and caused waves to rock the boat back and forth.
The man looked up from the waves to the other thirty people packed into the boat. All of them moved around, restless. The man fidgeted with his helmet, he readjusted it when he didn’t need to. Gunfire cracked through the air yet again, the man shifted where he stood. A man next to him tried to stop his own hands from shaking. Another person who stood right next to him looked as if he would throw up any second. But no one, not a single person said a word. They devoted their full attention to the slowly nearing beach.
Overhead, a squadron of planes shot past, they left a trail of falling bombs in their wake. The man watched them absentmindedly as they drifted down the sky and exploded, one after another with a faraway rumble.
The heavy breath of the soldiers, the waves crashing against the boat, and the nonstop gunfire consisted of all the man heard. The smell of sweat devoured his nostrils, most of it emitted off the other soldiers in the boat.
The boat neared the shore. Metal spikes shot up at different angles, made to stop the boats from landing on the shore. No other allies had reached the shore yet, but some neared closer the beach. The sound of gunfire multiplied as both the allied forces and the Germans shot frantically at the other. The man’s nerves only worsened. He sweat even worse, and he tapped his toes nervously. The wait to get to the shore seemed to take hours at some points but sped by at others.
The man could feel the absolute terror and adrenaline emitted from the other soldiers. People's breaths quickened and their grips on their rifles tightened, like a snake squeezing the life out of its prey.
They distanced about 200 meters from the shore when fire sprayed the surrounding water. Bullets pierced the water and threw it into the air. The rapid whishing of the bullets and the splashes of the water resonated out through the air. The entire mood of the boat shifted to even more uneasiness. People roamed the very little space they could afford. Some ducked to protect themselves from the bullets, but to their fortune the bullets missed the boat entirely. Everyone stared, transfixed on the telescopic beach.
Only 100 meters away when the pace at which the bullets assaulted the water quickened. The man felt a brick sink in his stomach.
When they reached 50 meters, the man couldn’t take it anymore. The bomb shells exploded so frequently that he felt sure his ears would burst. The bullets whizzed past, and the man kept his head down to avoid any gunfire. In the distance, warships blasted off with massive booms as they bombarded the shoreline. The man could feel sweat welling in his tightly gripped hands, he hastily wiped them on his dark green uniform. The boat's passengers all looked wide eyed and distant, but some seemed ready for the battle. They had their guns locked and loaded and looked ready to spring their arms up and start firing at any moment. The man imitated them; he did not want to die.
When they reached 25 meters, the two gunners in the back started firing their 30. Caliber machine guns into the bunkers up on the hills. The man’s head rattled along with the battery of gunfire.
The cloudy sky made it hard for the bombers to hit on target. Many of the shells dropped too close to the shoreline for the man's comfort. The shells shattered into the ground forming a fiery ball of debris and flames. Bullet fire hit the sand and spit up dust into the already densely foggy air.
The first of the allies reached as far as they could go because of the spikes. The man watched the other men clamber out of their boats and into the water.
He saw the bullets drill into the water and the men.
He saw the water turn red.
The man's heart beat faster than it had ever in his life. He didn’t know if he could do it; he watched in terror as the germans fired upon the boats all around him, blood spraying toward the air as the soldiers died one after another.
They neared the spikes, a murmuring spread from the boat and the men looked more removed than ever. Bullets zoomed past their heads and reminded them to always keep their heads down.
The boat got closer and closer, until finally, they had reached as far as they could go. The ramp lowered and immediately the soldiers bustled out of the boat. The man clambered out as if his life depended on it. He had done nothing with as much effort as this moment.
A horror he would never forget met him as he left the boat.
Blood and death, it surrounded everyone. He waded into the shoulder height water and frantically swam forward; the bullets zooming by, thousands of them. He saw a man to his left get shot and fall into the water, red overtook the spot where he fell. Soldiers ran all across the beach, hundreds sprinted as fast as possible up to the distant bunkers. But it seemed as if all of them would die, the bullets rained down in torrents; they lacerated soldier after soldier after soldier. All around him people dropped into the water.
Without notice, his vision went an ultrabright white, the blast threw him deep into the water, and his ears rang a deafening tune. He took short raspy breaths, but submerged under the water it rapidly filled his lungs, and he scrambled back up to the air. He took a long desperate gasp of breath when he emerged from the water. His ears ached with pain, and he couldn’t hear anything. He coughed up the water and out of his blurred vision he saw fire everywhere. Fiery shapes moved on the beach; people. The water unclogged from his ears and he heard the absolute pain and horror that unfolded in front of him. Screams of pain, bullets, explosions, people crying for their mothers. He couldn’t take it, the horrors, the death, the pain.
He swam through the warm, blood red water; he did so as fast as he could, but his equipment weighed him down, his uniform soaked, it felt ten times heavier than usual. He swam hurriedly past the sinking bodies. He saw soldiers in front of him get ripped up with bullets and he ducked down into the water once more.
He reached shallower water and crawled through it, along with hundreds of other soldiers. Past the bloody corpses and lost limbs. He crawled on his stomach up the water into the pure red coastline. The dead bodies bled, and the blood polluted into the coastline, making it a deep, horrible, red.
He had not fired his weapon once, but what would he aim it at? The bunkers stood too far away and too well fortified. But at that moment, logic did not matter, he thought only of life and death. He pulled the trigger of his machine gun and added his own gunfire to the never ending din of sounds. The gun rattled and pumped against his shoulder as he shot bullet after bullet at the bunkers. But it seemed to have no effect, the bullets still hailed down on them just as heavily.
He got to land at last; he scampered out of the blood ocean and onto the blood sand. He crawled past the mangled corpses, bloody and destroyed. Past the moaning soldiers, many of which lost their arms, hands, legs, or fingers.
He saw a man who he had once talked to get blown apart in another shower of fire and debris. The soldiers on the beach looked absolutely petrified, the bombardment of bullets and bombs created craters in the beach. Half of the boats either flipped over sideways with the waves or consumed themselves in a fiery explosion.
He crawled to the best cover he could find, a spike. He went over to it and lay there while the battle crushed his soul. He could not believe what happened around him, the death, the horror, the pain. And yet, he saw many men get up and run. They goaded the other soldiers to do the same; they ran up the land firing like madmen at the bunkers.
The bunkers streamed bullets in all directions, and the allied bombers tore up the hilly landscape above the beach. Some bunkers exploded and more collapsed as the bombers unleashed wave after wave of thunderous bombings on them. Pride like never before swelled at seeing the enemy bunkers blown into a million pieces. But the horror the man felt overwhelmed anything else .
The smell of blood, fire, and gunpowder tortured the man. It singed his nose with its ever-increasing intensity. His soaked body crouched behind the spike, but he would not lay there like a coward. Not as the Germans killed his brothers on this battlefield. But cowardly fear held him back, the internal battle inside him raged, it took all the energy in his body to push himself up. All of the will in his mind devoted itself to sprinting past the agonizing soldiers and the bloody beach. He sprinted, he pumped his legs faster than ever. Faster, faster, faster! He did not feel the fatigue of running. The adrenaline coursed through his veins like a drug. It goaded him on; it made him look at the Germans and instead see a monster. A monster that he had to kill.
He bolted past the beach; he ran with his comrades, with his brothers. They jeered and called insults at the Germans as they left the injured back on the beach. All the while they thrust thousands of rounds at the German bunkers.
The bullets stormed down, creating a curtain of fire. They hit the soldier to his left, another to his left, and three soldiers in front of him fell. A shell exploded ten meters ahead of him. It blew soldiers apart as a piece of shrapnel dug itself into his skin. And the brash ringing in his ears began again.
The bullets did not stop, but neither did he. He ran faster than he had ever run; he ignored the weight of his equipment; he ignored the burden of his gun. He kept his feet moving and his finger pulling the trigger.
But his feelings stopped as his gun stopped firing, for a tiny second he wondered if something had broken. But he realized he had used up all of his ammo.
At that second, the fear slapped him harder than ever before; he stood closer to the enemy lines now. He crouched there, an easy target and he couldn't fight back. He panicked and dropped to the ground while he fumbled with his ammo cartridge.
It took a thousand years to reload his gun; he crouched there, heart beating against his chest, bullets flying down on the soldiers, who dropped like flies.
The blood flooded down the hill, but they had come so far, they could not stop now. He finally jammed the ammo cartridge into his gun and scrambled back onto his feet. He began his frenzy of running and shooting again.
He got ten feet before what felt like a pebble hit him. His entire body shook, and he launched to the ground. The place where the pebble hit worsened and worsened in pain, until it became agonizing. He looked at his stomach, deep red blood poured from it. His face lost all of its color and his hands trembled.
The pain felt horrible; it worsened and worsened as he lay there on the ground. Soldiers ran past him, he tried to stop the bleeding with his hands but it did not cease at all. He lay there faint-hearted, clutching his bloody hands to his stomach.
But he couldn’t just lay there, he had to move. He moved his hands from his stomach and pushed up from the ground as hard as possible, but he couldn’t move without his body searing with pain. He grunted and his heavy breathing quickened. He twisted his body to get up, and the pain became unbearable. He pushed with all his might and then stood shakily, swaying on his feet.
The bullets whipped through the air past him still, and he cowered from them. What could he do? Where could he go to get help? All around him people died. Would he become just like them? Would he die like them on this battlefield?
Hopelessness filled him. If he could just get back to the beach. He walked as fast as he could in the opposite direction of everyone. But despite his attempt to move fast, he walked very slowly, stumbling and swaying. With each step, pain stabbed his stomach. All the while blood dripped down his front and into his hands. He then realized he didn’t have his gun anymore. Stupid! He thought to himself; he had been shot because he reloaded his gun, but now he didn’t have it anymore!
He stumbled around; the world seemed to not make sense, the pain in his body ached horribly. The man couldn’t do it anymore, he felt too tired and in too much pain. He had to sit down. The edges of his vision blurred. The pain surged harder than ever. A drowsy tiredness overtook him as he sat there.
He looked at the surrounding scene, at the people running for their lives, ramming rounds of bullets at the enemy, the blood that covered the entire beach, the fire that steadily burnt the bodies and patches of grass. He would die in this place. The thought donned on him. He repeated it again and again.
But he didn’t want to die. He had so much to live for, so much to do. But the pain tormented him too much, the blood covered his entire torso and his legs. He couldn’t feel his fingers anymore. His vision blurred more, and he grunted in pain.
Only a dead man could think the thoughts that ran through his head. The desperation of his thoughts increased more and more as he felt less and less of his body.
His vision tunneled and his breath sounded raspier than ever.
He didn’t want to die there, but despite it, he could not stop the blood that flowed freely from his body. He slowly experienced less and less, until in the end, he experienced nothing anymore.
