War Is Hell

• Nathan Mifsud, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2009

Paris, France – 2015 – WWIII
The death and destruction that lay above the bunker frightened him. With only a tool of devastation, his M4 Carbine sub-machine gun, to protect me, James Franklin charged out. He bellowed my war cry, closed his eyes, and held down the trigger. He kept thinking to himself… Don’t stop running! Don’t stop running!
A French adversary, who was perched atop a small bakery, took aim at the sprinting soldier. His scope focused on the temple region of his head. Oblivious to his watcher, James kept on running, eyes still closed and finger still on the trigger. He opened my eyes a tiny bit to gain some direction, but debris from the Louvre floated into his right eye, stinging like hell. Cutting his depth perception in half, James stumbled, ultimately tripping. He hit the ground with a hard thump, passing out.
For a moment, everything went silent.
He could not hear the Americans dropping bombs on the French. He could not hear the French blowing the heads off Australia soldiers. He could not hear Australians throwing grenades at the Americans, but the one thing he did hear was the sound of a single sniper gunshot, fired from a bakery rooftop.
The cold, steel bullet pierced James’ body, entering through the lower left side of his back. The bullet surprisingly didn’t leave an exit would because it did not exit. The bullet was miraculously lodged in there, but didn’t cause any damage. His body went into shock. His pulse weakened, became clammy and began a cold sweat, but nevertheless, he tried to get up and run to cover, but as he did, James screamed in agony as his new internal body ‘bling’ began to move, pressing up against some very vital organs. Tears streamed down his face. It hurt, but I knew he had to keep going.
The sniper reloaded, and looked back into his sights to get a second shot off at James. The French marksman got an aim just as I was about to take cover behind a leg of the Eiffel Tower. James jumped for cover, but the shooter quickly popped off a round, and blew half of James’ left leg off.
James yelped as his he saw what was left of his calf muscle and looked a couple of metres to his left and vomited at the retched sight of his shreds of leg strewed across the battlefield. Tears now exploded out of his eyes. He knew that his end was near. Too much blood had been lost. Even if he did get help, it would be too late.
Then once again, came the sound of silence. Not a gunfire shot, not a bomb exploded, but complete silence. But the silence ended with a loud siren wailing in the distance. That siren meant only one thing: Nuclear War!
James put his head down and laughed. Now, it was too late for everybody.
He would not be alone.