His unshaven face rested in a pool of cold, sticky mud. His weary finger, roughened with the rigorous work he faced, rested on the black, cool trigger of the rifle he was holding. He stared through the scratched lense, peering through the crosshairs to search for his target. And it was right in front of him. An unremarkable man. Short in stature, with a moustache yet no beard. A German outfit on, like all the opposition had. A pistol in its holster - nowhere near enough to reach by the time his shot had been fired.
So he shot.
The bullet flared up, its muzzle flash following its journey out of the barrel of the gun. A small boom rippled from in front of the bullet. It made it go ultrasonic. The bullet hit it's mark. Within a millisecond, the man had dropped down. Red blood blossomed on the front of his uniform, draining him of his lifeblood, pooling in a puddle of crimson liquid. His last dying thought was, "Who the hell was that?!" Then dead. Just like that.
The marksman didn't see that, of course. He could hardly see across No-Man's Land. He was removed from the scene. He didn't want to see what chaos he had created. All he had was a job. All he had to do was complete it. He just didn't want to think of who he had killed. Their life. Their family. Their children. Their whole existence. Gone in the blink of an eye.
He didn't want to see what would happen after. The shock on everyone's faces. The corpse carried to safety and given a proper burial. With flowers. A corpse with better living conditions than the living. Or worse, the corpse would have no funeral but just stay there. On the barbed fence. Hanging. Drifting in the breeze.
He shouldn't have thought of that.
He mustn't. He knew what would happen if the same happened to him. How his family would react. His parents who've somehow managed to stay alive. His children. His wife, still pregnant with their child. He hoped it would be a boy. His wife obviously thought the opposite. HIs friends who hadn't bentered this war. Even the in-laws - the most bitter people in the world - would be missed by him.
A gasp. He's realised what he's done.
He shouldn't have killed that man. He thought he was humane. Someone who loved human beings. Someone who cared
He was wrong.
So as he gazed into the battlefield, he wondered how he could escape.
He can't
Death is the only option.
Always.
Firing Squad or war, it's going to happen.