all my feels.

I know exactly what to do when the Major yells, and for a brief moment I hesitate, but it’s too late to waver now. I mount Joey and feel all the muscles in his spine, shoulders, and hind quarters tighten, flexing in anxiousness I would only assume.  I feel his weight shift as he paws the ground, and I take a breath in, was it bad that I was excited? Excited to see if I— we were to make it. For England, for me. For Joey. For all of us.

The Major tells use to draw our swords, to walk, and we walk. I can feel Joey is just as anxious and excited as I am. Though I’m not sure if the excited feeling is from adrenaline or from pressure to be so. 

I oblige to the feeling and a smile plays at the corner of my mouth, for a split second. It’s as if Joey saw me almost smile, because he has relaxed immensely. It was probably because I relaxed into the saddle.

Once we are out of the wheat field, a feeling of fear drops down on me, but very briefly. I return to my straight face as Joey canters forth, after a minute, the battle cry escapes my lips, “CHARGE!!” I scream, it burns my thick throat, and every other soldier screams the same thing, pointing their swords forward and shouting various things, some just yelling for the hell of it, others seeming to try to make themselves focus on other things than battle.

We reach the camp, and I immediately swing my sword back, catching one of the German’s throats, then again, and so forth. I see some of the German’s fleeing to the forest, and I know that something is out there that they need. Then it hits me, machine guns. They didn’t know we were coming, but they were prepared for us. I hear the shooting, see some of our men and horses drop down, some dead, some trying to crawl out of the way of gunfire, but getting trampled or shot again. 

I look to the forest, scanning the ground. There he is.

Fear strikes me in the chest, rising up to my face, where I frown deeply.

Fear. Fear is dangerous, fear is deadly. At first I think of Joey, then myself. I wanted to survive this. I wanted to make it through. But I knew now, that wasn’t going to happen, I was going to die.

At first the bullets hit me in the chest, sending shock through my whole body, I drop the reins and my sword, falling sideways and hitting my head on the ground. I lay there, watching the sky, the clouds. I scream, which no one hears or cares, and I sob. I lay there for a second, alive, hacking up blood, horses jumping over me, I was unable to move. I’m dying, right here. Now. I scream weakly, my voice hoarse. “Good luck, Joey..” I whisper before slipping into unconsciousness, the darkness swallowing me.