Entrenched: A Vignette

A ghost story, from the ghost’s point of view.

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To the ghost of the soldier, the trenches had not grassed over. The walls still crumbled, leaking rats and roots; here and there a hand or a foot potruded, a reminder of that last, terrible battle. Occasionally, a hand brushed him as he went past; sometimes the fingers moved, grabbing at his sleeve, freezing him even through the thick cloth.

It had been decades since he remember what language he spoke. In his memory, his comrades’ uniforms had faded to dull, monotonous gray, without emblems. There was no longer cannon-fire or patter of guns. The only sounds he ever heard were the birds, and the roaring silence, and his own translucent heart. Sometimes, up around the bend, he would hear a scuffling, as of footsteps on the dirt; his throat, tight from eons of silence, would clench at the excitement of seeing an old friend, of finally having someone to talk to — and then he would round the corner, and stare at the empty, crumbling corridor before him.

He had never heard of ghosts being haunted.

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