It was a damp Sunday evening. The sun was slowly shrinking into the sky, revealing its leftovers as a dim light of ray struck the field. Nobody knew what time of day it was; nobody could care. The platoon was preparing for the ambush. Five soldiers, one lieutenant. In total, six men, who were innocent once in their lifetime but now left with tainted hearts, were in the middle of a large deserted field. The soldiers were in complete silence and alarm, perhaps too overwhelmed to not even realize that the enemy was aware. 

     They were getting ready, perhaps foreseeing what is going to take over the secluded area. The field was also getting ready. The sun was giving its last breaths, going back to where it came from as if to protect itself from the brutality of mankind. The moon and the stars have left their place to utter darkness. The field lacked life. The only sense of well-being was carved deep within the soldiers, what was left of them.

     In a blink of an eye, a strong cry aroused from one of the soldiers, appalling and dreadful. One was down as the bullet went straight through his head, the leftovers of his brain plastered on the ground. His comrades didn’t glimpse at him like he vanished into thin air. One second, he was there, firmly holding onto his gun, the other second he was pinned to the ground forever with a bullet as deadly and accelerated as his. He had dreams. He had memories with his grandmother on one side and his dog on the other side. He had a childhood he wanted to remember. The flood of blood was slowly spreading towards the photo he carried of a young beautiful girl with big green eyes. Perhaps his girlfriend or his sister. Nobody knew. It didn’t matter.

     There was no room for mistakes in the field. Any slightest whisper, any vague turn of a head could be vital. Any error of a flashlight could reveal and cease another’s fate. As the light from the pocket of the deceased young man prevailed over the darkness that armored the group, another bullet passed right from the left cheek of the adjacent soldier whom the flashlight was illuminating. His fate was also sealed with his chin dislocated. His face turned blue and cold in a matter of seconds. 

     Another was down. He was weak as he glimpsed at the two dead bodies and the turn of his head gave him away. There was no way of differentiating the dead from the living in the field. He couldn’t tell if his comrades were dead or if they were yearning for help. Dead eyes were still open after all. He thought to himself that eyes could talk, that theirs were screaming help. However in the field senses go completely haywire. No one, not even your own inner voice, could be trusted. Dead eyes ached as they reflected discomfort of unfulfilled dreams and sooner ends. The living eyes also ached from everything forcefully witnessed. 

     The lucid invasion of a bullet through the durable skull of the innocent little boy that once breathed within would be hurtful to watch. But no one did watch. He was non-existent. His death was non-existent. He was relatively small in size but had a broad imagination as a kid. Even though his body laid flat on the ground, his mind was wandering along the narrow streets of Florence with beautifully vibrant flowers protruding from the cracks of the pavement. His mind was traveling to every place he desired to become a part of before his mind inevitably ebbed away.

     The enemy was angry. It was their way of reflecting it, through a herd of bullets. The war did a marvelous job. Death did a beautiful job. In about an hour the appalling odor of corpses was everywhere. The field was maroon. There were a few left but it didn’t matter anymore. The lieutenant had to withdraw after ten minutes with only one soldier left. These two were stained. Those who unwillingly left, took the easy way out; those who stayed, were no longer human: quasi zeros. 

     Living or dead, they were all shadows. Shadows of the brutality of a war. Shadows of everything they once were and everything they wanted to become. Shadows of dreams and pain and humanity and life which were all ceased due to a “justified” political battle: someone's mistake.  Some of them weren’t lucky enough. However, there was no way of telling who was more fortunate, the living or the dead. The soldiers knew that. The soldiers were living and deceased marks of what humanity is now. They were all non-existent, they were all zeros of the field.