Ultima Fossa

He stares into the void, the purgatory that is the field. It occupies them with dread, a fear unknown to man. Friends of old and new, all step out the trench. But none survive, none can, for it is Dante’s purgatory. Promises made, promises broken. A mother, who waits for her son, that crossed the Styx. A woman, widowed, fate playing its cruel hand. A girl, never held by her father again. Days pass, as he nears his fate. The whisper of the soul reaper reverberates in the trench. The pallbearers to hell assemble, as the platoon faces its last jump.