Dust

He could feel the grit of the dust in his teeth as he braced against the recoil of his fully automatic rifle. The storm was getting worse now; visibility was dropping by the minute; the blowing sand stung his face, and created dark opaque circles on the rims of his goggles. As he unloaded the magazine blindly into the fading daylight, his mind wandered away from the conflict and began to wonder how this had all started. It was earlier that year that he had joined, but the last thing he had expected to fight was... “Click! Click! Click!” His mind snapped back into the fray as he heard the shrill sound of an empty magazine. He looked down at his belt for more ammo, only to find it barren. Out of hope, he threw himself down against what remained of a derelict jeep. He clutched his hand, numb from the vibration of the rifle, into a fist, filling his palm with warm sand… and something else. He sifted the sand that lay in his open palm to find a single, unused shell. He pressed the rifle against his chest, pulled back the loading bolt, and quickly but smoothly slid the golden shell into the chamber. Filled with a new confidence, he rose once again to face the omniscient enemy which harassed him. He looked out into the dark red maelstrom which had conjured itself around him, and saw nothing but the blowing sand…
A shot rang out, and he turned to see a dark silhouette pressed against the desolate auburn landscape. He sluggishly raised his rifle, which felt heavy and awkward in his hands, pulled the trigger, and felt the recoil run through his body as he fell to the ground. As he fell, he looked where the silhouette, now lying motionless upon the barren sod, once stood so defiantly. A wave of triumph lasted for only a second, then, it was overcome by an indomitable feeling of bitterness as his glove brushed across a hole in his jacket. He could already feel the warm blood seeping through his glove; then, a shortness of breath, and finally…no feeling at all…