**AN: WW1 is my favorite war. This came from my love of learning about it; from the fact that I'm afraid it's overlooked compared to World War Two and the Holocaust; and was inspired from the anti-war WW1 classic I'm reading in my english class, "All Quiet on the Western Front" which I highly recommend! I tried to make this accurate, too (the rats, the lice, the frogs; etc.) IMAGE MADE BY ME!**

Ludwig Beilshmidt is the perfect soldier in the trenches. He's stern, and cold, and he never ever lets his feelings show. Even when he's crouching in the muck, he tries to sit straight. Even when the other men complain about the dirty water, the rats the size of cats that sometimes come out to eat the dead, and all the lice...he's able to stay silent.

At night, Ludwig listens to the faint rumble of bombs overhead. He knows he could die any day now, and never see his brother or his grandfather again--it'd be scarily easy for his life to end. Gilbert, by the way, is on leave to visit what was left of their house, of Opa their grandfather, in rural Germany. Ludwig will admit he misses him, even though he's pretty obnoxious...and stupidly brave. Besides, he knows he's grateful for the relief.

With the bombs, the awful shells, going off right above him, Ludwig knows the frogs--the French, not the actual frogs that have invaded his trench--are dying. It makes him feel kind of sick, and good at the same time.

He rolls over in his bed, smelling earth, and unfolds two photographs. They're torn and faded, messed up with coffee rings from their rations. He clutches them desperately to his chest--one is of his family, him and Gilbert in their uniforms, standing proudly on either side of their grandfather. The other is of his crush as a child, the only one he ever loved like that: a small girl dressed in a thick wool dress, with warm eyes and soft brown curls... He hasn't seen her since this picture was taken many years ago...

Ludwig's fingers tremble as he holds them closer to his chest. He loves her.

And by now, he knows he'll die loving her.