In future America, a war erupted from the ashes of a dystopian, overruled and overthrown from a series of conflicts. The survivors of parliament called it “Jericho” due to the steep trenches left by the last civil war.

Whatever was left of the grass in cattle fields were hollowed, mutilated into thick, sprawling trenches where the battles were fought. Three boys nearing the age of sixteen, Hugo, Mitchell and Jordan sat around a campfire in one of the relatively small backwater trenches. Hugo, a younger boy, Jordan, a British immigrant, and Mitchell, the eldest of the three. They were all runners, the lowest of the low in military rank, and the lowest survival rate. A runner’s job consisted of collecting certain pieces of intel from cordons sprawled across the plains, and the only oaths were to never show your face, and to never, under any circumstances look at the intel to be delivered.

“Say gents, why are we fighting in a war that doesn’t even warrant a name?” Jordan started, abruptly cutting the silence short.

“Why doesn’t this war have a name?” Hugo asked in a shy, childlike voice.

“It’s because no word can describe what goes on, especially at the 60 klick mark. It’s no man’s land.” Mitchell replied gruffly, steering his stare to the campfire they sat around.

“God knows what happens there, I pity those runners on the western frontier”

Jordan picks up a metal ladle to stir the tea on the fire, the swirls of the scorched tea leaves, distracting him from his previous thoughts, and then a sudden sound of staccato shuffles in the mere distance stirred, reminding them that they weren’t alone in the hollowed cordon.

“C’mon lads, time to go.” An officer beckoned, his face still shrouded in the billowing darkness ahead. Mitchell’s head wilted down, knowing that they’ll need to embark in a journey against their will to the northern frontier, and without saying a word the party married together whatever gear they had managed to scrap from the last cordon they’ve been at about 50 klicks behind. Jordan geared up, wearing a thin vest made of tin as they wandered their way into the center of the emplacement. Hugo’s blue eyes widened when he saw the litter of dead infantry men, piled like rubble in the trenches. Flies, manure, even fungi were piled onto the corpses of fighting men. They wobbled, careful not to step on them and reached the entrance to the catacombs, an underground passage designed for runners to traverse in, and leaving the officer behind, they started running.

Eventually, they reached the 60 klick mark, no man’s land. The catacombs caved in with rubble and stone, the gangway in between was visible, but small, none of the boys could fit in it, but how they wished they could, because now they had to go back to the surface.

“Jordan, I’m hungry! I’m hungry!” Hugo started, whining from the bruises on his small feet and his empty stomach.

“Here, Hugo, take it, we don’t need it.” Jordan responds, handing Hugo a small, stale piece of sourdough from their bag, and Hugo eats it slowly, savoring every last crumb as they ascend to the surface. Outside, they saw a door, surrounded by a pool of amber light far away, which was a far cry from the desolate, gray battlefield. It was about half a soccer pitch away, and Mitchell alongside Hugo approached it. The cold splinters were getting to them, but as they approached the door, they paused their steps in unison, looking up and almost as if in a deep trance. It even reached Jordan, who was still in the tunnels far away. They suddenly fell face first into the snow as straight as a tie, but they still crawled, not complaining about the piercing ice. Jordan, overpowered by the burning light, yanked off his vest to take off any weight. In a mad trance Mitchell tore off his boots, his socks, even his shirt off his body, still ambling to the door that seemed to be swelling away ever so slightly. They saw something, painted in big, bright letters. “A One Way Road“, and Jordan, still in a slight trance, noticed something in the air that snapped him out.

“SATCHEL CHARGE!” Jordan howled with startling volume, and a large, deafening explosion covered the distance, consuming everything in its path and flung Jordan across to a concrete pavilion. Things started to disappear from Jordan’s vision: first a group of men fleeing the scene, then the rubble, then the burning body of Hugo, and soon, there was nothing.

Jordan flinched awake from the beep on his wrist alarm, his respirator had run out. This time he actually needed it, as fire and ash surrounded everything around him. Jordan’s eyes dropped to his feet, feeling a disfigured Hugo tugging at his shoes in anguish. His skin was charred to such an extent where he seemed to have turned into a piece of charcoal. Jordan’s eyes widened and all of the hairs on his body prickled up. Hugo was trying to say something to him.

“H…urts” Hugo repeated over and over, his voice mutilated and torn beyond recognition, and his jar that had his message rolled over, only now it was cracked, and there was nothing in it, no intel, not a single shard of paper. There wasn’t any intel. Bait. That’s what they were.

Jordan waited for him to say something else, anything, anything else, but nothing came, and soon Hugo’s head fell limp. Jordan immediately ripped off his respirator, gasping for air greedily after what he’d just seen and walked with a limp. He crawled and crawled, fighting for life, until he reached the red door, still covered in that same light, just now not burning as bright, and he reached for the handle, successfully pulling it open. He managed to drag himself in and quickly yanked the door close, and that was it. No one heard from the runners again.