Mechelen, European Federation – October 2035

  Despite it being just past noon, the bar already has a handful of patrons. Most keep to themselves—nursing their drinks, scrolling through their phones, or simply staring into the amber depths of their glasses. The atmosphere is subdued, the quiet hum of conversation occasionally punctuated by the clink of glass against wood.

  Dierick Hauwaerts' expression shifts from blank indifference to a broad grin as he spots me entering. With his imposing frame—6'1" and a solid 100 kilos of muscle—he looks every bit the rugby linebacker he might have been, if not for the prosthetic leg.

  He leans back, exhaling slowly before speaking.

  "There was no one left, really—just the military and a handful of engineers keeping the infrastructure running. When half of the Netherlands got nuked, flooded, or both, anyone not deemed essential was evacuated to France. We knew it was only a matter of time before the crabs broke south of the Maas. And when that happened, the general order to evacuate the northwestern Rhine was inevitable. No matter how many troops we threw at them, we couldn’t hold back the endless waves."

  His fingers drum idly against the table, voice edged with bitterness.

  "What made it worse was how fast they adapted, while all we did was pile more men into the grinder. I lost my leg five months into the war near K?ln. And for what? We abandoned the city anyway. Half a million men lost in that region alone, and people were furious. So was I. You don’t want to lose a limb for a battle that was already lost.".

  Up until that point—and for most of the war—there was only hopelessness. No talk of peace, no schemes to assassinate their leader, no chance of sparking a coup or revolution in their ranks. None of that mattered. They wouldn’t surrender. They weren’t even human. Just creatures that repurposed our dead—our bodies, our forests, every scrap of biomatter—to fuel their endless war machine.

  And there I was, ordered to Arlon to train another batch of young men to be fed into the grinder. They looked the part—fresh faces ranging from eighteen to thirty-two. Some had been called back from Spain and France when Europol started enforcing conscription across the continent. Others came straight from makeshift prisons, bruised and battered from beatings. Those were the ones who chose to fight instead of rot in a cell. Most didn’t. But when they arrived, we understood their motivation.

  It felt absurd. We were sending them to die, but first, we had to teach them the basics—how to make their beds, pitch a tent, clean their boots. Just discipline. Many of them didn’t get it. Why? they’d ask. The answer was simple: to instill teamwork, obedience, resilience. When they stumbled back from a long march at 3 a.m., hands raw from scrubbing their boots in the freezing cold, they began to understand.

  Every sergeant in the camp carried scars—physical or otherwise. The officers? Most were fresh. The ones who survived long enough on the battlefield got there through battlefield promotions. When everyone above you was dead, the command fell to whoever was left. That’s how a friend of mine went from corporal to company commander. Insanity.

  Dierick downs his beer and exhales.

  "Once the song and dance was done, we moved on to the real training. Basic lasted a month and a half—weapon qualifications, survival skills, rudimentary combat drills. Then, depending on their assignments, they were sent for specialized training. Engineers to engineering school, medics to medical training you get it. Ifantry stayed with us for an extra month"

  Infantry training was brutal. We focused almost entirely on defence—digging trenches, building fighting positions, handling heavy weapons, and manoeuvring as a unit. One week was dedicated to urban combat, but that was all. Then they were sent to die.

  They came from everywhere—farmers from the west, inner-city kids from Brussels and Antwerp, rich kids from Vlaams Brabant. The last group was always the hardest. Not because they lacked intelligence or ability, but because most had never faced real hardship.

  Back in peacetime, we had a mix of people in the military, but they were volunteers. They knew what they were signing up for. Now? Now we had fresh-faced kids whose biggest problems had been their parents’ divorce, bad grades, or their girlfriend going out on a Friday night without them. That was different. That was dangerous. We had suicides—fewer than the Ministry of Defense had predicted, but still too many. Nothing shattered morale like standing in line at the shooting range and watching the guy next to you suddenly turn his rifle upward and pull the trigger.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  A hundred thousand recruits in less than a year. No one was ready for that. We didn’t have the infrastructure. When military service was abolished in the ‘90s, the barracks were shut down, demolished, or left to rot. Now we had entire motor pools turned into makeshift camps—rows of tents crammed with recruits, thirty to a platoon. On a good day, each platoon had four cadre members to oversee them. One commander—be it a sergeant or a lieutenant—and a handful of sergeants and corporals too wounded to fight but still deemed fit to train others.

  The cadre lived like the recruits, sleeping in tents, fighting to secure rations, equipment, or even just enough ammunition for the firing range. When we had none— which was often—we improvised. We made them run drills with empty rifles, shouting bang bang like kids playing war. If you were assigned as a machine gunner, you better be quick to yell bang bang bang bang at the right pace, or we’d let you have it.

  It was ridiculous. But that was the war. And we were reminded of it every day.

  Bad news from the front. The endless formations of fighters and bombers roaring overhead. God help you if you were trying to sleep when the bombers from England passed through. We were unlucky enough to be right under their flight path. Like clockwork, 3 a.m., a dozen B-52s droning toward Germany. Every night. No one got used to it.

  Then there was the rationing. Some days we went without food because supplies had to be redirected to the front—which, mind you, was only five hours away. We took a few V-2 strikes. Mostly they hit the city, but every night, as I lay in my tent, I prayed one wouldn’t come down on a motor pool and wipe out my little guys. Fortunately it never happened

  Of course, with that many young recruits crammed together, there were problems. Fights, stealing—normal stuff. But we also had deserters, harassment cases, drugs, alcohol. And then there were the recruits who got caught sneaking off together—an empty storage room, the woods, anywhere they could. That was always funny. The punishment? A week of walking around camp with a condom knotted to their shoulder. It didn’t really discourage anyone, but it gave us a laugh.

  Sometimes, despite everything, it felt more like a twisted scout camp than a military base.

  No one wore the same uniform, if I may add. The new multicam gear, high-cut helmets, and plate carriers that were issued just before the war had long since run out. They were only given to a select few—mostly the infantry and paratroopers. The rest of us, depending on the unit, either wore the old woodland camouflage or even older 1980s Cold War-era gear. The more combat you saw, the better your equipment—at least, that was the theory.

  But by the time we got the surplus uniforms—American, Brazilian, and those cheap Asian ones made for UN troops halfway through the war—the entire camp had turned into a strange, open-air museum. It was like some twisted reenactment. Guys lined up, some wearing shiny 200€ multicam pants, while the guy behind him might have been wearing the same uniform his dad had worn decades ago.

  And the weapons? Same mess. No more sleek, high-end SCAR Ls. Everyone was stuck with FNCs—at least they all fired the same damn cartridge. But before the Standardization Act kicked in, which pushed nearly every country to produce Colt C7 rifles, we had some rear-echelon guys still rocking FN FALs.

  It was ironic, really—trying to force some kind of uniformity into their heads when the army itself couldn’t even stick to it. Even now, talking to a few of the guys I’d trained, it was clear: training had been the best part of their service. No matter how many push-ups the platoon had to do because some idiot forgot his fork and spoon at the mess hall, or how many grueling marches they endured, it was nothing compared to what came next.

  Going from that—basic training, at least—straight into the hellish trenches of Germany or southern Holland? Insanity. I heard the guys on the frontlines had a game going, betting on how long the fresh recruits would last before they started crying themselves to sleep. And trust me, despite the endless months of fighting, the weeks spent at the front before I lost my leg, I would’ve taken that over being a drill sergeant any day.

  He pauses, downs the beer, and orders another round along with a shot. Without a word, he takes the shot straight down.

  "A friend of mine," he continues, voice rough, "we used to joke about it. I lost my right leg, and he lost his left. We used to laugh and say some crab must’ve been walking around with both of our legs. That guy, he asked to be sent to the front line countless times. Each request shot down until finally, he went to the battalion commander and was told no. So he asked a recruit for his weapon. Said he wanted to inspect it. But he didn’t go back to the barracks. He just went out to the woods and shot his brains out. It was hell. Getting to know 20 or so kids for two months, training with them, teaching them the ropes… only to hear their entire company was wiped out when they finally saw action."

  He looks down, spinning his wedding ring around his finger, before continuing.

  "They had to start rotating the drill instructors. If they hadn’t, none of us would’ve made it. Not a single one."