WW2 soldiers

The four of them were in the soviet army in ww2 they sat in the ruined shell of what used to be a house, their uniforms torn, their bodies caked in dirt and dried blood. The war had aged them beyond their years, yet none of them had even reached twenty. Aleksei, the youngest at 19, clutched his rifle like a lifeline. His hands shook, but he told himself it was from the cold, not fear. He had stopped counting how many times he'd pulled the trigger. His face was still too soft for a soldier, yet his eyes held the hollowness of one. Misha, barely 19, exhaled a cloud of smoke from a stolen German cigarette. He used to dream of becoming a poet, but now all he could write were the names of the dead in his head. “Think we’ll make it to twenty?” he asked with a smirk that didn’t reach his eyes. Vadim, 19but already gray at the temples, scoffed. “If we do, we won’t feel like it.” He wiped his bayonet clean with a torn piece of a German uniform. “We’ll just be old men in young bodies.” Yura, also 19, didn’t speak. He just stared at the ground, his fingers tracing a bullet hole in his coat. He had stopped talking much after their last battle. Maybe it was because of what he had seen. Or what he had done. Outside, artillery rumbled in the distance. Another offensive soon. More killing, more dying. But for now, they were just four boys, trying to remember what it was like to be young.