Unblinking eyes of a wrinkled man stared at him: raw, pained, exposed, stripped void. Bareness was the only presence; everything else had been taken.

People did this. Bruno gawked at the declaration. Other humans caused this. Humans just like him. Just like me. My people did this. They destroyed him. I destroyed him.

The man shouldn't look be this thin, this tattered, this torn beyond human capabilities to mend—but he was. But. There was always a but. There was always another Jewish corpse. There was always another unlawful punishment, unwarranted human sacrifice to suffice for the crime committed by breathing, by living, by being a Jew.

"Stand," he told the man, voice measured, low.

I could be killed for this.

"Follow me."

Someone could have their gun barrel aimed at me right now. I could be a target. I could die in three seconds. Two. One.

No shots were fired. The man hauled himself along. He didn't look scared anymore. He was wiped of the element of fear ages ago. But not wiped; wiping purifies. He was wiped of something that doesn't cleanse, something that kills. He could die—but like every german soldier, every jew is replaceable. Brutus wished he could give something back to him. Anything. His life. Yet at least that.

Brutus had a feeling the man had lost a lot more than his life in three seconds.

Dear father, the letter began—and ended. What else was she to say? What else could she say? She couldn't tell him of her life now; war ruined that. Or so she wished.

You ruined it, she admitted. You and your insanity.

That was the truth. The piercing truth, the bleeding truth, the guilty truth—guilty. Illegally crazy, insane, unjustifiably inexplicable. Why was this happening to her? Why was she the only one fighting two wars at once? Why was one of them with herself? Why was that the only one that seemed to enclose anything of relevance?

Thoughts propelled into her like bullets. They were dark. They were overwhelming. They were unstoppable. They left holes. Would they ever graduate to scars?

No. No, not again. Not this. You are not going to give this any more time than it overtakes. Think of something different. Write your letter.

She picked up the pen.

Dear father,

I love you. I love you so much.

She wrote it because it was the only fact left; he was the thing sturdy enough to grip onto. He was concrete, unbreakable. She should tell him, let the honesty ease her as much as his response would—but she couldn't. Not now, not yet. Maybe not ever. He was concrete. He was hers. She didn't want to break him with her pulsing weight. Even if that proved impossible.

"He's yours, Bruno."

They declare it with pride, each syllable stressed with congratulations, as if the man being transferred to him is a prize in some sort of unannounced game.

War, they termed it. The game is called war.

He'd been trying to believe it, to coalesce the two separate items into one—yet they weren't, he knew; they never would be. Pawns were never meant to be people, fluttering about here and there in pursuit of a goal not even theirs to begin with. One person, rules or not, was not supposed to navigate the entire board, control it, brainwash it, assigning roles, deciding who gets to be the rich and who gets to be the rug under their feet—mashed, tattered, fading into nonexistence.

But who was he to talk? He was the German in the uniform.

The fellow shoulders nod at him, awaiting his predefined actions, his hateful squint, his gun. Surely, every move was already scripted for him, this whole scene, these lines, this man...

I'm supposed to kill him.

It whispers its way through his mind like a curse, a secret, but it isn't one; it's not revealing. He's already known it for months. It has been hammered into his skull, engraved into his skin, massaged into his uniform until it rubbed him raw—but no. That was never important. He could have known it forever, yet he’d have known nothing impactful. Because no matter what they did, they couldn't fuse it into him.

"Go on," he dismissed the onlookers, regretting his voice's break between syllables. "I have something planned." He rumbled a deep, emotionless laugh: fake. "Something private."

It was true. Maybe they'd believe him.

Darkness.

The only thing visible: the absence of light. It engulfed her, overtook her, the one voice screaming in the trench jammed with a regimen upwards of 3,000 men and women. 3,000 men and women still making her feel alone.

You can do it now, her mind rumbled. You can kill everyone, Elizabeth. One shot will do it—bam. They startle. They kill. You watch. Easy. Simple. Child's play. Pull a trigger.

She stuttered out a breath—I'm too loud—and looked away from herself, from her hands as they trembled to the floor, settled on a dead man's body, and stripped him of his weapon. Salt water polluted her cheeks. She gulped, her breathing shallow, hollow, and indecisive as if contemplating whether transmitting air in and out from her lungs would truly have positive effects on her body. Numb fingertips quivered against the bitter chill of metal, of a trigger.

She didn’t pull it.

She bent back down. She restored the gun to its rightful position. She tried to eradicate her sobs.

You didn't do it. At least that was the truth. You're okay. You didn't do it. It's just a thought. A thought of many thoughts. Thoughts you can't control. Just a thought.

But was it really? Or was she simply insane? She didn't know.

"March!" cued the general.

She blinked back to the trench, obliging.

Left, right, left. March, march, march.

That was what she was supposed to be doing, what she was supposed to be thinking.

The wind brushes my cheek

Like your hand should.

The bitter cold

Against my skin,

Reminding me

Of how warm you once were.

But right now

There is only the cold.

The backstabbing cold.

The crippling cold.

The cold.

Cold.

Cold like you were to me.

Cold like the feeling of emptiness

After you left.

You left.

Left.

Left like the wind

Left my lungs

When you left.

The wind brushes against my cheek

Like your hand should.

Against my skin

Reminding me

Of how warm you once were.