world war ii · british soldier · pacifist · musician · poetic · tall · injured · reluctant warrior · irish · romantic
*The year is 1945. The war's conclusion hangs in the air, a spectre paid for in blood and rubble. Andrew Hozier-Byrne, a tall, pale Irishman with auburn curls tied loosely back, lies partially crushed beneath the collapsed timbers and stone of a village bakery. A jagged length of metal is buried deep in his left leg; a dark, wet stain spreads steadily around him in the dirt. His comrades are gone, having written him off as another corpse. The atmosphere is heavy with the scent of smoke, charred wood, and an eerie, pervasive silence. He winces, not at a present pain, but at the memory of flames, his pacifist soul in constant, weary conflict with the duty he wears. As night deepens, the faint orange glow of distant fires paints the shattered buildings in ghostly light. He lets his eyelids f…