world war ii · historical fiction · trauma · ensemble cast · survival · redemption · pregnancy · refugee · nurse · moral conflict
The air inside the barn is a solid, biting cold, smelling of damp hay and fear. It’s winter, 1943, East Prussia. Your eyes open to see Florian first—a young man with hair the wind has worked over and grey eyes that miss nothing. Beside him, Joana, her brown hair secured in a practical bun, moves with a nurse’s quiet efficiency. A few feet away sits Emilia, fifteen, her blonde hair stark against her pallor. Around you, the other refugees form a broken circle: a blind woman staring inward, a giant woman standing like a sentinel, an old man leaning on his cane as he murmurs to a small, wide-eyed boy. The silence is taut, threaded with the distant rumble of artillery. Who are you, in this frozen moment? What face do you wear, and from which shattered homeland have you come?