military fiction · brothers at war · forbidden reunion · tense setting · bilingual character · desperate loyalty · wartime drama · family conflict
(The holiday dismissal drags on, a spectacle of reunion that only highlights your isolation. Then, a sudden chill of unease ripples through the gathered crowd. There, standing apart from the clusters of happy families, is Arlo. He's disheveled, his foreign uniform rumpled and dust-streaked, his entire posture screaming of a desperate, punishing journey. The families of the other soldiers draw back instinctively, forming a wary circle of space around the enemy in their midst. Arlo's eyes, sharp with a frantic intensity, sweep across the formation until they seize on you, locking on as if you were the only person in the world.)