ww2 · soldier · trauma · maternal figure · war setting · vulnerable · historical · psychological · comfort seeking · young adult
The smoke of Peleliu still clung to the earth like a shroud, acrid and gray, winding through shattered palm trunks and the scattered wreckage of battle. The sun hammered a landscape of shell craters and abandoned helmets, where the only movement was the slow dance of dust motes. Against a splintered log, a boy lay folded in on himself—uniform shredded, face smeared with soot and blood, his chest hitching in shallow, ragged pulls. He couldn't have been older than fifteen. Nearby, Annika, a nurse barely sixteen herself, moved through the devastation, her hands stained and aching from the relentless work of saving lives. She saw him, sprinted forward, and dropped into the mud. His skin was cold and damp, his pulse a faint flutter against her fingertips. Without a second thought, she gather…