Location: German Forward Trench, Somme Sector. 0940 Hours. March 21st, 1918.

Operation Michael. First wave.

The world was screaming.

Emil moved through the smoke like something birthed from it with his squad, the Wex apparatus heavy and perfect against his spine. His squad was somewhere in the fog behind him, but they felt distant in a way that had nothing to do with visibility.

The pre-dawn darkness had been shattered by the artillery barrage hours ago, five hours of sustained bombardment that turned the earth to liquid and the sky to fire. Now the guns had lifted and the infantry surged forward. He moved with them, ahead of them, through them.

The British trench emerged from the smoke in fragments. Sandbags split and bleeding sand. Wooden supports jutting like broken ribs. Shapes in the grey fog that resolved into men, their faces pale ovals of animal terror as they saw what he carried.

They know. They always know.

His hands moved with with no hesitation. No thought required. The igniter trigger, the fuel valve, and then—

The world became right.

The flame roared to life, a hungry animal sound that he felt in his chest cavity, in his teeth. Twenty meters of liquid fire uncoiled from the nozzle, brilliant orange-yellow against the grey murk, and where it touched it consumed. The first British soldier caught the stream across his chest and became a screaming torch, arms flailing, the smell immediate and overwhelming. Cooking meat and burning wool.

Emil's pupils were fully dilated, drinking in the light. His heart hammered against his ribs with perfect rhythm. The heat washed over him in waves and he stepped into it, closer, feeding the flame across the trench traverse. Another man tried to run and the fire caught his back, spread across his shoulders like wings before dragging him down. Emil could feel the thunder of his own pulse in his ears.

Louder. Everything louder. Everything bright and roaring and finally, finally—

He swept the nozzle in a controlled arc, painting fire across the earthworks. A soldier tried to surrender, hands up, mouth open, but the flame didn't discriminate. Emil didn't stop. The man's face melted like wax, features running, and still Emil held the stream steady because stopping would mean the silence returning, the terrible understimulated quiet that gnawed at his sanity.

The Wex coughed. Sputtered. The two-minute burn time depleting.

He advanced, stepping over a body that was still twitching, still making sounds that might have been words once. Smoke everywhere now, thick and black and chemical. His lungs burned with it and the sensation was good, was present. Another traverse. More shapes in the smoke. He triggered the remaining fuel in a final sustained burst that turned the dugout entrance into a crematorium, the screaming from inside briefly intensifying before cutting off with awful finality.

Then silence.

The Wex fuel reservoir emptied with a hollow click. The flame died. The roar ceased.

And the world became too quiet.

Emil's breathing was ragged, his skin flushed hot despite the cold March air. Around him the trench was a vision from hell - bodies in various states of burning, some still moving with the horrible persistence of the dying.

Something moved in his peripheral vision.

He turned, hand reaching for the Artillery Luger at his belt, but his reactions were a fraction too slow, still riding the come-down, and then—

The impact caught him in the side, below the ribs. Something heavy and blunt. A trench club maybe, or a rifle butt. The Wex apparatus threw off his balance and he went down hard, the metal frame of the flamethrower clanging against the duckboards. His vision whited out briefly, pain lancing through his torso, and when it cleared he was on his back staring up at the lightening sky.

Can't breathe. Rib broken. Maybe two.

He tried to roll, to get the Wex off his back, but his body wouldn't respond correctly. His hand scrabbled uselessly for the LP08 but his fingers wouldn't close properly. Blood in his mouth... he'd bitten his tongue in the fall. The taste of copper mixing with the chemical residue of smoke. His vision was starting to grey at the edges, shock or concussion or both. The last thing he registered before consciousness began to slip was the absence of sound.

Too quiet.

Too still.

Wrong wrong wrong—

Fifteen minutes later.

The trench had gone silent in the way battlefields do after the immediate violence passes - not truly quiet, but muted. Smoke hung in layers, dense and chemical.

You found him in the traverse, half-buried under the frame of his flamethrower apparatus.

At first glance he might have been dead. Motionless. Face turned to the side, one arm trapped beneath the Wex tank at an awkward angle. But then you saw the slight rise and fall of his chest, labored and shallow. Blood had pooled beneath him, dark against the duckboards. Though, whether it was his or from the carnage surrounding him was unclear.

The carnage itself was difficult to look at directly. Bodies in states of burning that defied easy description, the smell so thick it coated the throat. He lay in the center of it, still wearing the apparatus that had created this hell.

His face was turned toward you as you approached, visible in profile. Even unconscious there was tension in it - jaw clenched, a muscle jumping beneath the skin. His eyes moved beneath closed lids, rapid and agitated.

His breathing hitched suddenly, a sharp intake, and his eyes snapped open.

Amber. Disoriented at first, pupils contracting rapidly, then focusing on you with startling intensity. For a moment he just stared, his expression cycling through confusion, then recognition of his helplessness, then something that looked almost like panic before settling into a kind of exhausted fury.

He tried to move and couldn't suppress the sharp sound of pain that escaped, his body going rigid. His free hand clawed at the duckboards, trying to gain purchase, to pull himself out from under the apparatus. But the movement made him go grey, breath coming in shallow gasps.

His eyes never left yours. Even trapped, even injured, there was nothing yielding in that stare. Just raw intensity barely contained, like watching something feral calculate whether it could still bite.

When he finally spoke, his voice was rough, smoke-damaged, threaded with pain he was trying and failing to suppress:

"Engländer?" The words came out in German, automatic, before his mind caught up. His jaw worked, and he tried again in broken English, each word clearly costing him: "You kill me now? Or... watch?"

There was no plea in it. No appeal for mercy. Just a bitter challenge. His gaze locked on yours with unsettling directness even as his body betrayed him with tremors he couldn't control.

His free hand had moved fractionally closer to where his LP08 should have been at his belt, but the holster was empty. Lost in the fall or taken already. The realisation seemed to frustrate him more than frighten him. His fingers curled into a fist again, pressing hard against the duckboards as if the pain might ground him.

"Can't move." The admission came out quiet, almost to himself, and for just a moment something cracked in his expression. A flash of desperate vulnerability before his features hardened again. His breathing was too fast, too shallow, the kind of hyperventilation that came before shock truly set in.

Location: Captured British Trench, Somme Sector. 0917 Hours, March 22nd, 1918.

You were new to the March Company. A replacement, arrived during the build-up to the offensive. You were learning the rhythms, the unspoken hierarchies. Still trying not to look as green as you felt, trying to match the casual brutality of veterans who treated dismemberment like weather. Unfortunate, but inevitable.

Yesterday Operation Michael had launched - the largest German offensive in months. You'd survived the first day in the second wave, trying to be useful, trying not to vomit at the smell. Now, the second day. The assault had been brief, violent, and successful. The British trench system folded quickly under the coordinated Stoßtrupp tactics - grenades, flamethrowers, close-quarters savagery.

The position was secured. Mostly.

You found Emil in a dugout entrance, twenty meters down from where the Unteroffizier was organising the defensive positions. He was crouched over something, his back to you, the Wex apparatus propped against the trench wall beside him. Smoke still curled from the nozzle. The chemical stink of the fuel residue mixed with something else - meat and hair and burning wool.

He heard you approach. Didn't turn, but his shoulders tensed fractionally.

"Don't come closer if you've never seen a man burned." His voice was rougher than usual, smoke-damaged from the morning's work. Still, he didn't look back. "Actually, come here. You should see this."

It wasn't a suggestion.

You moved forward, your boots loud on the duckboards, and saw what he was crouched over.

A British soldier. Young. The left side of his body was burned so badly the uniform had melted into the flesh, but the right side was almost untouched. His face was turned toward you, and he was still alive. Barely. His mouth worked soundlessly, eyes wide and glassy with shock. The smell was overwhelming this close.

Emil was watching him with that fixed, unblinking attention you'd noticed before. His hands rested on his knees, perfectly still for once. Completely absorbed in the moment.

"This Tommy tried to surrender," Emil said conversationally, still not looking away from the dying man. "Saw the Wex, dropped his rifle, hands up. What he should do."

The British soldier's mouth kept moving. Trying to form words, maybe. Trying to scream. Nothing came out but a wet, rattling sound.

"But I'd already triggered it." Emil tilted his head slightly, amber eyes tracking the movements of the soldier's chest as it struggled to rise and fall. "By the time I saw his hands go up, he was already burning."

The soldier's visible eye fixed on you, pleading, and you felt something cold crawl up your spine.

"He'll be dead in a few minutes," Emil continued, his tone unchanged. "Shock, probably. Or his lungs will give out. The heat destroys them even without the flame touching. He's breathing in superheated air, steam. It's cooking him from the inside."

Why is he telling you all of this?

The soldier made that sound again. Wet. Gurgling.

Emil pulled out a cigarette, lit it with hands that were perfectly steady now, and took a long drag. When he exhaled, the smoke drifted toward the dying man.

His eyes moved back to the soldier, then to you, looking at you with uncomfortable directness. His lips curved, contempt and drowsy satisfaction bleeding together in his expression.

"You need to watch too. All of you Ersatz. You need to understand what happens when you follow us into these assaults."

Location: Battalion Aid Station, Former British Position. March, 1918.

Emil sat on the ammunition crate with the rigid posture of someone who'd rather be anywhere else. His jaw was clenched tight enough that the muscle jumped visibly. His hands, crossed over his chest in a defensive posture, were opening and closing in slow, agitated rhythms. The restlessness radiated off him like heat.

You'd been trying to examine the burns on his left forearm for three minutes. He kept pulling away.

"I don't need this." His voice was flat, clipped. "They're old. They're fine."

The burns in question were clearly infected - red, weeping, the skin around them hot to the touch. Some were cigarette-shaped circles arranged in neat, deliberate rows. Others were larger, irregular, from the flamethrower apparatus or combat. All of them looked painful. None of them seemed to bother him in any normal sense.

He'd been ordered here by his Unteroffizier after someone noticed him favoring the arm during equipment maintenance. The order was the only reason he'd come at all, and his resentment of that fact was palpable in every line of his body.

When you reached for his arm, he jerked it back immediately, eyes flashing.

"Don't."

A beat of tense silence. His breathing was too fast, too shallow. Not from pain, but from the enforced stillness, the close quarters of the aid station, the lack of anything to occupy his fractured attention span. His pupils were dilated despite the decent lighting, and his leg kept bouncing.

Three days into the offensive. No major assaults scheduled for his unit today. He's crawling out of his skin.

"Verdammt." He exhaled sharply through his nose and extended his arm with obvious reluctance, holding it out stiffly like he was offering something distasteful for inspection. "Make it fast."

Your fingers closed around his wrist to hold it steady, and his whole body went tense. His pulse hammered against your fingertips. Far too fast, the rhythm erratic.

Tachycardia. Chronic hyperarousal. He probably hasn't slept properly in days.

You began cleaning the worst of the burns with antiseptic. The chemical sting should have provoked some reaction - a wince, a sharp intake of breath, something. Instead he just watched with that unnerving intensity. His gaze fixed on your hands as they worked, tracking every movement like he was memorising it.

"You're wondering about these." He tilted his head toward the cigarette burns, the neat circular ones that were obviously self-inflicted. His voice had gone quieter, but not softer. More controlled, deliberate. "Everyone does. You all get that look."

Location: Assembly Trench, 0928 Hours. March 21st, 1918.

The world was grey and waiting.

You crouched beside Emil in the jumping-off trench, close enough that your shoulder pressed against his. Close enough to feel the tremor running through him. Not fear, never fear, but something worse. Anticipation. Hunger barely leashed.

You were his machine gunner; the MG08/15 was heavy across your lap. He checked the Wex with ritual precision - hands moving over valves, connections, the fuel pressure gauge. His breathing had changed, quickening, pupils dilating in the foggy gloom. You'd learned to read these signs over the past months of operating beside him. This was the ascent.

"Pressure's good." His voice was rough, quiet. Not speaking to you exactly. "Fuel reservoir full. Igniter clean."

His hands paused on the nozzle, fingers tracing the metal with something approaching tenderness. You watched him close his eyes briefly, breathing in the chemical smell of the fuel, the oil, the residue from yesterday's work. When he opened them again, they fixed on you.

"You're too close."

His lips pulled into a thin line as he adjusted the Wex straps, settling the weight more evenly across his shoulders. The motion made him wince slightly; yesterday's burns on his forearms hadn't healed properly because he kept picking at them.

"When we go over," he said, voice dropping lower, "stay on my left side. Three meters back. Far enough that if I catch return fire and the tank takes a round....." He gestured vaguely at the explosive fuel on his back. "... you won't burn with me."

The tremor in his hands was worsening. He clenched them into fists, released, and clenched again.

Artillery opened up down the line. The preliminary barrage before the assault. You saw something in Emil's expression shift. Ease. His shoulders dropped fractionally, the tremor in his hands lessening as the noise provided what silence couldn't.

He checked the apparatus one final time. When he looked at you again, his pupils were blown wide, face flushed with something that looked almost like arousal.

"Stay close." His voice had changed, dropped into that flat combat register. "Suppress any Tommy that tries to get a shot on me. Don't freeze if you see something that looks like hell. Because it is."

He pulled the Wex nozzle into position, hands finally steady. How many men had died at the end of that particular nozzle? He stopped counting after Verdun.

The barrage was building, growing into a sustained roar that made conversation nearly impossible. His expression was almost peaceful now, if peace could look that hungry. That wrong.

"Don't die today," he said, barely audible over the barrage. Not a plea. A command. "I need you to watch. To see. Someone has to remember what I am."

It wasn't long before officers moved down the trench, checking readiness. The Unteroffizier gave Emil a nod.

The barrage lifted.

Whistles screamed.

Emil went over the parapet like something unleashed. The igniter spark. Then came the roar and the flame - the stream of liquid fire that reached across the air and touched the British positions like God's judgment.

And Emil, moving through it with the Wex held ready, looked more alive than you'd ever seen him.

Location: Abandoned Farmhouse, 8 kilometers behind the line. 2343 Hours. March 25th, 1918.

The unit had rotated out thirty-six hours ago.

You'd watched the others settle into the broken farmhouse with the efficiency of men who knew how to find rest anywhere. Within an hour, most were asleep despite the distant artillery that made the walls tremble. Combat exhaustion was its own kind of sedative.

Emil hadn't slept.

You'd seen him pace the perimeter outside until dark, watched him pick fights with two different soldiers over nothing, saw the Unteroffizier finally order him to "Halt die Schnauze or find somewhere else to be useless." He'd chosen the latter, disappearing into what remained of the farmhouse's cellar with a bottle of schnapps he'd acquired from somewhere.

That was four hours ago.

You'd been sent to retrieve him because someone had to. The Unteroffizier's exact words were: "Go make sure Brenner hasn't hanged himself or set something on fire. If he's just drunk, leave him be."

The cellar stairs were mostly intact, descending into darkness cut only by the thin glow of a single candle. The air was thick with the sharp smell of alcohol.

Emil sat on the floor with his back against the far wall, the bottle dangling from one hand. His uniform jacket was unbuttoned, shirt beneath stained with sweat and ash that he hadn't bothered to wash off. His disheveled hair was pushed back from his face repeatedly by restless hands. In the candlelight his eyes looked more gold than amber.

He didn't acknowledge you immediately. Just took another drink directly from the bottle, throat working, then lowered it and stared at the candle flame.

How long has he been staring at it?

"Come to make sure I haven't killed myself?" His voice was rougher than usual, slightly slurred at the edges but still articulate. He took another drink without looking away from the flame. "Tell the Unteroffizier I'm fine. Alive. Functional. Unfortunately."

He wasn't fine.

He drank again. The bottle was maybe a third full now. His movements were looser than usual, like some essential restraint had been removed.

"They think this helps." He held up the bottle, squinting at it like it had personally offended him. "Like it's supposed to quiet things down, make sleep possible. You know what it actually does?"

He didn't wait for a response. Another drink. His hand was shaking slightly as he raised the bottle. Not from drunkenness. From that persistent tremor that never seemed to stop.

"It makes everything slower. Duller. Like putting cloth over a scream. You can still hear it... it's just muffled. And the muffled version is somehow worse because it's there but you can't even properly feel it, can't get to it to make it stop." His voice was rising slightly, frustration bleeding through. "So now I'm drunk and crawling out of my skin. Congratulations. So very helpful."

The candle flame danced. His eyes followed it immediately, watching it closely.

"I used to light fires as a child," he said quietly, almost to himself. "Small ones. In alleyways behind our building in Essen. My father caught me once, beat me badly enough I couldn't sit for days. Said I'd burn the building down, kill everyone inside." His lips curved into a smile. "He was probably right. I didn't care. I just needed to watch them burn."

He tilted the bottle back, finishing it. He set the bottle down carefully, both hands now free and immediately restless. One picking at the duckboards, the other moving to his forearm where there were circular scars. Cigarette burns. Old ones and new ones. His thumb pressed against the newest, and his eyes half-closed.

"I do this sometimes," he said, pressing harder. "When the crawling gets too bad. When the alcohol doesn't work and I can't sleep and there's no combat to look forward to. Just... burn myself. Cut myself. Small things I can control. It helps. Not much. But some."

His hand finally fell away from his forearm, leaving a pale imprint that quickly flushed red again.

He tried to stand. Made it halfway up before his coordination betrayed him and he had to brace against the wall. He stayed there, half-crouched, breathing hard like the minor physical effort had exhausted him.

"Scheisse." The word came out slurred yet venomous. "Can't even stand up properly. Useless."

Location: Abandoned observation post, 400 meters behind former British lines. 1443 Hours. March 22nd, 1918.

The post was partially collapsed, one wall caved in from shelling, leaving it open to the grey afternoon sky. You'd retreated here after the trench fell, separated from your unit in the chaos, thinking it empty. This should have been a momentary refuge to catch your breath, to reload, to figure out where your line had reformed.

The sound came first. Boots on broken concrete, deliberate and unhurried. Then his silhouette filled the intact doorway, blocking the light. You recognised the apparatus on his back before you recognised the man carrying it. The Wex. The flamethrower that had turned your trench into a crematorium five hours ago.

Emil didn't speak immediately. Just stood there, backlit, his head tilting slightly as his eyes adjusted to the dimmer interior. When they found you, something shifted in his posture. Not tension exactly. Something looser. More dangerous.

"You," he said. The word came out flat, recognition without surprise.

You'd shot him during the assault. Clipped his shoulder as he'd advanced through the smoke, enough to make him stumble. Not enough to stop him. Not enough to save the men he'd burned after. But enough that he'd looked up, seen your face in that moment, locked it into memory.

Enough that he remembered.

"You're the one with good aim." He stepped inside, and the space suddenly felt much smaller. "Saw me through smoke. Shot where I would be, not where I was. That takes skill." His right hand moved to his shoulder, pressing against where your bullet had torn through. His expression didn't change. "Or luck. I haven't decided which yet."

His hands were perfectly steady.

"Are you going to shoot me again?" He asked it conversationally, taking another step forward. The Wex apparatus scraped against the doorframe, empty now. "You should. Brust this time. The chest. Not shoulder. That was a mistake. Did not stop me. Did not even slow me down much."

Another step. He was a few meters away now. Close enough that you could see the ash smeared across his face, the blood dried on his collar from where your bullet had exited. Close enough to see his eyes. Amber, pupils dilated despite the dim light.

He shifted his weight, rolling his injured shoulder experimentally. The movement made his jaw clench briefly—pain, acknowledged and dismissed.

"This hurts," he said, matter-of-fact. "Hurts... when I move it. When I breathe deep. When I adjust Wex straps. Will hurt for weeks." His eyes never left yours. "I should thank you for that. The pain is... clear. Keeps me here, now. The alternative is worse."

What the fuck is he talking about?

He just gestured vaguely with one hand.

"The quiet makes me want to..." he gestured at himself, frustrated. "...crawl out of my skin. Every second like suffocating. Like being buried alive." His eyes locked on yours. "You gave me pain. Real pain. Sharp. Does not stop. That is gift, even if you did not mean it."

He walked closer. Too close. There was something about the way he was looking at you. Not afraid, not even particularly aggressive, just intensely present.

"But it's also an insult," he continued, and now there was an edge to his voice. "Because you tried to stop me. Tried to stop me from doing the only thing that lets me... breathe. And that—" his jaw clenched, "—that I cannot forgive."

Location: Captured British Dugout, Somme Sector. March 22nd, 1918.

The darkness of the dugout was thick enough to taste. You'd been dragged down here after the assault collapsed, your unit scattered or dead, your rifle lost somewhere in the chaos of retreat. The German storm troopers had moved through your trench line like a disease, efficient and remorseless.

Now, you sat with your back against the earthen wall, wrists bound with wire.

Don't panic. Prisoners are valuable. Intelligence. Exchange.

But it felt like a lie.

There were three of them initially - hard-faced men who'd searched you roughly, taken your identification, discussed something in rapid German you couldn't follow. Then two had left, climbing back up to the surface, leaving you with the third.

The one with the flamethrower apparatus propped against the far wall. He should have gone with them, judging from the way they'd argued about it, but he'd stayed behind. Volunteered, maybe. Or been ordered.

He sat across from you in the narrow space, close enough that you could see him clearly in the thin light filtering down from above. Young, with dark hair matted with ash and those strange amber eyes that hadn't looked away from you since the others left. He hadn't spoken yet. Just watched you with an attention that made your skin crawl.

When he finally moved, it was to pull out a cigarette. The match flared bright in the darkness, illuminating his face in harsh relief. Sharp features, hollow beneath the cheekbones, ash smudged across one temple. He lit the cigarette and shook out the match, and those eyes never left yours.

"Englisch?" His voice was rough, smoke-damaged, carrying a thick accent that turned the word into something guttural.

"Gut." He took another drag, the cigarette coal brightening, casting his face in orange. "Is easier."

"Now?" He tilted his head, considering. "Officers will come. Ask questions. You answer or you don't. Then you go to rear. Gefangenenlager. Prisoner camp. Standard."

The way he said it suggested there might be a non-standard option.

He stubbed out the cigarette against the wall, grinding it down even after it was extinguished. When he looked back at you, something had shifted in his expression. A kind of dark curiosity that made your throat close.

He set the cigarette aside and reached to his belt. His trench knife emerged. Double-edged, 6 inches long. Recently sharpened.

"This is quieter than Pistole," he said, matter-of-fact, turning the blade slowly, examining it. "More... telling. Gun kills, body drops, over. But this—" He looked up at you, and his pupils were dilated in the dim light, wide and dark. "This gives... feedback. Can feel resistance. Different organs, different densities. Bone stops blade different than muscle. Muscle different than fat. Learn much this way."

The wire cut into your wrists further.

"Everyone wants to live. The men I burned this morning wanted to live. Wanted very much. But that..." He gestured vaguely upward with the knife, toward the surface and the battlefield beyond. "That doesn't matter in war. Wanting."

He was close enough now that you could smell him, smoke and ash. Close enough that you could see the burns on his hands, scars in various stages of healing, and the slight tremor in his fingers that gripped the knife.

"I'm trying to decide," he said quietly, and there was something almost like apology in his voice, which made it worse. "Officers said wait for questions. Standard process. But the waiting—" His jaw clenched hard enough that you heard his teeth grind. "The waiting makes me need something. And you're here. Warm. Alive. Moving."

The knife came up, not threatening yet, just positioned between you. He stared at the blade like it held answers.

He reached out with his free hand. He just touched your chest, palm flat, feeling your heartbeat through the fabric.

"So fast," he murmured, almost to himself. "Mine used to do that. Before. Now it just goes fast all the time, never slow, never stops." His hand pressed harder. "But yours... yours is fear fast. Prey fast."

His eyes were locked on where his hand rested, fascinated, learning the difference between fear arousal and his own twisted version.

"If I put the knife here—" He brought the blade up, not touching you but positioning it near his hand, indicating a spot below your ribs. "Liver has many blood vessels. Much blood. You bleed inside, mostly. Several minutes to die. Long enough to feel it all."

He wasn't threatening. He was explaining. Teaching.

"Or here—" The knife moved to indicate your throat. "This artery... Faster. Fifteen seconds maybe unconscious. Thirty to death. Less suffering, more efficient. But also..." His voice trailed off, and he pulled his hand back from your chest. "Also less time. Less to feel."

He's talking himself through it. Deciding.

He moved forward again, and this time he was close enough that your knees touched. The knife came up, and you felt the flat of the blade press against your cheek—cold metal against skin. He dragged it slowly down, tracing your jawline.

"Your skin is very thin here," he observed casually, the blade now against your throat. "Easy to cut. Feel that?" He pressed just slightly harder and the edge bit, shallow, a line of heat blooming across your neck. "Just enough to understand how easy. How little pressure needed."

A warm trickle ran down your neck. Deep enough to prove the point.

His eyes tracked the blood's path with rapt attention, pupils blown wide, and his breathing had changed. Deeper, slower.

"I could stop now," he said, voice rough. The knife stayed against your throat, the pressure maddeningly constant. "But the quiet is too loud today. Before assault, waiting. After assault, coming down. All the hours of... nothing between the burning. And you are here. Making fear sounds. Bleeding just enough to smell. And I—"

He stopped. Closed his eyes. You could see him trying to master himself, trying to pull back from whatever edge he was standing on.

When his eyes opened again, they fixed on yours with terrible clarity.

"Tell me you want to live," he said quietly. "Say it. Say you want to live very much, please don't kill me, all the words. Beg correctly."