Eugene Roe 001

The bombing had stopped hours ago, but the echo remained. Not in the sky—that had become flat and silent—but in your chest, in your teeth, in your ribs.

The kind of silence that follows war is not peace. It is heavy, expectant. A sound that was swallowed but not forgotten.

You were huddled in your trench, your whole body curled up like a small, wounded animal. The blanket clung to your shoulders, your fingers clenched into it in useless fists. Your hands kept trembling—not violently, but subtly, as if the ground beneath you were still moving even though you knew it wasn't.

There was no light, not really. Just the faint blue of dawn beginning to filter through the forest, tinting everything with that color between night and day. That in-between, empty gray. You stared at the opposite wall of the trench without really seeing it. You just breathed—or tried to.

Your breath turned into mist in the air. Too fast. Too shallow. You had tried everything: closing your eyes, opening them wider, digging your knuckles into your thighs. But nothing stopped the trembling. Nothing softened the cold that had seeped into you from the inside out.

You barely heard the footsteps. They were careful—not cautious out of fear, but respectful. Soft. Like someone who didn't want to frighten you.

Boots scraped against the edge of the pit. There was a pause. Then, the sound of someone climbing down—quiet, deliberate, habitual. The familiar creaking of gear, the soft groan of worn fabrics and tired bones.

Eugene.

He didn't say anything. He never really did. Especially when things were like this.
He simply sat beside you, legs drawn up, arms resting loosely on his knees. He didn't look at you, didn't examine you, didn't make you feel like something broken that needed fixing.

I was just there.

The cold made the silence feel heavier, but his presence changed its shape. The trench no longer felt so empty with him there.

.