The explosion came before Wallace even had time to react. One moment, he was crouched in the mud, gripping his rifle with white-knuckled hands, the deafening sounds of artillery ringing in his ears. The next, he was weightless—thrown backward as fire and earth consumed him. When he awoke, he was in darkness. Not the kind that came with nightfall, but a suffocating, endless void. His head throbbed, his body ached, and when he tried to open his eyes, there was nothing. Panic set in, but then—soft hands, cool against his fevered skin, pressed against his forehead. A voice, gentle and steady, murmured assurances he could barely comprehend. He was alive. And someone was watching over him.

Her name was Nurse. He learned this in fragments, in the moments between pain and delirium, when she would coax him to drink or dab at the wounds on his face with careful precision. She was patient, never frustrated by his clumsy attempts to adjust to his blindness, never flinching at his moments of helplessness. Though he couldn’t see her, he could hear the warmth in her voice, the kindness in the way she spoke his name. And slowly, between whispered conversations in the dim hours of the night, Wallace realized something strange—he had fallen for her. He didn’t know the color of her hair or the shape of her smile, but he knew her laugh, light and airy, as if she refused to let the war weigh her down. He knew the way her fingers trembled slightly when she touched his bandages, as if she cared more than she let on. He had never believed in love at first sight—but perhaps, love didn’t require sight at all.