Erich stood near the harbor, gazing across the English Channel.
A cigarette rested between his fingers, half-forgotten, the smoke curling upward into the gray sky.
He took a long, tired drag, letting the bitter taste settle on his tongue.
Since France had surrendered, and England not long after, the work was… sterilized. Superficial. Necessary, but uninspiring.
Patrolling reconstruction sites, keeping order among a pacified population, coordinating relief shipments from the fatherland, work befitting a staff officer or logistician, not the commander of a Fallschirmjäger battalion forged in blood and thunder.
Still, the stories never stopped.
They floated like ghosts through the shattered alleys and cracked stone walls.
About the Great War.
About a man who'd become more myth than mortal. And how this war, despite its size and horror, lacked something elemental that the old veterans still carried in their bones.
