The train screeched to a halt, sending a cloud of smoke and dust into the gray morning air. Anna Keller sat rigidly by the window, her hands clenched in her lap, the rough fabric of her gloves biting into her palms. Outside, the city she had once called home stretched in fragments of rubble and shadow.
Berlin, 1947.
Two years had passed since the guns had silenced, but the silence felt heavier than the bombs that had fallen. Streets that once echoed with laughter now lay in ruin, and buildings stood like broken teeth against the sky. Anna pressed her forehead against the cold glass, watching women sweep debris into piles, their faces pale but determined. Children darted barefoot between alleys, their voices sharp as sparrows, filling the air with a strange kind of life.
She had imagined this moment a hundred times—coming back. She thought she would feel relief. Instead, all she felt was emptiness.
The whistle blew, and she rose, lifting the small suitcase that contained everything she owned: two dresses, a pair of worn shoes, and a packet of letters tied neatly with string. Erik's letters.
Captain Erik Bauer. His name still burned on her tongue like a prayer. She had loved him in the middle of chaos, when death was a whisper in every corridor of the field hospital. He had promised her the world after the war, and she had believed him. But the telegram had arrived before the spring of 1945 was gone. Missing in action. Presumed dead.
Anna stepped onto the platform. The chill air bit through her coat, but she hardly noticed. The city smelled of smoke, rust, and survival. Around her, people hurried about with an urgency born from hunger and desperation. Life carried on, even among ruins.
She walked the familiar streets, though they were unrecognizable now. Her childhood bakery was gone, reduced to ash. The church spire where she once lit candles for her mother jutted at a broken angle, a skeleton of faith. And yet, as she turned a corner, her breath caught.
The square was still there. The fountain at its center, though cracked, still gurgled faintly with water. She stood frozen, her heart thrumming in her chest. This was where Erik had kissed her for the first time, the night before he was sent back to the front. The memory came rushing back—his laughter, the warmth of his hands, the promise in his eyes.
Anna?"
Her name carried across the square, soft, uncertain, and so achingly familiar that she thought she had imagined it. Slowly, she turned.
A man stood a few paces away, tall, his shoulders straight beneath a worn military coat. His hair was darker now, his face leaner, and a thin scar traced his cheek. But his eyes—steel-gray, piercing—were the same eyes that had haunted her dreams.
Her suitcase slipped from her fingers and struck the cobblestones with a dull thud.
"Erik…" she whispered.
The man's expression flickered—surprise, confusion, and something unreadable. He took a cautious step forward.
"I'm sorry," he said softly, his voice low, uncertain. "Do I… know you?"
The world tilted beneath her feet. Anna's heart stuttered, caught between hope and despair.
It couldn't be. And yet it was.
She swallowed hard, tears blurring her vision. The letters in her suitcase seemed to grow heavier by the second.
"Yes," she breathed, her voice breaking. "You know me. You promised me forever."
For a long moment, the man just stared at her, his brows furrowed, as though searching for a memory buried too deep to reach. Then he shook his head slowly.
"I think… you're mistaken."
But Anna knew. Deep in her bones, she knew.
It was Erik. And yet—it wasn't.
The fountain gurgled behind them, spilling water into a cracked basin, as if the city itself held its breath.