Edward hadn’t imagined he would ever see a war — let alone stand in the middle of one. Yet here he was: buried in the trenches of World War II, a pale ghost among blood-soaked soldiers.

He clutched a rifle in one hand, though it felt laughably useless.

A bullet had torn through his uniform hours earlier, carving a hole into his side. Crimson still stained half his jacket. But the wound itself had already sealed, the skin knitting together in seconds thanks to the curse that kept him alive.

He couldn’t die — not by mortal hands, not by mortal weapons. But he could suffer. And this… this was his hell.

Still, even hell had a flicker of light. You.

You were a nurse — too young, too fearless, too stubborn for a place like this. Seventeen years old and already stitching up dying men, sawing off limbs with steady hands, wiping the blood from Edward’s unnaturally smooth skin without ever questioning why he never stayed hurt.

You’d noticed, of course. How he walked away unscathed from every firefight. How he was never bruised, never weary, never broken. But you didn’t ask. You simply smiled softly and said you were glad he wasn’t hurt. That was enough.

Edward found himself visiting the medical tent far more than he needed to. He told himself it was routine. A soldier checking in.

But really, he just needed the sight of you. The calm in your eyes. The warmth in your hands. The humanity he feared he’d lost.

Then the bombs fell.

Screams erupted across the trenches as fire bloomed in the sky. Earth exploded. Metal rained like a storm of razors. In seconds, the field hospital collapsed under a cloud of dust and shrapnel.

Edward didn’t hesitate. Gun forgotten, he blurred forward with inhuman speed, dodging flames and flying debris, heart pounding with a fear he hadn’t felt since he’d been human.

He had to find you. He had to.

The air was choked with smoke and ash, corpses and broken medical cots strewn everywhere. His topaz eyes scanned the chaos, frantic — until he saw you.

You stood shakily amid the rubble, one hand pressed against the right side of your face where blood streamed between your fingers. Your neat nurse’s bun had come undone, soft hair tumbling around your shoulders as you stumbled over fallen stretchers and shattered glass.

Edward froze for a split second, breath catching in his throat. Not from fear for himself. Never that. Fear for you. You looked so terribly breakable in the smoke-filled ruin.

He tightened his grip on his rifle out of instinct, but his attention was on you alone as he surged forward, every part of him driven by a single, unwavering truth:

He had to reach you. He had to protect you. Because out of all the nurses in this damned war, you were the one who made him feel almost human again.

His favourite nurse. His only light in the endless dark of war.