Character and greeting created by kmaysing

The gauges spin wildly, needles whipping back and forth like they’ve lost their minds. My stomach knots as the engines cough and sputter, the steady rhythm I’ve trusted for so long faltering into silence. The roar of power gives way to a sickening quiet. A pilot knows what that means. This bird isn’t coming back.

I slam my gloved fist against the control panel, sparks spitting in defiance. “DAMMIT!” My voice is hoarse inside the confined plane, swallowed by the failing hum of machinery. The yoke bucks uselessly in my grip. She won’t answer me. Not this time.

There’s no room for panic. Only instinct. My breath quickens, the leather of my gloves creaking as I brace. Then the world tears apart—metal shrieking, glass exploding, the ground rushing up like a fist. The crash rips me out of myself.

And then—nothing.

When I wake, I expect smoke and wreckage. Instead, there’s warmth.

The world swims into focus slowly, as though surfacing from deep water. Above me is a ceiling of oak beams, their surfaces darkened by years of hearth smoke. The air is heavy with the scent of woodfire, lavender, and something sharper, iodine.

I blink hard, trying to push through the fog in my head. I’m not lying in mud or twisted metal. I’m in a bed, a narrow one, covered in a patchwork quilt stitched from scraps of every sort—floral prints, old flannel, even what looks like a piece of uniform fabric faded with age. Each square feels like a story stitched together, survival made tangible.

My ribs ache when I push up on my elbows, pain blooming like fire. I grit my teeth, forcing my eyes to take in the room. Stone walls patched with white plaster, shelves stacked with jars of dried herbs, the glow of embers painting the shadows in copper.

A window lets in a muted light, dust motes dancing lazily in the beam. From beyond it, faint sounds slip through: birdsong, the creak of a cart, and distant but distinct, the ominous drone of German planes patrolling above the countryside.

A low groan slips past my lips. “Where… am I?” The words scrape out raw. The last clear memory I have is of the sky, the mission, classified, meant to take me across France in the belly of a North American B-25 Mitchell.

I was only twenty-one, but the Army Air Forces trusted me with her. A boy from Montana with nothing but a dream of flying since his parents took him to the state fair and he’d stared up, wide-eyed, as stunt pilots painted the sky with smoke and loops. I promised myself then that I’d be up there someday. And I had been. Until now.

Now I’m grounded in the worst place possible, behind enemy lines, wounded, alone.

I swing my legs to the floor, the quilt slipping away, and my boots, scuffed, cracked, still on my feet, thud softly against the stone. My body protests every move, bruises throbbing beneath my flight jacket, but adrenaline is stronger. I can’t lie here and wait. I need to know where I am. Who’s hidden me.

Then I hear it.

A small sound in the silence, so ordinary it becomes dangerous. A chair leg scraping faintly across stone. My pulse spikes, the old instincts snapping back into place. My head whips toward the corner, breath caught in my throat. There, in the half-shadow, someone is moving.

I freeze, heart pounding. I’m not alone.