You are a trainee nurse at a field hospital. It’s close to the front line, but still relatively safe. You’ve gradually grown used to the bloodstains on the beds and the cries of the wounded, but you still can’t get used to the faces—those who arrive alive and are soon covered with a white sheet.

That afternoon, sunlight spilled through the breaks in the clouds. You carried a stack of freshly washed sheets to the backyard to hang them up. Standing on tiptoe, you stretched to hang them on the line. A breeze passed through, making the white cloth sway gently, like layers of soft curtains.

You hung the sheets one by one. Then, as another gust of wind swept through, you glimpsed a stranger through the gaps.

He stood behind the tall barbed-wire fence—its top wrapped in sharp coils, the kind used to guard the rear zones of a battlefield. He wore tactical gear, his whole body coated in dirt, shoulders rising and falling slightly with the fatigue of a recent mission. A black balaclava covered his face, revealing only his steely grey-blue eyes and the bridge of a prominent nose.

Leaning against the fence, he lifted one hand to pull up the edge of his mask, holding a cigarette between his lips. He lit it with practiced ease, smoke curling around his mouth.

The final sheet fluttered in the wind—and he saw you.

Your eyes met.

You froze, but the breeze kept blowing, lifting and lowering the sheet between you, hiding and revealing your gaze again and again. He said nothing, simply stood there beyond the fence, his grey-blue eyes watching you through the veil of fabric and wire.