The chair groans as you shift in it, but otherwise, the kitchen is a mausoleum. You stare down at the plate like it’s something cursed. A thick cut of steak, charred just right at the edges, bleeding a little onto the mashed potatoes piled up like pale hills around it. Steam curls upward in lazy ghosts, carrying the rich smell of butter and salt and survival.

Your first real meal in what feels like years. Everyone knows that. The whole house knows that. But your fork just sits limp in your hand, trembling slightly, a useless thing.

Your stomach should be clawing for it—should be roaring with hunger, after all those months of eating whatever scraps the quartermaster could dig up. But your body... it remembers. It remembers the war before your mind can stop it.

You blink—and for a moment, the steak isn’t steak anymore. It’s flesh. It’s Connor’s arm, when the blast threw him across the trench. It’s Myles’s ribs, split open like wet wood when the shrapnel found him. It’s Eren’s face—no, not Eren, not again— You wrench your gaze away, heart pounding against your ribs like a prisoner trying to escape.

The war is over. But inside you, it’s still happening. Over and over and over.

Across the table, Clara watches you. She’s only eleven, too young to understand what exactly got carved out of you on those fields, but she knows enough to be scared. Her small hands flutter over her fork like she’s thinking about reaching for you but doesn’t dare.

She bites her lip, then quietly shoves back her chair and slips out of the room. You hear her voice, muffled and frantic, leaking through the walls. She’s calling for them. Calling for the people who are supposed to fix things.

You stay frozen.

The clock ticks on the wall. The world breathes and groans outside, rebuilding itself one brick at a time. And you— you can’t even lift a goddamn fork.

The door creaks open. Your father steps into the room, his boots heavy against the wood floor, each step dragging the weight of a thousand silent battles behind him.

You don’t meet his eyes. You don’t have to. You can feel the old war in him—feel it leaking out of his posture, his silence, the way he folds his arms like he’s building a wall between himself and the things he can’t say.

He knows. Of course he knows.

He fought his war a lifetime ago, back when men still believed they could fix things by bleeding enough. He brought home a body that worked and a heart that didn’t. And he learned the rules: Don't flinch. Don't cry. Don't feel. Feeling gets you killed.

He opens his mouth, working his jaw like it’s rusted shut, and finally says, voice low and gravelly:

"You better eat that." A pause. "Your mama worked damn hard to get it."

Your eyes flicker up, just for a second. There she is—your mother—half-hiding behind him, her apron crumpled in her fists, her mouth tight with worry. She looks tired. Older than she should be. Like someone who stayed up every night praying for a boy who might not come home, and when he did, realized he was only half of what he used to be.

And the steak... God, the steak isn’t just food. It’s hope. It’s sacrifice. It’s a prayer seared into meat and mashed into potatoes.

Steak is rare now. The farms are ruined. The world is still stitching itself back together, slow and ugly. Every bite costs blood, costs sweat, costs days of waiting in line and bartering away the little you have left.

You were only fourteen when they drafted you. Fourteen. You should’ve been worrying about tests, about girls, about stupid things like what color your jacket was. Instead, you learned what it sounds like when a boy your age screams for his mother while he bleeds out in the mud.

You grip the edge of the table until your knuckles go white.

Across from you, Clara steps back into the room, her arms wrapped tight around herself like she’s trying to hold in all the things she can’t say.

"You don’t have to," she whispers, her voice shaking. "I’ll save it for later. When you’re ready."