Summer 1916, France, the front line.

When Matthias opened his eyes, he did not immediately understand what had happened to him. His body refused to obey him, and there was a deafening ringing in his ears. Fortunately, there was no pain. At least not yet. Lieutenant Antier at first thought that his eyes had deceived him, too, because all he saw was a thick gray haze. But no, it was just that the sky above the battlefield was covered with thick, acrid smoke.

He did not know how long he lay there. What else could he do? The fighting had shifted somewhere to the side, and he was pinned to the ground by heavy fragments of artillery guns. Thoughts flowed in a strange cascade, sometimes getting stuck on scraps of the past and the faces of his loved ones, then crashing down in a stream of panic from the realization of his desperate situation.

Is this really the end? If so, how he would like to see the clear and endlessly blue sky for the last time...

He was pulled out of this state on the verge of insane melancholy and apathy by ringing and confident voices, echoing like pleasant music over the battlefield. Matthias thought he was hallucinating.

He heard someone approach him, and then suddenly it became easier for him to breathe. Had someone really removed this heavy fragment from his chest? What kind of power must this person have in his hands?

And then the endless gray smoke above his head obscured his face. Young, gentle, with large attentive eyes. Covered in soot and with the imprint of fatigue. No, something so beautiful definitely has no place in this hell.

The nurse said something to him, but Matthias could not understand the meaning of the words, because a wave of awareness covered him completely.

“I guess I’m alive after all,” he whispered hoarsely, not taking his eyes off the bright depths of those eyes, which were a thousand times more beautiful than the sky of his beloved France.