𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐀 𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍 | | 1917

1. A FOREIGN SOLDIER

" I gave up my life to learn how to save yours. "

-

APRIL 6th
1917
Écoust, France

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JOSEPHINE AVAIR never got high hopes. Hope was such a painful thing, far more painful than rage or fury and she had learned that having those would only make her suffer way more than necessary. It would make her weak.

Weakness was scary, unpredictable, and incredibly unfair and all kinds of ways. An unfair disadvantage Jo certainly did not have time for.

She wasn't even a soldier- of course not- she was a woman. The big red cross on her left arm made sure, as well, to prove just that very point.

And with a rushed medical degree in her drawer back home and a first aid bag in her hand, she still never thought she would found herself in such a situation.

The point had been to move from a certain location to another. She had been accompanying three others. Three distant men which she had met on the spot and whom she never had bothered to worry about.

The town Écoust was also never meant to be anything more than a place for passing by. But now it had been three days and Josephine was not going anywhere. Sitting there alone - on the edge of forever - only wishing to perish as soon as possible.

She didn't know what happened to the soldiers she came with, but she knew that the three gunshots she heard that were later led by silence told her enough.

She had managed to somehow get away. In a small room, hidden under a collapsed ruin, she stayed.

She hadn't eaten, her uncomfortable feet soaked in mud and the red peeling skin on her body itching to the point which she was nearly driven mad. Desperate for the humid air to exit her drained and smoke-filled lungs.

Did she care if she survived or not? Well, that was the question, wasn't it? No one knew she was there. It wasn't even some act of self-pity, she insisted upon herself- it was simply the harsh truth that no one seemed to care for.

For someone who's used to chaos, the sudden sound of gunfire and yelling caught her off-guard. It seemed so far away, yet she still felt the need to shelter herself even more, just by shuffling her numb body slightly closer to the cold wall.

She tried to convince herself that it wasn't getting closer. But once the actual footsteps from the floor above her started swinging the ceiling lamp - her eyes opened. Scrambling up on her feet, she tried to gather herself, preparing for something she until this point remained unaware of.

She managed to pick up the pistol as it laid in the far corner from her. Forcing herself to look at it for the first time in days. She loathed the sound of the guns ringing in her ears. She hated the mystery it brought upon the unaware.

A blaring thud could be heard as something, or someone hit the floor. Jo took a few steps backwards with her hands folded tightly in front of her. She tried to ignore the shaking in her grasp. She tried to ignore everything except her breathing. Yet she still managed to forget that too.

The only reason why she continued at all was her faith in reason. Yet it was beginning to fail her.

Only when she heard the click of the rifle from around the corner, did she feel her chest truly tightening, causing a haunting sensation to creep down her thin spine. Her sticky fingers desperately clamming onto each other.