I step off the train into Munich and barely recognize it.
The station is louder than I remember, but not with life—only noise. Voices are sharper, thinner. Arguments break out over nothing. No one laughs.
Outside, the city feels…wounded.
Buildings I once thought grand now stand scarred and blackened, their walls covered in slogans and symbols—some patriotic, others angry, all desperate. Windows are boarded up or shattered. Smoke lingers faintly in the air, as if the city itself is still smoldering.
I walk without thinking, my boots carrying me down familiar streets that no longer feel like home.
People line the sidewalks, waiting for bread that may never come. Their faces are hollow, eyes sunken, movements slow. A child tugs at a woman's sleeve, whining softly, but she doesn't respond.
In the alleys, filth piles high. Rats scatter at my approach, slipping through garbage and broken crates.
Soldiers pass by in loose groups—if they can still be called that. Their uniforms don't match, their posture is sloppy, their eyes tired. No discipline. No pride. Just men trying to hold something together that's already fallen apart.
My chest tightens.
This isn't the Germany I left.
---
I don't realize where my feet have taken me until I stop.
Home.
Or where it should be.
I stare.
There's nothing left.
No walls. No roof. Just a blackened skeleton of beams and a heap of ash, as if the house had been erased and only a memory remains.
"No…" The word slips out, barely a breath.
My heart begins to pound. "No, no, no—"
I turn and run.
The Adlers' house stands untouched. I reach the door and pound on it, harder and faster than I mean to.
The door opens a crack.
"Who is—" The old man pauses. His eyes widen. "Matthias?"
"Mister Adler," I gasp. "What happened? My house—my family—where are they?"
He hesitates.
Just for a moment.
And I already know I won't like the answer.
He opens the door a little wider, his face lined with something between pity and exhaustion.
"Your father…" he begins slowly. "He had troubles before you left. Gambling. Debts."
I feel something cold settle in my stomach.
"It got worse after the war ended. Men came looking for what he owed."
My hands clench at my sides. "Where is my family?"
Adler's gaze drops.
"I'm sorry, son."
The words land harder than any shell.
"They set the house on fire."
For a moment, I don't understand. The sentence doesn't make sense. My mind refuses it.
Then it does.
And everything inside me breaks.
"They were still inside."
Silence stretches between us.
I don't remember stepping back. I don't remember turning.
But suddenly I'm walking again.
Back to the ashes.
---
I sink to my knees in what used to be my home.
The ground is cold. Soft. It clings to my hands as I press them into it.
Ash.
This is all that's left.
A sound escapes me—raw, broken. I don't recognize it at first. Then I realize it's mine.
I bend forward, shoulders shaking, and the grief tears out of me all at once.
Everything is gone.
My family. My home. Every memory tied to this place—reduced to dust.
The pain in my chest is unbearable, worse than anything I felt in the trenches. It crushes down on me until I can't breathe.
A thought slips through, quiet and poisonous.
I should have died out there.
In the mud. In the noise. Anywhere but here.
I clutch at the ash, my fingers digging into it as if I can pull something—anything—back.
But there's nothing.
Only emptiness.
---
I don't know how long I stay there.
Eventually, the tears stop.
Not because the pain is gone—but because there's nothing left to give.
I sit back slowly, staring at the ruins.
The grief is still there, deep and hollow.
But something else has taken root beside it.
Hot.
Sharp.
Growing.
Anger.
It coils in my chest, tightening with every breath.
At my father.
At the men who came to collect.
At the ones who lit the fire.
At the politicians who signed away our future.
At the Allies.
At everything.
My hands curl into fists.
"They took everything," I whisper.
The words feel small compared to what I feel.
"They don't get to walk away."
My voice steadies, hardening.
"I'll find them."
A promise.
Not loud. Not dramatic.
Certain.
"I don't care how long it takes."
The warmth returns—faint, but there. That same strange heat from the battlefield, stirring somewhere deep inside me.
"I'll make them answer."
---
I rise to my feet.
I don't look back again.
Munich stretches out before me—broken, restless, full of ghosts.
Somewhere in it are the men responsible.
And I will find them.