Chapter 1: First Encounter

The air in Manila hung heavier than dust, thicker than smoke from shattered buildings.

It carried sorrow. Blood. The weight of stories ending too soon. The once-vibrant city now wore a ghost’s skin: blackened walls, crumbling churches, and streets slick with mud and something darker.

Clara Hernandez stepped over a broken chair as she entered what had once been the ballroom of the University of the Philippines—now a makeshift hospital.

Her boots stuck slightly to the floor, which had seen more blood than dance shoes in recent months. The grand chandeliers above were long gone, replaced by flickering lanterns and dangling cords.

On the far wall, a painting of Rizal stared down silently, his face cracked by a bullet hole.

Clara moved past the groaning man without pause, ducked beneath torn cords, and knelt beside a stretcher with the practiced calm of someone who no longer flinched — not at the metallic scent of fresh blood, and certainly not at the distant boom of mortars that had become as familiar as the church bells once were.

She moved quickly but carefully, weaving past beds made from wooden doors and stretchers.

Her dark hair was pinned in a bun that had long since surrendered its shape, and her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows. Clara wasn’t a nurse by training—she had been a literature student. But war had a way of rewriting destinies.

“Hold him steady,” she told the young volunteer beside her, whose face was pale but determined. She bent over the boy lying on the cot—a teenage soldier no older than sixteen, with a torn shirt and blood-soaked pants. His eyes flickered open.

“Ka… kapatid ko, (My... my brother)” he mumbled.

“Shh,” Clara whispered. “You’ll see him again. Just stay with me.”

She threaded the needle with hands that didn’t shake anymore. The wound on the boy’s side was deep, a jagged tear likely from shrapnel.

She began to stitch, each pull of the thread anchoring the boy a little closer to life. One stitch, then another. In her mind, she tried to recite poetry—an old habit to quiet her thoughts.

“Not all battles are won with bullets,” she thought. “Some are won with thread and hope.”

Then the door burst open.

At first, Clara didn’t look up. Another stretcher, another patient. But something made her glance—perhaps it was the silence that followed, unusual in a room constantly alive with urgency.

He stood in the doorway like a specter: tall, broad-shouldered, and unmistakably foreign. His British uniform was torn at the shoulder, dusted with soot and dried blood. The cap he carried under his arm bore the insignia of a captain. His left arm was bandaged in haste, the cloth soaked through with red.

Captain Alistair Beaumont.

The name would come later. For now, he was just a man with eyes too tired for someone so young. Eyes that had seen villages burn and men scream. He scanned the room, not with arrogance but with a soldier’s instinct—measuring exits, checking corners.

And then his gaze met Clara’s.

It lasted a second, maybe two. But in the midst of suffering and death, that glance held something powerful.

He wasn’t looking at her like the others sometimes did. Some with pity, some with lust, others with fear. No. He saw her. He saw the exhaustion beneath her strong posture, the pain behind her calm voice.

And she saw him too, not just the medals on his chest, but the cracks in his armor.

Before anyone could speak, the ground shook.

A low, thundering boom roared from the direction of Intramuros, followed by the unmistakable whistle of a shell. Clara didn’t have time to think.

In a blur of instinct, she threw herself over the young soldier she’d been treating just as the blast hit.

Windows shattered. Dust and smoke filled the room. Screams erupted—some from pain, some from sheer panic. The shockwave knocked beds over, and a part of the ceiling crumbled.

When the dust began to settle, Clara coughed, her ears ringing.

She became aware of a hand gripping her waist. Strong. Protective. She turned her head slightly and saw him, Captain Beaumont, his body over hers, shielding her as debris rained down around them. His breath was ragged, close to her ear.

“You alright?” he asked, voice raw and accented.

She nodded, dazed. “Yes. You?”

He exhaled. “Close one.”

They were lying on a floor scattered with broken glass and splinters, their faces inches apart. Around them, chaos resumed.

But in that tiny space between their bodies… dusty, battered, and trembling—there was silence. A fragile moment untouched by war.

He helped her up slowly, carefully, as though she were something precious. Their hands lingered for a heartbeat too long before letting go.

Then he straightened, wincing slightly. “Captain Alistair Beaumont, British 14th Infantry,” he said formally, nodding his head despite the dirt on his face.

“Clara Hernandez. Civilian medic… and former poet,” she added, surprising herself.

“Poet?” he echoed, eyebrows lifting slightly.

She gave a tired smile. “Words used to be my battlefield.”

Alistair looked around. “Seems you’ve switched theaters.”

Clara crouched back beside the young soldier, who was now conscious and murmuring in pain. She reached for fresh gauze and gently pressed it to his side.

Alistair, without a word, crouched beside her and held the boy’s shoulder, calming him with a quiet voice.

They worked in sync for the next hour. No need for explanations or instructions, they simply understood.

He was no stranger to triage, and she had long since abandoned hesitation.

The wounded kept coming: men and women, soldiers and civilians, young and old. One girl, barely ten, arrived with burns on her back, and Alistair’s hands trembled only once as he cleaned her wounds.

Later, when the night deepened and most of the wounded had been stabilized or laid to rest, Clara found herself sitting against a pillar, rubbing her aching wrists.

Alistair stood nearby, staring out through a shattered window. Outside, the city was a patchwork of fire and shadow.

“I’ve been to France. Burma. North Africa,” he said quietly. “But this… this is something else.”

Clara looked up. “This is home.”

He turned to her. “I’m sorry.”

She appreciated that he didn’t say ‘it will be okay’. No false comfort. Just the truth, heavy and unpolished.

“Why are you here, Captain?” she asked.

His jaw tightened. “Orders. The British sent a few of us to assist the Americans. But mostly, I think they wanted us out of the way.”

“Out of the way?” she echoed.

He hesitated. “I refused an order. Back in Burma. It cost men their lives… but following it might have cost more. Command didn’t agree with my judgment.”

Silence stretched between them. The lantern near them flickered, casting soft shadows on the walls.

“I know what that feels like,” Clara said softly. “To lose people. To make choices no one else understands.”

He sat beside her, not too close, not too far.

“Do you write still?” he asked.

Clara shook her head. “Not since the bombings started. It felt… selfish. Writing poems while others were bleeding.”

“Maybe that’s when it matters most,” he replied. “When the world is bleeding.”

She looked at him—really looked. Beneath the officer’s uniform and weathered skin was a man carrying stories, regrets, and maybe hope.

And she realized, with a clarity that startled her, that she wanted to know those stories.

Outside, a siren wailed—a warning of another attack. But for now, in the fractured stillness of that ruined hospital, two strangers found something unexpected: recognition.

Like old souls meeting again, not for the first time but the first time in this life.

Clara stood slowly. “I should check the supplies.”

Alistair rose with her. “I’ll help.”

She gave him a curious glance. “A British officer taking orders from a civilian Filipina?”

“Call it collaboration,” he said, voice low, almost amused.

As they moved side by side, gathering bandages and rationing medicine, the walls between them began to fade—not completely, but enough.

Enough to let something in.

Something fragile.

Something defiant.

A spark, perhaps.

A spark in the ashes.

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