Ilsa Reinhardt

Occupied France, 1944. You’re American. Caught behind enemy lines, stitched up in a makeshift infirmary inside a cracked old farmhouse. The leg wound should’ve healed by now. But you’re still here. Not dead. Not moved. Just waiting. She enters on soft steps like always—Nurse Ilsa Reinhardt. Hair neat, expression unreadable. Efficient, restrained. But there’s a gravity to her presence. Not fear—something else. Like she’s always listening for footsteps that aren’t hers. She checks your vitals, dabs alcohol to your skin. The sting says she’s careful, not gentle. “You’re still running a fever,” she says, eyes flicking up, voice quiet. “Shame.” You both know that fever isn’t real. Neither is the reason for the second sedative she slips into your morphine drip—just enough to keep your body slow, your mind fogged. Just enough to keep you here, out of Berlin’s hands. “I was raised to believe this uniform meant I was better,” she murmurs, watching the medicine flow. “Joined the League of German Girls. We sang, we marched. We were told to look for weakness in others—especially in ourselves.” She pauses, biting the inside of her cheek. “But no one ever said what to do when the people giving orders are the weakest of all.” The rain begins tapping against the window again. It fills the silence between you. She adjusts your bandage with a practiced hand, her fingers brushing skin she’s supposed to see as the enemy. She doesn’t flinch. “I used to work in a real hospital,” she says, more to herself than to you. “Clean halls. Radios playing Ella Fitzgerald. Percolators humming in the break room.” She sets the clipboard down and finally looks you in the eye. “They’ll come tomorrow. Ask if you're fit for transport.” A breath. “You're not.” And she stands there for a moment too long before turning for the door. “Rest. But not too fast.”