1916, VERDUN, FRANCE

DELILAH DE LUCA WALKED THROUGH THE DOORS OF ONE OF THE MILITARY HOSPITAL ROOMS, HER EYES DRIFTING TOWARD ALL THE OCCUPIED BEDS AROUND THE LARGE ROOM.

"What should we do?" her friend, Jean, asked while following after her, her steps echoing against the stone walls directly into the resting soldiers' ears.

Delilah frowned as she approached a man she was used to taking care of, Pierre she believed; he had been fighting on Verdun's battlefield since March, and had been shot three times in the chest by a German. The nurse could see how young he was, even younger than her. He definitely wasn't eighteen, and a picture of her brother flashed in her mind at the idea of him fighting in the Somme.

"I don't know," she truthfully answered, adjusting the covers on the soldier's shivering body. "Maybe we should focus on the ones who can survive their injuries as the others said."

Jean sighed, eyeing the teenager lying in the hospital bed, his forehead covered in sweat. She was feeling bad for her friend: she was one of the youngest, and somehow, she had been assigned to the worst job. Supervising their whole team of nurses was hard enough for an older woman. Jean struggled to imagine herself calling the shots the way Delilah did.

The redhead leaned forward to check on the young man, just enough to know he was still breathing. Even from where she was standing, she could hear his struggles, but she was grateful for every breath he was able to take. Maybe he would be able to beat the fever. But then what? Delilah knew what was coming next. As soon as the boy would be able to walk again, he would be sent back to the battlefield, only to be injured again — or worse, to join all the unknown soldiers the hospital welcomed only to realize that they were already dead.

Delilah stepped away from the guy and crossed her arms on her chest, chewing nervously on her bottom lip. Jean seemed to notice how nervous she was because she rested her hand on her shoulder and squeezed it comfortingly. Delilah sadly smiled at her only British friend before a French nurse walked into the room, her white dress floating behind her like a wedding dress.

"Delilah," she called, and the redhead couldn't help but grit her teeth at the French accent — she hated when the nurses or doctors were calling her by her name because it was coming out wrong, strangely.

The nurse didn't seem to notice her discomfort as she stopped next to her, her hands clasped in an intimidated manner in front of her.

"They said another convoy was on its way."

Jean gasped as Delilah's fingers wrapped themselves around the Christian cross on her necklace. It was an old habit of hers, to find comfort in God; however, the gesture wasn't as faithful as it used to be before the war. Before she witnessed the lethal violence, the half-alive men desperately tried to save their comrades from the fate they were promised. Before she realized what the world really was, Delilah was confident that God would save the humankind from cruelty and sin.

Now that she was in the middle of the worse inhumanities ever created, she was questioning everything she had once believed in. How could God let everything happen? How could He gaze at the creatures He had created with His own hands destroying each other? How could He contemplate the river of blood flowing down the trenches, smashing the remaining soldiers into its depth? Wasn't He concerned about them? Wasn't He supposed to look after them?

Her hand quickly dropped the cross as if it had burnt her before she placed a fake smile on her lips.

"Don't you worry, Claire, we'll get through this, alright?"

The blonde nurse nodded as the double doors of the room opened on a nun, her face contorting in worry. Instantly, the three women followed after her in the corridors until they reached the main floor, where a few soldiers were carrying their comrades inside. The other nurses were assigned to take care of a soldier, and Delilah wasn't an exception.

The Mother Superior pointed a finger towards a bed, where a man was resting peacefully, his eyes closed. When Delilah first approached him, she thought he was dead; his face was so peaceful, his eyelids not even moving that he seemed content with the ending of his life.

When a piece of her flame-like hair brushed against his pale cheek, the soldier's eyes popped open, staring at her features almost lovingly. Realization seemed to hit him as his eyes turned empty and cold in a heartbeat.

"I thought you were someone else," his raspy, tired voice whispered, his throat probably burning and desperately praying for him to stop talking. "The one that could bring me back to life. God, do you even speak English?"

Delilah recognized his London soft accent, the one rolling on her tongue every time she was speaking. It reminded her of her big town, Big Ben and people rushing through the wet street and high heels clicking on the pavement.

"In fact, I'm British," she responded with a comforting smile. "I'm certainly not here to bring you back to life because no one dies under my supervision."

The soldier almost smiled before he was coughing in his hand. Delilah's eyes widened when blood splashed against his palm, the soldier only staring at it before he spun his palm towards her to have a better look.

"I think I might be the first one."

The redhead nurse shook her head. She glanced around her for a doctor but they weren't there just yet. Jean narrowed her eyes, looking for a doctor as well before the men of the hour were finally running through the room.

"You're not going to die," Delilah stated. "You just need to have surgery right now, but you'll be fine."

The soldier sadly smiled while shaking his head slowly, blood falling from his dark hair in the process.

"I know you're lying," he whispered, leaning closer to the nurse. "I want you to listen to me now."

Delilah nodded before she approached the wounded soldier, her breath itching in her throat.

"My name is Henry. Henry Parkson. You're from London, right? I can hear it from your accent. My wife's from Birmingham. Her name is Madeline Delacour, we were supposed to get married when I come back from the war. But now I know I won't be."

Delilah shook her head again and put one hand on his cold arm, squeezing it gently.

"I told you, you're not going to die, Henry."

"Please," Henry pleaded as he placed his hand over hers. "Just promise me you'll find her and you'll tell her I loved her, really. She won't be hard to find in London, she owns a dress shop in town. At least she did when I left."

Delilah seemed to hesitate for a second. She couldn't afford to lose hope, and the first thing they told her when she started to work in this hospital was to keep hope alive.

However, she wasn't delusional; and she wasn't gullible enough to think that Henry had a chance to make it. Just by the look of it, he wasn't healthy — she suspected tuberculosis, if the fever and the coughing were anything to go by — and the wounds weren't going to improve anything.

A doctor sided her, and instantly, Delilah knew that pretending that he would be healing was useless. Just by the doctor's face, she guessed Henry wouldn't even go to surgery, but would probably die in a cold, white room. She couldn't let him die with the idea that his wife would never know he had been deeply in love with her and had saved his last words for her.

"I promise you, Henry."

The doctor pushed her gently to the side, pressing her to let go of the soldier's hand. But she didn't want to. When all this bloodshed would finally stop? When would these men come back home to their waiting families, to marry their bride-to-be, to raise their children?

"Will you?"

Delilah jumped and snapped her head towards the nun standing behind her. It wasn't Claire, but another one she identified as Paulette. This nun was a lot nicer than the ones walking down the hospital corridors, and she didn't claim to be able to do everything the professional nurses were doing; she was happy to learn from them instead of telling them they weren't enough for Verdun.

"Will you find his wife?"

"What else can I do for a dead man?" the redhead asked back, not really waiting for a response.

"Pray," Paulette replied nonetheless.

Delilah scoffed and shook her head.

"Don't you think they'd been praying, in the trenches? When they'd been woken up by the sounds of the guns? When their comrades had been shot and were lying on the ground, trying to remain alive just enough to at least be carried to the hospital? Don't you pray for your brothers and your father?"

Paulette's eyes widened as Delilah spilt her hatred all over the God she was supposed to believe in.

"But did it even change anything? There are more and more of them coming in and never going back to their lives, our men are still fighting on the battlefield, and we're still promising them that they'll survive, but we know they won't. Doesn't your God know they're all going to die there? Doesn't He hear them and their cries? Doesn't His Heaven shake with every gun being fired?"

Jean approached her friend, placing her hand on her shoulder softly, as if afraid to startle her. Her words were true, she knew it; however, they were working with nuns and a Mother Superior. Jean was aware that the women of God were just trying to help, but they weren't. Their faith was unwavering, unlike the nurses' own; they had seen too much of this barbarity already.

Delilah bit the inside of her cheeks to stop the words from coming out of her mouth. Paulette wasn't responsible for anything, nor was any other woman around the hospital; the doctors weren't responsible if the men were dying on their operating table. It was all the humans' cruelty and desire to win, to have more, always more, no matter what price it would eventually cost, that created this war.

Every day, they were all woken up by the shells falling from the sky in deadly holes, killing and hurting hundreds of soldiers from both sides. Every night, they were woken up by convoys bringing them lots of injured men — sometimes even already dead ones — who would not make it in the end.

Soldiers who were screaming all night long, traumatized by the days they had to spend on the battlefield, where they saw their comrades drop like flies. Soldiers who were empty, staring right in front of them without moving for days, as if they were already dead. They were, indeed, dead inside. A bunch of boys who accepted to enlist to fight for their country, but were sent to a death trap or wounded for the rest of their lives instead. Boys who, instead of feeling proud of giving their lives to a cause, were sacrificed for a battle that shouldn't even exist.

This war for what? The smell of gunpowder forever stuck in their nostrils, the memories of their friends falling in the mud and staying there forever, mingling with the humid ground, the blood and flesh.

What would happen to their orphans, widows?

All that blood shed for what, in the end? For medals? For gratitude, but gratitude for what?

For fighting for all the ones who stayed behind and still lived their lives like there wasn't a war going on?

That night, Delilah was informed that Henry Parkson didn't make it. A few days later, Pierre died as well. The two boys were twenty-one and seventeen, too young for all of this.

Verdun carried on for seven months. Seven months of waking up in the middle of the night — for the ones who could sleep — to welcome other wounded soldiers; seven months of breathing the gunpowder and living to the rhythm of gunfires; seven months of traumas, of soldiers opening up to their nice nurses.

Seven months of learning that being a light in someone's life wasn't hard if you wanted to. Not that hard if all they needed was a little bit of softness out of the battlefield. It wouldn't heal them — but at least, it could help.

And what else could Delilah De Luca do?

But just because they were cold white angels didn't mean they get to save anyone.

author's note

i think I'm a little too excited about this, but yeah, Delilah is my little angel