GAMEPLAY
The night shift has ended, and a wooden plank on the cart has just cracked.
Charon: ... A new plank must be located.
Remembering Partita is resting in a nearby tent, he slows his steps as he quietly searches for wood in the dark.
This isn't a trench locked in brutal conflict with the enemy.
Charon: Soldiers are unlikely to wander here. This silence is just that—silence.
A faint sob gently echoes over.
Then another, and another, the sounds stringing together into a long, fragile cord.
Charon: ... Partita.
He stands for a long time in the damp twilight.
Charon: "She only cries when no one can hear."
He sets the plank down, and, with the lantern in his hand, takes a seat in front of the tent.
Her sobs grow uncontrollable, like a wounded animal.
Words from the notebook return to him. Charon carefully opens its pages.
Charon: Fabien ... he looked after all of us back then.
Charon turns the page—to the photo he tucked in there.
Amidst Partita's echoing grief, the woman in the photo smiles on.
Charon: To whose world does this photo belong?
Eberhard: It's been a while, Paul.
Charon: It's been only four days ... but for a major, four days is not a short time.
Eberhard smiles.
Eberhard: Yet it took less than that for you to get all tangled up in this Partita drama. Franz told me everything.
Charon: It is a problem indeed, but not quite so simple.
Eberhard: She joined to find the truth about Walter's death, and somehow chance brought her to the right place.
Eberhard: You don't think she's a witch, do you?
Charon: Likely not. A coincidence, nothing more.
His joke meets a painfully literal answer.
Eberhard: If the soldiers knew the truth, they would likely start a ruckus and end up with disciplinary charges for it.
Eberhard: Worst case, they'd launch an ambush and maybe even end up with blood on their hands.
Eberhard: But Partita isn't a soldier. She hasn't seen the true depth of human brutality.
Charon: Yet she endures all that comes with war.
Eberhard stays silent, waiting for Charon to speak again.
Charon: Soldiers endure it too. Brutality is a means of survival ... and of release.
Charon: She moves among the dead and dying, saving those who suffer.
Charon: She even sleeps in the woods near the front, though sleep never truly comes.
Charon: She endures fear. Endures pain. Endures rage, war ... and death.
Charon: She's no different than a soldier.
Eberhard's face tightens. He looks away.
Eberhard: Is it ... bad? Partita's situation?
Charon: "Bad" may not be the word ... "unhealthy," perhaps.
Eberhard: Then I'm afraid I have worse news.
Charon: What?
Eberhard: She applied for a pistol.
Charon: ...
Eberhard: ...
Charon: Did you approve it?
Eberhard: It wasn't mine to approve. Lieutenant Colonel Wolker did it.
Eberhard: A field nurse who buries soldiers alongside Charon requests a pistol for protection. Who would say no to that?
Eberhard: Even without approval, it's not hard to find a weapon at the front.
Eberhard: Imagine if she were forced to scavenge one and ended up with a misfiring gun ...
Charon: Then it is best to give her one.
Eberhard: I think so.
Charon: But even a pistol requires training.
Charon: And even with a weapon in hand, not everyone has the conviction to pull the trigger.
Eberhard: That's the other piece of bad news.
Charon: ... What?
Eberhard: She completed recruit training before she arrived. Word is, she's a natural shot.
Eberhard: That's why her request was approved so quickly.
Charon: ... She came prepared.
Eberhard: That she did.
Eberhard: You still have two days until the field hospital moves out. Time enough to persuade her before the nurses rotate.
Charon: All that might have changed her mind are dead.
The hems of their coats rise and fall with the wind, as if heaving slow, heavy breaths.
Eberhard: I know.
They died in war. Died in memory.
Died in the fading of every spark. Died in every stirring of dust.
Eberhard: You three were like peas in a pod back then. Though, you weren't quite so affable as you are now, and Partita had an impatient streak, that's for sure.
Eberhard: Walter was the glue that held you together, really. He got along well with the both of you.
Eberhard: ...
Eberhard: Whatever the case, you're the only one she might still listen to.
Eberhard: Because you're Paul.
Charon: It will not be easy.
Eberhard: Well, you can't expect me to do it. I already got one beating from Partita back in school; I'm not looking to get another.
Eberhard: Oh, about that photo, the one with the woman holding cornflowers—Franz has been asking around about it.
Charon: Yes. I ... have been trying to identify her.
Eberhard: Well, I think I might have a better shot at finding out than you.
Charon: Alright. Thank you.
Eberhard: Anything else I can help with?
Charon: There is nothing. I saw Fabien at the field hospital. He is clinging to life.
Eberhard: I don't think I know him ... An old friend?
Charon: Yes.
Eberhard: Stay with him while you can.
Eberhard catches a faint shift in Charon's cloak. It seems as though he is nodding.
Charon: It will be done.