Chapter Text
The morning air was crisp in September of 1944, carrying the scent of damp earth and wild rosemary through the quiet village of Santana dos Ferros. A pale mist clung stubbornly to the thatched rooftops, curling around the chimneys of the modest cottages as if reluctant to release the night. The hush of dawn still lingered, broken only by the distant bray of a mule and the soft rustling of leaves in the breeze.
At the worn threshold of his family home, Malthus stood motionless, a small satchel slung over his shoulder, its strap pressing into his palm like an anchor. His heart felt heavier than the bag he carried, burdened by the weight of parting, by the knowledge that this was the last morning he would wake to the familiar embrace of these hills for a long, long time.
His father stood waiting on the porch, a solitary figure against the creeping light of day.
There had been a time when his father had stood taller, stronger, his presence unshaken. But grief had a way of hollowing a man out, of softening the sharp edges that once defined him. Since his mother’s passing, the old man had carried his sorrow in silence, speaking less, working harder, growing more lined with each passing season.
Now, those weary eyes studied Malthus with quiet intensity, as if committing him to memory.
“Malthus.”
His name was spoken low and measured, but there was an undercurrent beneath it, a tremor that betrayed something deeper — pride and sorrow intertwined, impossible to separate.
“Are you certain this is the path you must take?” his father asked, voice gravelly from years of toil and quiet suffering. “The world beyond our fields is harsh. Unforgiving.”
Malthus swallowed, his gaze drifting over the land that had raised him.
The narrow, dusty lane that wound its way toward the town. The gentle slopes of the hills beyond, still painted in the silvery hues of morning. The old olive tree that had stood at the heart of their land for generations, its thick roots gripping the soil like a promise.
It had all been his world once.
And now he was leaving it.
A memory stirred in his chest, one he had not allowed himself to dwell on—not fully—not until now.
His mother, frail and fading, her breath thin as gossamer, her fingers barely strong enough to brush against his cheek.
"My darling," she had whispered, voice brittle as autumn leaves, "when the end comes, you shall see an angel as I do now, a light that will guide you even in the darkest hours."
Malthus exhaled slowly, forcing himself back into the present.
“Father,” he said, the words thick on his tongue, “I must go. We — I must.”
His father’s jaw tightened, and for a brief moment, he looked as though he wanted to argue. To reach out, to hold him here, to find some last-minute reason why his son should not walk this road.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he placed a calloused hand on Malthus’ shoulder, squeezing it with a firmness that spoke of restraint, of all the things left unsaid.
“You have your mother’s strength, my boy,” he murmured. Then, softer, “Promise me you’ll be safe.”
The words hit like a fist to the chest, unexpected in their quiet vulnerability.
Malthus hesitated, his own throat tightening.
“I promise, Father.”
It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t quite the truth either.
The first light of morning crept over the horizon, casting a golden glow over the fields.
The village, usually alive with the sounds of morning chores, seemed to have paused, as if holding its breath.
A few neighbours lingered by their doorsteps, watching. Not intruding, not calling out, but simply bearing witness.
Someone pulled a bucket from the well more gently than usual, as if mindful not to break the quiet. Someone else stepped out to sweep their doorstep but barely moved the broom, gaze fixed on the young man with his satchel.
It was a silent farewell, but no less powerful for it.
Malthus adjusted the strap of his bag and took stock of his few belongings — each one a tether to the life he was leaving behind.
A frayed scarf, once his mother’s, now wrapped loosely around his neck. A leather-bound journal, pages half-filled with hurried sketches and half-formed dreams. A silver locket, worn smooth from years of being pressed between his fingers whenever he longed for something that felt like home.
He turned, one last time, to the small farmhouse that had been his world.
His father stood where he had left him, shoulders set, eyes shadowed.
And then, softly — so softly it almost didn’t reach him —
"Get home safely, my son."
Malthus gave a final nod, not trusting himself to speak. And with a final embrace, firm and lingering, he walked away
The port of Rio de Janeiro was a world away from the quiet, steady rhythms of Santana dos Ferros.
Malthus stood on the edge of the bustling wharf, his boots planted on sun-warmed stone, watching the city move around him. Everything here was too much, too loud, too fast, too big.
The air was thick with the mingling scents of salt and diesel, of freshly cut lumber stacked high on the nearby docks, of sweat and iron and the lingering tang of roasting meat from a street vendor calling out prices in rapid Portuguese.
Above it all, the sky burned blue, a fierce and unrelenting stretch of colour that bore little resemblance to the soft, familiar hues of dawn in his village. There, the morning light arrived gently, rolling in like a sigh over the hills and rooftops.
Here, the morning crashed down like a wave, drenching everything in a golden brightness that left nowhere to hide.
Before him, the ship loomed large — a hulking, steel-bodied beast, rocking ever so slightly with the movement of the harbour.
It was alive with motion and sound, the clatter of boots on the gangway, the steady thrum of machinery somewhere deep inside, the overlapping murmur of thousands of voices, young men, all clad in the same uniform, all boarding with the same mix of excitement and fear twisting in their guts.
Malthus swallowed hard.
The heat of the sun pressed down on his back, but it was nothing compared to the weight of the moment settling onto his shoulders.
This was it. The point of no return.
“Malthus! You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
The voice came from behind him, familiar, warm, teasing.
Malthus turned to find Antônio grinning at him, his dark, unruly hair barely kept in check beneath his cap. They had signed up together back home, standing shoulder-to-shoulder as they filled out forms, recited their oaths, and watched their futures be sealed in ink.
Now, Antônio’s eyes sparkled with both mischief and unease, a forced lightness in his expression as he clapped Malthus on the back.
“I’m not sure it’s a ghost, Antônio,” Malthus admitted, managing a small, crooked smile. “I suppose I’m just nervous.”
Antônio let out a low chuckle. “That’s how we all feel, my friend. But remember, we’re in this together.” He gave him another solid slap on the shoulder. “Besides, think of the stories we’ll have to tell when we get back.”
When. Not if.
Malthus nodded, even though the word lodged in his throat like a stone.
As the afternoon waned, Malthus climbed up to the upper deck, needing air, space, sky.
The city stretched out before him, a vast mosaic of colour and movement, colonial rooftops mingling with the modern sprawl of buildings. Beyond it, the mountains stood tall, Sugarloaf’s familiar silhouette cutting against the sky. And beyond that, the open ocean.
He leant against the railing, his fingers tightening around the warm metal. This was his last view of home.
He closed his eyes and exhaled, hearing his mother’s voice once more, soft, steady, certain.
"When the end comes, you shall see an angel…"
The words drifted like mist, brushing against the edge of his thoughts before slipping away.
Malthus opened his eyes. Ahead, the water stretched on forever, and somewhere across it, the war waited.
“Oi, Malthus!”
He turned, blinking as the moment shattered around him.
A small group of soldiers had gathered near a makeshift table, a pot steaming at the center.
One of them — broad-shouldered, laughing, his sleeves already rolled up to his elbows despite the sea breeze — waved him over.
“Come sit, have a bite! You look like you could use some company.”
Malthus hesitated. Then, before he could talk himself out of it, he stepped forward.
The meal was simple — rice, beans, some tough stew that no one dared question the origin of — but it felt like something more. It felt like belonging.
Juca, the broad-shouldered soldier, grinned as he passed the bowl along. “We all have our worries, my friend,” he said, his tone warm, steady, reassuring. “But tonight, we eat as brothers.”
Malthus swallowed down the tightness in his throat and took a bite. For the first time that day, he felt a little less alone.
The laughter, the quiet stories exchanged between bites, the shared space of men trying to forget, just for a moment, where they were going, it all settled into something that, strangely, felt like home.
At sea, the ship was its own world, cramped, restless, unrelenting.
There was no room for solitude. Nowhere to escape from the press of bodies, the overlapping voices, the slow churn of time measured only by the slap of waves against steel. Strangers became familiar by necessity, their presence impossible to ignore.
Malthus adjusted, though not easily.
The men around him filled the tight quarters with noise; raucous, blunt, often crude. Laughter cut through the din like an act of defiance, and even when Malthus found their jokes grating, he recognised them for what they were. A way to keep the fear at bay.
Antônio, ever ready with a quip, laughed through it all, his easy manner making even the most dismal surroundings seem bearable. Juca, big eyes and quick to grin, had a talent for turning even the sourest mood with a well-timed remark.
There were others too.
Luiz, who hummed old marches under his breath as if they might tether him to home.
Pedro, quiet and bookish, scribbling notes into a battered notebook as though words alone might keep him steady.
And Ernesto, the youngest of them, whose voice carried the unease that many of them refused to voice aloud.
At mealtimes, they sat in a cluster around the makeshift tables, eating their rations without complaint but never without comment.
The conversations shifted between easy camaraderie and something darker. One moment, someone was recalling the girl he left behind in São Paulo, and the next, voices dropped, tones hushed, as whispers of the war ahead spread like a slow-moving tide.
As the days passed, the mood shifted. The air grew heavy with unspoken dread. Word had spread: Italy was worse than they thought.
It wasn’t just the enemy. It was the land itself. Men spoke in urgent murmurs of the mountains, the cold, the trenches frozen stiff, the snow that swallowed the wounded whole.
Malthus sat near a porthole one evening, staring out at the dark sea as the coast of Italy began to rise like a ghost on the horizon. The soft glow of approaching land did nothing to quiet the unease curling inside him.
All around him, men exchanged their own theories in hushed voices.
“The cold – it sinks into your bones, no matter how many layers you wear.”
“The Germans? They know those mountains better than we ever will.”
“They say their defences are so well-built, it’s like trying to fight the stone itself.”
Malthus listened, but the words soon became something else.
Not warnings. Not facts. Visions .
The more he heard, the more his mind began to twist the enemy into something unnatural, something monstrous. The murmurs blurred together, melting into an ominous, shapeless chorus, and from it, his fears took form.
In the dim corridors of the ship, shadows stretched too long, bending into unnatural shapes. He saw faces that weren’t faces. Men who weren’t men. Figures twisting into something inhuman, their bodies warped by the darkness in his own mind. Eyes like black voids, laughter that rang out like the sound of steel scraping against bone. The enemy was no longer flesh and blood, they had become demons.
And if the cold didn’t take them first, those demons would.
That night, the ship’s steady hum and the rhythmic pull of the ocean should have lulled Malthus into sleep. But as he lay in his cramped berth, staring at the curved metal ceiling, his mind refused to quiet.
Italy was only days away. And with every passing hour, the weight of it pressed heavier on his chest.
The dream was unlike any he had known before.
He stood in a vast, shadowed expanse, where the night itself seemed alive, shifting and breathing. The darkness stretched in every direction, broken only by shafts of pale, silver light.
And then—
She appeared. A figure, bathed in soft luminescence, moving as if she were made of light itself. She was not of this place, and yet, she belonged to it. Malthus did not know how, but he knew, it was her .
She knelt beside him.
He was wounded, though he couldn’t see the injuries, only feel them, the deep, gnawing ache of something unspoken, unseen.
And when she reached for him, warmth. A touch that was more than skin, more than flesh. A touch that seeped into him, quieting something inside that had been screaming for weeks.
"Do not fear," she whispered.
For a moment, the fear ebbed. For a moment, the war, the ship, the creeping dread of what lay ahead, none of it mattered. But then, the light dimmed. The edges of the dream curled into shadow. And from the darkness, they emerged.
Not men. Not human. Figures with twisted faces and empty, soulless eyes. Forms that shifted and distorted, stretching beyond the boundaries of reason. They surrounded her, surrounded him, creeping closer, their presence souring the air.
Malthus tried to move, to warn her, to do something , but his body was leaden, his limbs heavy, his voice stolen from him.
The figure’s light flickered. And as the nightmare closed in, she whispered something else.
He did not understand the words. But they stayed with him.
Malthus jolted awake, gasping.
His pulse hammered against his ribs, sweat clinging to his skin despite the cold. The ship groaned softly around him, the sea stretching endlessly beyond the thin walls of metal and rivets.
He lay there, staring into the dimness, his breathing ragged. The vision lingered, her presence, her voice, the warmth of her touch.
But so did the darkness. So did the monsters. He did not know if she had come to comfort him, or to warn him.