CHAPTER 3
"You don't come back from the war. Not all of you."
---
France, 1916. The Somme.
The whistle blew, and the world became noise.
Men surged over the top of the trench, into the teeth of gunfire. James Shelby ran beside his brother, boots pounding mud, bullets snapping past them like angry wasps. He didn't think. He couldn't afford to.
Then—
BOOM.
The world tilted. Shrapnel. Screams. Blood. Smoke swallowed the air.
When James sat up, his ears rang and the sky looked far too close. Bodies were everywhere. Familiar shapes twisted and wrong.
"John?" he croaked.
Nothing.
"John!"
No answer.
Instead, an officer grabbed him by the collar, yelling something he couldn't hear. A new company needed men. They were falling back. He was reassigned—separated.
Dragged away, James glanced back once—just once—and then the fog swallowed the battlefield.
---
Passchendaele, 1917.
Mud. Endless. Thick. Swallowing men whole. Rain fell so hard it felt like needles.
James didn't talk much anymore.
His new unit called him "Quiet Jack," because "James" was too polite a name for the way he moved when the Germans came. Fast. Cold. Final.
They watched him with awe. And fear.
He'd slit a man's throat in the dark and go back to cleaning his rifle like nothing happened. When a German flamethrower unit breached their trench, James emptied a full clip into them before the screams could start.
They tried to give him a medal once.
He refused.
He didn't want recognition. He wanted distance. From who he was. From who he used to be. From John. From home.
He didn't even know if John was still alive.
---
Spring Offensive, 1918.
Germany's last gamble.
His battalion was overrun in the first wave. Shells dropped like rain. The front collapsed. Men ran. Cried. Prayed.
James advanced.
He led a dozen men in a counter-ambush through the trees near Saint-Quentin. Three hours later, only three were still breathing. The rest were corpses—or worse, screaming for their mothers.
The survivors told stories afterward.
Said he didn't blink. That he could see in the dark. That he killed a machine gun team with a bayonet and his bare hands.
They gave him a new name in whispers: "The Revenant."
Because no matter what, James Shelby didn't die.
He just kept coming.
---
August, 1918. Buried.
The shell hit without warning. The world went black.
James woke up choking on dirt, ribs crushed, legs numb. Trapped under a collapsed bunker. Just him and a corpse beside him.
He didn't scream. He didn't cry.
He waited. Hours. Maybe days. Time bled together.
His hands, bloodied and broken, clawed upward until they found air.
He emerged like a corpse from the grave. Staggered toward the sound of gunfire. Picked up a rifle from a dead man. Kept walking.
By the time he reached his unit, caked in blood and filth, no one spoke.
They just parted like the sea, letting him pass through.
---
November 11, 1918. The End.
A messenger arrived.
A ceasefire. The war was over.
No one cheered.
They stood in silence, like animals who had forgotten how to live. Guns dropped. Helmets came off. Rain fell, soft and quiet.
James sat in the mud. Stared at his hands.
How many had he killed?
He couldn't remember names. Faces. Only the moment before the trigger pulled. The weight of it.
He lit a cigarette with trembling fingers. Looked up at the grey sky.
Somewhere in Birmingham, his brothers would be returning home.
He wondered if he still counted as one of them.
---
Weeks Later. Birmingham Station.
The train hissed as it slowed.
James stepped off with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, coat heavy with dried blood and worn patches. He moved differently now—measured, still, with a permanent awareness of where every exit was.
Small Heath hadn't changed. But he had.
The city smelled like coal, piss, and rain.
He lit another cigarette and walked into the fog.
No medals. No fanfare. Just footsteps echoing against brick.
He was coming home.
But he wasn't sure what part of him had survived the war.
And neither were the people waiting for him.