Ink of Ages Fiction Prize

Ashes Between Us

Mother always used to say, grief doesn't always come with a loud knock on the door. Sometimes it slips in quietly, rearranges the furniture and teaches you how to sit with it. 

Little did she know grief can do both.  

Smoke filled the air as usual, sharp and acrid, sticking to my throat. I heard Berlin's heartbeat – breaking, artillery thumping day and night, strewn streets, twisted streetcars, and shadows of people moving like ghosts through the haze. Life was bad, but me and Hans still tried to make it work. Trading half-stale biscuits, laughing at silly stories while whispering under blankets, pretending the bombs outside were only a summer storm. He was my anchor, my proof that some part of life could still be ours. But on that day everything changed. 

The banging started like thunder against the door. Fists, boots, rifle butts. Each crash shook the walls, rattling the cups on the shelf.

"Aufmachen!" "Open up!”

Mother’s face was drained of blood. She grabbed Hans by the shoulders, hissing at him to go hide in the bedroom. 

The door burst before she could even unlatch it. Two soldiers stormed in, their boots slamming against the boards, rifles already raised. One of them shouted, spit flying from his mouth:

“Where is the boy? We know he’s here!”

“I–I don’t know what you mean,” Mother stammered. “My son is not home.”

Her words were drowned out by the crash of furniture overturned, drawers ripped from their frames, cupboards flung open. Then one of them threw open the bedroom door. Hans.

“Here!” the soldier roared, yanking him into the light. Hans struggled, but the man’s fist slammed into his stomach, folding him in half.

“Tomorrow. Conscription office. If he isn’t there – your whole family pays.”

Hans was barely seventeen.

After that, it was just Mother and me for weeks. She sat at the small table, brushing rouge across her cheeks as though appearances could keep the war from touching us. “Sit straight Maria,” she whispered, eyes sharp. “We must be calm and presentable.” I obeyed, my back aching, holding the posture of a girl who still believed someone was coming to save them.

When Hans first came home I nearly ran to hug him, but the way he stood in the doorway stopped me. His eyes didn’t soften, he barely spoke and when he did, his voice was low and deliberate, as though each word had to pass through layers of exhaustion before reaching me. He didn’t laugh at my clumsy jokes anymore, we didn't share stale biscuits either and finally he stopped smiling.

The second time he came, his uniform smelled of smoke and something bitter, metallic. There was a rip in his sleeve, and I reached to touch it, but he pulled away, almost flinching. That was the time Hans was no longer my brother, just a stranger who stole his face.

After that he didn’t visit in weeks, maybe months. I’d grown used to the hollow space he left behind, the way his absence rearranged the air in our flat. But today he decided to visit, this time, he came through the door with a tightness in his jaw I recognised from before the war, the kind of determination that meant something was going to happen, whether we liked it or not.

“There’s a train,” he whispered, “two nights from now. A few civilians. If we’re on it, we’ll be behind the American lines before the Soviets reach the city.”

Mother hesitated, but Hans’s voice was steady, urgent. “I have a friend who works at the station who owes me a favour. I have seats for all of us.” Slowly, Mother nodded.

The night came black and bitter. We moved through rubble-strewn streets, silent except for our own breathing. Every shadow seemed to twist into a soldier, every flicker of movement a potential threat. The Allies had declared Berlin their prize, and the Soviets were tightening their grip. Refugees poured into the station, no one knew which trains would truly make it past the checkpoints. But we followed Hans, because there was nothing else to follow.

Inside the station, the air was thick with soot and panic. Soldiers barked orders, shoving men who looked young enough to fight, inspecting papers with suspicion. Hans’s uniform coat still gave him a kind of shield, though his eyes betrayed the weight he carried.

Then it happened.

A soldier near the platform stiffened, his gaze landing on Hans. Recognition flickered across his face – whether from Volkssturm duty or a list of deserters, I’ll never know. “You there, stop!”

For one suspended moment, the whole station seemed to hold its breath. Then Hans hissed, “Run!”

We burst forward. My hand clung to his sleeve, Mother stumbling beside us. Shouts erupted. Whistles shrieked. Boots hammered against stone as soldiers gave chase. We shoved past crates, tripped over bags, collided with strangers whose curses drowned in the chaos. My legs burned; my chest seared with fire, but still we ran. Ahead, the train screeched, its doors clanging shut. Refugees clambered onto the steps, arms reaching, desperate to be pulled inside. We threw ourselves forward, Mother first, then me, my fingers clawing onto the cold iron rail. For a breath, we were together – almost free.

But Hans did not climb.

A hand gripped his shoulder like iron. He looked at me instead, his breath ragged, eyes suddenly clear. “Go,” he said softly, as though we were children again, hiding from Mother’s scoldings in the stairwell. 

“NO!” I bellowed, reaching, clawing, sobbing. “Hans, please! Please come!”

But he only smiled with release. “I knew I wouldn’t make it,” he whispered.

The soldier yanked him back. I lunged, but Mother clutched me, dragging me inside as the train lurched. My screams tore through the air, through the smoke, through the iron walls of that accursed station, until my throat was raw and my body hollow.

The last thing I saw was my Hans, claimed by Berlin forever.