The war had already gone on too long. The fields were no longer green but churned with red, soaked in mud and sinew, veined with trenches like open wounds across the earth.
Somewhere on the edge of the Western Front, two men clawed their way from a shallow grave of collapsed trench wood and half-dead soldiers. One of them—broad, grim, built like a railroad spike—shook the dirt from his knuckles as the last of the shrapnel slipped from his healing skin. His name was Logan. He didn’t wear rank. Didn’t salute. His uniform had long since been torn from him in a brawl with fire and steel.
Beside him rose a shadow darker than the war itself. Taller. Wilder. Less man than beast. Victor Creed. The kind of creature men claimed didn’t exist—until he tore through their lines in the night.
They didn’t speak at first. Just stared out at the shell-torn horizon where trees stood like blackened matchsticks and the sky moaned with distant thunder.
Logan finally broke the silence. “We’re in France.”
Victor spat into the mud. “We’re in hell.”
Logan pulled a blood-soaked paper from the pocket of a dead officer slumped nearby. The ink was nearly ruined, but the message was clear enough: A battalion was walking into a trap. 1,600 men. Unless this message was hand-delivered to Colonel Mackenzie by sunset.
Victor barely glanced at it. “Not our problem,” he muttered.
Logan stared at the corpses surrounding them. “They’re our boys now.”
And so they walked—through the bowels of the war. Past the trenches where ghosts still screamed from behind stitched-up mouths. Past the dying, the drowned, and the ones begging for a bullet they couldn’t fire themselves.
They moved like wolves. One with quiet guilt behind his eyes. The other grinning with blood between his teeth.
At one junction, they entered a narrow tunnel littered with bones and old rusted helmets. A soldier stumbled into view—young, terrified, shaking. Before Logan could speak, Victor leapt and sank a claw through the boy’s throat.
Logan shoved him against the wall.
“He wasn’t the enemy.”
Victor licked the blood from his hand. “Then he shouldn’t have smelled like one.”
Outside the tunnel, they crossed a shattered village where the wind carried ash instead of snow. From one crooked house, a violin wept a song that didn’t belong in this century. Logan peered inside and saw a girl—six, maybe seven—playing to a dead infant cradled in her lap.
Victor didn’t stop.
Logan did. He stepped inside without a word, placed a biscuit and a flask near the child, and left as quietly as he came. The girl never looked up.
They pushed on, reaching a scorched ridge where a German biplane sputtered overhead, clipped by gunfire and screaming toward the ground. It crashed in a fiery roar, rolling and tearing the earth apart fifty feet ahead of them.
From the wreck crawled a pilot, face half-burned, sobbing in his native tongue. Victor didn’t hesitate—he snapped the man’s neck like a twig.
“We’re not here to kill,” Logan said coldly.
Victor turned, eyes gleaming.
“We’re not here to play saviors either.”
The road to Écoust-Saint-Mein was painted with dying light. As the sun dipped, the landscape turned the color of old blood. Logan’s breath came hard now, even with his healing—his body burned with a hundred wounds, and every step felt heavier.
Victor didn’t slow. If anything, he seemed to enjoy the carnage. He smiled at the dying. Gutted the wounded who raised a rifle too fast. And when the night came, he howled to the moon like something ancient had awoken in him again.
They were brothers once.
They were weapons now.
And every drop of blood on that field—every scream, every lost soul—was another reminder that the world didn’t deserve either of them.
But by morning, if they lived, a message would be delivered.
And 1,600 boys might live another day.
Even if two monsters had to carve through the apocalypse to get it done.
Somewhere on the edge of the Western Front, two men clawed their way from a shallow grave of collapsed trench wood and half-dead soldiers. One of them—broad, grim, built like a railroad spike—shook the dirt from his knuckles as the last of the shrapnel slipped from his healing skin. His name was Logan. He didn’t wear rank. Didn’t salute. His uniform had long since been torn from him in a brawl with fire and steel.
Beside him rose a shadow darker than the war itself. Taller. Wilder. Less man than beast. Victor Creed. The kind of creature men claimed didn’t exist—until he tore through their lines in the night.
They didn’t speak at first. Just stared out at the shell-torn horizon where trees stood like blackened matchsticks and the sky moaned with distant thunder.
Logan finally broke the silence. “We’re in France.”
Victor spat into the mud. “We’re in hell.”
Logan pulled a blood-soaked paper from the pocket of a dead officer slumped nearby. The ink was nearly ruined, but the message was clear enough: A battalion was walking into a trap. 1,600 men. Unless this message was hand-delivered to Colonel Mackenzie by sunset.
Victor barely glanced at it. “Not our problem,” he muttered.
Logan stared at the corpses surrounding them. “They’re our boys now.”
And so they walked—through the bowels of the war. Past the trenches where ghosts still screamed from behind stitched-up mouths. Past the dying, the drowned, and the ones begging for a bullet they couldn’t fire themselves.
They moved like wolves. One with quiet guilt behind his eyes. The other grinning with blood between his teeth.
At one junction, they entered a narrow tunnel littered with bones and old rusted helmets. A soldier stumbled into view—young, terrified, shaking. Before Logan could speak, Victor leapt and sank a claw through the boy’s throat.
Logan shoved him against the wall.
“He wasn’t the enemy.”
Victor licked the blood from his hand. “Then he shouldn’t have smelled like one.”
Outside the tunnel, they crossed a shattered village where the wind carried ash instead of snow. From one crooked house, a violin wept a song that didn’t belong in this century. Logan peered inside and saw a girl—six, maybe seven—playing to a dead infant cradled in her lap.
Victor didn’t stop.
Logan did. He stepped inside without a word, placed a biscuit and a flask near the child, and left as quietly as he came. The girl never looked up.
They pushed on, reaching a scorched ridge where a German biplane sputtered overhead, clipped by gunfire and screaming toward the ground. It crashed in a fiery roar, rolling and tearing the earth apart fifty feet ahead of them.
From the wreck crawled a pilot, face half-burned, sobbing in his native tongue. Victor didn’t hesitate—he snapped the man’s neck like a twig.
“We’re not here to kill,” Logan said coldly.
Victor turned, eyes gleaming.
“We’re not here to play saviors either.”
The road to Écoust-Saint-Mein was painted with dying light. As the sun dipped, the landscape turned the color of old blood. Logan’s breath came hard now, even with his healing—his body burned with a hundred wounds, and every step felt heavier.
Victor didn’t slow. If anything, he seemed to enjoy the carnage. He smiled at the dying. Gutted the wounded who raised a rifle too fast. And when the night came, he howled to the moon like something ancient had awoken in him again.
They were brothers once.
They were weapons now.
And every drop of blood on that field—every scream, every lost soul—was another reminder that the world didn’t deserve either of them.
But by morning, if they lived, a message would be delivered.
And 1,600 boys might live another day.
Even if two monsters had to carve through the apocalypse to get it done.
