All Quiet On The Western Front Book の小説・ストーリー

I was a grown man, but my legs still gave out slightly when the nurse came for me out of reflex. The fear I felt nearly sent me sprawling to the ground. I was afraid it would be bad news. Why did the nurse say my grandfather wanted to talk to me instead of telling me his condition first? I didn't dare ask. I was genuinely terrified. Jolene finally caught on as well. She stayed behind me, no matter how much Leon shouted at her to leave me to my own devices. It almost looked like she had finally remembered my grandfather's kindness.

A little whisper of an echo darting through the darkness. Both of us tensed, our wolves alert and ears scanning for any trace of sound. Staying quiet was one of the lines in the poem, but we had no other way to communicate. Quiet did not mean silent, and I wondered if we might get away with lowering our voices. A musty smell wafted through the shelves; it smelled of dust, bones, and dry leather. It wasn’t the most disgusting thing I had smelled, but was bad enough to make Helena and I wrinkle our noses. I pointed towards the unending rows of bookshelves.

The silence stretched like a blade between us. Every second ticked by heavier than the last. I could feel the air thickening, pressing down on my lungs, squeezing until I wasn’t sure I could take another breath. Laura’s eyes never left mine. Ronan, the wolf by the door, stood stiff and silent, ears pinned back like he sensed a storm about to hit. The book sat between us on the table like a loaded weapon, humming with something old—something I didn’t understand.

Not now, not after everything. Lina flipped through a final set of pages in the old book, and I watched her lips move as she read the words silently. The quiet of the room seemed deafening. The sound of my breathing, the boys’ occasional shifts of weight, and the soft rustling of Lina’s pages were the only things that broke the silence.

“ It might seem like that sometimes, but like I said before, life is more about how you react to what happened to you. Take those soldiers who went to war and came back a shadow of themselves? Yeah, they'd lost something they'd once treasured, but it's honestly not really what they lost that matters but how they react to what's lost. ” “ Hm… ” Mira thought about the book they'd just finished reading which shook both of them. The book was titled, Home front by a best selling author, Kristin Hannah. The book had been based on a woman who'd gone to war with the dreadful words of, “ I don't love you anymore. ” from her husband.

The volume still sat there, tucked like a secret between louder voices, its silver letters catching only the faintest glimmer from the hearthlight. I let the silence breathe for a heartbeat longer, then said quietly, “Professor… the book I nearly touched. The Quiet Cull.” My voice felt out of place in the room, too soft and too mortal. “What is it about?” He didn’t answer immediately. His head tipped just slightly to one side, the faintest narrowing of his eyes suggesting either amusement or irritation—though with him, it was always impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. He shifted back against the leather of his chair, fingers still steepled loosely before his lips, and reg

*****************************POV: Rowe************************ --- There were two kinds of quiet in the world. The first kind was peace—when birds sang, the air breathed easy, and the sun rose without hesitation. The wind howling like the only thing we needed at the moment. And the second? The second kind of peace was war. The kind that settled over everything right before the shot. The air stilled. The insects stopped. Even your heartbeat dared not make noise, as if sound alone might be the trigger.

*** Raven’s breath slowed. *** Then— more. *** A child laughing near the outer farms. The uneven rhythm of bare feet hitting packed dirt. A woman calling after them, voice threaded with exhaustion and relief. *** A cart wheel creaking along the western road. Wood stressed from overuse. The driver’s hands blistered beneath worn gloves. *** A soldier shifting along the northern wall. Armor scraping faintly. His weight favoring the left leg— an old injury. *** All of it— at once. ***

And for just a moment—the flood stopped. The pages of the giant book curled backward like flapping wings. The bloody image of Camela on the first page screamed as its face split open into a thousand cracks. The whispers grew louder than ever before—desperate and furious this time: “You chose silence. Then silence shall be your fate.” Every book in the library slammed shut simultaneously with a sound that thundered like bones breaking apart. And then—darkness. A total, smothering, and overwhelming silence enveloped them both.

Things were still pretty good back then after the war that separated us from the Werewolves. When things died down, it was like a breath of fresh air for us to be free with who we were. “Do you see anything?” Not yet, all these things were just records of administration and important events. The book was quite huge so I knew that I was in for a long time. It was very dusty so I had to hold my breath Everytime I flipped the pages. “I think I found something.” Lawrence crouched beside me to look at the book. The entry dated