The Wroc?aw University library was quiet except for the murmurs of students. Outside, the sky hung in its usual gray, the color of unpolished pewter. Inside, dust floated in the long shafts of light that fell from the skylights. The smell of paper, old ink, and faint mold sat heavy in the air.

  At the far end of the first floor, Tina, Marcin, and Anna stood in a loose cluster between the aisles.

  “Okay,” Tina said, clapping her hands once, like a teacher trying to regain control of a field trip. “So—operation Forgotten Soldier begins now! Everyone clear on the mission?”

  Anna raised her hand. “Is this like an official mission or just one of your we-are-bored-and-the-world-is-ending missions?”

  “The second one,” Marcin muttered, hands in pockets. “Definitely the second one.”

  Tina shot him a look. “Excuse me? This is serious. That book made Casimir faint. In public. You don’t just faint from reading children’s literature.”

  Anna grinned. “You’ve obviously never read The Girl in the Rain.”

  Tina blinked, then groaned. “Okay, fair. But still. There’s something about The Forgotten Soldier. I checked the database—there’s no record of it. It’s like it doesn’t exist.”

  Marcin raised an eyebrow. “And yet it does, because I was here when he found it.” He gestured toward the far side of the library. “Children’s section. Back corner. Weird little shelf under the window.”

  Anna tilted her head. “Why were you in the children’s section with Casimir anyway?”

  Marcin frowned. “…It’s a long story.”

  Tina smirked. “It always is with him.”

  They started walking, their footsteps echoing softly on the old parquet floor. The university library wasn’t like a normal school library—it was huge, almost cathedral-like, with high arches and dark shelves that seemed to stretch forever.

  Marcin led the way through the maze of aisles. “Honestly, if I'm remembering this right, he seemed pretty weird that day,” he said quietly. “Calmer than usual. Like almost serene... Like he knew something bad was going to happen.”

  Anna hummed. “That’s not new. He always looks like that. His pretty calm... beautiful ocean blue eyes.... EEE-”

  "Not time for that, Anna!" Tina laughed softly. “Yeah, but that’s just his face.”

  When they reached the children’s section, the tone shifted.

  Brightly painted walls. Tiny chairs. Faded murals of fairy-tale creatures with wide eyes and smiles that had started to peel. The sunlight that had begun to shine through the cloud and through the high windows fell in warm squares on the carpet, where the air smelled faintly of crayons and dust.

  Anna crouched by the lower shelves. “Alright, where’s your haunted bedtime story, Casimir?”

  Marcin pointed. “That shelf—second from the bottom. It was wedged between Little Prince and something called The Mechanical Boy.”

  They started searching. Books squeaked softly as they pulled them out. The Tale of the Silver Bird. The Last Orchard. The Fisherman’s Son. But not The Forgotten Soldier.

  "Huh." Tina frowned. “Nothing. You sure it was this library, right?”

  Marcin shot her a flat look. “You think I imagined Casimir collapsing in a different library?”

  Anna smirked. “You do have dramatic tendencies.”

  He sighed. “Okay, fine. Maybe it was moved. But when I returned it after the incident, I watched them put it back in the children's section."

  "Did they maybe get rid of it? Or perhaps someone checked it out?" Anna asked.

  "Possibly... But we gotta keep looking! We need to figure out what that book is. Maybe decode some hidden meanings."

  They fanned out, searching the nearby shelves, crouching, scanning through endless spines of pastel colors and forgotten titles.

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  Tina plucked out one dusty hardcover and read the title aloud:

  “The Girl Who Ate the Moonlight. By Berend Vos."

  She wrinkled her nose. “Creepy.”

  Anna, flipping through a stack beside her, said, “I found something called The Boy Who Killed His Reflection. By Berend Vos.”

  Marcin snorted. “What is wrong with children’s literature here?”

  Tina grinned. “Everything. That’s why we’re here.”

  "Wait! Berend Vos was the man who wrote The Forgotten Soldier! So it must be near these books!"

  Anna straightened suddenly.

  “Wait. Guys. Look.”

  At the very bottom corner, half buried under a pile of coloring books, was a thin, brown-spined picture book. The cover was brown with the image of the unmistakable black fluffy creature.

  The Forgotten Soldier.

  They froze.

  “…You’ve got to be kidding me,” Marcin whispered.

  Tina knelt, brushing the dust off gently. “It’s real. Wow. It’s… heavier than it looks.”

  She turned it over. There was no publisher name or copyright claims. Just an old sticker, half torn, with a stamp from 1948.

  Anna leaned in. “That’s older than the school’s current library system.”

  “Which means,” Tina said, “it shouldn’t even be here.”

  They exchanged glances.

  Marcin exhaled slowly. “Alright. Let’s see what all the fainting’s about.”

  Tina opened the book carefully. The pages were yellowed, the edges soft from time.

  "This is the one you brought to the hospital... But I never got this good a look at it." Anna squinted. “That’s… weirdly detailed for something from the fourties.”

  Tina turned the page.

  The next image showed the same creature, bigger now, holding a rifle. Behind him were shadows shaped like people, but their faces were blurred.

  There were words under it, handwritten in a cursive script:

  He marched through storms and gunfire.

  He braved the bitter snow.

  But when the battle ended—

  He had no place to go.

  He fell beneath a pale blue sky,

  No hand to hold his own.

  The world forgot his heartbeat.

  The mountain kept his bones.

  A chill rippled through the air.

  Marcin frowned. “That’s… oddly poetic for a kids’ story.”

  Tina asked, her voice whispered, "What page did he read before he collapsed?"

  Marcin quickly flipped a few pages forward.

  So if you feel a tapping,

  Or hear a mournful moan...

  It might just be the soldier

  Looking for his home.

  Or perhaps, his Mother...

  “Casimir read this exact page. I remember. Then he just—collapsed.” Marcin nodded.

  Tina closed the book in Anna's hands halfway. “Maybe he’s allergic to pretentious metaphors.”

  “Tina,” Anna groaned. “Not now.”

  But Anna was staring at the illustration now, her smile fading.

  “Hold on. Look at the background. There’s… A city there it looks like—”

  “Gdansk,” Marcin finished quietly. “That’s Gdansk during the war.”

  "How did you know that?!" Tina gasped.

  "I was a geography major in my first semester, freshman year."

  The three of them stared.

  The illustration was old, faded, ink bleeding into the paper—but unmistakable. Gdansk, drawn decades ago. And standing in front of it, the monstrous soldier, holding a flower instead of a gun now.

  Tina swallowed. “This is getting creepy.”

  Anna whispered, “It’s just a coincidence, right?”

  Marcin didn’t answer.

  Tina stared. “…Okay, that’s actually kind of beautiful.”

  Anna nodded slowly. “Yeah. Sad, but—wait.” Her brow furrowed. “How did this make Casimir collapse? Yes, it was deep, but... How?”

  They all leaned closer.

  "Right." Tina’s mouth went dry. “That’s weird.”

  Marcin closed the book slowly, his hands trembling just slightly. “Maybe he knows something about this book.”

  They stood in silence for a long moment.

  Then Anna broke it. “Okay, hear me out… what if we check it out and show it to Casimir?”

  Tina looked horrified. “So he can faint again?”

  Anna shrugged. “Maybe he’ll faint into the truth this time.”

  Marcin sighed. “You’re unbelievable.”

  "...What if it's childhood trauma..." Anna muttered.

  “It’s strange,” Marcin said quietly. “When he read it, he looked as if memories were returning and kept saying the number Nine over and over.

  Tina asked softly, “What did he mean by Nine?”

  Marcin’s voice lowered.

  “I'm not sure.”

  They didn’t speak after that.

  The three of them stood there in the children’s section, surrounded by sunlight and laughter frozen in paint, holding a book that felt older than time.

  And for a brief moment, none of them joked.

  Tucked into a lower shelf, slightly askew and wedged beneath a stack of children's books, was a paperback playwrite book. It looked oddly out of place, not merely old, but weathered, the edges frayed as if it had been handled by a hundred nervous hands.

  It wasn't standing upright. It was facedown, its spine a dull grey stripe disappearing into the shadows.

  But the cover, miraculously, was facing up.

  'Sergeant Valor' By Berend Vos.

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