All the Light We Cannot See

by Anthony Doerr

Only through the hottest fires can purification be achieved.

Soldiers clamber on and off, lean, pale, each carrying a pack, rifle, and steel helmet. They sleep despite noise, despite cold, despite hunger, as though desperate to stay removed from the waking world for as long as possible.

Even those who have returned, she can tell, have returned different, older than they should be, as though they have been on another planet where years pass more quickly.