Yours, Adèle

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Chapter One

“Children. Fear. Hope.”

This story begins in 1943.

And it unfolds in the city of Lyon.

Lyon, 1943.

Once a city of silk and light — now, a city of gallows.

It was the beating heart of the French Resistance, but also the stage for some of the darkest horrors the war had to offer.

To control it, the Germans turned the city into a theater of fear — and the torture they inflicted was not merely cruel. It was inhuman.

There is no need to describe the city in detail, not now.

Because our story — the true story — is told through the lives of those who were both far from it and yet right at its core.

You’ll understand Lyon — not through maps, but through them.

February 1st, 1943.

Another morning for a seventeen-year-old boy named Julien — cold, hungry, and in yet another unfamiliar place.

His face wasn’t handsome.

It didn’t ask to be noticed.

It simply existed — somewhere between the openness of a boy and the quiet composure of a man who had seen too much, too early.

Lean. Long. Drawn in thin, clean lines — like someone had cut his profile out of paper and smoothed the edges with care.

His hair was light and always unkempt — a disheveled halo he never quite tamed.

“Looks like a cow licked you again,” his mother used to joke.

It had become a sort of family signature — half-laugh, half-memory.

And his eyes — green.

Not just any green, but the kind that made you forget the mud, the smoke, the hunger.

A broken window, a fleeting reflection — and suddenly, summer. Grass. Trees breathing in sunlight.

He’d always been thin. Even before the war.

And in some strange twist of fate, that frail appetite had helped him survive the first winter of the occupation.

His name was Julien.

A name that sounded like something soft and noble.

A name that belonged to life. To youth. To something that refused to die.

That morning, he awoke in what people had come to call The Burnt Nest — a place where the forgotten gathered.

The children. The old. The ones who could still walk, and still weren’t afraid to.

They had no families. No friends.

Only hope — that today, someone might build a fire big enough.

That no SS patrol, no informant, no executioner would find their gathering spot in the ruins.

But everyone knew: such places rarely lasted.

Not because of bad luck — because of betrayal.

There were too many informers. Too many.

They called Lyon the City of Light.

Informers were called "lamps" — because they lit the way to the flames.

And always, always — two burned:

The one who was betrayed.

And the one who betrayed — warming his hands by the fire, biting into sausage, sipping schnapps gifted by the SS.

There wasn’t much room for trust in Lyon.

But still — the Nest was a risk worth taking.

A chance, however small, to be warm.

To stay alive — just a little longer.

But I’ve drifted. Let me come back to him.

That morning, Julien set out to find food.

Like so many others.

He wasn’t picky.

But he couldn’t starve. Not completely.

Lyon may not have been the coldest city in the war, but the endless slush, the soaking rain, the wet snow, the lack of even basic heating — it could kill you.

A cough could mean your last breath.

Food could be found — sometimes.

The braver ones searched the streets near German quarters, their restaurants and cafés.

There, in their trash, you could find things: a piece of meat not yet spoiled, stale bread, softening vegetables.

Even the famously meticulous Germans had become careless — distracted by sabotage, by fear.

The Resistance was everywhere. And hunger made fools of even the sharpest officers.

Others — less daring — stayed in the poor districts.

They scavenged too. But what could be found in the bins of the starving?

There were ration lines, of course. Endless ones.

But rarely enough food at the end of them.

If anything remained — it didn’t last past the third name on the list.

The older ones — if they were lucky — worked.

Earned enough to feed themselves.

Yes — just themselves.

The math was simple:

Children didn’t eat.

The weak didn’t eat.

Only those who worked ate.

There was one more way to eat, though.

To inform.

I could dress it up in softer language.

But why?

Let’s call it what it was: to snitch.

To sell out.

To betray your neighbors, your friends. A boy from across the street. A woman you once loved.

And they paid well. Especially for a partisan.

Food. Money. Safety.

There was even a saying:

“Give up a partisan — and you’ll never be hungry again.”

But Julien?

He would never.

Maybe he was stupid.

Or maybe — he had a conscience.

You can decide that for yourself.

That day, he decided to take a risk. A real one.

To walk into the German quarter.

It was the anniversary of his mother’s death.

And he wanted, for one moment, to eat — to honor her the way he would have before the war.

With a meal. A memory.

But it wasn’t just the hunger that was dangerous.

In Lyon, even taking food from a trash bin was theft.

And for boys like Julien — boys old enough to carry a gun — getting caught meant forced labor.

Or worse.

So he moved carefully.

Street to street.

Avoiding patrols. Avoiding the light of the lamps.

Those eyes that watched from windows.

If they saw you — really saw you — you had one option:

Run.

Disappear for a day. Two.

Or die.

He made it to the German street.

Immediately, the scent hit him — bread, fresh and golden.

Perfume, too. Flowers.

Cologne — sharp, masculine. Familiar in a way that made your chest tighten.

He spotted a broom.

Left behind by a street sweeper, probably by accident.

Julien picked it up. Whispered a promise to return it.

That broom fed someone. He knew that.

So he became that man.

The sweeper.

The invisible.

He brushed the sidewalk with care, inching closer to the back alley of a café.

He remembered its name, even now: Dawn.

Because that’s what it became for him that day — a beginning.

He swept like he meant it.

Quiet. Focused.

Until he was right there — at the trash bins.

Inside — treasure.

Cream still clinging to paper.

Burned flatbread — still edible.

A bottle of syrup, almost empty. Add water — you’d have something sweet.

Enough to survive.

He filled his coat. His pockets.

A makeshift satchel.

And then — he saw it.

A door, slightly open.

Bread. Real bread. Still warm, cooling near the kitchen.

Fresh loaves, cooling near the kitchen.

He hadn’t seen bread like that in months.

And no — he hadn’t planned to steal.

But this day… this day was sacred.

He didn’t plan it. Didn’t think. Just moved.

Grabbed three loaves — turned—

The whistle.

In Lyon, a whistle meant one thing:

Labor camp.

They were already chasing him.

German boots pounding behind.

He ran. He ran like he’d never run before.

Thin. Fast. Sharp around corners.

But for how long?

Twenty minutes. Maybe more.

He turned onto a narrow street.

Rue des Hirondelles.

The Street of Swallows — once rich, now a passage between two worlds — the German districts and the poorest ghettos.

He ducked into a building.

Breath ragged.

Heart like thunder.

And then — a voice.

A girl’s voice.

“Did you bring them here?”

He turned.

No one there.

Then he looked up.

And saw her.

He would never forget that moment.

Because in that window, for the first time, he saw her.

The girl who, one day, would become his beginning and his end.

Adèle.