A/N: Ironically, it was this story that kickstarted the whole book. With those of you that have been with me from the very start, you'll see that the rewrite here has major differences from the original work, yet it still has the same setting. Needless to say, I like this version far better. Looking back on how it all began I can't help but notice how my style developed and changed, on a part due to your input. What I want to say here is a huge thank you for all your support and patience, your comments really make my day at time. Since this book now has over 1,2k votes, I've been thinking about maybe doing a Q/A as something special. So you can submit your questions over the next two weeks, and I'll do my best to answer them!
Back to the story: Tw: Abuse and Semi-explicit violence and touchy subjects regarding WW2
The cold seeps into your flesh and in your bones to the extent that it chills your very soul. The thin clothing that hangs of your gaunt form offers no protection from the icy wind, only the small comfort that you're not naked; still you feel numb and your hands have already turned blue from the low temperature. For you it's somewhat a surprise that they haven't found you yet; so far you've small fledglings of luck in your miserable circumstances and you hope that you still have a chance. Maybe you'll fall victim to the snow and ice before they can kill you, the past few weeks have reduced you to a half-alive skeleton after all.
As unwelcome and fatal as the cold may be, it does provide an unexpected relief by numbing the bullet wound in your arm. What was once a searing pain has ebbed down to a dull sensation. Thankfully the bleeding has stopped as well; the footprints leading away from the river are enough evidence of your whereabouts without condemning crimson sullying the snow. As for the improvised bandage it is nothing more than a filthy stripe of cloth torn of your prisoner's uniform and you know if you don't change your dressings soon it'll become infected, with you likely perishing as a result.
However there is no time from that, you have to keep going, even if you slip and stumble every step of the way, even if your lungs are on fire and you're fatigued to the point that you want to lay down in the snow and sleep. You know that is you allow yourself to collapse that you'll die, whether by the cold or by a gun.
So with a soul marred from years of war and weeks of abuse but still alight with determination, you drag yourself through the forest. You're almost completely taken over by instinct, the animalistic urge to survive no matter what. Only thanks to it have you come so far and lived to see tomorrow even when the present if hell on earth. You hadn't let yourself be dissuaded be the smoke billowing out of those chimneys, despite knowing what fuelled their fires nor did you let the heavy labour break you.
Arbeit macht frei.
That might have been the case before the war but now the slogan, having been twisted to perversion, leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. You could have stayed there, patiently awaiting your scheduled execution. Could you really be blamed that escape seemed so much more lucrative. Better die a free person if you have the opportunity.
Besides it was a great pleasure to get away from him.
Such a pain it had been to face him daily, the man you had thought you knew. A voice as melodious as the instruments he loved to play had barked orders with an iron edge. Eyes once gentle and curious and inspecting everything that came into his sight had hardened, looking down on human lives as if it were vermin, always analysing what the shatter points of a person were. Strange how strife can change a person.
Do monsters make war or does war make monsters?
You say both.
Despite the different attire and appearance you had recognized each other, a very bitter reunion considering the memories you shared. The hope you had held upon seeing him again had faded away when you had seen the malice that had flickered across his features and heard shots ring from the pistole he had on him at all times.
Hope is a fickle thing, maybe that's why is was at the very bottom of Pandora's box.
You knew that he would be bitter due to the fact that you had left him once you had seen how he was deteriorating, but what you had expected was nothing compared to the pain you suffered. At the beginning you had hoped that there was still some humanity left in him, a quality of mercy that every person owns. It had existed once but now it was gone, dead.
He had treated you as if you were his plaything, a rag doll with which he could please himself and then toss away when he grew bored of you. You can only imagine the rage Roderich is in, having found out that you're amongst the escapees.
The thought of it sends a shiver down your spine and simultaneously you bathe in the triumph of sweet victory. No greater revenge is there, in your opinion, than to prove them wrong. The label Untermensch is so inappropriate and you show it by outsmarting them, by defying their pseudo-science and their false sense of superiority.
"You really think that you're better than me? Don't be a fool, those are only delusions", he had spat when you had the audacity to tell him. It had been a queer scene, you cleaning his office while proclaiming his moral superiority and he looking down on you as if you were mere dirt. The expression he had worn was one you would attribute to a slave master from the old Rome, only that this one wasn't clad in armour or purple cloth but a black, black uniform with a red armband. Else the image fitted perfectly; he even had a whip.
He had given you a trademark sneer and had continued: "All evidence speaks against it. Just look at you, if you had stayed by me you wouldn't have fallen so deep. You are filthy, body and soul; that's why you are here in the first place."
In retaliation you had shot him a glare and spat with a much venom as you dared: "Who is losing the war?"
You had gone too far with that remark and in a burst of rage he had shot up from his desk where dozens of execution forms lay and had stalked over to you with bloodlust clouding his features. A swift kick to the side had sent you sprawling across the floor, bones aching since there was almost no muscle to pad them.
"Who is in a concentration camp? Who has been abandoned by their so-called comrades?", he had growled as he had watched you slowly straighten yourself only to make you collapse again with a kick to the shoulder.
Your cheekiness was enough to warrant an immediate death. None of them took it well to be disrespected, even the simple act of living was a crime to them. Roderich was just different, he always has been different and still so plainly Austrian in his mannerisms. Of course he didn't kill you, he enjoys his games too much to send you into the afterlife. That's why he is all the more dangerous; his ways go far deeper than the flesh and are, in a way, more fatal. Because what is more cruel than to have died but have your body still roaming the world? The regime was just a way to elevate his sadistic needs to a new height.
Which is why to best him was like having milk and honey poured down your throat. It brought a smile to a face that had long since forgotten how to smile.
The forest has an eerie stillness to it but calming after the hasty escape; the iron bullet tearing through your arm. It was it in your flesh since you haven't had time to remove it; it's a bizarre feeling to have it shift around your muscles with every other step, especially since the pain isn't so potent anymore. The blood that had poured out of it in the beginning sure has left a since trail for the dogs to follow but it is long since you've heard their barking.
Winter is a silent season, that playing either to your advantage or your disadvantage. You hope that you'll only hear one set of feet making the knee-high snow crunch. Maybe if you wouldn't place so much faith in your hearing and carelessly lose yourself in your thoughts you would notice another pair of eyes watching you.
Seriously you are at a bit of a lose; what should you now do with your freshly obtained freedom? You are in an enemy country, in the middle of the war and you don't have an idea where you are. If you were wiser you would concern yourself with more urgent matters.
"If you want to go to the village you should have turned right long ago."
You jump at the voice, franticly turning around to pinpoint the source. Your muscles tense and you hunch slightly in preparation to bolt off. Out of the corner of your eye you perceive moment, a black clad figure appearing sluggishly from behind a tree truck just a few metres to your left. It is him.
"I almost have pity on you considering your state. Now pet, you've had your walk so let's bring you back to where you belong", he lazily drawls, his arms crossed in front of his chest.
His jabs no longer hurt as they once did; his silver tongue is only of diminished worth once you have steeled yourself against it. Naturally you could run but that would be death or at least another wound. Even from your standing point you can see the way his coat bulges at his left hip. Edelstein wants to play another game with his favourite captive and perhaps you can this time turn the tables to your favour.
So you flash him a grin, all teeth and one that doesn't reach the eyes. You aware how morbid you must look, like a skeleton with a will to live. The macabre image of a corpse smiling and talking comes to mind as your thought briefly flash to your gaunt and weakened body.
"Keep dreaming!", you shout back. His sharp features contort to a scowl and he stalks closer, pristine boots being sullied further with water. He wouldn't kill you; he wouldn't allow you to die; that is what you repeat as a mantra in your head as he stops right in front of you.
Unexpectedly there is sorrow in his eyes and it throws you of guard as memories well up.
"Why do you have to do this to me? We used to have such a pleasant time together and now you've thrown it all out the window for some foolish dream. You were once so sweet."
A figment wants it, it wants those sunny days long gone when life seemed so easy. The heart doesn't forget and is impossible to dissuade. All those days you didn't want to separate the past from the present because that would mean fully embracing the fact that he had become a monster. In a far corner of your mind you still hold hope that he has never changed.
You are such a fool.
Lowing his head slightly as in submission, a humble display of heart-brokenness he whispers: "Don't you love me anymore?"
That pitiful question that is actually intended to fully sway you over is what ironically makes the illusion shatter. Because how can be have the audacity to ask you that when he is the one that has tortured you for weeks upon weeks. If the devil ever walks the earth, than it is in a black uniform with a red armband and a cap ornated with a silver skull and a duo of lightning bolts.
You are a fool because he has never changed because he has always been this manipulative with so much being only skin-deep. The others feel easily for this ploy, have had since he emerged from a forest during a filth-infested age. The blood-boiling ideology only crystalized an inherent violence that had been momentarily subdued. The eagle on red-white-red cloth is unfitting in that respect, because birds of prey can never be this deceptive.
"I hate you!"
You push him away when he leans closer in a meek imitation of intimacy and you promptly backhand him. The light bronze of his skin turns red where your hand made impact with his cheek and both of you are silent in shock. Then he abruptly presses you against a tree truck, painfully knocking the air out of your lungs and when you force yourself to focus you find yourself staring down the barrel of a pistole. Despite wanting to close your eyes you are fixated by the black metal and the way a gloved finger twitches at the trigger.
Finally you regain some rationality and you grab for his throat, his eyes, just so that you can hurt him somehow. He roughly puts it to an end by fisting the front of the dirty stripped cloth and slamming you against the wood again. You still as the pain in your shoulder comes back with a vengeance and under your breath you whisper prayers to a god you never could stop believing in.
Then to your surprise he tosses the pistole away as if it burned him and looks at you in such a twisted loving way that you want to vomit, to scream, to dig a knife between his ribs.
"How could you ever think I would let you go?"
A/N: As per usual leave your thoughts in the comments and don't forget to vote.