The camp

[Julian the apostate]

Story moved to post below

[Prince Cobra]

I am surprised this story did not get any feedback. In my very very humble opinion it is good. It depicts the cruelty of the Second World war and it is quite intriguing as well.

Just a little criticism ( note: it is subjective). I do not like only the fact you used the word 'great monsters' instead of something more mild. In the first paragraph you explain the Germans are also victims (or will be) of the war and they should obbey their commander (Hitler). In addtion the text make me think the soldier did not like his task. The words 'great monsters' are somehow out of [place here.

But it is good story

[Julian the apostate]

thank you i'm working on it for a class and i'm not sure how its working i'ma put in a second part. yay writers block. and i guess your right on the monster bit . thank ya

[Ludens]

I don't know how accurate this story is, but it seems very good. Especially the ambivalence of the German soldiers is a nice touch. However, I would recommend you to go back and edit it properly.

[Julian the apostate]

thank u, and sorry about the editing grammar has never been my strong suit

[Prince Cobra]

Good! Go on!

[Julian the apostate]

THIS IS THE HALFWAY POINT A LOT HAS BEEN REDONE AND IF AN ADMIN OR MODERATER COULD DELETE A FEW OF THE PREVIOUS POSTS THAT"D BE NICE. THANK U.
AWAY FROM HOME
Pure and white, it fell down from heaven, covering the wreckage, leaving mounds
and hills of snow. It muffled the sounds of the wheels and the rumble of the engine. Out of place, the truck fumbled through the snow awkwardly, its path clear from the gray sludge behind them and the slow black plume of smoke. There were eight of them in the truck: old men and boys, dressed in grey with rifles, old things from the Great War. Freezing cold, the men were still confident. Poland had been crushed in less then a month, devastated by Russia and German might. Only one of the men was a soldier, a hero of the last war. Now older and haggard, he stared down the snowy path at the next farmhouse, where the next boy would be taken from his home. Hitler had ordered and it was to the soldier to obey. The rest of the men were unused to war. Nervous eyes wide, waiting for glory. Laughing at Poland's shameful defeat, and their own obvious superiority. They talked to escape the cold, laughing away every discomfort as the truck bumbled forwards.
The family saw the smoke before the truck itself. The black plume spread slowly over the snow. "Waddie," the mother screamed, "Waddie, run to the forest... take William with you." She had heard the stories. The Germans came to a household and took the oldest son, leaving the family destitute. They couldn't survive without the older boys, but the youngest son was for the moment just another mouth to feed. She watched the boys run, trying to ignore the black smog as it got closer. It stayed close to the ground. The cloud slowly stalked the boys as they tripped over each other in the snow, hunting them.
The youngest son watched them go, unsure of why his mother had sent them away. He felt the terror in her voice but strangely he was told to stay. Quietly she promised he could play with the boys after he finished at the woodpile, dragging sticks to the house. Each time he came to the front of the house the smoke was darker, thicker. The dark black hurt his eyes as it slowly moved through. Covering the snow with gray. Terrified, he ran to his mother. Hiding behind her, holding his head against her side. She patted his head for an instant, telling him it'd all be fine. Yet when the truck reached the last hill, finally coming into sight, she stopped. Pushing him away, but holding his wrist, trapping him in limbo.
"HE IS THE OLDEST," She screamed at the men in grey, "TAKE HIM." And they did, the sergeant holding him in his arms as old soldier carried the boy away. The little boy tried to scream, but no sound would come out, so shocked, he couldn’t even cry, just staring at her as the truck drove off. The truck carried him far from home, to another country. Days spent without words, just a piece of stale bread, dirty water and so many tears. They arrived to find a land of darkness. Its men were dressed in black. The bread was black. Even what little snow they had was covered in soot, pushed to the side by great machines like those that invaded Poland. The snow would win though, it always did.
The truck stopped in the Sudetenland, at a small town called Castalovice. There was little snow in Castalovice, little of anything really. Just a few farming sheds an old castle, its curtain wall falling in, littering the ground around it with mortar and rubble. Even with the crumbling walls and broken gate, the flag still flew. Two black German eagles each with a death grasp on a neck of the polish emblem, the two headed falcon, a clearly hospitable home for the twelve prisoners.

The truck rumbled into the broken gates, the broken suspension throwing them as they rumbled over the rubble and rough. Slowly, the prisoners moved to stand in front of the oaken doors of the manor. Silently fumbling out, they stood scuffling in front of the German sergeant. The old man, his back beginning to slump forward even after the years of discipline, found a step to stand on. He spoke in German, letting a corporal next to him translate for the Poles. "You will remain here for the rest of the war, aiding your new fatherland by growing small crops here on these 12 hectares. I will not stop you if you try to escape. I will, however kill all of your countrymen left behind and inform the Gestapo that a Jew has escaped. Maybe it'll even save one of the poor bastards," he mumbled.
The corporal used his hands expressively as he talked, orating. Tadju watched as the younger Germans cringed at the sergeant’s words, even a few Poles. Tadju's mother had told him all about the Jews. They were foreigners all of them, who found their ways into upper class homes and infiltrated society like rats. The other boys had come from a poor background, they had seen it. Privileged Jews taking good Christian’s rent and their wages. Native families wept in poverty, stomachs empty as Jews ate their Seder, the bloody foreigners. The corporal stared viciously at his commander in disgust. For a moment the corporal stopped translating. As the flock of prisoners and soldiers noticed the conflict, the sergeant lifted his shirtsleeves revealing masses of scar tissue where he’d been shot long ago. Both shoulders were torn up and tattooed over, the wounds of a soldier. The corporal continued.
"In the last war, I fought against a polish regiment; they were brave, lamentably brave, charging up the hill again and again. Repulsed then coming back over and over again. I know that you are brave and strong but it will not help you here. Here only work will make you free that is the one law of this valley."
"Heil Hitler", the corporal screamed at the end of the speech, a jab at the old man. A few of the younger men responded enthusiastically, even a few of the elder Germans. For the rest it was now their turn to stare at the younger ones, slightly worried and a bit taken by the fervor in their voices. Things were different now. For so long the masses screamed democracy and freedom to the government and the Junkers; the sergeant had screamed with them. But now the young screamed for a dictator and this change was not for the old. Slowly he bent forward a little more, suddenly tired as he stared out at the broken castle. In front of him, Tadju and the prisoners filed into the storm shelter of the castle, bolted in as the soldiers went to drink themselves to sleep. Work would begin in the morning.
The older boys just stared at the cellar door, sitting in the middle of the dirty cellar. Tadju, the youngest, sat apart from them, leaning on the far wall, watching the older boys. The wall was dirty, stone and mortar with a small crack running down its center. Water trickled down, swerving down around little circles of rust colored mold and old piping. The entire wall was damp, spreading slowly through his clothes, from the dark wool of his coat to his trousers. He tried to ignore the cold and the dark, the silence around him. "My name is Tadju," he whispered. Only one of the boys turned, a young man with dark stubble just starting to grow in. His eyes, still that of a child, full of hope. Full of himself, he sneered as he saw the little one, turning back to the elders quickly.
Rats scurried back and forth among the stones of the wall on all sides. Above his head, they pushed little pebbles and dust off the ledges. He sat there, tired as dust grayed his hair. With the movement, the little rivulet on the wall disappeared, slowly water pooled on the top of a ledge before slowly falling, drop by drop. Rhythmic and dull the sounds reverberated in the silence. One of the older boys looked over, staring at what sounded like the source of the sound. He just stared, not willing to get up but obviously irritated. He was helpless just like all of them were. Tadju watched as the face became desperate, hungry for action. Animalistic, the older boy pulled himself off the ground. He stalked the wall, walking rigidly to it before attacking the wall with his hands. Beating his hands furiously against the stone, he rebelled against his helplessness, trying to pull down the rocks and pebbles to break the rhythm of that accursed sound. His hands torn he stopped for a second, staring at the wall as his chest heaved. "Drip... Drip". Wheezing he collapsed against the wall, his face, smashed against the rough stone, blood trickled from his fingers where the stone cut it, his dust covered hands steadily turning red as the blood ran down his fingers. The rats were hungry. Tadju watched as they swarmed the wall, vicious, their fur patched and torn from fighting. They covered the little pathways along the wall, shoving and pushing at each other to get closer to the warm liquid. Something kept the little boy calm, maybe the fact that there were too many for him to ever hold off, to run away from in the dark cellar. Tadju sat still as their long, tails swept past his head. A few fell off their little paths, falling to the ground broken to be eaten by the rest, one falling cushioned on the little boy’s head, scampering off to its brother's corpse.
The bloody boy held his hands behind his back as he walked back towards the other boys. Scanning the cellar for a stick, anything. There was nothing in sight. Still stunned and silenced by their helplessness, the other boys saw nothing, closed up inside themselves in their shock and terror. Each one stared at a different spot on the ground focusing in on his hopelessness. Scurrying feet and screams are a jolt, when you don’t expect them. Even then they didn't pay attention to him really, just the rats. There were dozens of them, swarming on the little pools of blood that dropped from his fingers. The "Rat-a-tat-tat" reaching a crescendo every time they moved to the next pool of blood, scampering off to the next frenzy. The boys scampered away even faster, sprinting to the back wall of the cellar. They threw rocks, little chunks of the wall in terror of the rodents. It just drove the rats further into their hunger and fury, making them scramble faster across the floor. They pushed the bitten boy forward as the Rats came closer, trying to push him in the way. The Rats still closed in, drawn to the blood. Moonlight illuminated them throwing light and shadows on the boy, as the rats attacked the pools of blood at his feet. At first the rats simply lunged about him, hunting for blood and meat, hopping up at the boys hands.
When blood smeared on his legs though, they bit gnashing their teeth as they climbed over each other. Everyone stood paralyzed, even the boy being torn apart. Against the other wall, Tadju watched, listening to the screams. He cried, terrified of the rodents and sickened by his own inaction. The rats had knocked dozens of rocks off the ledges of the old stonewall, littering the cellar floor with them as they chased their meal. Tadju threw the first without any specific aim. It bounced before ricocheting into the mass of rodents, bowling them about. The second fast after it, almost hitting the screaming boy as it tore through the pack of rats. The other boys seemed to be liberated by the rocks, kicking and stomping on the furry bodies swarming at their feet. Some boys were bitten, others dancing around the writhing floor unscathed. Slowly, one by one, the Rats fell back, no longer the hunters as the giants struck back. As the living fled, a sort of awkward silence emerged, still filled with wheezing breaths and the screams of the boy bleeding on the ground. He turned pale as the ground turned dark with his blood and that of his attackers. The cuts were ragged circles torn up by the curved little teeth. He bled slowly, but they had neither the means to bind the wounds or to fix his spirit, only one thing drove him to breathe. He wheezed as he tried to hold back the screams to tell them one thing, his name. Desperate to escape the ignominy of his death, “my name is Jan Sobiere,” he whispered.
No one spoke. No one responded to the dying boy. They all simply watched as the life bled out, all of them helpless. After the breathing stopped, they did what they could, sitting in a circle around the body, to hold back anymore of the rodents. Shivering, they waited for the scavengers, feeling the cold bite as the night got darker and darker. They tried to ignore the slow trails of blood that trickled past them, moving with the tilted floor. It was worse when the little streams of red coursed into one of the boys, the warm liquid sinking into their clothes, the cold chill of the goose bumps rising on their arms. It was a long night of slowly dropping eyes, yet every time Tadju’s eyes closed his vision was filled with rats and in his mind, there were no rocks to throw.

Light fluttered in as the soldiers opened up the two great doors to the cellar. It didn’t illuminate the entire cellar just a small patch, a few trampled rats, Tadju and a lifeless foot, its body hidden away in the darkness. The sun bored into Tadju’s eyes, as the shadows covered the rest of the darkened rooms. The Germans, both old men, stared at the bloody foot and broken rats. They didn’t move, paralyzed as they peered into the darkness at the rest of the body, a checkerboard of violence, blackened blood contrasting against the pale frailty of the flesh. None of the boys moved, as the light soaked them, slowly warming their skin. They held their ground around the body.
There was no service for the body, just a small marker and a small hole. The marker read, “Prisoner 845705, Pole.” No name. The corporal had decided it would allow any government agents to read it better if not covered with some prisoner’s name. The sergeant never saw the marker. The soldiers were required to survey a small fort on the opposite side of the valley a few miles away, to hold both of the two opposing heights. He had taken the four youngest soldiers and set off before light. He simply read the report and signed it, accepting the death without thought.
“Rats fighting rats,” the soldiers joked in German, not expecting to be understood beyond the cruelty of the words. Tadju stared at the other boys, one of them, Janus, he thought, blanched at the Germans words. He didn’t seem to fit the other boys, his glasses, and his fine clothes all set him apart as a city boy. The glasses bespoke of education, as did the arrogant demeanor he held towards the other boys. He had a sad story probably, trapped out in the country as he visited a crazed relation.
The Germans had called him Janus Paderewski, prisoner number 780-2353-353, when they called him to pick up his soup bowl. He told the boys that he hated that name, his Polish name. In Latin, it meant the two faced father but that didn’t make him feel any better. “James,” he would scream at his coworkers at the exchange in Warsaw, “my name is James Pater.” They still called him Janus. A few of the other boys at the camp called him James. The rest didn’t talk to him, thrown off by his glasses and the rigid way he talked as if hiding something. He hated them too, the peasants. He was bourgeoisie. He knew five languages and had once made five million Zlotys in a day at the exchange or so he claimed. They barely understood their own language. He missed his bed, he missed his books, and he missed the conversation of the city. After a while Tadju turned away, sick of the older boy’s complaints.
The boys were divided into pairs to work the fields except for the three oldest, who plowed the fields in front of the planters. The other boys were paired up to match in strength, one pushing a squat, wooden wheelbarrow as the other planted rutabagas down the line. Tadju, the youngest was matched with Janus. Neither of them talked as the sun slowly rose up and their shadows began to shorten. Tadju was used to the work, swiftly planting each rutabaga deep into the soil before reaching back for the next. Janus was less adept at his task, pushing the cart too hard or too little, so that it often smashed into Tadju's ankles and calves, leaving thick red stripes. Tadju couldn’t stand it; the older boy was strong enough for the task. By midday, they had finished less than a quarter of their work for the day and Tadju stared at Janus every time he heard the cart move, wary of the wheel. Muttering, he tried to move faster, to work his way away from Janus. Yet the city boy doggedly caught up, now with even less control of the cart. Each loss of control was preceded by a grunt from the city boy, straining himself to regain control. The brittle and old handles of the cart dug into his hands though, pushing splinters deeper and deeper into his palm. Tadju ignored the pain in the grunting, imagining the older boy throwing the wheelbarrow forward at Tadju. Maybe the city boy thought he was too good for this work and for Tadju. It drove Tadju faster and faster, moving down the row with the little bulbs barely covered by the dark soil. Tadju could feel the city dweller’s eyes on him now, venomous and arrogant. He felt inferior too, made dumb by the very presence of the educated. He remembered the school in Opoczno, a small little cabin and a fat old man sent from Warsaw by the government. Only free a few days a week, even so he managed to keep up but when the teasing started he gave up. He missed school because he wanted to help his family not because they were dirt poor. Even if they were it gave them no right to look down on him.
He stared back at Janus as he finished one of the furrows, glaring at him. “Not as easy as it seems is it, city boy.” Janus just stared at him. As Tadju stared back, he saw the pain in the older boy’s eyes. Janus threw the cart forward, this time on purpose, tearing his blistered and torn up hands off the handles. Little circles of flesh hung on the harsh wood where splinters had torn them off. Little islands surrounded by crimson that slowly slipped down of the handles into the ground. The cart didn’t have the force to hurt Tadju, slowing down as it awkwardly rolled across the rough ground. It touched his legs, scrapping them one last time. Tadju stared at the cart, slowly noticing the crimson drip and tattered flesh, the crows swarming the furrow behind them. He stared as another drop fell to the ground and then stared up at the older boys hands. Janus raised his hands as the little boy stared, trying to flick off the boy. The right hand still functioned properly. There were a few cuts and the usual blisters but it would move and respond. The other hand, however, wouldn’t respond, just twitching as he tried to force the broken digits to move. The splinters had driven deep and the pain had driven him numb. He had kept going. Tadju just stared at the blood watching drops fall one by one. Slowly his head sunk down to stare at the blood at Janus’ feet, to the crows waddling towards it.
“Yes,” Janus whispered, “it is hard work, the labor of farm animals.” Tadju walked towards him, trying to ignore the barb, taking off his shirt as he walked. On the back there was a little set of stitches that marked where someone had sewn a little parcel into the tattered shirt. He bit it with his teeth once, to tear at the string, before tearing the patch off. Underneath, a handkerchief hugged the thick brown fibers of the shirt. It had been hidden from his mother, protected from her taunts and thievery. It was small but it was clean. He opened it slowly, staring at it with intensity only possible for little boys as if waiting for something. And then it was there, inside was a crushed flower, the last remainder of his home, of the little girls he had just started to like. For a while he held the flower staring at before letting it fall down into the rough soil.
“Here,” Tadju whispered sadly as he stared at the dead little poppy, handing the white cloth to the other boy. He hung his head as he waited for the blood to fan over the white cloth. Janus held it with his good hand though, careful with the handkerchief. He drew a bloody finger across the cloth stripping it slowly. Thirteen stripes with the left corner left empty. Janus looked into the boy’s eyes for the first time when he finished. “I guess I’m not in the city anymore,” he grimaced, trying to smile, “When in Rome do as the Romans do.” Tadju was still nervous, standing next to the taller, smarter boy from the city.
“What is the flag for?” he mumbled, smiling, “for the city? For a girl?” The guards ignored them as they talked, slowly pacing to keep ahead of the crows. Janus smiled as he heard the question.
“It is for America, across the sea, where a man can do what he wishes and not what the old world dictates. There is good farm land for farmers,” he pointed to Tadju. “And fine cities for the educated,” he pointed to himself. Tadju resented the older boy again, the words and the fine plan. Tadju couldn’t speak American.
“I will not be a farmer,” he whispered, he had always hated the life and the ignorance, “and I cannot speak American, much less write it.”
“Can you read Polish?” the older boy chuckled waiting for the awkward response he knew would come.
“…no…,” Tadju whispered, staring at the ground yet again staring at the dull black dirt. Janus smiled.
“It will make learning English easier.” They sat down in the furrows, sitting apart on the little ridges, talking. Janus gave back the blood-soaked little handkerchief before tearing off his own shirt to cover up his palm and staunch the blood. He wasn’t as thin as Tadju expected, not the pale little city boy underneath. There was muscle if you tried to look behind the thin layer of fat. The crows caught up in a moment, squabbling around the little puddle next to Janus and chirping at the wet shirt. They didn’t have to fight the crows off like the rats, as the first poked near Janus’s leg, one of the Soldiers shot its head off. It was the corporal, laughing to one of the soldiers as he walked over.
“I missed.” The other soldier didn’t laugh, spooked by the corporal’s enthusiasm. He switched to polish now as he got closer to the two prisoners, “Get back to work.” The corporal stared at them hungrily as if waiting for an excuse to act, to be the soldier he wanted to be, but they obeyed. Tadju did most of the work, having Janus carry individual rutabagas to him as he planted. Each rutabaga forced snuggly into the ground before moving on, to assure it would grow.
Every day they would repeat the same ritual, Janus pushing the cart, his hands awkwardly bandaged to protect them and Tadju, planting rapidly, careful with each plant. They had arrived in the camp in January of 1940 and as the months passed by life started to make sense again. By March, the guards had finished the little fort on the opposite side of the valley closer to Castalovice proper. The corporal held command there with the younger soldiers nearer to the town people and entertainment. One of the younger soldiers stayed with the castle garrison to do errands and harder tasks. Tadju stared at the soldier, while the Poles worked the fields, caught between fear and awe. The soldier stood tall, beautiful and blond, but these features had been seen before. They were the emblems of Nazi Germany and the Nazis had taken him away from his home. The soldier was beautiful but still terrifying in his toy soldier uniform with its pristine folds and cuffs.
The toy soldier told them his name one day, Wilhelm von Wymar. He was always out in the fields among them. It was dull work he would say but yet he continued to volunteer for the task. Tadju noticed him staring at them, always watching him and Janus. Occasionally he would come over, acknowledging Tadju, but only Janus spoke German. The older boys talked of Herman Hesse and philosophy. It seemed ironic for a reader of Germany’s greatest War critic to wear a uniform, to hold another man captive. Tadju watched Wilhelm during the day, listening as Janus translated the stories from German at night. Everything about the soldier seemed to fit into this little set of hypocrisies and inconsistencies. He was on the surface the perfect German, yet below it, he was confused and against the Nazi movement. He was against the war but wore the uniform of a solder. He would be so open, so free with his words, yet he would close up in an instant. He would always come back though almost tied to the watchman. Wilhelm was hiding something that would explain all the contradictions of his life. Yet he could not speak German, could not question the “perfect” soldier and Janus trusted any man who would talk to him, so often spurned. Tadju simply watched, waiting for some revelation. He remembered his father’s words, before the tired, drunkard of a man left for war. “Never trust a man who seems perfect; no one is perfect. It just means his flaws are well worth hiding.” The old man had prided himself on the quote. He had been a drunk. He had ruined his farm with his incompetence and “brilliant” ideas. Yet he was always honest, always good to his word. He was a hard man to hate, so fun, so honest, but he had taken away Tadju's education with his incompetence. Tadju refused to tell the boys about anything from home except for tales of his father. The old man was the only part of his old life Tadju missed. The man's smile was the one thing that could warm up their little cabin. The older brothers would stop their relentless teasing; his mother would stop her tirades. For a moment there would be peace before he went off to get drunk.
Janus would listen to the story over and over again as if it was some great classic of literature, mumbling names like Fyodor and Karamazov. Janus would never explain what the names meant only pushing him harder in their nightly expeditions in language. He promised the answers were at the end. Tadju didn’t understand how the older boy could listen to the story over and over again. Even he was tired of it now, sick of telling it on request to the old boy. “And what brother does that make you lad,” Janus would whisper under his breath, gibberish .
The other boys had no problem hating the father. On a farm it was success that mattered and Tadju’s father had failed miserably. They had no problem hating Wilhelm either. They spoke of a blond soldier with pretty boy eyes, yet this soldier was vicious from the sheer boredom of the fields. Maybe it was the same soldier, maybe it wasn’t. It seemed to fit Wilhelm’s description. Janus thought they were talking of a different guard, too taken by Wilhelm’s kindness to consider the possibility or even the reason for Wilhelm’s kindness. Tadju just watched, unable to do anything else. Slowly, day-by-day he got tense, waiting for something to happen. None of the other prisoners noticed or cared about the strange hypocrisies of the guard.
The dull days followed each other in quick succession, the motions of every day becoming ritual fast. In May, they finished planting the great fields and moved to rebuilding the castles, cleaning and maintenance. Soon they were back to the fields, though, picking the little rutabagas and planting more in their place. The Germans demanded they plant the same crops, ignorant of the slow depletion of the soil. The land would hold out for a few years, but not for long, just a few short years. As crops cycled through, the ground grew infertile and the rutabagas didn’t grow to quite the same size. Boring months became boring weeks and all they heard about the war was when the truck came every three months to collect the produce. The only news was of German success.
As December of 1942 arrived, the sergeant announced that there would be no work done on Christmas; all Christians would be equal for one day of the year. For once the Poles and Germans worked together, slaving over ovens and picking out herbs and hunting down animals for the meal. For a while it seemed as if the war was abstract, far away and unimportant to this little oasis, yet guards still forced menial tasks on the prisoners. They still carried guns. Steadily, however, preparations took shape and food was cooked. Wilhelm was always at the center of the activity, cooking old recipes he’d learned in the city. He created table clothes and decorations from scrap paper and spare cloth. Tadju still watched him occasionally; Wilhelm had been perfect around them for two years. It was convincing but still it felt like there was something hidden. Yet with a simple gesture, Wilhelm gained the boy’s trust. In the grand hall of the manor, a Nazi Swastika hung most nights, its standard pole topped with a hunting eagle. The open double doors of the manor hall now hid it. Only the eagle stuck out, staring at the room’s occupants. Its eyes seemed to follow Tadju as he walked across the room, always watching.
They ate breakfast together, late in the morning after a late night. The prisoners now had blankets and fresh straw in the basement, but it was still uncomfortable and cold. Today they were given the dubious joy of sleeping in. There was no alcohol for the meal, too early in the morning and too little to spread around but for once there was meat and real bread for the poles. They ate with relish, each sitting apart from a German counterpart with the Sergeant at the head of the table. Tadju was across from the corporal, slowly eating under the vicious gaze of the soldier. Tadju had learned enough German to listen in to their conversations. The corporal had fought the Christmas celebration with everything. Now at the table he refused to eat, staring at the prisoners around him venomously.
Under the vicious gaze, Tadju poked at his food, only taking small pieces from the platters in the center of the table. The corporal took the largest of the pieces of meat, not eating but simply holding them away from the prisoners. As the night progressed, Tadju saw him nibble at the meat in front of him, secretly hungry but unwilling to let go of his meaningless sign of protest.
The rest of the men talked and ate eagerly, depending on Janus to translate Polish to German or the other way around. After Janus left to visit the kitchen, they simply used hand signals, pretending to be equals for just this one night. Wilhelm alone didn’t seem to fit into the celebration. He would smile and cheer, yet his eyes were still dull and bored of the company. He ate little of the food that he had cooked and refused to talk with most of the men. Tadju could see the Germans mouth moving, muttering under his breath, it seemed like gibberish from a distance. It was Tadju’s job to refill the pitchers of water when they ran out. The first time he went out to the water pump outside, he made sure to pass the German side of the table, leaning close the Wilhelm to figure out what the soldier was whispering to himself. “Silvester, Silvester.” New years?
As Tadju returned from the outside, Janus brought out his dish, pirogues. The steam from the dumplings wet his hair, as the Janus served the little treats. On the other side of the table, Tadju watched him, pouring water for the soldiers and his fellow Poles, matching the pace of the older boy. Tadju took his time as he neared Wilhelm, waiting to hear the muttering but it was gone, the soldier’s eyes riveted somewhere in front of him. Tadju traced the eyes to Janus, watching as the older boy argued with the corporal. In the end, Janus dropped a few of the cheese and potato dumplings onto corporal’s plate. Surprisingly the corporal didn’t throw the food to the ground, just staring at it bitterly. Moving to the next soldier, Janus looked up, winking at Tadju, playful after his little victory over the Nazi.
With the corporal unwilling to speak, Janus became the only translator there, preparing carols and songs as the night moved on. Silent Night sung in broken harmony with both languages, followed by other favorites. Slowly more and more of the men joined in with each carol. After the second verse of Silent Night, Wilhelm was singing, his eyes brilliant and shining again. The corporal sang the Horst Wessel song, smiling harder as he saw the other men cringe. A Nazi ending to Christmas. The moment died as he sang the Nazi anthem and the poles began to edge away from each other remembering their places in the real world, against each other. Only Janus and Wilhelm kept singing, trying to overwhelm him with their voices and the final words of “O TANENBAUM.” The corporal just sang louder, forcing the sides further apart and even getting a few of the younger soldiers to join him. Christmas was over.
The days following were awkward, neither side proud of what had happened. The sergeant was furious but could not attack the corporal for singing the national anthem. The men simply kept apart, the Poles working in the forest to make fences for the fields and the Germans watching them, bored as always. New years arrived without fanfare, one bad year leading into what would most likely be another.
The soldiers were drunk by midday, some in the town pursuing female interests while the old men stayed in the castle and pretended to guard the prisoners. As night fell the soldiers were locked into the cellar as always and the guards went off to get even more drunk then they were now. Moonlight shone through the little barred windows along the tops of the wall, near the ceiling. The light traced its path along the floor each night, the only indication of the passing of time. Most of the boys fell asleep immediately, used to the ritual but Tadju always took longer to close his eyes. Typically he would stay up with Janus, working on English or another language. They had just finished Basic English though, so to celebrate there was no lesson. Tonight, he stared out through the grated windows at the moon, wondering if moon men persecuted each other as well. They had probably killed each other long ago, with weapons far advanced from the ones of this horrible war. Tadju almost failed to notice the set of boots sneaking towards the cellar door, so caught up in his thoughts. They were Wilhelm’s; he was the only one who kept his boots that clean. He was also likely the only German sober enough to walk. Tadju ignored the boots; Wilhelm was probably just out for a walk; it was possible.
Tadju was the only one to hear the slow grating of the pin being pulled from the cellar doors lock; he edged into the shadows as he waited for whatever would come next. Wilhelm was careful with the cellar door, opening one of the double doors then the other, carefully. There was little sound, but the moonlight streaming down couldn’t be hidden or softened. Unable to find sleep, Janus saw the moonlight too, looking up at the open door and the outline of the soldier at the door. Tadju could tell the older boy had seen the moonlight. The prisoner’s face now the pale cool of the moonlit floor. “Janus,” Wilhelm whispered nervously, the outline of his rifle clear behind him. The soldier took a step forward, careful not to trip in the darkness or to alert the other sleeping prisoner’s.
“Wilhelm?” Janus whispered just as quietly, “You’re not supposed to be down here.” Janus took another step down before responding conspiratorially.
“I’ve come to rescue you, we can get away to Switzerland and live there,” he whispered as he took yet another step down the stairs, “together… we had a moment tonight.” The words flowed unnaturally well for the awkwardness within them, making it clear the young soldier had practiced the lines. The proud speech of the hero in the little play he wanted his life to be. Wilhelm stared at Janus now, not able to see the prisoner’s face because of the light streaming in behind him. Tadju could though, staring from the darkness at his mentor. Janus’s face was alight with confusion and fear. Not sure whether or not to respond and unable to run away.
“What do you mean run away? what about the other prisoners?” Janus whispered, “…What moment?” Wilhelm smiled, still nervous but confidant as he heard the sound of his own voice.
“To Switzerland, we can be together there, the other prisoners will be fine, and the sergeant wouldn’t shoot them,” the soldier whispered, pausing for a moment as he stepped down another of the stairs, “you winked at me, during dinner at Candlemas, we’ll be so happy together.” Tadju stared at the soldier in disgust as he watched him come down the stairs. Janus’s face tightened as he tried to fight off the realization of what was going on, the possible consequences of the words he would say.
“I was winking at Tadju, my friend…” he paused, getting up onto his knees slowly, “I can’t go with you. Whatever you say, they may still hurt my friends. And you… you mistake me for someone else.” The soldier walked faster as he listened, hurrying towards Janus, no longer caring about detection.
“Janus” he mumbled, the beginnings of tears forming in his eyes, “you must come, you must. We can be happy, away from this horrible war.” He tugged at Janus’s hands, pulling the boy off of his knees. Janus went limp at the man's touch, too afraid of the gun and for his friends to resist, letting himself be walked to the stairs. Tadju saw Janus struggle for a moment. The boy fought for one last glimpse back at his friends. For a moment, it seemed like Tadju’s eyes met Janus’s, a silent goodbye and a silent prayer. Janus blanched as he looked out at the sky, at what was waiting for him. Wilhelm turned to look at his prospective freedom, tripping on the stairs as he turned.
“BAMM,” a pistol shot reverberated through the cellar, startling everyone. The boys woke up in a start just in time to see Janus’s body fall down, off the staircase, a neat little wound in his forehead from some soldier’s Luger. Wilhelm stared up the staircase too, staring viciously at the other soldier. He had been so close to his happy ending. Now he grabbed for his rifle, sprinting up at the other man as the dark outline of the shooter fled. Wilhelm shot at the sprinter as he chased him towards the woods. Wilhelm fought the bolt, struggling with it to reload before firing again. He shot two more times, as the mysterious shooter reached the woods. Stopping on the fourth shot, he aimed at the man as the killer sprinted into the woods.
Wilhelm sprinted after the man into the woods, unconcerned with the low hanging branches and foliage. He was faster than the other man, catching him in a clearing and taking one more shoot. Another miss. The man who shot Janus stopped, wheezing uncontrollably and unable to run any further. Janus aimed.
“click.” There were only five rounds in each clip. For a while he stood there, staring dumbly at the empty rifle in his hand slowly shifting his eyes back to the man wheezing on the ground a few yards in front of him. Wilhelm stared back at the rifle, its oaken stock illuminated in the night. The stock was cracked in at the edges, the only sign of the men it had bludgeoned to death in the last war. Wilhelm focused on the crack, moving his hands slowly to carry the rifle like a bat before walking again towards the man on the ground. He sped up with each step, lifting the rifle above his head. The soldier on the ground stared up at Wilhelm, as the pounding footsteps got louder, shakily holding the Luger out to protect himself.
“Bam,” the first shoot went through Wilhelm’s shoulder, the little 9mm round curving in at the shoulder bones into the rib cage. The force of the bullet twisted the soldier. The next bullet, twisted Wilhelm the other way, throwing him to the ground. Both of them were on the ground now, neither of them strong enough to get up. Only a few feet apart, the two men couldn’t see each other, the distance between them filled with cut down trees and foliage. Slowly the Unknown Soldier stopped wheezing, pulling himself to his feet. He took a moment to stare at Wilhelm before shooting him again, first in the crotch then a moment later through the heart.
Tadju watched from behind the branches, watching as the corporal looked back towards the castle before limping off south with Wilhelm’s rifle. Tadju could only stare at the corporal's back, praying for retribution. Yet no lightning bolt fell from heaven to give even the slightest resemblance of justice. Instead, the corporal, faded away among the trees. God didn’t sleep though, crying little tears of white. Pure and white, it fell down from heaven, covering the bodies with little mounds of snow.

[Ludens]

Excellent work, Julian. I particularly like the atmosphere you create.

Unfortunatly, I am unable to delete the first post without removing the entire thread. You'll have to edit it out yourself.

[Julian the apostate]

Alright so far this has been from a limited third person narrator.. to work with my ending i'm going to have 2 main characters whose stories will be intertwined and then i third who they will meet along the way and will get some time center stage. And don't worry this isn't going to end up all that obvious so don't take the heroine and hero path, i don't like heros. I hope u like Julia i'm sorry its not more

Julia felt like a mole, a very terrified mole. She has always hidden, but now it was no longer a metaphor. Her home was now the underworld of Warsaw: cellars, sewers and tunnels. Above ground, German bombs pounded the city. They had done it every day since the war had begun yet today was different. She had gotten used to the tremors of the occasional load of bombs hitting. Only a few German bombers would get through the screen of polish fighters and the anti-aircraft guns. At first even the smallest tremor would throw her onto the ground, quivering in fear. She was a little better now, able to stand the occasional tremor.
The pallid white of the moon provided a sharp contrast to the German warplanes skulking above Warsaw. They were bombers, but stood out as specks against the pale moon. Like insects, the little specks swarmed above the dark city. The Klaxons screamed moments after she spotted the planes. The warning system had been built to warn people above ground. Underground, the sound was amplified, slowly building into a tremor as the sound reverberated. It was the first tremor of the night. One that Julia was used too.
The city woke up with the siren, anti-aircraft guns blasting away into the dark as search lights tried to illuminate the dark. Julia watched eagerly. Typically Polish fighters and the anti-aircraft fire knocked out most of the bombers. It was just a mostly harmless light show. She was a big girl. The staccato blasts of the anti-aircraft guns weren’t as loud as the day before and only a few of the German bombers fell burning to the ground. Julia smiled at the tracers and the noise, safe in her hole. Just like all the other days, the Germans would be thrown back.
The Whistle was barely audible at first, covered up by the Polish machine guns. Julia ignored it, staring in awe at the tracers as they soared up into the sky. The sound grew rapidly though, slowly overwhelming the sound of the machine guns. They sounded like bees. The swarm of bombs wreaked havoc on the city. From bellow the drain, Julia could only see the flashes as bombs went off and occasionally a piece of rock or concrete fly across the street above. She couldn’t see the fires all around Warsaw. She heard the screams though. The only people above ground should have been fire fighters and Anti-aircraft gunners. The screams suggested that there were far more. Now as the bombs fell, people sprinted out of their hiding places looking for a cellar or safe place. A few feet clanked over the cellar drain as people searched for a way into the underground. A few fingers tried to pull the grating up but it was welded down. Julie was to scared to help them curled up into a ball on the ground at the tremors. As she looked around her she realized everything could hurt her. The fingers reaching down, the walls around her, the people and of course the bombs.
Most of the people trying to pull up the grating moved own but one stayed. The fingers were small, slender and dirty, the hands of a little boy. The boy seemed helpless, fighting the rusty iron bars. As a bomb burst behind the boy, she saw his outline. He was short, probably just her age, thirteen. The dirty cap on his head identified him as a street urchin. He had lived his life in terror, now he’d die eyes wide petrified. The darkness suddenly took back the night as the flash of one bomb faded. Within seconds another had fallen, it illuminated the boy as he fell towards the drain, shrapnel covering his back. No scream. Instead, his hat fell through the bars into one of the murky puddles contained in the tunnel.
Julia, still balled up, stared at it. She looked at the boy dead on the sewer drain and the blood dripping down into the puddle. She moved on her knees, slowly working towards the hat. She grabbed it quickly before holding it against her chest. She screamed with thousands of others because Warsaw burned and its people died.
Above her the bombs continued to fall and the fires became untenable for the few fire fighters willing to brave the bombing. Julia twitched with each tremor. She tried to keep her eyes shut, pretending that blood didn’t drip down from above her. It did though and steadily the puddles turned crimson. The bombing stopped eventually but she just sat there her eyes open but dull and lifeless. She just stared at the pool of blood in front of her for long moments until she finally pulled herself up. She found the main tunnel quickly, able to stand in the knee deep water. She stopped, letting the water rush around her legs, just staring at the hat. It was bloodstained and dirty from the fall but well taken care of, a prized possession. Shivering, she shoved it onto her head and walked towards the others dispersed in the tunnels around her.
The Sewers were warmer then above ground she knew but it was still closed. The water was unfrozen under the city. Julia remembered above ground, she would stand above sewer vents to keep warm on family outings. Occasionally a blast of air would burst a skirt up but now she wore her brother’s old slacks. He was above ground, protecting the city against the Germans. “He clearly had failed,” she thought bitterly before wondering if he was safe. She felt guilty now, guilty, cold and wet.
She could hear her parents before she saw them. They were arguing as always just now they weren’t restricted by her presence. “Sewers,” her mother screamed, “We are living in the Sewers. Do you even know where our daughter is, Jan?” She flailed as she talked, like a frenzied windmill. And there was her father to old to fight on the front lines but still a warrior. “She is wearing pants, Jan” her mother screamed as she hit her husband, “pants.” Julia stopped paying attention to them when she heard what they were saying. She wasn’t mad about the loss of their house or the danger her sons were in. No, she had lost her little doll and had no one to dress-up. Her father tried to hold himself from retort. He just stood there. The poor light of the sewer made him look older, far more tired. Even his beard seemed grey or maybe it was now. She thought of Don Quixote tilting the windmill. It seemed now the windmill was fighting back and the hero was trapped in stone.
The moon shone through the slits in the sewer drain above them but it didn’t illuminate only throwing shadows. Her father refused to fight back or hit her. He spoke in a whisper, “would you rather us dead. Why should we fight if we cannot win?” He smiled, calm as always. She hit him one more time as he spoke and then crumpled into his skinny chest. Julia could see her mother entire body loosen as he held her. He wasn’t charming but he could keep her safe. Her father winked at her as he smiled. She smiled too, even though she was still nervous. “How could her father say that the fight was meaningless after he sent her brothers to the front?” she thought as she watched them. He nuzzled her for a moment before whispering quietly into her ear.
“She looks like a boy, JAN,” she howled back at him, “of course it’s a problem.” He smiled, staring at Julia.
“I think she looks fine, very,” he paused, “modern.” He smiled at Julia as spoke, “give us a twirl, darling.” Already on his shoulder, her mother’s head couldn’t fall any lower at the announcement.

Her mother didn’t like the hat. She said it made her look poor and would moreover give her lice. Julia didn’t care though, what did her mother care about her. She was just an ugly little boy to her. Julia had just smirked at her and gone to her father’s skinny arms for protection. At least he loved her. He smiled as she came to him, “Hello Dulcinea,” he whispered to her. She smiled as she heard the name. It was from Don Quixote, Dulcina was a peasant girl, who the book’s hero, Don Quixote, saw as a noble lady. Her brother had brought it with him from Spain after he returned dejected from their civil war. He would tell stories of the country but never the war. The few other survivors returned ready to tell his story. Father could not bear to hear the stories. He was not a fighter like Miezko and was revolted the field warfare, “If you had to hold a gun, you had already failed,” he would tell the family. The boys would never listen to him to sure of themselves and the glory of violence, so he talked to Julia. He reminded her of how he had fought and pushed himself up the social scale from a nothing to upper middle class. Soldiers were brutes and could not provide real safety in the modern world. Romance had been taken over by money.
Miezko didn’t return that night or even the ensuing day, with only a little light flooding into the sewers by day the only real way to tell the time was the sounds of the world above. By day, there were screams and small arms fire as Poles held of Tanks with pistols. At night, there were falling bombs and more screaming. Today thought, the sound of the tanks kept getting closer and the small arms fire was more intense then usual. They all waited in the sewer as the sun crept down, nervous and terrified. The sun slowly set and with it the violence on the streets slowed just a little.
Calm and quiet as always, her father waited. He was silent for hours, like a statue. When he did speak finally it was stilting and slow. “Julia,” he looked at her serenely, “we need to find your brother.” He paused one last time as if the words were stuck in his mouth, “I need you help.” She just nodded at the request. Her mother was silent the entire time, not sure whether or not to be worried by her husbands actions. She knew Miezko would be safe if Jan was looking after him but the glint in his eye scared her. He spoke one last time before smiling and strutting back to his suitcase, “put your rouge on her face and give her your red dress, the tattered one,” he mumbled to his wife.
The woman moved to get them before she realized what was going on, pausing nervous about arguing with him. “Jan,” she mumbled, “keep her safe, please don’t do this.” He didn’t even turn around, slowly taking a few things out of his suitcase and quietly tucking them his pockets. Julia just stared at the walls, confused but disinterested. She knew not to look at the suitcase, it was Daddy’s rule. She knew it had to be important though, he put it on top of a pile of his clothes to keep the suitcase dry. She couldn’t do anything other then wait as her mother rouged her face and helped her put on the little dress. As soon as they finished, she was above ground with her father and her mother cried as she closed the gate.
Julia hadn’t expected it to be this cold above ground. There was snow, lots of it. The holes in her dress didn’t make it any warmer letting the cold seep in around her legs and poke at her stomach. As she shivered, she looked around. It was nothing like the street she had seen a few weeks ago when as she descended down below. The buildings were blackened by fire and a few torn up by bombs. Everything was dead or dying. The dead were silent but the dying still had enough life to whistle at her as she stared wide eyed into the dark. Her father was just a shadow in the dark, blending in with the knight thanks to the bedraggled beard and filthy suit. If the city was as clean as usual, the scent of sewage would have given him away but now the smell of death and fire overpowered it. He didn’t turn around to tell her what to do or to protect her from the whistles and glares of the men sleeping on the street. Instead, he just walked forward without a word.

[Julian the apostate]

Alright heres the deal people while i dearly love writting i'm doubtful on the idea of having 2 main characters so i'm going to explain a few things now
The limited narration means that i am following a single character at a time, to make things more intresting and to show the urban atmosphere (or my idea of it) during the war and then the atmosphere of rural life (atleast of one boy). i have the two main characters Julia and Tadju
Now this opens up some possiblilities -- they will obviously meet at some point but will they get together?-- are there more characters that will be focused on? -- and in the end is this a happy story?.
but i have never done anything like this and really don't want this to be pride and prejudice: poland style so please please please comment. any ideas or corrections historically or gramatically are welcome
THANK YOU ALL AND HERES SOME MORE OF JULIA, i'ma try and catch her up to atleast the end of this period in time (uptil the surrender of warsaw) and then write in what Tadju does between getting to the camp and the Christmas killings
by the way there are some added parts i edited into the first bit of Julia at the end so mebe read it over
Thank you again

There was no frontline as far as she could tell. A ragged barricade suggested where the two sides held but the corpses around it suggested it had been long abandoned. As they walked, she stared at her father. Slowly as they moved through the lines, his face grew taunt and nervous. She couldn’t see his eyes but she knew they were flitting from side to side as his head tilted trying to take in all of his surroundings. As they reached the first of the barricades, he crouched over near a little boy, shivering in the street. “Boy, have you seen a short man with a black beard and a cap like her.” The boy stared at her father for a while before starting to laugh. Anyone of the men around her could be her brother they all looked nearly the same. While her father’s head sunk, she studied the boy. He looked gaunt, more gaunt then the street urchin she’d watched die on the street be. While the baggy clothes hid his body, his face still stood out in the moonlight and the few fires that remained unquenched. They were hollowed out and held tightly against his cheek bones. He would have looked fierce if it wasn’t for the dull and shell shocked look in his eyes. He was still laughing at her and her father as they walked away They moved slowly, looking at each of the surrounding bodies. Her brother wasn’t there.
Her father cursed brutally at no one as he stared up and down the Polish lines. His frozen breath added a certain hardness to the words as if he had frozen the air himself. Julia stared up at him, scared by this other side of him. Slowly she moved closer to him, trying to grab his hands. It was freezing. every part of him was especially his eyes, frozen over with determination. He didn’t let her hold his hand for long. Just a few moments, before he brushed the little pink hand away. Nervous, she stopped and stared up trying to find her father in his eyes. He didn’t look back at her or even stop. For a while she just stared at her hands, unsure of what to do with them to keep them warm. After a while she shoved them into her new found pockets. She liked boy clothing. She had to run to catch up with her father as he turned into an alley. They close enough to the German lines that they were safe from the night bombings but still they ducked into a little shanty as the bombs began to drop.
The bombs came in intervals as different squadrons of German bombers tried to pummel the city into submission. During the interludes as her ear’s rung, she could hear soft rustling of the Vistula. The river divided the old city in half, the main artery of the heart of Europe. They moved closer to the river quickly, zigzagging with the ragged barricades. With each block, Julia became more and more nervous. “He had to be out here somewhere,” she thought, “didn’t he?”
It took her a while to notice that there were more the just two sets of feet stomping through the alley. Even then she didn’t turn around too terrified even to speed up and catch her father. “The girl,” the voice whispered, gravely and harsh. It was Polish, but rougher and without the cities anachronisms and accents. Julia’s father turned around at the voice and she ran to him. There were a few men behind them and as Julia nervously held her fathers waist, the voice continued. “How much for the girl? We can take her without paying if you’d like but I want her to know who to come to when she needs some money.” There were no lights in the alley and the high walls around them blotted out the moon. Her father moved slowly, grasping into the pockets of his winter coat and keeping his hands there. He didn’t talk to Julia or even look down at her just staring towards where the voice seemed to be emanating. Julia was terrified. The voice sounded older harsher. She didn’t know what the man wanted but it involved money and a lot of it. As the footsteps continued and got closer she screamed, holding her father’s waist even tighter. He stared down at her, almost serenely before staring back up to where he thought the other man must be.
“1000 zylottes or the same in Marks,” her father whispered barely audible. He was smiling now, smiling through all of her terror. Yet no matter how terrified and disgusted she was, Julia couldn’t tear herself from his waist. It was the only protection she had even if it had been laid forfeit. The footsteps drew closer again as her father spoke.
“1500 Marks?” the hidden man grunted at them as he moved closer. It sounded like there were two men with him from the footsteps. The sounds were her only sense of orientation in the darkness. The slight muscle shifts in her father’s torso the only indication of his movement. The light at the end of the tunnel was only barely visible. There was a fire just around the corner, its variable glow casting shadows on the walls of the alley. She could see the men’s outlines now as they approached. The gray uniforms helped them blend in with the darkness surrounding them. They appeared as if creatures of the darkness itself. Even as her vision improved and her eyes adjusted to the darkness, the soldiers began to croon. “Ready for some fun, dearie,” one whispered as they closed in.
“Would you like sauerkraut while you enjoy this sausage, you may not know it but the German variant is quite a bit bigger then the Polish” another whispered this voice coming from the left of them. The next voice whispered from far closer then they would have expected almost next to them.
“Well Pimp, I don’t think we have that money. So instead this will be a lesson for your little delicacy on how to treat the master race. He was close enough that they could pick out details on his uniform, the brass of an officer and the white eagle of the German army. Her father still didn’t move, nervously half smiling at the men. The closest soldier grabbed her wrist, trying to tear her away from her father.
Now her father moved, slowly grabbing her hands and holding them. Julia thought for a moment that he would pull her out of the soldier’s grasp, but then suddenly he let go. She stumbled falling backwards into the soldier behind her as her father let her go. He moved with her, taking a step forward and throwing his arms up close to the soldiers face, supplicating. The German simply smiled at the gesture, stopped in his tracks for a moment. The German’s eyes burned all the brighter though knowing his complete superiority and domination. Julia stared up from the two men’s feet as helpless as her father seemed to be. The soldier slowly pulled her father’s hands down away from his face. The hands didn’t resist, falling and moving further behind the German's back. Julia felt cramped as her father moved closer and closer to the German. She watched his upturned face and heard him beg. “Have you no concept of right or wrong,” He trembled a little as he talked from the fear and the cold. “Do you not believe in God?” For a moment he just stared, terrified into the German’s face, but the question demanded an answer. The German smiled down as he talked to his captives.
“Tonight,” the soldier sneered, “I am God.” As he howled the words, he brutally tried to push the Pole away. Julia watched terrified as the man hit her father. Not God but the devil seemed to rule the World at night. Her father flew backwards. Yet almost as soon as he had begun to fall back, he jerked forward, pulling himself forward. His arms flexed showing muscles Julia had never seen. His arms held somewhere behind the soldiers back The German paled as he felt the knife slicing between his ribs. The blood flew out of more then simply the soldier’s face as surprise and pain registered within German’s mind. The blade had been driven deep into the man’s back thanks to the momentum of the push. It killed fast, punching a hole in one of the German’s lungs and preventing any sound. Dark as it was, The German’s eyes were well adjusted to the Dark and they could easily see the outline of their friend fall to the ground on top of the little girl. Julia’s screams heightened the affect of the fall. To terrified to notice anything but the weight on her little body, she bawled out for help, screaming at the top of her lungs. She didn’t register any of her obvious surroundings for a little while. She could barely breath and eventually her screams fell into a heaving sob as she cried. Slowly her senses began to function again as time past. She could hear the chuckles of the other two German soldiers as they watched her struggle. She knew they were talking but couldn’t make out what they were saying through the tears and terror. She hadn’t noticed as her father got up from his knees and began moving towards the men. He walked around the body and his little girl, careful not to get to close to the bodies on the street. As, he moved in front of her, she finally noticed the Dark brown boots he always wore. They stood right in front of her face as she stared at the other Germans. Now she stared between his legs, her vision blurred by her tears. The little glimpses divided by her father’s choppy strides like a camera shutter. Terrified she closed her eyes, trying to hide herself from the world and escape to a place deep within her chest.

[Ludens]

I am a bit puzzled as to when this bombing of Warschaw took place. Apart from the invasion and the famous uprising, there was no fighing in the city by my knowlegde, and neither event took very long. In the story the war has been going on for a while know, so that rules out the invasion, but I doubt the rebels would have had air support.

Julia's character and situation have potential, but I don't like that you leave Tadju at a critical situation in the plot to focus on a new and sofar unrelated character. It would have been better if scenes of Tadju and Julia alternated each other. That's just my preference, however.

[Julian the apostate]

Julia and Tadjus stories both start in september of 1939, yet Julias story has only begun its outline and the process of being written down so the space time continum is a bit strange at the moment very sorry

so this story is going on in 1939 i want to have them both caught up by the end of january if i'm lucky and here is some stuff

There was only a single pistol shot. She opened her eyes, waiting for the soldiers to finish what the first one had started. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness slowly and even then her tear filled eyes were blurry. No one was standing. Two of the figures lay on the ground unmoving. The third sat against the wall.
Julia couldn’t tell who was who among the mess of bodies and blood, nor could she push the corpse off her. She could only wait and pray that the next passerby would help her and hopefully not expect anything… in return. The man lying against the wall just stared at her. It wasn’t quite malevolent, more of an amused sneer. The figure chuckled at her after a while. Occasionally, snorts interspersed the soft laughter of the man against the wall. “Well,” he whispered, the voice was soft like her fathers. Yet she refused to believe it was him. As she fought herself, the man continued, “Well, we’re still alive.” All around them, the world was silent for just one moment as they stared at each other. He crawled over slowly, limping a little. Julia smiled at him as he moved. Within a few moments she could see his face and then he was there next to her. The dead soldier’s body had already started to stiffen above Julia. She hadn’t noticed it, while she was laying still. Now though, her father rocked the body and she felt the already cold flesh in its awkwardly contortioned poise. Finally though, the body was off her. Now, with her lungs open and able to breathe, she began to hyperventilate as she tried to catch her breath. She imagined that he would help her up and hold her to him. He was her father.
Instead, she watched as he collected the Germans weapons and then slowly removed their clothing. She stared at her horrified as she did it, leaving them naked on the ground. She felt cold now, her dress had torn as she fell and cold air seeped in. She shivered, teeth chattering as she whispered to her father, “Thank youuuu.” She was mumbling, still scared, “I was sc-c-cared.”
Her father didn’t even look at her, talking as she focused on the shirt buttons of the closest German, “I needed the uniforms and they would have shot me if I had gotten this close without you.” He paused for a moment, “Thank you.” She stared at him and the mist flowing from his mouth. The mist and the snow combined to force her into a family world like the black and white picture shows she had seen. The walls were black from explosions and gunfire and the dead lay pale in the snow. It seemed as if there was no color besides the dark crimson blood. Her father though did not fit in this world. He was no knight in shining armor. He was something else, something she barely knew but saw now in the fierce glimmer of his eye.
It terrified her and drew her at the same time. It offered her protection against everything that would hurt her, yet it was at the price of his domination. He would protect her because she was needed. She stared at him sadly. She knew she needed him and it was not a pleasant realization. The world around her was lost as she thought. Was this what she wanted? To be passed from boy to boy for fear of the world? To be like her mother? It had been strange, even weirder on self analysis, pitying your mother. It wasn’t that her mother didn’t want help; it’s that she wanted too much. Julia could see it in her eyes, when father took command. They each loved different parts of the man, the loving father and the cunning husband. Yet he couldn’t be both on the inside could he, he couldn’t divide himself into two separate people. Could he?
She stared at the man in front of her; from waist up he was now the perfect Nazi. She shuddered as he put on the Nazi trousers and completed the uniform. His eyes fit the uniform a little too perfectly, the fire and unveiled contempt. She took her eyes off him for a moment, staring at the world around her. Black and white clashed, while trickles of red melted little lines in the snow. Between the Black and White was her father, dressed in gray. Even the jetted black hair was hidden now behind the stone gray cap of one of the German storm troopers. He spoke first, forcing her out of her silence with a dashing smile. “How do I look darling?”
It sounded like her father, carrying her spirits back up. His eyes though stayed veiled, hidden behind the shadows. His question was enough for her to grab his hand though, holding him close as he walked towards the German lines.

ALSO I AM VERY SORRY THAT THE DAD IS A KNIFE FIGHTER, I think i have an explination for it which i'll show later. I hate hero stuff but i got myself in the scene and i had to get out without dear Julia getting scarred for life

[Ludens]

Are you going to continue this? I hope you haven't given up on it.

[Julian the apostate]

i haven't and i have a good number of new pages but schools goin in hard i need to read the koran by the end of the week and i want the 2 parts integrated and chronologically... reasonalbe by the time i put it up. but definately not given up. Thank you