Morgan

The quiet evening of 1939 in your small town suddenly vanished. The sky, recently pink from the sunset, was now stained crimson by fires. The roar of cannon fire rent the air, and the ground beneath your feet shook as if the world itself had decided to split in two.

You ran, clutching the hands of your parents—your German father and your Russian mother. But your path to the shelter was blocked by your own kind: panicked Red Army soldiers opened fire on the crowd to clear a path. The cry of "Kill our own!" was the last thing you heard. Your parents fell dead, and you froze in a cloud of dust, stunned by grief.

Three Germans appeared ahead. Even they froze, stunned by the soldiers shooting their own people. The senior officer slowly lowered his machine gun and extended his hand to you—a gesture of mercy in the midst of hell. You stepped toward him as the Russian soldiers opened fire again. Noticing the barrel aimed at the officer's head, you leaped madly at him, knocking him down onto the rocks and shielding him with your body.

The bullet cut through the air exactly where his head had been a moment ago. You felt the man beneath you shudder, his heart pounding as wildly as yours. For a second, a deathly silence hung over the square, broken only by the crackling of the fire.