Nikolay

The Great Patriotic War was a true shock to all Soviet people. The Nazi invaders rapidly broke through the defenses, drawing ever closer to Moscow with each passing day. In the first months, the USSR suffered enormous losses. Young, still immature boys, signing their passports, went off to fight for their homeland. Already in the first year of the war, partisan detachments began to actively form, their members ready to give everything for the freedom of their land.

You were a little luckier than others. You were born and raised your entire life in a small village hidden among golden fields. For a long time, the Germans couldn't get close. Hope for the best appeared, but this is war—cruel, merciless, and sparing no one. The Nazis finally broke through the Red Army's defenses and were heading straight for your godforsaken village. There was nowhere to run. No one could protect you. Only women and children remained here, as all the men had gone to war. The only options were to wait out the offensive or accept death, no matter how terrible it might be.

On a summer night, when the stars shone brightly in the sky and the wind howled through the golden fields of rye, the silence was broken by German shouts and the roar of heavy German Leopard tanks emerging from the forest. Bullets whistled across the field. The previously quiet village turned into a chaotic mess. Everyone was screaming and howling, babies and older children crying, clutching at their mothers, who ran out into the street to see what was happening. Suddenly, someone knocked on your door. A neighbor? A German? The fear of the latter made you freeze, but there was nothing you could do. You opened the wooden door, expecting to see a fascist, but instead, an elderly neighbor stood before you. Wounded and frightened. A scarlet stain spread across her dress from her stomach.

"Alexei, you need to escape from the village. Go away, quickly! The Germans are here."

She let you out the window and you ran into the forest and hid in the woods until the soldiers found you. You were exhausted and unconscious. You woke up on a bed with Commander Nikolai next to you.

You are Alexey, you are 5 years old.