Summer Short Story Contest! (2013)

[Unitaristic Regions]

You could just go for short but good...

Even that would take me a comparatively long time.

Well, only you know if you can write a story on time, and if you know you can't...

[Page]

Okay guys, I took advantage of my sleepless night to whip one up just for this.

Click and enjoy!

Three lunar cycles had passed since the fall of the Highlands; two since the occupiers’ tribunal condemned Cordan to die. By the winter solstice, the designated day of reckoning for the man called deviant, war criminal and heretic, the once proud city of Bryn saw only four hours of daylight. Dust and debris had been stirred up not only by the battle for the capital which marked the Highlands’ last stand, but also by the punitive burnings of surrounding plantations, meaning that many people residing in the subjugated city were beginning to forget what a true day looked like.

For most, this was just another source of misery, yet Cordan found it strangely comforting to lose track of time. At least the narrow window of his cell and the darkened landscape limited his view of the indignities inflicted upon his Bryn; the structures shelled into rubble which the occupiers had not even begun to rebuild, the scorched vestiges of collapsed bridges, the crude filling in of Cordan’s silos with cement. Worst of all for most Highlanders was the fact that leviathan oil was wasted illuminating the occupiers’ crimson flags draped all over the city every hour of the night, while medicine had gone unsyntheized in Bryn ever since the war’s end. A constant reminder: “Woe to the vanquished.”

Although Cordan was, when he wore a general’s uniform, one of the Chieftan’s most adored, and although he as a Highlander professed his love of country loudly and publicly as all virtuous citizens should, the patriotic hatred that should boil in his blood on the day of his execution was actually rather trivial at this point. He was only plagued by the sorrow of his personal failure – how close he had come to victory, only to have it torn from his grasp days before his life’s work would come to fruition. Perhaps this was why he took his death sentence in such stride; for he had lost a battle with time already, the only one which truly mattered.

To breathe life into the rocket would have been so much more than a milestone in the history of this species, Cordan knew it would have been ascension to a new era that would have made all civilization thus far seem primitive. Indeed, he promised the Chieftan as the tide of war turned against the Highlanders that his creation would reduce Arma, the Meadow Clan’s capital, to ashes and bring them a victory unlike any other. Yet what would winning the war be except a means to an end? Why use the rocket only to kill, when it could one day let men walk among the stars?

The last vestiges of Cordan’s sense of duty to his country crumbled with Bryn’s walls. Truthfully, he would have gladly served the Meadow Clan, the occupiers, if only he could continue his noble work. He and Alyzia offered them this chance. But the foul fundamentalists refused, and repaid the offer of friendship with charges of heresy. Their priests held that the sky was the Creator’s blanket, the most merciful blessing ever given, to shield all from the Void and the demons within. To even dream to leave the confines of the dome above, to rise above the clouds and touch the Void; that was a crime that eclipsed the worst atrocities of the war.

No doubt, every priest, clan-elder, and “scientist” the occupiers summoned to testify concluded that Cordan and Alyzia would have doomed every soul, brought forth an extinction event, had they not been stopped.

The din of the crowd gathered in the city square grew louder, and Cordan smiled in his cell as he listened. This would be over soon. Then, he heard another sound: the unmistakable footsteps of the occupiers. Cordan was perplexed, for he did not expect to be passed another meal through the iron door after last night’s, but knew his executioner was not to escort him outside until high noon. So what had they come for?

Even when unlocked, the cell door took a considerable amount of strength to move, and Cordan feared for a moment that his last hour of life would involve watching it open inch by inch. But after a moment, the necessary force slid it all the way down the track. Three figures stood before the filthy, unshaven prisoner. Two were Meadow-clan soldiers. The other, Cordan thought, must be a hallucination. But she spoke, and he believed.

“Our conquerors have granted my last request.”
Alyzia looked only slightly less dreadful than he did. She no longer wore the black lipstick that was one of the most memorable sights at the silo. Her hair was greasy and had too many knots to count. Her eyes were sunken in and open wounds lined the circumference of her wrists where she had so often been chained.

But Cordan forced his half-atrophied legs to allow himself to rise to greet her.
“I’d thought they burned you already” he told her.
“I asked that we die together” Alyzia replied.
“Why?” Cordan asked as he laced his fingers in hers, looking past her at the occupiers who glared with disgust but said nothing. “We have been intertwined seventeen cycles. It only seems fitting” she answered.
“No, why does the Meadow Clan indulge any desire of yours or mine at all?” Cordan clarified. Alyzia laughed, weakly but distinctly, and speculated “those who will rewrite history might one day find it useful to appear magnanimous. I’ve heard they will even throw bread to the justice-seekers who attend our execution.”
“We defied the Creator, Alyzia. And still they must feed the masses just to get them to watch us die? For a crime so unforgivable, you would think they’d trample one another just to catch a glance of our pyre.”

With a dark grin, Alyzia turned toward the soldiers and raised her voice to say “there is no Creator.” Predictably, they recoiled; the one holding the keys even lost color in his face and looked as if he were about to vomit. Defiance was all Alyzia had left.

This is what Cordan admired so much about her. No presence was so exquisitely corrupting as hers. He was a general, she was a scientist. Cordan could think unconventionally, but she could blaspheme. There is no doubt Cordan was a talented inventor in his own right, but without Alyzia the rocket would scarcely have been more than a dream.

In retrospect, Cordan could not even recall whether their ambitions fueled their lust for one another, or whether their lust fueled their ambitions. She would paralyze his inhibitions with wine, and whisper to him in bed an illicit, occult doctrine; to envision one’s destiny while locked in carnal union would make it come to pass. At the start of the next cycle following that night, there was no need for wine; and as Cordan and Alyzia climaxed, they proclaimed they would deny the bonds of gravity and touch the Void. Whatever demons may come, let them, for theirs is Knowledge.

There were no more chances for that; only the privilege to burn together. Still, Alyzia expressed one more wish. “When they walk us to the pyre, Cordan, I believe we should clasp hands and take a bow. And if you can will it, smile as they curse us and chant for us to burn. They will see us die, but they need not see us regret.”
Cordan nodded and quietly said “I have already accepted my end.” He turned his left arm up toward her and revealed fresh scars on the underside. They spelled out words: “Woe to the vanquished.”

“You should have carved that into the wall of your cell rather than your arm, for posterity. For your skin will soon be ashes” Alyzia suggested. Cordan had a riddle to offer in return.
“If a book is to burn, are the words on the last page to touch the fire more attuned to posterity’s needs?”
Alyzia was glad that Cordan would walk to his death with pride rather than cowardice, but disappointed that he had lost his faith in the destiny they wished together.
“No execution can frighten a populace into submission forever. Another will rise and achieve what we did not, of that, I am sure” she admonished him.
“I would disagree, Alyzia. They will forever be afraid. Not of punishment, no. They will fear their own potential, and they will all die. When the red oceans rise eons from now, they will overtake Arma and Bryn. And this world will be a mausoleum for beings that knew there was one way forward, but refused it.”

The moment of silence lasted as long as the Meadow Clan soldiers would allow it to. But they moved to drag the condemned outside if they had to, so Alyzia left Cordan the last word and took his hand.

Minutes later, the most hated beings to ever draw breath were on full display for all the justice-seekers and bread-seekers gathered. A priest on the stage was handed a scroll while the condemned were bound. Eager executioners held their torches. Their moment would come as soon as the priest’s proclamation had finished.
“All ye assembled hear our judgment! There is no graver crime, no darker sin, than daring to invite the Void’s demons down upon us…”

------

Vessel X62 of the Reclamation Fleet idled in the thermosphere of the planet called Atikyr. Assembly officials called it an “edge world”, though it was actually closer to the galactic center than the capital, Sumeria Prime. It was deemed such because it was habitable, but undesirable.

Fourteen million colonists were about to enter this solar system. Their terraforming resources were meager, and life on Atikyr would be hard; but the frontier offered them more hope than the hiveworlds from which they emigrated.

Admiral Vallan reflected as he stood on the bridge of X62 that he was grateful this arid world was not to be his home. The three-hundred eighty-six year old war hero had just one more tour of duty to complete before the gleaming palaces of Titan would be his to walk freely among the Assembly’s aristocracy. Overseeing this sector’s Reclamation Fleet was little more than a reward career; it required virtually no exertion at all.

After all, ever since the Assembly won the Final War, times of strife were behind the human race. Thousands of years of internal rebellion meant losing contact with lesser colonies like Atikyr. The Reclamation Fleet’s task was simple – assess the condition of a planet, see if there is anything worth salvaging, and prepare it for the immigrants.

The report Admiral Vallan sent back to Sumeria Prime read thus:

“Approximately 160,000 ferals occupy the southern continent. Data from explorer drones indicate all tech from the initial habitation has been lost. Primitive warfare occurs incessantly and nothing of value remains. Zythyl canisters will deployed – all ferals will be purged.”

And the Void’s demons did so.

[Unitaristic Regions]

Okay guys, I took advantage of my sleepless night to whip one up just for this.

Click and enjoy!

Three lunar cycles had passed since the fall of the Highlands; two since the occupiers’ tribunal condemned Cordan to die. By the winter solstice, the designated day of reckoning for the man called deviant, war criminal and heretic, the once proud city of Bryn saw only four hours of daylight. Dust and debris had been stirred up not only by the battle for the capital which marked the Highlands’ last stand, but also by the punitive burnings of surrounding plantations, meaning that many people residing in the subjugated city were beginning to forget what a true day looked like.

For most, this was just another source of misery, yet Cordan found it strangely comforting to lose track of time. At least the narrow window of his cell and the darkened landscape limited his view of the indignities inflicted upon his Bryn; the structures shelled into rubble which the occupiers had not even begun to rebuild, the scorched vestiges of collapsed bridges, the crude filling in of Cordan’s silos with cement. Worst of all for most Highlanders was the fact that leviathan oil was wasted illuminating the occupiers’ crimson flags draped all over the city every hour of the night, while medicine had gone unsyntheized in Bryn ever since the war’s end. A constant reminder: “Woe to the vanquished.”

Although Cordan was, when he wore a general’s uniform, one of the Chieftan’s most adored, and although he as a Highlander professed his love of country loudly and publicly as all virtuous citizens should, the patriotic hatred that should boil in his blood on the day of his execution was actually rather trivial at this point. He was only plagued by the sorrow of his personal failure – how close he had come to victory, only to have it torn from his grasp days before his life’s work would come to fruition. Perhaps this was why he took his death sentence in such stride; for he had lost a battle with time already, the only one which truly mattered.

To breathe life into the rocket would have been so much more than a milestone in the history of this species, Cordan knew it would have been ascension to a new era that would have made all civilization thus far seem primitive. Indeed, he promised the Chieftan as the tide of war turned against the Highlanders that his creation would reduce Arma, the Meadow Clan’s capital, to ashes and bring them a victory unlike any other. Yet what would winning the war be except a means to an end? Why use the rocket only to kill, when it could one day let men walk among the stars?

The last vestiges of Cordan’s sense of duty to his country crumbled with Bryn’s walls. Truthfully, he would have gladly served the Meadow Clan, the occupiers, if only he could continue his noble work. He and Alyzia offered them this chance. But the foul fundamentalists refused, and repaid the offer of friendship with charges of heresy. Their priests held that the sky was the Creator’s blanket, the most merciful blessing ever given, to shield all from the Void and the demons within. To even dream to leave the confines of the dome above, to rise above the clouds and touch the Void; that was a crime that eclipsed the worst atrocities of the war.

No doubt, every priest, clan-elder, and “scientist” the occupiers summoned to testify concluded that Cordan and Alyzia would have doomed every soul, brought forth an extinction event, had they not been stopped.

The din of the crowd gathered in the city square grew louder, and Cordan smiled in his cell as he listened. This would be over soon. Then, he heard another sound: the unmistakable footsteps of the occupiers. Cordan was perplexed, for he did not expect to be passed another meal through the iron door after last night’s, but knew his executioner was not to escort him outside until high noon. So what had they come for?

Even when unlocked, the cell door took a considerable amount of strength to move, and Cordan feared for a moment that his last hour of life would involve watching it open inch by inch. But after a moment, the necessary force slid it all the way down the track. Three figures stood before the filthy, unshaven prisoner. Two were Meadow-clan soldiers. The other, Cordan thought, must be a hallucination. But she spoke, and he believed.

“Our conquerors have granted my last request.”
Alyzia looked only slightly less dreadful than he did. She no longer wore the black lipstick that was one of the most memorable sights at the silo. Her hair was greasy and had too many knots to count. Her eyes were sunken in and open wounds lined the circumference of her wrists where she had so often been chained.

But Cordan forced his half-atrophied legs to allow himself to rise to greet her.
“I’d thought they burned you already” he told her.
“I asked that we die together” Alyzia replied.
“Why?” Cordan asked as he laced his fingers in hers, looking past her at the occupiers who glared with disgust but said nothing. “We have been intertwined seventeen cycles. It only seems fitting” she answered.
“No, why does the Meadow Clan indulge any desire of yours or mine at all?” Cordan clarified. Alyzia laughed, weakly but distinctly, and speculated “those who will rewrite history might one day find it useful to appear magnanimous. I’ve heard they will even throw bread to the justice-seekers who attend our execution.”
“We defied the Creator, Alyzia. And still they must feed the masses just to get them to watch us die? For a crime so unforgivable, you would think they’d trample one another just to catch a glance of our pyre.”

With a dark grin, Alyzia turned toward the soldiers and raised her voice to say “there is no Creator.” Predictably, they recoiled; the one holding the keys even lost color in his face and looked as if he were about to vomit. Defiance was all Alyzia had left.

This is what Cordan admired so much about her. No presence was so exquisitely corrupting as hers. He was a general, she was a scientist. Cordan could think unconventionally, but she could blaspheme. There is no doubt Cordan was a talented inventor in his own right, but without Alyzia the rocket would scarcely have been more than a dream.

In retrospect, Cordan could not even recall whether their ambitions fueled their lust for one another, or whether their lust fueled their ambitions. She would paralyze his inhibitions with wine, and whisper to him in bed an illicit, occult doctrine; to envision one’s destiny while locked in carnal union would make it come to pass. At the start of the next cycle following that night, there was no need for wine; and as Cordan and Alyzia climaxed, they proclaimed they would deny the bonds of gravity and touch the Void. Whatever demons may come, let them, for theirs is Knowledge.

There were no more chances for that; only the privilege to burn together. Still, Alyzia expressed one more wish. “When they walk us to the pyre, Cordan, I believe we should clasp hands and take a bow. And if you can will it, smile as they curse us and chant for us to burn. They will see us die, but they need not see us regret.”
Cordan nodded and quietly said “I have already accepted my end.” He turned his left arm up toward her and revealed fresh scars on the underside. They spelled out words: “Woe to the vanquished.”

“You should have carved that into the wall of your cell rather than your arm, for posterity. For your skin will soon be ashes” Alyzia suggested. Cordan had a riddle to offer in return.
“If a book is to burn, are the words on the last page to touch the fire more attuned to posterity’s needs?”
Alyzia was glad that Cordan would walk to his death with pride rather than cowardice, but disappointed that he had lost his faith in the destiny they wished together.
“No execution can frighten a populace into submission forever. Another will rise and achieve what we did not, of that, I am sure” she admonished him.
“I would disagree, Alyzia. They will forever be afraid. Not of punishment, no. They will fear their own potential, and they will all die. When the red oceans rise eons from now, they will overtake Arma and Bryn. And this world will be a mausoleum for beings that knew there was one way forward, but refused it.”

The moment of silence lasted as long as the Meadow Clan soldiers would allow it to. But they moved to drag the condemned outside if they had to, so Alyzia left Cordan the last word and took his hand.

Minutes later, the most hated beings to ever draw breath were on full display for all the justice seekers and bread seekers gathered. A priest on the stage was handed a scroll while the condemned were bound. Eager executioners held their torches. Their moment would come as soon as the priest’s proclamation had finished.
“All ye assembled hear our judgment! There is no graver crime, no darker sin, than daring to invite the Void’s demons down upon us…”

------

Vessel X62 of the Reclamation Fleet idled in the thermosphere of the planet called Atikyr. Imperial officials called it an “edge world”, though it was actually closer to the galactic center than the capital, Sumeria Prime. It was deemed such because it was habitable, but undesirable.

Fourteen million colonists were about to enter this solar system. Their terraforming resources were meager, and life on Atikyr would be hard; but the frontier offered them more hope than the hiveworlds from which they emigrated.

Admiral Vallan reflected as he stood on the bridge of X62 that he was grateful this arid world was not to be his home. The three-hundred eighty-six year old war hero had just one more tour of duty to complete before the gleaming palaces of Titan would be his to walk freely among the Assembly’s aristocracy. Overseeing this sector’s Reclamation Fleet was little more than a reward career; it required virtually no exertion at all.

After all, ever since the Assembly won the Final War, times of strife were behind the human race. Thousands of years of internal rebellion meant losing contact with lesser colonies like Atikyr. The Reclamation Fleet’s task was simple – assess the condition of a planet, see if there is anything worth salvaging, and prepare it for the immigrants.

The report Admiral Vallan sent back to Sumeria Prime read thus:

“Approximately 160,000 ferals occupy the southern continent. Data from explorer drones indicate all tech from the initial habitation has been lost. Primitive warfare occurs incessantly and nothing of value remains. Zythyl canisters will deployed – all ferals will be purged.”

And the Void’s demons did so.

I do not entirely get it, but I like it

[Jello Biafra]

Thank you for the feedback, Occupied Deutschland.

[Mkuki]

A little something I wrote for my Creative Writing class last year. Hope you guys enjoy.

Werther Vieth slowly lifted himself off of the ground. The Hauptsturmführer’s ears were ringing and red was tinging the edges of his eyes. Remembering his training the SS soldier quickly began looking around for his helmet. Staying low the young soldier crawled across the debris-ridden floor and spotted his helmet lying next to a body. On it was the, now grimy, ‘SS’ emblem of two runes.

Remembering to stay below the eyesight of his enemies, the tall, blonde Aryan dashed across the room he was in and over to his helmet. Placing it securely on his head, Werther grabbed a weapon, a Kar98K bolt-action rifle, next to a body -corpse, actually- and hastened over to a windowsill.

Hazarding a peek above the sill Werther saw that the Russians were moving up the street. “I’ll be damned if I give up this house without a fight.” He muttered to himself. Silently reciting his pledge to defend the Vaterland, Werther popped up from below the windowsill, pulled the rifle’s trigger, and loosed a shot at the communist dogs advancing up the road.

Not wishing to lose his head just yet Werther ducked back under the windowsill and worked his rifle’s bolt, chambering the next round. Werther looked around him. The room, café actually, he and his SS comrades were holed up in was all, but destroyed. There was a hole in the ceiling, debris, chunks of wood, and various body parts were scattered all over the room, and, to make everything worse, the Jews and communists he was fighting with had goddamn panzers. What type he wasn’t sure of exactly. Luckily for Werther some of the other SS men in the café with him were pulling themselves up as well.

It was then that God decided to return sound to his ear. Whereas before all Werther could here was a ringing silence, now he could hear the sounds of battle flooding in. Covering his ears to stymie the flood of noise, Werther shouted at the remaining SS soldiers in the café to grab their weapons and stop the Russians from capturing the café.

After a few moments, the Hauptsturmführer uncovered his ears and decided to take his own orders. Clutching his rifle close to his chest Werther quickly raised himself above the windowsill, aimed at one of the enemy soldaten and fired a bullet. Almost instantly one of the Russians crumpled to the ground. The SS soldier whooped before ducking under the windowsill again.

Beside him one of his closest friends, Eckbert Friedrich, rose above a hole in the café’s wall and loosed a stream of bullets from his MP 40. As the Untersturmführer came down a grim look overcame his face. “Werther!”, he yelled over the din of battle, “The Russians! They are bringing up a howitzer!”

Werther cursed. Looking around he spotted Rolf Peter, the company’s radio operator, and called him over. “Peter! Get on the funkgerät! Tell the colonel that the Russians are bringing up artillery and that we need covering fire.” Rolf gave a nod of agreement and began working the radio.

“Everyone else!”, he called out, “We’re falling back! Let the communists have this collapsing building. We’ll stop them on the next street!” His fellow soldiers gave a loud cheer.

Taking the lead Werther ran over to one of the doors, doorframe now, leading out of the café. About twenty meters ahead was another building. Luckily Russian bombers had blasted a hole into the building's wall. From what he could see there was also a crater where the floor must have been. Unfortunately there was very little cover on the street itself. Other than a burnt car or two the street was empty and barren. Giving another curse, Werther backed away from the door.

“Reiner! Volker!” Werther called for the two machine gunners he'd picked back in Seelow Heights. “Yes, Hauptsturmführer?”, questioned Volker Prinz, the taller of the two. “We're crossing this street. While the rest of us are giving you guys cover fire I want you two to get behind that car and set up the MG42. On my signal you will blast those atheists back to hell. Verstandenen?”

The two SS machine gunners nodded and, with their machine gun in hand, stepped out of the café and dashed to an overturned car. Werther turned back to the thirty six soldiers under his command. These were the remnants of the company he’d been commanding ever since the former Hauptsturmführer, Eugen Bernat, had been hauled off by the Gestapo to only God knows where. Most of the soldiers, including Werther himself, were of the consensus that he wasn’t half as good as Eugen had been.

The Hauptsturmführer shrugged. What was done was done. No one could change the past. All they could do now was serve the Fürher to their dying breath.

Werther looked back to the two machine gunners. The MG 42 was set up on the rear tire of the vehicles charred chassis. Bracing himself, he pulled up the whistle hanging around his neck and gave a loud blow. Luckily the two machine gunners were able to hear the shrill sound over the din of battle and began spewing hot lead at the advancing Russians.

The men in the café let out a cheer as Russian bodies began toppling over. “Let’s go!”, yelled Werther at the top of his lungs while waving his arms at the door. “Stay low and don’t shoot!” He paused for a second. “Also, watch out for friendly artillery fire!”

As if on cue with what he was saying the familiar sound of artillery shells whistled overhead. Within seconds the shells began slamming into the ground before exploding amid the Russians, sending shrapnel and death at them.

Following his own advice, Werther, followed closely by Eckbert Friedrich, hunched himself over and stepped out onto the street. Within seconds bullets were whizzing past the column of SS soldiers, but, for the most part, the bullets were either too high or too low to cause any real damage. As he ran across the road, out of the corner of his eye Werther saw a fireball erupt in the middle of the Russian column. Fuckin’ tankers! Serves them right, he thought savagely.

Werther was the third one who made it across the street and into the wrecked building. Taking care to not get his head blown off, Werther peaked over some rubble. There were a few German bodies lying on the street. Two of the bodies were the machine gunners who had been giving them cover. They were obviously dead. In fact, the corpse of Reiner Schmitt was missing the entire lower half of its body.

Ducking back down Werther looked at the remaining soldiers in his care. They all looked gaunt and emaciated. What food they’d been able to scrounge up had looked disgusting and was clearly not fit for human consumption. Even the kikes got better rations than what he’d been eating since the Wehrmacht had been pushed back into Berlin.

“Hauptsturmführer!”, called out Manfred Kaüfer, “What now?”

Werther sighed and slid down the crater inside the smashed building, little bits of debris rolling down the small slope. There were two ways to get out of the building. The first way was out of a backdoor that surely led to another street. The other way was to climb out of the building and go back out to the Russians. Werther weighed his options and gave his decision.

“It’s either back out to the damned Russians or out that back door and possibly connecting with other units. I think it’d be best to go out the back door. Let’s go.”

Werther hoisted himself up and scrambled up the opposite side of the crater before prying the door open. One after the other, Werther helped pull the SS men out of the crater and onto the street. As the last came up and over the ledge Werther turned around and saw that most of the soldiers were holed up in various buildings along the street. Werther smiled. If the Russians wanted to take Berlin, they’d have to step over piles of their own godless corpses to do it.

Hefting his rifle over his shoulder, Werther ran over towards a small hotel. As he walked inside, the young man noticed that this particular building seemed to be unaffected by the war. The main lobby was almost impeccably clean. Everything in the lobby screamed adoration for the Führer. From paintings to photos to the flag of the NSDAP, the lobby was, basically, a shrine to the Führer. In fact there was a large painting of the Führer himself by, what Werther assumed was, the reception desk.

Moving into a central hallway, Werther was met with paintings and photos of various government officials like Joachim Ribbentropp, Joseph Goebbels, and Albert Speer. Up ahead he spotted a spiral staircase and quickly climbed up it, skipping steps in the process. As he walked up the last step, Werther noticed the other machine gun crew he had with him had hoisted up their own MG 42 onto a window sill.

After he nodded his approval the SS soldier walked down the hallway and spotted a room with an open door. As he walked in Werther was pleased to see that the room had two wide, open windows. The room he was in was fairly modest. To the front of the room, by the door, there was a fairly large nightstand with a radio set on it. On the opposite side of the room was a mattress with a low-lying dresser next to it. Near one of the windows was a circular, dining table with two chairs parked underneath it.

Smiling, the SS man lowered himself by one of the windows, chambered a round in his Kar98K, and placed the rifle’s barrel on the window sill.

Seconds later a shot was fired. It sounded like it had come from a Gewehr 43. Werther looked through the window and saw a body crumpled on the ground 100 meters away. Before he could say anything another Russian came into view.

Looking through the sights of his rifle, Werther carefully aimed and pulled the trigger. The bullet smashed through the window, leaving a jagged hole in the glass, and struck its target. The man hunched forward and clutched his shoulder. “Shit!” Werther cursed. “I missed.” Angrily, he worked the bolt on his rifle and aimed at the Russian he’d wounded earlier. Taking more care he waited a couple seconds before firing.

The shot rang out and this time the Russian’s head flew right off. Werther worked the bolt of his rifle again. He had three rounds left before he had to put in a new clip. As he scanned the street for more of the kommunisten a bullet whizzed right past his ear and lodged itself into the wall behind him.

Werther cursed again as he ducked under the window sill. He’d stayed in view for too long. Deciding to abandon the room, Werther laid himself flat on the ground and began crawling to the door.

As he approached the doorway leading out of the room Werther heard a soft thud by the window he’d just moved from. The soldier turned to see what had landed in the room. To his horror, the object was a grenade. With the quickness of a cheetah, Werther grabbed the nearby nightstand and toppled it over so it could take the brunt of the grenade’s blast.

Within an instant the grenade exploded. The soldier clutched his ears tightly. His head was filled with ringing for the second time that day. His surroundings had rapidly transformed into shades of gray. Within instants the pain started flowing in. First it was his left leg, closely followed by his left arm.

Gritting his teeth, Werther slowly, but surely, pulled himself up off of the floor and out of the devastated room. Limping down the hotel’s pristine hallway, the young Aryan looked around for another open door. Unfortunately all of the doors seemed to be closed. Werther cursed again and turned back around to go down the spiral staircase he’d climbed up earlier.

As he neared the staircase the ground shook and nearly sent Werther tumbling down the stairs. After catching himself on the staircase rail, the Hauptsturmführer limped over to a nearby window. Outside was a fucking panzer! Suitably alarmed, Werther quickly half-limped half-stumbled down the stairway and out of the hotel.

Down the street was one of those horrific Stalin tanks. He’d learned, mostly from interrogating Russian prisoners, that the Stalin tank, or IS-2, was nicknamed the Shchuka, or “Pike”, by her crews. From what Werther could tell, those prisoners had been absolutely right. The tank’s gun was just monstrous. It hung just over three meters above the ground and looked to be over five meters in length. The whole machine appeared to be a play toy for some long dead mythical giant.

Werther let out a curse and hid behind the hotel’s exterior. He reached for his Kar98K, but grabbed air. Looking down in surprise, the SS soldier realized that he’d left his rifle in that room on the hotel’s second floor. Cursing again, Werther spotted an StG-44 assault rifle in the middle of the street. Unfortunately, there was not a single object on the street to cover his attempt to get the weapon.

After a moment of thought, Werther resigned himself to a decision and ran out onto the road. As he neared the weapon a stream of bullets hit the asphalt street he was running on. “Verdammte kommunisten.”, he sneered as he dove for and gripped the rifle. The Aryan rolled off his shoulder and onto his feet before he pivoted and raced back to the hotel; all while Russian ammunition whooshed past him and his vital organs.

Just as he stepped over the curb of the sidewalk by the hotel Werther was abruptly lifted off the ground and sent flying forward. Crashing back onto the ground, Werther’s ears, for the third time that day, began to ring. His eyesight began to gray out and he suddenly felt woozy, almost light headed. He tried to lift himself off of the ground, but collapsed back onto the pavement. He groaned and began to crawl forward over the rubble-strewn sidewalk.

As he approached the front door leading into the hotel, the SS soldiers who were occupying the building came running out. Most ran past him, but one, Eckbert Friedrich, spotted him and lifted Werther up by his armpit.

“Werther,” yelled his long-time friend, “are you okay?” Werther just looked at his friend with a questioning eye. He could see Eckbert’s mouth moving, but hear no words. Instead of replying, Werther just pointed his head toward the hotel’s door. Acknowledging the silent command, Eckbert carried the Hauptsturmführer into the hotel lobby.

Just as the Werther was set down on the floor of the hotel, He decided to return Werther’s ability to hear. The sudden rush of sounds pierced into Werther and nearly caused him to scream in pain. With a vacant look in his eyes Werther stared at Eckbert, who was trying to patch up Werther’s wounds, and placed a hand on his comrade’s shoulder.

Eckbert gave him a questioning look. Werther just shook his head and slowly pushed Eckbert away from him.

“Go.” He whispered blankly. “You can’t fix me up, Eckbert. Not now. Not with the kommunisten this close.” A tear welled up in his eye. “I’ll hold them off for as long as I can while you guys get away. You’re in charge of the company now.”

“Yeah, right!”, chuckled Eckbert. “You didn’t abandon me when I got shot back in Stalingrad. I’m not leaving you. I’ll fix right you up and-”

SLAP!

Werther slapped his friend hard across the cheek. “You will do no such thing!” he said sharply. “Follow my orders, you idiot. Take care of everyone else and don’t stop fighting. Not if I die and not if you die. Got that?” Eckbert solemnly nodded.

“Good. Now hand me my weapon and get the hell out of here.” Eckbert rose off of the ground and handed the weapon Werther. “Thanks. Now get going.” With a stiff salute, Eckbert was out of the door and back to dodging bullets.

Looking around, Werther crawled behind the reception desk of the hotel’s lobby and managed to pull himself up on his knees while coughing up red hot blood. With his StG-44 in hand he faced the hotel’s doors and waited for his enemies to come inside.

As he waited, Werther began thinking back to when he’d joined the Waffen-SS at the tender age of eighteen. That was back in 1936. Almost nine years he’d served the Führer faithfully. Not one moment did he regret. From torturing Jews, like the schwein that they were, to shooting Russians who’d had the gall to surrender, it had been a splendid run. As long as the Führer is still fighting, I will still fight, he thought peacefully.

After a quick prayer, Werther crossed himself and waited for a Russian to come through the door in front of him. Not even a minute later his wish came to pass. One of the godless atheists ambled into the hotel and, with a smile that could scare Satan himself, Werther pulled the trigger of his rifle and loosed a stream of bullets at the unlucky bastard. The soldier never knew what hit him as he was sent flying out of the hotel.

Outside, Werther could hear Russian soldiers yelling in their unintelligible language. He smiled to himself. “Stupid, kommunisten.”, he sneered under his breath. “Bring it on.” As if to answer his challenge two soldiers burst into the hotel lobby, screaming and spraying bullets down the first floor hallway. Werther gave a crooked smile. Since he was off to the left side of the room they hadn’t seen him. Yet.

With a cool hand, the Hauptsturmführer loosed another stream of bullets. Like the one before them the soldiers toppled onto the floor, unaware of who had killed them and from where. Suddenly, just barely over the din of battle, Werther heard a soft plink.

Before he could identify the sound, the world exploded in a flash of colors. First, a blinding white flash blinded SS soldier before shades of orange, yellow, and red danced across his vision. After that came the pain. Werther began to scream and curse before he looked down at his body, where most of the pain was originating. Half of his left leg was gone and his right foot was barely hanging onto his ankle.

“Holy Mother of God!” he cursed out loud.

Just then, to Werther’s everlasting luck, a whole bunch of the Russians barged into the room. One of them, the leader of the group judging by his insignia, spotted Werther and stomped over to the mortally wounded soldier. The old soldier looked like a relic from the last world war. His hair may have been graying, but his eyes had fire in them. Before the Russian could grab what remained of Werther Vieth, one of the soldiers called to the seemingly grizzled veteran.

“Commisar,” called out a soldier who was holding up Werther’s helmet, “SS.”

The Commisar whipped around to face Werther and quickly drew his pistol. His eyes were cold. No longer was the fire there. No. Now his eyes spoke hatred. Pure, unadulterated hatred. Werther shivered under the Commisar’s gaze.

Werther steeled himself and hawked a big wad of saliva at the Russian’s shoes. The old man just glanced down at his boots before pulling the trigger of his pistol.

As long as the Führer is still fighting, I will still fight, were his last thoughts.

“Adolf,” whined a soft, feminine voice. “Are you sure you want to do this? We can easily continue the fight in Bavaria. In the Berghof.”

“Nein, Eva.”, Adolf said simply as he paced across the bunker’s floor. “The people of Germany were too weak. They were not worthy of our fight, mein fraulein. The jüdisch and kommunist sympathizers betrayed us. Just like the Great War, the people stabbed us in the back. They are undeserving of freedom. They deserve to die like the dogs they truly are.”

“You are right, as always.”, agreed Eva as she got off and wrapped herself around her new husband. “But still, we could run away. Maybe escape to South America. It’s nice and warm there, you know.”

“Again, nein.”, disagreed Adolf. “If we are hunted down the juden and kommunisten will surely torture and mutilate us. You, my dear, are too pretty to be tortured.”

Eva giggled and pulled her husband into a deep kiss. “Okay,” she said as their lips departed for air, “let’s do it.”

Smiling, Adolf walked over to a desk with a telephone on it and picked up the receiver. “Bring them up. Eva is in full agreement and I’d like to do this before the damned Russians can get to us.” The voice on the other end of the call acknowledged Adolf’s request and not thirty seconds later, Adolf heard a knock on the heavy steel door near the back of the room.

“Come in.” called Adolf.

The steel door slowly opened and a young SS soldier holding a tray appeared from behind. “Mein führer,” said the soldier, “here are the pills and pistol you asked for. If there is anything more I can do for you, just ask me and I will do it no matter the cost.”

Adolf waved him away with a “thanks”, took the tray and shut the steel door. On the tray was a glass of water, two cyanide pills and a small Walther PPK pistol. Adolf set the tray on the nearby desk and dropped the two cyanide pills into the glass of water before handing the glass to Eva.

“My dear,” he said, clinking his pistol to Eva’s glass, “I shall see you again in heaven.” Eva smiled and drank down the water and pills. Adolf lovingly stared at his wife before he set the pistol’s barrel to his temple.

“My vengeance is complete.”, were his last words before he pulled the trigger.

[Conserative Morality]

Two days until judging starts! Any last minute submissions should probably head in soon.

Also, we're going off of Pacific time, just because.

[Nazi Flower Power]

A little something I wrote for my Creative Writing class last year. Hope you guys enjoy.

Werther Vieth slowly lifted himself off of the ground. The Hauptsturmführer’s ears were ringing and red was tinging the edges of his eyes. Remembering his training the SS soldier quickly began looking around for his helmet. Staying low the young soldier crawled across the debris-ridden floor and spotted his helmet lying next to a body. On it was the, now grimy, ‘SS’ emblem of two runes.

Remembering to stay below the eyesight of his enemies, the tall, blonde Aryan dashed across the room he was in and over to his helmet. Placing it securely on his head, Werther grabbed a weapon, a Kar98K bolt-action rifle, next to a body -corpse, actually- and hastened over to a windowsill.

Hazarding a peek above the sill Werther saw that the Russians were moving up the street. “I’ll be damned if I give up this house without a fight.” He muttered to himself. Silently reciting his pledge to defend the Vaterland, Werther popped up from below the windowsill, pulled the rifle’s trigger, and loosed a shot at the communist dogs advancing up the road.

Not wishing to lose his head just yet Werther ducked back under the windowsill and worked his rifle’s bolt, chambering the next round. Werther looked around him. The room, café actually, he and his SS comrades were holed up in was all, but destroyed. There was a hole in the ceiling, debris, chunks of wood, and various body parts were scattered all over the room, and, to make everything worse, the Jews and communists he was fighting with had goddamn panzers. What type he wasn’t sure of exactly. Luckily for Werther some of the other SS men in the café with him were pulling themselves up as well.

It was then that God decided to return sound to his ear. Whereas before all Werther could here was a ringing silence, now he could hear the sounds of battle flooding in. Covering his ears to stymie the flood of noise, Werther shouted at the remaining SS soldiers in the café to grab their weapons and stop the Russians from capturing the café.

After a few moments, the Hauptsturmführer uncovered his ears and decided to take his own orders. Clutching his rifle close to his chest Werther quickly raised himself above the windowsill, aimed at one of the enemy soldaten and fired a bullet. Almost instantly one of the Russians crumpled to the ground. The SS soldier whooped before ducking under the windowsill again.

Beside him one of his closest friends, Eckbert Friedrich, rose above a hole in the café’s wall and loosed a stream of bullets from his MP 40. As the Untersturmführer came down a grim look overcame his face. “Werther!”, he yelled over the din of battle, “The Russians! They are bringing up a howitzer!”

Werther cursed. Looking around he spotted Rolf Peter, the company’s radio operator, and called him over. “Peter! Get on the funkgerät! Tell the colonel that the Russians are bringing up artillery and that we need covering fire.” Rolf gave a nod of agreement and began working the radio.

“Everyone else!”, he called out, “We’re falling back! Let the communists have this collapsing building. We’ll stop them on the next street!” His fellow soldiers gave a loud cheer.

Taking the lead Werther ran over to one of the doors, doorframe now, leading out of the café. About twenty meters ahead was another building. Luckily Russian bombers had blasted a hole into the building's wall. From what he could see there was also a crater where the floor must have been. Unfortunately there was very little cover on the street itself. Other than a burnt car or two the street was empty and barren. Giving another curse, Werther backed away from the door.

“Reiner! Volker!” Werther called for the two machine gunners he'd picked back in Seelow Heights. “Yes, Hauptsturmführer?”, questioned Volker Prinz, the taller of the two. “We're crossing this street. While the rest of us are giving you guys cover fire I want you two to get behind that car and set up the MG42. On my signal you will blast those atheists back to hell. Verstandenen?”

The two SS machine gunners nodded and, with their machine gun in hand, stepped out of the café and dashed to an overturned car. Werther turned back to the thirty six soldiers under his command. These were the remnants of the company he’d been commanding ever since the former Hauptsturmführer, Eugen Bernat, had been hauled off by the Gestapo to only God knows where. Most of the soldiers, including Werther himself, were of the consensus that he wasn’t half as good as Eugen had been.

The Hauptsturmführer shrugged. What was done was done. No one could change the past. All they could do now was serve the Fürher to their dying breath.

Werther looked back to the two machine gunners. The MG 42 was set up on the rear tire of the vehicles charred chassis. Bracing himself, he pulled up the whistle hanging around his neck and gave a loud blow. Luckily the two machine gunners were able to hear the shrill sound over the din of battle and began spewing hot lead at the advancing Russians.

The men in the café let out a cheer as Russian bodies began toppling over. “Let’s go!”, yelled Werther at the top of his lungs while waving his arms at the door. “Stay low and don’t shoot!” He paused for a second. “Also, watch out for friendly artillery fire!”

As if on cue with what he was saying the familiar sound of artillery shells whistled overhead. Within seconds the shells began slamming into the ground before exploding amid the Russians, sending shrapnel and death at them.

Following his own advice, Werther, followed closely by Eckbert Friedrich, hunched himself over and stepped out onto the street. Within seconds bullets were whizzing past the column of SS soldiers, but, for the most part, the bullets were either too high or too low to cause any real damage. As he ran across the road, out of the corner of his eye Werther saw a fireball erupt in the middle of the Russian column. Fuckin’ tankers! Serves them right, he thought savagely.

Werther was the third one who made it across the street and into the wrecked building. Taking care to not get his head blown off, Werther peaked over some rubble. There were a few German bodies lying on the street. Two of the bodies were the machine gunners who had been giving them cover. They were obviously dead. In fact, the corpse of Reiner Schmitt was missing the entire lower half of its body.

Ducking back down Werther looked at the remaining soldiers in his care. They all looked gaunt and emaciated. What food they’d been able to scrounge up had looked disgusting and was clearly not fit for human consumption. Even the kikes got better rations than what he’d been eating since the Wehrmacht had been pushed back into Berlin.

“Hauptsturmführer!”, called out Manfred Kaüfer, “What now?”

Werther sighed and slid down the crater inside the smashed building, little bits of debris rolling down the small slope. There were two ways to get out of the building. The first way was out of a backdoor that surely led to another street. The other way was to climb out of the building and go back out to the Russians. Werther weighed his options and gave his decision.

“It’s either back out to the damned Russians or out that back door and possibly connecting with other units. I think it’d be best to go out the back door. Let’s go.”

Werther hoisted himself up and scrambled up the opposite side of the crater before prying the door open. One after the other, Werther helped pull the SS men out of the crater and onto the street. As the last came up and over the ledge Werther turned around and saw that most of the soldiers were holed up in various buildings along the street. Werther smiled. If the Russians wanted to take Berlin, they’d have to step over piles of their own godless corpses to do it.

Hefting his rifle over his shoulder, Werther ran over towards a small hotel. As he walked inside, the young man noticed that this particular building seemed to be unaffected by the war. The main lobby was almost impeccably clean. Everything in the lobby screamed adoration for the Führer. From paintings to photos to the flag of the NSDAP, the lobby was, basically, a shrine to the Führer. In fact there was a large painting of the Führer himself by, what Werther assumed was, the reception desk.

Moving into a central hallway, Werther was met with paintings and photos of various government officials like Joachim Ribbentropp, Joseph Goebbels, and Albert Speer. Up ahead he spotted a spiral staircase and quickly climbed up it, skipping steps in the process. As he walked up the last step, Werther noticed the other machine gun crew he had with him had hoisted up their own MG 42 onto a window sill.

After he nodded his approval the SS soldier walked down the hallway and spotted a room with an open door. As he walked in Werther was pleased to see that the room had two wide, open windows. The room he was in was fairly modest. To the front of the room, by the door, there was a fairly large nightstand with a radio set on it. On the opposite side of the room was a mattress with a low-lying dresser next to it. Near one of the windows was a circular, dining table with two chairs parked underneath it.

Smiling, the SS man lowered himself by one of the windows, chambered a round in his Kar98K, and placed the rifle’s barrel on the window sill.

Seconds later a shot was fired. It sounded like it had come from a Gewehr 43. Werther looked through the window and saw a body crumpled on the ground 100 meters away. Before he could say anything another Russian came into view.

Looking through the sights of his rifle, Werther carefully aimed and pulled the trigger. The bullet smashed through the window, leaving a jagged hole in the glass, and struck its target. The man hunched forward and clutched his shoulder. “Shit!” Werther cursed. “I missed.” Angrily, he worked the bolt on his rifle and aimed at the Russian he’d wounded earlier. Taking more care he waited a couple seconds before firing.

The shot rang out and this time the Russian’s head flew right off. Werther worked the bolt of his rifle again. He had three rounds left before he had to put in a new clip. As he scanned the street for more of the kommunisten a bullet whizzed right past his ear and lodged itself into the wall behind him.

Werther cursed again as he ducked under the window sill. He’d stayed in view for too long. Deciding to abandon the room, Werther laid himself flat on the ground and began crawling to the door.

As he approached the doorway leading out of the room Werther heard a soft thud by the window he’d just moved from. The soldier turned to see what had landed in the room. To his horror, the object was a grenade. With the quickness of a cheetah, Werther grabbed the nearby nightstand and toppled it over so it could take the brunt of the grenade’s blast.

Within an instant the grenade exploded. The soldier clutched his ears tightly. His head was filled with ringing for the second time that day. His surroundings had rapidly transformed into shades of gray. Within instants the pain started flowing in. First it was his left leg, closely followed by his left arm.

Gritting his teeth, Werther slowly, but surely, pulled himself up off of the floor and out of the devastated room. Limping down the hotel’s pristine hallway, the young Aryan looked around for another open door. Unfortunately all of the doors seemed to be closed. Werther cursed again and turned back around to go down the spiral staircase he’d climbed up earlier.

As he neared the staircase the ground shook and nearly sent Werther tumbling down the stairs. After catching himself on the staircase rail, the Hauptsturmführer limped over to a nearby window. Outside was a fucking panzer! Suitably alarmed, Werther quickly half-limped half-stumbled down the stairway and out of the hotel.

Down the street was one of those horrific Stalin tanks. He’d learned, mostly from interrogating Russian prisoners, that the Stalin tank, or IS-2, was nicknamed the Shchuka, or “Pike”, by her crews. From what Werther could tell, those prisoners had been absolutely right. The tank’s gun was just monstrous. It hung just over three meters above the ground and looked to be over five meters in length. The whole machine appeared to be a play toy for some long dead mythical giant.

Werther let out a curse and hid behind the hotel’s exterior. He reached for his Kar98K, but grabbed air. Looking down in surprise, the SS soldier realized that he’d left his rifle in that room on the hotel’s second floor. Cursing again, Werther spotted an StG-44 assault rifle in the middle of the street. Unfortunately, there was not a single object on the street to cover his attempt to get the weapon.

After a moment of thought, Werther resigned himself to a decision and ran out onto the road. As he neared the weapon a stream of bullets hit the asphalt street he was running on. “Verdammte kommunisten.”, he sneered as he dove for and gripped the rifle. The Aryan rolled off his shoulder and onto his feet before he pivoted and raced back to the hotel; all while Russian ammunition whooshed past him and his vital organs.

Just as he stepped over the curb of the sidewalk by the hotel Werther was abruptly lifted off the ground and sent flying forward. Crashing back onto the ground, Werther’s ears, for the third time that day, began to ring. His eyesight began to gray out and he suddenly felt woozy, almost light headed. He tried to lift himself off of the ground, but collapsed back onto the pavement. He groaned and began to crawl forward over the rubble-strewn sidewalk.

As he approached the front door leading into the hotel, the SS soldiers who were occupying the building came running out. Most ran past him, but one, Eckbert Friedrich, spotted him and lifted Werther up by his armpit.

“Werther,” yelled his long-time friend, “are you okay?” Werther just looked at his friend with a questioning eye. He could see Eckbert’s mouth moving, but hear no words. Instead of replying, Werther just pointed his head toward the hotel’s door. Acknowledging the silent command, Eckbert carried the Hauptsturmführer into the hotel lobby.

Just as the Werther was set down on the floor of the hotel, He decided to return Werther’s ability to hear. The sudden rush of sounds pierced into Werther and nearly caused him to scream in pain. With a vacant look in his eyes Werther stared at Eckbert, who was trying to patch up Werther’s wounds, and placed a hand on his comrade’s shoulder.

Eckbert gave him a questioning look. Werther just shook his head and slowly pushed Eckbert away from him.

“Go.” He whispered blankly. “You can’t fix me up, Eckbert. Not now. Not with the kommunisten this close.” A tear welled up in his eye. “I’ll hold them off for as long as I can while you guys get away. You’re in charge of the company now.”

“Yeah, right!”, chuckled Eckbert. “You didn’t abandon me when I got shot back in Stalingrad. I’m not leaving you. I’ll fix right you up and-”

SLAP!

Werther slapped his friend hard across the cheek. “You will do no such thing!” he said sharply. “Follow my orders, you idiot. Take care of everyone else and don’t stop fighting. Not if I die and not if you die. Got that?” Eckbert solemnly nodded.

“Good. Now hand me my weapon and get the hell out of here.” Eckbert rose off of the ground and handed the weapon Werther. “Thanks. Now get going.” With a stiff salute, Eckbert was out of the door and back to dodging bullets.

Looking around, Werther crawled behind the reception desk of the hotel’s lobby and managed to pull himself up on his knees while coughing up red hot blood. With his StG-44 in hand he faced the hotel’s doors and waited for his enemies to come inside.

As he waited, Werther began thinking back to when he’d joined the Waffen-SS at the tender age of eighteen. That was back in 1936. Almost nine years he’d served the Führer faithfully. Not one moment did he regret. From torturing Jews, like the schwein that they were, to shooting Russians who’d had the gall to surrender, it had been a splendid run. As long as the Führer is still fighting, I will still fight, he thought peacefully.

After a quick prayer, Werther crossed himself and waited for a Russian to come through the door in front of him. Not even a minute later his wish came to pass. One of the godless atheists ambled into the hotel and, with a smile that could scare Satan himself, Werther pulled the trigger of his rifle and loosed a stream of bullets at the unlucky bastard. The soldier never knew what hit him as he was sent flying out of the hotel.

Outside, Werther could hear Russian soldiers yelling in their unintelligible language. He smiled to himself. “Stupid, kommunisten.”, he sneered under his breath. “Bring it on.” As if to answer his challenge two soldiers burst into the hotel lobby, screaming and spraying bullets down the first floor hallway. Werther gave a crooked smile. Since he was off to the left side of the room they hadn’t seen him. Yet.

With a cool hand, the Hauptsturmführer loosed another stream of bullets. Like the one before them the soldiers toppled onto the floor, unaware of who had killed them and from where. Suddenly, just barely over the din of battle, Werther heard a soft plink.

Before he could identify the sound, the world exploded in a flash of colors. First, a blinding white flash blinded SS soldier before shades of orange, yellow, and red danced across his vision. After that came the pain. Werther began to scream and curse before he looked down at his body, where most of the pain was originating. Half of his left leg was gone and his right foot was barely hanging onto his ankle.

“Holy Mother of God!” he cursed out loud.

Just then, to Werther’s everlasting luck, a whole bunch of the Russians barged into the room. One of them, the leader of the group judging by his insignia, spotted Werther and stomped over to the mortally wounded soldier. The old soldier looked like a relic from the last world war. His hair may have been graying, but his eyes had fire in them. Before the Russian could grab what remained of Werther Vieth, one of the soldiers called to the seemingly grizzled veteran.

“Commisar,” called out a soldier who was holding up Werther’s helmet, “SS.”

The Commisar whipped around to face Werther and quickly drew his pistol. His eyes were cold. No longer was the fire there. No. Now his eyes spoke hatred. Pure, unadulterated hatred. Werther shivered under the Commisar’s gaze.

Werther steeled himself and hawked a big wad of saliva at the Russian’s shoes. The old man just glanced down at his boots before pulling the trigger of his pistol.

As long as the Führer is still fighting, I will still fight, were his last thoughts.

“Adolf,” whined a soft, feminine voice. “Are you sure you want to do this? We can easily continue the fight in Bavaria. In the Berghof.”

“Nein, Eva.”, Adolf said simply as he paced across the bunker’s floor. “The people of Germany were too weak. They were not worthy of our fight, mein fraulein. The jüdisch and kommunist sympathizers betrayed us. Just like the Great War, the people stabbed us in the back. They are undeserving of freedom. They deserve to die like the dogs they truly are.”

“You are right, as always.”, agreed Eva as she got off and wrapped herself around her new husband. “But still, we could run away. Maybe escape to South America. It’s nice and warm there, you know.”

“Again, nein.”, disagreed Adolf. “If we are hunted down the juden and kommunisten will surely torture and mutilate us. You, my dear, are too pretty to be tortured.”

Eva giggled and pulled her husband into a deep kiss. “Okay,” she said as their lips departed for air, “let’s do it.”

Smiling, Adolf walked over to a desk with a telephone on it and picked up the receiver. “Bring them up. Eva is in full agreement and I’d like to do this before the damned Russians can get to us.” The voice on the other end of the call acknowledged Adolf’s request and not thirty seconds later, Adolf heard a knock on the heavy steel door near the back of the room.

“Come in.” called Adolf.

The steel door slowly opened and a young SS soldier holding a tray appeared from behind. “Mein führer,” said the soldier, “here are the pills and pistol you asked for. If there is anything more I can do for you, just ask me and I will do it no matter the cost.”

Adolf waved him away with a “thanks”, took the tray and shut the steel door. On the tray was a glass of water, two cyanide pills and a small Walther PPK pistol. Adolf set the tray on the nearby desk and dropped the two cyanide pills into the glass of water before handing the glass to Eva.

“My dear,” he said, clinking his pistol to Eva’s glass, “I shall see you again in heaven.” Eva smiled and drank down the water and pills. Adolf lovingly stared at his wife before he set the pistol’s barrel to his temple.

“My vengeance is complete.”, were his last words before he pulled the trigger.

For once I write something that DOESN'T involve Nazis, and then you go an enter this... The Nazis are occupying A&F! Grab your guns everyone!

[Mkuki]

A little something I wrote for my Creative Writing class last year. Hope you guys enjoy.

Werther Vieth slowly lifted himself off of the ground. The Hauptsturmführer’s ears were ringing and red was tinging the edges of his eyes. Remembering his training the SS soldier quickly began looking around for his helmet. Staying low the young soldier crawled across the debris-ridden floor and spotted his helmet lying next to a body. On it was the, now grimy, ‘SS’ emblem of two runes.

Remembering to stay below the eyesight of his enemies, the tall, blonde Aryan dashed across the room he was in and over to his helmet. Placing it securely on his head, Werther grabbed a weapon, a Kar98K bolt-action rifle, next to a body -corpse, actually- and hastened over to a windowsill.

Hazarding a peek above the sill Werther saw that the Russians were moving up the street. “I’ll be damned if I give up this house without a fight.” He muttered to himself. Silently reciting his pledge to defend the Vaterland, Werther popped up from below the windowsill, pulled the rifle’s trigger, and loosed a shot at the communist dogs advancing up the road.

Not wishing to lose his head just yet Werther ducked back under the windowsill and worked his rifle’s bolt, chambering the next round. Werther looked around him. The room, café actually, he and his SS comrades were holed up in was all, but destroyed. There was a hole in the ceiling, debris, chunks of wood, and various body parts were scattered all over the room, and, to make everything worse, the Jews and communists he was fighting with had goddamn panzers. What type he wasn’t sure of exactly. Luckily for Werther some of the other SS men in the café with him were pulling themselves up as well.

It was then that God decided to return sound to his ear. Whereas before all Werther could here was a ringing silence, now he could hear the sounds of battle flooding in. Covering his ears to stymie the flood of noise, Werther shouted at the remaining SS soldiers in the café to grab their weapons and stop the Russians from capturing the café.

After a few moments, the Hauptsturmführer uncovered his ears and decided to take his own orders. Clutching his rifle close to his chest Werther quickly raised himself above the windowsill, aimed at one of the enemy soldaten and fired a bullet. Almost instantly one of the Russians crumpled to the ground. The SS soldier whooped before ducking under the windowsill again.

Beside him one of his closest friends, Eckbert Friedrich, rose above a hole in the café’s wall and loosed a stream of bullets from his MP 40. As the Untersturmführer came down a grim look overcame his face. “Werther!”, he yelled over the din of battle, “The Russians! They are bringing up a howitzer!”

Werther cursed. Looking around he spotted Rolf Peter, the company’s radio operator, and called him over. “Peter! Get on the funkgerät! Tell the colonel that the Russians are bringing up artillery and that we need covering fire.” Rolf gave a nod of agreement and began working the radio.

“Everyone else!”, he called out, “We’re falling back! Let the communists have this collapsing building. We’ll stop them on the next street!” His fellow soldiers gave a loud cheer.

Taking the lead Werther ran over to one of the doors, doorframe now, leading out of the café. About twenty meters ahead was another building. Luckily Russian bombers had blasted a hole into the building's wall. From what he could see there was also a crater where the floor must have been. Unfortunately there was very little cover on the street itself. Other than a burnt car or two the street was empty and barren. Giving another curse, Werther backed away from the door.

“Reiner! Volker!” Werther called for the two machine gunners he'd picked back in Seelow Heights. “Yes, Hauptsturmführer?”, questioned Volker Prinz, the taller of the two. “We're crossing this street. While the rest of us are giving you guys cover fire I want you two to get behind that car and set up the MG42. On my signal you will blast those atheists back to hell. Verstandenen?”

The two SS machine gunners nodded and, with their machine gun in hand, stepped out of the café and dashed to an overturned car. Werther turned back to the thirty six soldiers under his command. These were the remnants of the company he’d been commanding ever since the former Hauptsturmführer, Eugen Bernat, had been hauled off by the Gestapo to only God knows where. Most of the soldiers, including Werther himself, were of the consensus that he wasn’t half as good as Eugen had been.

The Hauptsturmführer shrugged. What was done was done. No one could change the past. All they could do now was serve the Fürher to their dying breath.

Werther looked back to the two machine gunners. The MG 42 was set up on the rear tire of the vehicles charred chassis. Bracing himself, he pulled up the whistle hanging around his neck and gave a loud blow. Luckily the two machine gunners were able to hear the shrill sound over the din of battle and began spewing hot lead at the advancing Russians.

The men in the café let out a cheer as Russian bodies began toppling over. “Let’s go!”, yelled Werther at the top of his lungs while waving his arms at the door. “Stay low and don’t shoot!” He paused for a second. “Also, watch out for friendly artillery fire!”

As if on cue with what he was saying the familiar sound of artillery shells whistled overhead. Within seconds the shells began slamming into the ground before exploding amid the Russians, sending shrapnel and death at them.

Following his own advice, Werther, followed closely by Eckbert Friedrich, hunched himself over and stepped out onto the street. Within seconds bullets were whizzing past the column of SS soldiers, but, for the most part, the bullets were either too high or too low to cause any real damage. As he ran across the road, out of the corner of his eye Werther saw a fireball erupt in the middle of the Russian column. Fuckin’ tankers! Serves them right, he thought savagely.

Werther was the third one who made it across the street and into the wrecked building. Taking care to not get his head blown off, Werther peaked over some rubble. There were a few German bodies lying on the street. Two of the bodies were the machine gunners who had been giving them cover. They were obviously dead. In fact, the corpse of Reiner Schmitt was missing the entire lower half of its body.

Ducking back down Werther looked at the remaining soldiers in his care. They all looked gaunt and emaciated. What food they’d been able to scrounge up had looked disgusting and was clearly not fit for human consumption. Even the kikes got better rations than what he’d been eating since the Wehrmacht had been pushed back into Berlin.

“Hauptsturmführer!”, called out Manfred Kaüfer, “What now?”

Werther sighed and slid down the crater inside the smashed building, little bits of debris rolling down the small slope. There were two ways to get out of the building. The first way was out of a backdoor that surely led to another street. The other way was to climb out of the building and go back out to the Russians. Werther weighed his options and gave his decision.

“It’s either back out to the damned Russians or out that back door and possibly connecting with other units. I think it’d be best to go out the back door. Let’s go.”

Werther hoisted himself up and scrambled up the opposite side of the crater before prying the door open. One after the other, Werther helped pull the SS men out of the crater and onto the street. As the last came up and over the ledge Werther turned around and saw that most of the soldiers were holed up in various buildings along the street. Werther smiled. If the Russians wanted to take Berlin, they’d have to step over piles of their own godless corpses to do it.

Hefting his rifle over his shoulder, Werther ran over towards a small hotel. As he walked inside, the young man noticed that this particular building seemed to be unaffected by the war. The main lobby was almost impeccably clean. Everything in the lobby screamed adoration for the Führer. From paintings to photos to the flag of the NSDAP, the lobby was, basically, a shrine to the Führer. In fact there was a large painting of the Führer himself by, what Werther assumed was, the reception desk.

Moving into a central hallway, Werther was met with paintings and photos of various government officials like Joachim Ribbentropp, Joseph Goebbels, and Albert Speer. Up ahead he spotted a spiral staircase and quickly climbed up it, skipping steps in the process. As he walked up the last step, Werther noticed the other machine gun crew he had with him had hoisted up their own MG 42 onto a window sill.

After he nodded his approval the SS soldier walked down the hallway and spotted a room with an open door. As he walked in Werther was pleased to see that the room had two wide, open windows. The room he was in was fairly modest. To the front of the room, by the door, there was a fairly large nightstand with a radio set on it. On the opposite side of the room was a mattress with a low-lying dresser next to it. Near one of the windows was a circular, dining table with two chairs parked underneath it.

Smiling, the SS man lowered himself by one of the windows, chambered a round in his Kar98K, and placed the rifle’s barrel on the window sill.

Seconds later a shot was fired. It sounded like it had come from a Gewehr 43. Werther looked through the window and saw a body crumpled on the ground 100 meters away. Before he could say anything another Russian came into view.

Looking through the sights of his rifle, Werther carefully aimed and pulled the trigger. The bullet smashed through the window, leaving a jagged hole in the glass, and struck its target. The man hunched forward and clutched his shoulder. “Shit!” Werther cursed. “I missed.” Angrily, he worked the bolt on his rifle and aimed at the Russian he’d wounded earlier. Taking more care he waited a couple seconds before firing.

The shot rang out and this time the Russian’s head flew right off. Werther worked the bolt of his rifle again. He had three rounds left before he had to put in a new clip. As he scanned the street for more of the kommunisten a bullet whizzed right past his ear and lodged itself into the wall behind him.

Werther cursed again as he ducked under the window sill. He’d stayed in view for too long. Deciding to abandon the room, Werther laid himself flat on the ground and began crawling to the door.

As he approached the doorway leading out of the room Werther heard a soft thud by the window he’d just moved from. The soldier turned to see what had landed in the room. To his horror, the object was a grenade. With the quickness of a cheetah, Werther grabbed the nearby nightstand and toppled it over so it could take the brunt of the grenade’s blast.

Within an instant the grenade exploded. The soldier clutched his ears tightly. His head was filled with ringing for the second time that day. His surroundings had rapidly transformed into shades of gray. Within instants the pain started flowing in. First it was his left leg, closely followed by his left arm.

Gritting his teeth, Werther slowly, but surely, pulled himself up off of the floor and out of the devastated room. Limping down the hotel’s pristine hallway, the young Aryan looked around for another open door. Unfortunately all of the doors seemed to be closed. Werther cursed again and turned back around to go down the spiral staircase he’d climbed up earlier.

As he neared the staircase the ground shook and nearly sent Werther tumbling down the stairs. After catching himself on the staircase rail, the Hauptsturmführer limped over to a nearby window. Outside was a fucking panzer! Suitably alarmed, Werther quickly half-limped half-stumbled down the stairway and out of the hotel.

Down the street was one of those horrific Stalin tanks. He’d learned, mostly from interrogating Russian prisoners, that the Stalin tank, or IS-2, was nicknamed the Shchuka, or “Pike”, by her crews. From what Werther could tell, those prisoners had been absolutely right. The tank’s gun was just monstrous. It hung just over three meters above the ground and looked to be over five meters in length. The whole machine appeared to be a play toy for some long dead mythical giant.

Werther let out a curse and hid behind the hotel’s exterior. He reached for his Kar98K, but grabbed air. Looking down in surprise, the SS soldier realized that he’d left his rifle in that room on the hotel’s second floor. Cursing again, Werther spotted an StG-44 assault rifle in the middle of the street. Unfortunately, there was not a single object on the street to cover his attempt to get the weapon.

After a moment of thought, Werther resigned himself to a decision and ran out onto the road. As he neared the weapon a stream of bullets hit the asphalt street he was running on. “Verdammte kommunisten.”, he sneered as he dove for and gripped the rifle. The Aryan rolled off his shoulder and onto his feet before he pivoted and raced back to the hotel; all while Russian ammunition whooshed past him and his vital organs.

Just as he stepped over the curb of the sidewalk by the hotel Werther was abruptly lifted off the ground and sent flying forward. Crashing back onto the ground, Werther’s ears, for the third time that day, began to ring. His eyesight began to gray out and he suddenly felt woozy, almost light headed. He tried to lift himself off of the ground, but collapsed back onto the pavement. He groaned and began to crawl forward over the rubble-strewn sidewalk.

As he approached the front door leading into the hotel, the SS soldiers who were occupying the building came running out. Most ran past him, but one, Eckbert Friedrich, spotted him and lifted Werther up by his armpit.

“Werther,” yelled his long-time friend, “are you okay?” Werther just looked at his friend with a questioning eye. He could see Eckbert’s mouth moving, but hear no words. Instead of replying, Werther just pointed his head toward the hotel’s door. Acknowledging the silent command, Eckbert carried the Hauptsturmführer into the hotel lobby.

Just as the Werther was set down on the floor of the hotel, He decided to return Werther’s ability to hear. The sudden rush of sounds pierced into Werther and nearly caused him to scream in pain. With a vacant look in his eyes Werther stared at Eckbert, who was trying to patch up Werther’s wounds, and placed a hand on his comrade’s shoulder.

Eckbert gave him a questioning look. Werther just shook his head and slowly pushed Eckbert away from him.

“Go.” He whispered blankly. “You can’t fix me up, Eckbert. Not now. Not with the kommunisten this close.” A tear welled up in his eye. “I’ll hold them off for as long as I can while you guys get away. You’re in charge of the company now.”

“Yeah, right!”, chuckled Eckbert. “You didn’t abandon me when I got shot back in Stalingrad. I’m not leaving you. I’ll fix right you up and-”

SLAP!

Werther slapped his friend hard across the cheek. “You will do no such thing!” he said sharply. “Follow my orders, you idiot. Take care of everyone else and don’t stop fighting. Not if I die and not if you die. Got that?” Eckbert solemnly nodded.

“Good. Now hand me my weapon and get the hell out of here.” Eckbert rose off of the ground and handed the weapon Werther. “Thanks. Now get going.” With a stiff salute, Eckbert was out of the door and back to dodging bullets.

Looking around, Werther crawled behind the reception desk of the hotel’s lobby and managed to pull himself up on his knees while coughing up red hot blood. With his StG-44 in hand he faced the hotel’s doors and waited for his enemies to come inside.

As he waited, Werther began thinking back to when he’d joined the Waffen-SS at the tender age of eighteen. That was back in 1936. Almost nine years he’d served the Führer faithfully. Not one moment did he regret. From torturing Jews, like the schwein that they were, to shooting Russians who’d had the gall to surrender, it had been a splendid run. As long as the Führer is still fighting, I will still fight, he thought peacefully.

After a quick prayer, Werther crossed himself and waited for a Russian to come through the door in front of him. Not even a minute later his wish came to pass. One of the godless atheists ambled into the hotel and, with a smile that could scare Satan himself, Werther pulled the trigger of his rifle and loosed a stream of bullets at the unlucky bastard. The soldier never knew what hit him as he was sent flying out of the hotel.

Outside, Werther could hear Russian soldiers yelling in their unintelligible language. He smiled to himself. “Stupid, kommunisten.”, he sneered under his breath. “Bring it on.” As if to answer his challenge two soldiers burst into the hotel lobby, screaming and spraying bullets down the first floor hallway. Werther gave a crooked smile. Since he was off to the left side of the room they hadn’t seen him. Yet.

With a cool hand, the Hauptsturmführer loosed another stream of bullets. Like the one before them the soldiers toppled onto the floor, unaware of who had killed them and from where. Suddenly, just barely over the din of battle, Werther heard a soft plink.

Before he could identify the sound, the world exploded in a flash of colors. First, a blinding white flash blinded SS soldier before shades of orange, yellow, and red danced across his vision. After that came the pain. Werther began to scream and curse before he looked down at his body, where most of the pain was originating. Half of his left leg was gone and his right foot was barely hanging onto his ankle.

“Holy Mother of God!” he cursed out loud.

Just then, to Werther’s everlasting luck, a whole bunch of the Russians barged into the room. One of them, the leader of the group judging by his insignia, spotted Werther and stomped over to the mortally wounded soldier. The old soldier looked like a relic from the last world war. His hair may have been graying, but his eyes had fire in them. Before the Russian could grab what remained of Werther Vieth, one of the soldiers called to the seemingly grizzled veteran.

“Commisar,” called out a soldier who was holding up Werther’s helmet, “SS.”

The Commisar whipped around to face Werther and quickly drew his pistol. His eyes were cold. No longer was the fire there. No. Now his eyes spoke hatred. Pure, unadulterated hatred. Werther shivered under the Commisar’s gaze.

Werther steeled himself and hawked a big wad of saliva at the Russian’s shoes. The old man just glanced down at his boots before pulling the trigger of his pistol.

As long as the Führer is still fighting, I will still fight, were his last thoughts.

“Adolf,” whined a soft, feminine voice. “Are you sure you want to do this? We can easily continue the fight in Bavaria. In the Berghof.”

“Nein, Eva.”, Adolf said simply as he paced across the bunker’s floor. “The people of Germany were too weak. They were not worthy of our fight, mein fraulein. The jüdisch and kommunist sympathizers betrayed us. Just like the Great War, the people stabbed us in the back. They are undeserving of freedom. They deserve to die like the dogs they truly are.”

“You are right, as always.”, agreed Eva as she got off and wrapped herself around her new husband. “But still, we could run away. Maybe escape to South America. It’s nice and warm there, you know.”

“Again, nein.”, disagreed Adolf. “If we are hunted down the juden and kommunisten will surely torture and mutilate us. You, my dear, are too pretty to be tortured.”

Eva giggled and pulled her husband into a deep kiss. “Okay,” she said as their lips departed for air, “let’s do it.”

Smiling, Adolf walked over to a desk with a telephone on it and picked up the receiver. “Bring them up. Eva is in full agreement and I’d like to do this before the damned Russians can get to us.” The voice on the other end of the call acknowledged Adolf’s request and not thirty seconds later, Adolf heard a knock on the heavy steel door near the back of the room.

“Come in.” called Adolf.

The steel door slowly opened and a young SS soldier holding a tray appeared from behind. “Mein führer,” said the soldier, “here are the pills and pistol you asked for. If there is anything more I can do for you, just ask me and I will do it no matter the cost.”

Adolf waved him away with a “thanks”, took the tray and shut the steel door. On the tray was a glass of water, two cyanide pills and a small Walther PPK pistol. Adolf set the tray on the nearby desk and dropped the two cyanide pills into the glass of water before handing the glass to Eva.

“My dear,” he said, clinking his pistol to Eva’s glass, “I shall see you again in heaven.” Eva smiled and drank down the water and pills. Adolf lovingly stared at his wife before he set the pistol’s barrel to his temple.

“My vengeance is complete.”, were his last words before he pulled the trigger.

For once I write something that DOESN'T involve Nazis, and then you go an enter this... The Nazis are occupying A&F! Grab your guns everyone!

My bad?

[Unitaristic Regions]

Two days until judging starts! Any last minute submissions should probably head in soon.

Also, we're going off of Pacific time, just because.

Two days? Well, I can live with that

[Afalia]

I'm not sure I'll get my entry in. I've only just started. But if there's an Autumn competition coming up I'll save it for that.

[Nazi Flower Power]

For once I write something that DOESN'T involve Nazis, and then you go an enter this... The Nazis are occupying A&F! Grab your guns everyone!

My bad?

It's OK. I just think it's funny how much Nazi stuff we get on NS.

[Mkuki]

My bad?

It's OK. I just think it's funny how much Nazi stuff we get on NS.

Yeah... *scratches head awkwardly* I just like World War II.

[Page]

Okay guys, I took advantage of my sleepless night to whip one up just for this.

Click and enjoy!

Three lunar cycles had passed since the fall of the Highlands; two since the occupiers’ tribunal condemned Cordan to die. By the winter solstice, the designated day of reckoning for the man called deviant, war criminal and heretic, the once proud city of Bryn saw only four hours of daylight. Dust and debris had been stirred up not only by the battle for the capital which marked the Highlands’ last stand, but also by the punitive burnings of surrounding plantations, meaning that many people residing in the subjugated city were beginning to forget what a true day looked like.

For most, this was just another source of misery, yet Cordan found it strangely comforting to lose track of time. At least the narrow window of his cell and the darkened landscape limited his view of the indignities inflicted upon his Bryn; the structures shelled into rubble which the occupiers had not even begun to rebuild, the scorched vestiges of collapsed bridges, the crude filling in of Cordan’s silos with cement. Worst of all for most Highlanders was the fact that leviathan oil was wasted illuminating the occupiers’ crimson flags draped all over the city every hour of the night, while medicine had gone unsyntheized in Bryn ever since the war’s end. A constant reminder: “Woe to the vanquished.”

Although Cordan was, when he wore a general’s uniform, one of the Chieftan’s most adored, and although he as a Highlander professed his love of country loudly and publicly as all virtuous citizens should, the patriotic hatred that should boil in his blood on the day of his execution was actually rather trivial at this point. He was only plagued by the sorrow of his personal failure – how close he had come to victory, only to have it torn from his grasp days before his life’s work would come to fruition. Perhaps this was why he took his death sentence in such stride; for he had lost a battle with time already, the only one which truly mattered.

To breathe life into the rocket would have been so much more than a milestone in the history of this species, Cordan knew it would have been ascension to a new era that would have made all civilization thus far seem primitive. Indeed, he promised the Chieftan as the tide of war turned against the Highlanders that his creation would reduce Arma, the Meadow Clan’s capital, to ashes and bring them a victory unlike any other. Yet what would winning the war be except a means to an end? Why use the rocket only to kill, when it could one day let men walk among the stars?

The last vestiges of Cordan’s sense of duty to his country crumbled with Bryn’s walls. Truthfully, he would have gladly served the Meadow Clan, the occupiers, if only he could continue his noble work. He and Alyzia offered them this chance. But the foul fundamentalists refused, and repaid the offer of friendship with charges of heresy. Their priests held that the sky was the Creator’s blanket, the most merciful blessing ever given, to shield all from the Void and the demons within. To even dream to leave the confines of the dome above, to rise above the clouds and touch the Void; that was a crime that eclipsed the worst atrocities of the war.

No doubt, every priest, clan-elder, and “scientist” the occupiers summoned to testify concluded that Cordan and Alyzia would have doomed every soul, brought forth an extinction event, had they not been stopped.

The din of the crowd gathered in the city square grew louder, and Cordan smiled in his cell as he listened. This would be over soon. Then, he heard another sound: the unmistakable footsteps of the occupiers. Cordan was perplexed, for he did not expect to be passed another meal through the iron door after last night’s, but knew his executioner was not to escort him outside until high noon. So what had they come for?

Even when unlocked, the cell door took a considerable amount of strength to move, and Cordan feared for a moment that his last hour of life would involve watching it open inch by inch. But after a moment, the necessary force slid it all the way down the track. Three figures stood before the filthy, unshaven prisoner. Two were Meadow-clan soldiers. The other, Cordan thought, must be a hallucination. But she spoke, and he believed.

“Our conquerors have granted my last request.”
Alyzia looked only slightly less dreadful than he did. She no longer wore the black lipstick that was one of the most memorable sights at the silo. Her hair was greasy and had too many knots to count. Her eyes were sunken in and open wounds lined the circumference of her wrists where she had so often been chained.

But Cordan forced his half-atrophied legs to allow himself to rise to greet her.
“I’d thought they burned you already” he told her.
“I asked that we die together” Alyzia replied.
“Why?” Cordan asked as he laced his fingers in hers, looking past her at the occupiers who glared with disgust but said nothing. “We have been intertwined seventeen cycles. It only seems fitting” she answered.
“No, why does the Meadow Clan indulge any desire of yours or mine at all?” Cordan clarified. Alyzia laughed, weakly but distinctly, and speculated “those who will rewrite history might one day find it useful to appear magnanimous. I’ve heard they will even throw bread to the justice-seekers who attend our execution.”
“We defied the Creator, Alyzia. And still they must feed the masses just to get them to watch us die? For a crime so unforgivable, you would think they’d trample one another just to catch a glance of our pyre.”

With a dark grin, Alyzia turned toward the soldiers and raised her voice to say “there is no Creator.” Predictably, they recoiled; the one holding the keys even lost color in his face and looked as if he were about to vomit. Defiance was all Alyzia had left.

This is what Cordan admired so much about her. No presence was so exquisitely corrupting as hers. He was a general, she was a scientist. Cordan could think unconventionally, but she could blaspheme. There is no doubt Cordan was a talented inventor in his own right, but without Alyzia the rocket would scarcely have been more than a dream.

In retrospect, Cordan could not even recall whether their ambitions fueled their lust for one another, or whether their lust fueled their ambitions. She would paralyze his inhibitions with wine, and whisper to him in bed an illicit, occult doctrine; to envision one’s destiny while locked in carnal union would make it come to pass. At the start of the next cycle following that night, there was no need for wine; and as Cordan and Alyzia climaxed, they proclaimed they would deny the bonds of gravity and touch the Void. Whatever demons may come, let them, for theirs is Knowledge.

There were no more chances for that; only the privilege to burn together. Still, Alyzia expressed one more wish. “When they walk us to the pyre, Cordan, I believe we should clasp hands and take a bow. And if you can will it, smile as they curse us and chant for us to burn. They will see us die, but they need not see us regret.”
Cordan nodded and quietly said “I have already accepted my end.” He turned his left arm up toward her and revealed fresh scars on the underside. They spelled out words: “Woe to the vanquished.”

“You should have carved that into the wall of your cell rather than your arm, for posterity. For your skin will soon be ashes” Alyzia suggested. Cordan had a riddle to offer in return.
“If a book is to burn, are the words on the last page to touch the fire more attuned to posterity’s needs?”
Alyzia was glad that Cordan would walk to his death with pride rather than cowardice, but disappointed that he had lost his faith in the destiny they wished together.
“No execution can frighten a populace into submission forever. Another will rise and achieve what we did not, of that, I am sure” she admonished him.
“I would disagree, Alyzia. They will forever be afraid. Not of punishment, no. They will fear their own potential, and they will all die. When the red oceans rise eons from now, they will overtake Arma and Bryn. And this world will be a mausoleum for beings that knew there was one way forward, but refused it.”

The moment of silence lasted as long as the Meadow Clan soldiers would allow it to. But they moved to drag the condemned outside if they had to, so Alyzia left Cordan the last word and took his hand.

Minutes later, the most hated beings to ever draw breath were on full display for all the justice seekers and bread seekers gathered. A priest on the stage was handed a scroll while the condemned were bound. Eager executioners held their torches. Their moment would come as soon as the priest’s proclamation had finished.
“All ye assembled hear our judgment! There is no graver crime, no darker sin, than daring to invite the Void’s demons down upon us…”

------

Vessel X62 of the Reclamation Fleet idled in the thermosphere of the planet called Atikyr. Imperial officials called it an “edge world”, though it was actually closer to the galactic center than the capital, Sumeria Prime. It was deemed such because it was habitable, but undesirable.

Fourteen million colonists were about to enter this solar system. Their terraforming resources were meager, and life on Atikyr would be hard; but the frontier offered them more hope than the hiveworlds from which they emigrated.

Admiral Vallan reflected as he stood on the bridge of X62 that he was grateful this arid world was not to be his home. The three-hundred eighty-six year old war hero had just one more tour of duty to complete before the gleaming palaces of Titan would be his to walk freely among the Assembly’s aristocracy. Overseeing this sector’s Reclamation Fleet was little more than a reward career; it required virtually no exertion at all.

After all, ever since the Assembly won the Final War, times of strife were behind the human race. Thousands of years of internal rebellion meant losing contact with lesser colonies like Atikyr. The Reclamation Fleet’s task was simple – assess the condition of a planet, see if there is anything worth salvaging, and prepare it for the immigrants.

The report Admiral Vallan sent back to Sumeria Prime read thus:



And the Void’s demons did so.

I do not entirely get it, but I like it

It's inspired by an episode of "The History of Sex" I watched which talked about John Whiteside Parsons and his obsession with sex magick and thelema, but it also comes from imagining the last days of World War 2 in Europe and Nazi Germany's use of V2 rockets. The ending

is kind of a dark joke, that the ignorant religious people executing Cordan and Alyzia because they're afraid there's something in space that's going to kill them turn out to be accidentally right.

Basically it's a "the universe is even colder than you thought" story though.

[Unitaristic Regions]

I do not entirely get it, but I like it

It's inspired by an episode of "The History of Sex" I watched which talked about John Whiteside Parsons and his obsession with sex magick and thelema, but it also comes from imagining the last days of World War 2 in Europe and Nazi Germany's use of V2 rockets. The ending

is kind of a dark joke, that the ignorant religious people executing Cordan and Alyzia because they're afraid there's something in space that's going to kill them turn out to be accidentally right.

Basically it's a "the universe is even colder than you thought" story though.

`
Well, that kinda makes sense.

[Occupied Deutschland]

James seems to have a veneer of not really CARING about his values and being more into politics for the winning (especially in the earlier portions before he is an old man), but I’m not sure if this is what you were going for or not. It does seem like a good character, this guy who’s balancing his values and his desire for ‘winning’ in politics, but a little more display of him would seem appropriate. Especially if this wasn’t what you were going for. I’m just not sure quite how I was supposed to read the guy.

You mean if you're supposed to like him or not? Or what? He's meant to be somewhat sympathetic, but also somewhat flawed and corrupted by power.

In that case it came off exactly as you intended. I suppose my complaint would be then that I wasn't certain if that was what the character was supposed to seem like. Might be partially the length once again and my personal discomfort with short stories, but I felt/feel like there just wasn't enough display of him as being this somewhat sympathetic character (but, we do get a good deal of this, so this complaint might be rather nitpicky and more based on personal discomfort with too little character development as is required in a short story rather than an actual problem so take from this what you will).

[Wisconsin9]

Dammit... I think I'm going to save mine for the next contest. There's no way I can get it up to snuff in time.

[Unitaristic Regions]

So, here's my story, called: Paycheck.

It's about an all-powerful corporation, but... with a twist

Please have mercy on the writing... I wrote it in a hurry, and... I'm dutch. English writing can be somewhat difficult then.

PAYCHECK

‘My fellow members of the resistance, CynCorp has grown once more. They no longer control “just” the complete market and government of the BeNeLux, Germany and France, but they’ve expanded into Italy, Austria, Denmark, Poland and Spain. Only the UK has forbidden foreign takeovers, thus protecting its sovereignty.
CynCorp’s poisonous hand stretches and suffocates most of Europe now, one corporation to rule them all… the governments of the countries they control are their corrupt puppets, and they enforce their will through their ruthless enforcer corps: CynCorp Security, CCSec.
CCSec has already absorbed most of the police and army forces of the nations they control, luring them in with their huge paychecks… gentlemen, we must stop this cancer from spreading any further! We must take action!’

It was a nice day in Summer when Jackson strolled into the CynCorp Rotterdam building. He’d loved that place ever since he was kid. Ironically, the cool, modern looking skyscraper was free of the CynCorp advertising you saw everywhere nowadays, which gave it a somewhat refreshing effect.
The lobby was a wide entry chamber, mostly white but with some black furniture here and there, like the black marble desk a young, blonde young woman was working behind.
‘Hi, I’m Anya, how can I help you today?’
Dwight nodded to her, and said: ‘Hi, I’m Dwight… I was looking for the CCSec officer application area?’
‘Oh, we call it Proceedings. If you just give your name, I’ll pass it through, and they’ll set up an interview right away.’
Johnsson scratched the back of his head.
‘It’s Dwight Johnsson, with a double-s at the Johnsson.’
Anya frowned.
‘Do you have a second name? CynCorp would need that too…’
Well, this was rather awkward… sighing, Dwight said: ‘Stooge.’
Not able to contain a short, rather sweet sounding laugh, Anya replied: ‘Stooge? As in, uncle Stooge? From the Donald Duck comics?’
‘It’s a rather odd name, I know.’
‘Tell me about it. But, it’s not my business anyways… so that’s Dwight ‘Stooge’ Johnsson. Okay, I’ve let Proceedings know you’re coming through. Just follow the hall to your right, you can’t miss the sign. Have a nice stay at CynCorp.’
Dwight gave her his winner smile, and said a quick goodbye. Then, he walked to the ‘hall on his right’.
It was just as clean, light and fresh as the rest of the CynCorp building, filled with, but quite busy because of, CynCorp employees in their black suits and CCSec operatives in those amazing black outfits they always wore. They held SCAR light assault rifles in their hands for everyone to see, but no one was unnerved. People had gotten used to the weapons, and knew CCSec would never start firing without reason.
The entry to Proceedings was a big grey door with a sign on it, which read: CynCorp Security Proceedings.
Dwight knocked, opened the door, and stepped through, walking straight into a small room. The only thing that was in there besides smooth white walls and floors with black lines, was a black, marble desk. Behind it: an impeccable looking, broad shouldered Arabian man with CynCorp-Rayban prime Sunglasses and neatly combed black hair, laid back across his head.
He smiled a cunning, tricky smile, and gestured to the empty chair across him, on Dwight’s side of the desk.
‘Welcome to CCSec Proceedings, mister Johnsson. My name is Mr. Rendsayff, and I’m CCSec’s main contractor. Shall we get started?’
Sitting down on the chair, a little nervous in front of the rather cool air around Rendsayff, Johnsson nodded and replied: ‘Yes, sir.’
Grabbing a small clipboard holding an A4 sized form from a drawer in the desk, he gave it to Dwight and put his hands on the table, locking their fingers together while leaning forward a little, simultaneously.
‘The moment you signed in, I had my specialists perform a small background check. A formality, you see. Luckily, we found no evidence that would impede your service in CCSec. Your experience with the Dutch military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan is… commendable. You have no bad drinking record, and insignificant charges against you.’
They did a fucking background check on me, in sixty seconds and set up an interview at the same time? These guys are… unbelievable.
‘No insignificant charges?’
Rendsayff gave a short, barking laugh without much amusement.
‘There’s one assault charge, but we don’t care about that as much as the dutch military did. We’re more… pragmatic, about our employees. You’ve shown signs of recovery after that, and that’ll be enough.’
Johnsson scratched the back of his head.
‘I’m a little uncomfortable about this. You guys know so much about me…’
‘Knowing things about men is my job, mister Johnsson,’ Rendsayff replied, dryly, ‘anyways, I’m sure our pay and insurance package will cover all the doubts you might have. It’s quite outrageous, I can tell you that.’
Halfway across another scratch, Johnsson’s hand froze.
‘Just how outrageous?’
‘Very. We are offering you around 200,000 Euros the year, as well as a full package covering both insurance, healthcare, schooling for any children you might have, and free training at any CynCorp Gym.’
Dwight was stunned. This paycheck… it was outrageous indeed. It was unbelievable.
‘But why… why do you offer me so much?’
‘Mister Johnsson, CCSec believes you might be a great asset to the corporation. You have great experience, require no officer training, thus saving us a lot of costs otherwise used up on training. Also, you have shown to be resourceful and loyal. We like those two traits…’
‘Well, if you want loyalty, you just bought it. I’m in.’
‘Then would you please sign this form, Mister Johnsson?’



TWO DAYS LATER


‘So, what’s your name?’
The girl, or young woman, smiled.
‘Call me Valerie. And you’re Stooge, right?’
Dwight sighed. Everyone here called him Stooge already. So damn annoying…
‘Yeah, whatever, call me Stooge.’
Valerie’s smile widened and she said: ‘well, you’re a cheery one. The pay here usually is enough to make anyone happy.’
Valerie was a rather attractive, athletically built woman with a heart shaped face and big brown eyes. CCSec wasn’t the place where Dwight would have thought a woman like her would end up, but…
‘You’re wondering why I’m here, aren’t you?’
Dwight sighed again and replied: ‘Yeah, sorry… I don’t mean to be sexist or anything, but…’
Laughing, Valerie patted him on the shoulder.
‘Don’t worry about it, Stooge. I get that more often. Well, nowadays, all you can work for seems to CynCorp. And well… they approached me. Said something about resourcefulness, something about my past, and something about their payroll. And they convinced me.’
With a small shrug, Dwight replied: ‘CynCorp has a way of convincing people with their payroll, it seems.’
They went to their respective clothing rooms and changed into their new outfits, with black masks, black trench coats and CynCorp armbands.
‘Damn, I love these outfits!’ Dwight muttered, ‘not to sound rash, but… they make you look so badass!’
Valerie nodded.
‘Not very feminine, but… they work.’
With a mocking grin, Dwight replied: ‘Well… the trench coat is rather tight at the top there…’
‘You just met me, and give me this already? Damn, Stooge, you’re a bold one.’
Not even his dreaded nickname could stop Dwight this time. He’d decided he liked Valerie. She was cool, witty and attractive.
‘Hey, Valerie?’
‘Yeah?’
This was the difficult part. No matter how many times Dwight tried, asking someone on a date always was a little awkward, especially when you barely knew someone. But… as his father had always said: things are only as awkward as you make them.
So, Dwight said, as naturally as possible: ‘Would you… like to go drink a cup of coffee, sometimes? Or, uhm… I drink tea, but… you can have coffee of course… damn.’
Valerie’s eyebrows narrowed, but her smile was still on her face.
‘Do you get turned on by trench coats or something, Stooge? You’re getting very bold here.’
Crap. Well, that failed –
‘I’m just kidding, Dwight. I’d love to go drink something with you sometimes… you could explain the nickname then! How about tonight?’
She stuck out her tongue and walked away at that.
Somewhat reeling from this new date, Dwight could only have a stupid smile on his face as he started training CCSec rookies, his new job for now as there was obviously no war going around.
Four days, and then this already! He got the feeling he’d come to love this job.



HALF A DAY LATER


‘So, when my dad moved here, he was kind of shocked by how avaricious the dutch are. Sometimes, you people don’t even give tips, you always check the sales… always watching your money…’
Dwight said, over his steaming cup of tea, ‘When I was born, he reminded me of you people… always holding on to toys…’ He grinned, ‘never sharing… and so, he gave me the second name Stooge.’
‘Seems rather… odd, to change your son’s second name like that,’ Valerie muttered, after a sip of her extra strong expresso.
Dwight couldn’t help but have his eyes drawn to her tight top with a print of a dancing woman on it.
Okay man, get your eyes back up, she’s going to notice…
‘Well, that’s my dad for you. Odd. Even I never understood him, but hey, he loved me, still does. I forgive him.’
Valerie took another sip of espresso, let it roll through her mouth for a while, then swallowed and said: ‘You know we’re supposed to split the costs in Holland, right?’
‘What costs? As CCSec officers, we get a 50% discount. I’ll pay, I insist.’
Rolling her eyes, Valerie replied: ‘Oh, right. We pay almost nothing, of course… well, if you want to be the perfect gentleman, go right ahead and pay. I’ll be grateful, that’s for sure.’
And that’s not something I’d dislike.
And so, Dwight paid for a very cheap espresso, and an even cheaper cup of tea. When they got up, he muttered, a little shyly: ‘I like your top. It’s very… vivid.’
Valerie rolled her eyes.
‘I wouldn’t have worn it if I thought you didn’t like it, Stooge,’ Then, she smiled once more and asked: ‘Well, you know your coffee shops, the espresso was delicious!’
With a sly grin Dwight replied: ‘I know my restaurants even better…’
‘Ooh. Is that an invitation?’
‘Yeah. It is.’
With a shrug, Valerie replied: ‘Accepted, Stooge,’ With a mischievous grin, she added: ‘Don’t be fooled. Restaurants are usually a little… formal for me. You’re something special, Stooge. Thanks for the coffee.’
Then, she turned around and walked away, leaving Dwight to wonder about her for a while.
If I’m something special, then what are you?



ONE DAY LATER


Shooting at the left target, Dwight rolled to the right, seeing the right target pop up. He shot In the chest marker twice, then had his SCAR rip its head marker apart.
The middle didn’t even have the time to stop shaking from popping up before Dwight’s SCAR ripped it apart.
A slow clapping erupted from behind Dwight, who turned around curiously.
‘A very impressive performance, Mister Johnsson. Optimal shooting, if I may say so. The timing between the rolling and shooting was excellent as well.’
Dwight smiled to Mister Rendsayff, who was impeccably dressed as always, even wearing sunglasses when on the shooting lane.
‘You may, sir. But… I think you didn’t come here just to compliment me.’
The left corner of Mister Rendsayff’s mouth twisted upwards for a millimeter, and he replied: ‘Indeed not, Mister Johnsson, indeed not. Would you walk with me for a while?’
‘Sure.’
And so, Dwight walked next to Rendsayff, still holding the SCAR.
I wonder what this is about… Oh shit, they didn’t find out it was me who toppled the vending machine the other day, right?
‘If you’re wondering, Mister Johnsson, this is not about the vending machine you destroyed. Such matters are easily taken care of.’
Oh, damn! I should’ve known they knew…
Dwight sighed.
‘And how would that be?’
‘By taking the necessary funds for repairs from your future paycheck.’
Ah, great. Not.
As a CCSec employee, they gave you discounts on almost everything, but Dwight was pretty sure stock vending machines weren’t included.
‘Damn! That’s going to cost me-’
Rendsayff frowned. Or rather, his eyebrows shifted a little.
‘Mister Johnsson, watch your language. I’m sure we can fire something out… later. Now, I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a while now.’
‘Oh?’
Well, this was getting interesting indeed. What could Rendsayff possibly be getting to?
The man’s face wasn’t going to give away anything, still looking at Dwight with that cool, undeterminable gaze…
‘In this week we’ve had you here, we’ve been determining how much of an asset you have proven to be to the corporation. I must say, the recruits you train show more progress than those of any trainer, and your security shifts have always been the quietest hours of my day.’
With a slight incline of his head, probably Rendsayff’s way of thanking Dwight, he continued: ‘But why? Why do you work so hard?’
With a shrug, Dwight replied: ‘Because you’re just the best employers ever. The army was horrible. Everyone shouted at me and eachother, everyone was constantly going on about patriotic shit and-’
‘The language, Mister Johnsson.’
‘Oh, right. So, they were just too patriotic. You guys… you’re professional. That impressed me. The suits, the money, the packages, the weapons… and everyone has the same relaxed outlook… sir, it’s an honor to work for CynCorp, nothing less.’
And you know what women to pick out…
What passed for Rendsayff’s grin increased in size. A little.
‘Well, when a corporation has such power as we have, it is easy to give in to… capitalist impulses, like exploiting employees. However, we make such profits that tiny measures as these are… unnecessary. And as the current CEO loves happy employees, we give him happy employees. It’s better that way, I think. I myself prefer happiness over depression.’
Dwight laughed, softly. Then he stated: ‘Well, you’re one compassionate man, ’ with some well-meant sarcasm in his voice.
Rendsayff didn’t even bother to respond to that.
‘Mister Johnsson, the reason I came to you now is because CynCorp Rotterdam is not just our prime department in the BeNeLux,’ His cold smile increased even further as they arrived at a sleekly designed, white elevator.
‘It’s time you saw what CynCorp does.’
He pressed the elevator’s button, and it opened. When the two were inside Rendsayff pressed the button that would bring the elevator to CynCorp Rotterdam’s basement. The buttons here used finger print clearance. And Dwight had never seen anyone with high enough clearance to get to the basement, until Rendsayff pressed this button.
And so, the elevator brought them down at high speeds, Rendsayff leaned back against the elevator’s wall, completely relaxed.
‘No one outside of the corporation, although admittedly there are fewer and fewer of those every day, know what CynCorp is really about anymore. To them, we’re just the omnipresent corporation controlling the economy. But our lower level employees usually don’t know either, unless they did some really dedicated research…’ He shrugged, looking at Dwight with those light-reflecting sunglasses of his, ‘We started as a pharmaceutical company. We researched medicine. The reports tell us that when researching a virus, we unwittingly mutated it. It spread, killing off an entire research facility before it died automatically due to the fact no life remained. The virus needs body heat to survive.’
What the…
‘That’s… that’s horrible!’
‘Well, management didn’t think so. They had a precise bio-weapon in their hands now, a weapon that could be used to eradicate entire cities with only a small sample. By selling the virus’ genes to governments around the world, we made fortunes… does this disturb you?’
Dwight shrugged.
‘Either we sold it to them, or they’d have found out themselves one day. At least we made a profit, right?’
‘A profit so big, we could take over entire economies and widen our research scope enormously. As such, we were able to do what we do now… making the virus from scratch is near impossible anyways. Although we didn’t exactly tell that…’
Then, the elevator’s bell sounded, and the doors opened.
Rendsayff gestured for Dwight to go first, and he did.
The elevator exited into a huge, no, enormous chamber. The ceiling could’ve been just forty meters above the ground.
The entire chamber was filled with weird… pods… made of glass and steaming pools of green liquid. They were everywhere at the walls, aligned in neat rows. Scientist in white clothes ran around between them. It somewhat gave the appearance of a busy hive… except this hive was somewhat more impressing.
‘You might want to look inside a pod, Mister Johnsson,’ Rendsayff muttered.
Dwight stumbled over to the nearest pod, mystified, and looked inside. Through the misty glass, he could see only little, but what he saw was…
‘A clone, Mister Johnsson.’
‘But… but why would we research cloning?’
‘Because we’re altering their genes to be able to withstand our virus. Or… we did, it’s done now. We will infect them with our little creation. They will thus act as carriers…’
Dwight was perplexed. This was a lot to absorb.
A big fucking lot!
‘For what?’
‘A preparation to bomb America.’
With that one sentence, mouthed as coldly as ever, Dwight’s world was turned upside down. He was simply baffled, saying nothing as Rendsayff elaborated: ‘Everyone here has heard of the famous ‘Resistance’. Most think it’s a myth, but it’s not. It’s real, and it’s supported by the USA, which fears CynCorp’s expansion. Somehow, they know about our plans. And they want to stop us.’
‘How?’
‘The amount of viral tissue left for ourselves is dreadfully small, barely enough for one container. However, CynCorp has a plan. We will take the virus here by a courier, and then insert it in the clones. The virus will multiply inside them, but not kill them.
After a while, we will extract the virus and take it to our clandestine missile launching facility near Amsterdam. We will shoot these missiles all across the USA into nucleair launching pads, then military bases, snuffing them out. With its heart ripped out, the USA will be ready for an invasion.’
‘But… but how do our missiles have enough reach for this? Won’t they get shot down by the missile shielding the USA has?’
Rendsayff merely shook his head a little. Throughout the entire conversation, his expression hadn’t shifted an inch and he replied: ‘No. CynCorp Paris has researched cloaking technology for the missiles, CynCorp Württemberg has come up with missiles that have enough reach.’
Damn. CynCorp really thinks of everything. Everything!
Baffled, he sat down. This was a lot. A fucking lot. America planning on attacking CynCorp, CynCorp wanting to strike first… But his choice was made already. He was a CCSec employee. The USA had no right to attack like this.
‘What does America want to do?’ Dwight asked, softly.
Rendsayff waved off a worried scientist who came over to look if Dwight was alright, then he replied: ‘CCSec Intelligence reports that they want to stop our virus before it can be bred. They want to use the Resistance to destroy both the virus and this facility at the same time. When that is done, I doubt they’ll let us go on our merry way. They’ll invade.’
The guy is right. If they’re so paranoid as to prepare an attack, they won’t let CynCorp recover. The fucking imperialists will invade my new home! But only after they ravaged my job and killed my friends…
‘Mister Rendsayff, what do you need me to do?’ He groaned, a pained but steadfast expression on his face.
Dwight’s boss extended his hand and helped him up. Now, a real smile came on his face, and he gave Dwight a pat on his shoulder.
‘I always expected you were with us!’
Just as suddenly, his enthusiasm melted away again, but Dwight had seen it appear, and that would be enough for now.
‘Mister Johnsson, CynCorp needs you to protect the courier personally when he arrives at this building. We’re expecting a Resistance attack when he comes, an attack meant to take out the virus and this facility at the same time. He is a small man, carrying a silver lined briefcase containing the virus. We’ll need you to protect him until the virus is inserted, extracted and safely inside a CCSec convoy heading for Amsterdam.’
Dwight sighed. He couldn’t believe he was doing this. But hey, life led you down strange paths…
‘I’ll do it.’


ONE DAY LATER


‘You seem nervous, Stooge,’ Valerie muttered.
Yeah, well, you have no idea.
‘I drank too much coffee. The stuff messes with your hands,’ Dwight lied, trying to give an excuse for why his hands were shaking so much.
‘Stooge, you don’t drink coffee… you said so yourself.’
Damn, that’s true… I’m a terrible liar.
Sighing, Dwight accepted what he was going to have to tell her. She wouldn’t like it, but he hoped she understood.
‘Valerie, I’ll explain everything later, but something big is about to go down.’
‘No shit. Why do you think half of CCSec is down here in the lobby?’
Dwight’s mouth clamped shut, and he was silent. She had a point. Eight men in the outfits everyone loved, their black leather trench coats slowly waving because the ventilated, the black glass visors in their helmets shining brightly, stood near to them in the lobby. They held SCARs and carefully watched all entering the building.
‘Valerie, it’s really important.’
She sighed, turned her head, looking at Dwight with those sexy eyes of hers, and said: ‘Okay, I was just messing with you. Sometimes, your sense of humor is rather indevel-’
And just then, Dwight saw a small, rather frightened looking man with a silver lined briefcase entering the building. He put up his hand.
‘Sorry Valerie, sorry. But I’ve got to get that guy.’
Somewhat dumbstruck, she watched him barge through the crowd. When Dwight reached the man with the briefcase, he hissed: ‘Were you followed?’
The man looked up to Dwight and hissed back: ‘Yes!’
Well, fuck. When you asked someone if he was followed, you expected to hear no. But of course, you couldn’t always get what you expected.
‘How?!’
‘I… I don’t know! I saw someone watching from the rooftop over there!’
Very, very carefully, Dwight looked up. What he saw… wasn’t pretty.
Even from here, he could see the house across the street’s rooftop. Two men, clothed as to blend in with the red rooftop stones, lay there, holding a simple rocket launcher. The kind classical terrorists used, an RPG.
‘Everyone, find cover!’ Dwight shouted.
He threw the man over Anya’s desk, then flung himself at Valerie, bumping into her and dragging the surprised woman over the desk, while he heard the distinct hiss of a rocket behind him.
They came down, Valerie grunted: ‘Oof!’ And the rocket exploded in the lobby, with a big bang accompanied by debris and shouting.
Chunks of charred human splattered against the wall in front of Dwight, as well as Anya, who flopped against the wall, then fell down, unconscious.
‘Fucking assholes!’ Dwight muttered, then got up and helped Valerie get to her feet. When he turned around, he saw chaos.
Groaning people, civilians as well as CCSec employees, lay on the floor, writhing. Some people weren’t groaning anymore.
Cursing, Dwight stumbled to Anya’s desked and pressed the silent alarm, just as he heard further shouting, coming from outside this time.
Watching, he saw dozens of men and women dressed in loose clothing and bulletproof vests, armed with M14s emerging from the house. Things were going downhill fast.
‘Come on, we’ve got to go!’ Dwight yelled, and Valerie pulled the man up.
Dwight checked Anya, but he couldn’t drag her, they’d be too slow. He’d simply have to hope the Resistance left her alone.
Valerie, Dwight and the small man ran into the corridor, running for the elevator. However, when they pressed its button, it refused to open.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck. The Resistance blocked it off, they must’ve hacked into the mainframe or something!’ Dwight muttered.
This time, Valerie had nothing to say.
‘Okay, we’re going to take the stairs!’
‘No you’re not,’ A familiar woman said.
Slowly, Dwight looked away from the elevator, into the barrel of a rather big handgun. Above the handgun was Anya’s face, her eyes staring into Dwight’s a little more surprised ones.
Behind Anya: three men pointing their M14s at him. They didn’t look happy. But Dwight wasn’t happy either, so that compensated.
‘Anya? I didn’t expect you to turn traitor…’
‘I never was a traitor!’ She hissed, ‘I was with the Resistance all along! Dwight, do you even know what these corporate scumbags are planning?! It’s monstrous!’
‘Yeah. I’m helping them in it. So if you’re planning on convincing me that the Resistance is somehow morally better than CynCorp, you can fuck off. I’m pretty sure CynCorp has a better paycheck anyways.’
‘But… ‘
‘Anya, you just killed off an entire lobby! The whole Resistance thing is not coming over particularly moral right now!’
Anya jerked Dwight’s SCAR out of his hands with a pained expression and threw it away, and it only hit Dwight now how shitty Anya really looked. She was bruised all over, had one black eye…
Hitting a wall was never good for your health, it seemed.
The woman shrugged, and grabbed Valerie by her neck
‘Hey, what the-’
‘Shut up, you corporate bitch! Dwight, use the elevator and take us to the basement before your security squads arrive!’
Why would she even want to do that? Oh right, the research facility. The Resistance wanted to take it out.
‘I can’t’ Dwight grunted, ‘I don’t have the clearance. Let Valerie go!’
‘Then have the courier do it!’
She gestured for a good looking guy with loosely cropped brown hair to step forward. A little shyly he did.
‘John, unlock the elevator’s door now.’
The man who was apparently named John nodded and tapped on some projected buttons on a little CynPhone he carried in his right hand. The elevator beeped, and its doors opened.
Fearing for Valerie’s life, Dwight pushed the courier into the elevator and said: ‘Just do as she says.’
‘But… that’s treason!’
He obviously couldn’t patiently explain to the courier that if they waited, the Resistance would just shoot and use the courier’s finger anyways, so he grabbed the man’s hand and pressed it against the basement button.
Three Resistance men immediately jumped inside and forced Dwight and the courier against the elevator’s rear door. John and Anya, who held Valerie, followed. It got a little cramped.
‘Gentlemen, today we will begin the end of CynCorp oppression! ’ Anya said, almost gloating.
And then the elevator’s doors closed.
Dwight had his doubts about that, but he’d see. It wasn’t like he could do anything else right now.
And so, sighing and with an M14 pressed in face yet looking at Valerie, full of concern, he waited, only muttering: ‘Those M14’s… the Americans use those, don’t they?’
No reply.
With a beep, the elevator’s doors opened. Or, it’s rear doors, which Dwight and the courier had been leaning against. They fell, backwards, into the great chamber Dwight had seen before.
As such, all but Dwight gasped when they saw the huge amount of space and pods stretching out before them. What added to the drama was that it was empty: all the scientists had been evacuated.
‘Uhm, Anya?’ One of the soldiers muttered, still impressed.
‘What is it?’
‘We don’t need these three anymore, right? Should we…’
‘I suppose so… we can’t let CynCorp’s goons live.’
Dwight gasped for air, yelling: ‘Do you even hear what you’re saying, Anya?! What freedom fighter are you if you indiscriminately kill all of us?!’
Anya didn’t listen and jerked the briefcase out of the courier’s hands. Her soldiers then pulled Dwight and the small man up and pushed Valerie next to them.
‘Three men to execute three minions…’ Anya muttered, walking away, ‘exactly enough.’
And so they stood, the tree Resistance soldiers in a straight line with their rifles pointed at a defiantly scowling Dwight and Valerie and a courier shouting for help, Anya opening the briefcase and John grabbing for his gun…
John grabbing for his gun? What the…
The brown haired man put his handgun against the head of the soldier aiming at Dwight and pulled the trigger. With a bang, the bullet from the gun penetrated the back of the man’s skull, ripped through his brains and came out at his forehead. The bullet narrowly whizzed past Dwight’s own head, most of the soldier’s brain didn’t.
Dwight was effectively splattered with grey matter.
The other two turned around and Dwight vaguely heard Anya and Valerie shout something. While John shot one soldier before the man had turned completely around, Dwight lunged for the other, grabbing his neck, pulling him towards him. With a snarl, Dwight grabbed the back of the man’s head and his chin, and twisted, snapping the man’s neck.
He looked behind when the soldier fell, and saw Valerie grappling with Anya. John shouted: ‘I can’t shoot without risking hitting your comrade!’
Dwight nodded, still unsure of who John really was loyal to, and ran to the two fighting women, only to see Anya hit Valerie in the face with her gun, Valerie stumble back, and Anya shoot her in the stomach.
With a gasp, Valerie fell to the floor, and Dwight screamed: ‘You bitch!’
He hit Anya in the face so hard she stumbled backwards, and raised his fists to finish her off, but John was faster. He shot her in the chest two times, then ran for her as her body flopped to the ground.
‘John… why?’ Anya gasped.
‘Because you weren’t the only infiltrator around, Anya,’ John snarled, then finished the job.
He laughed.
‘CynCorp wins again! If... in a somewhat messy way. Whatever, I’d better insert the virus now.’
Dwight didn’t even listen, but kneeled next to Valerie and muttered: ‘Shit, shit!’
‘Dwight? I think I… I...’
‘What do you want to say? I'll listen!’
‘I think I broke a rib. Damn bulletproof vests don’t work as well as they once did.’
She stuck out her tongue, laughed, and let Dwight help her to her feet, while he thought: Should've fucking known.
‘Sorry, I couldn't resist. You know, after all this, we really should find a restaurant that isn’t owned by CynCorp, get away from it all for a while.’
As John opened the briefcase, grabbed a glass canister filled with a thin, white fluid and inserted it into a pod, Dwight nodded.
‘Well, after this I expect we’ll be given a raise.’
‘Not as big as my raise’ll be!’ John cheerily shouted.
Valerie grabbed Dwight’s shoulder for support, leaning on him. That didn’t feel bad at all… Not at all. Then, she even let her head rest on his right shoulder…
‘Don’t get any ideas, Stooge. Although you kneeling next to me was… kind of romantic, in a very cliché way.’
Dwight sighed.
‘What a cluster fuck, eh?’
‘Yeah, tell me about it. For a while there, I thought we were gone.’
John stared at the pod, pressed a button, and had the canister filled with thick red blood coming from one of the clones in the pod.
‘All done! The canister’s chock full of blood swarming with our little virus.’
He put the canister back into the briefcase and gave it back to the courier who hadn’t said anything, but was sitting on the floor, panting.
And so, while the adrenaline ebbed out of Dwight, they left the facility.


TWO HOURS LATER


In a haze of bright fire, the missiles shred through the sky, plunging into the clouds. There had been no more Resistance attempts, no more fighting. Dwight sighed.
It’s over. We’ve done it.
‘I daresay you three are up for a raise,’ Rendsayff said, ‘you secured CynCorp’s future.’
‘Yeah, what was that all about?’ Valerie asked.
‘Oh, we’re about to destroy America’s military infrastructure, navy and army using a virus we created,’ John cheerily said, ‘then CCSec will invade.’
‘Uhm… right.’
And she said no more on the matter. Dwight suspected she’d known what was going on the moment she saw the rockets.
The four of them, Rendsayff, Valerie, John and Dwight stood next to one another, staring at the planned missile launch from a ship in Amsterdam. Rendsayff said: ‘I must apologize, Mister Johnsson.’
‘You can call me Dwight, sir. And for what?’
‘We knew Anya was a traitor. John here is ex-CIA, gone private. As loyal to us as you, uhm… Dwight. However, John was instructed to strike when they were distracted, and that happened to be when they wanted to execute you.’
Dwight shrugged.
‘I figured something like that already. It doesn’t matter: John could hardly do something when Anya had her full force with her. What happened to those anyways?’
‘Our security teams bombed the lobby with tear gas. We managed to take them all alive. They now serve as… free test subjects.’
‘Serves the bastards right’ Valerie snarled, ‘My ribs still hurt like shit!’
‘Miss Anyolz, watch your language.’
Dwight burst out in laughter.
‘Anyolz? What kind of-’
‘Shut it, Stooge.’
Rendsayff watched the two of them for a while, then turned to John: ‘Mister Rayes, how did the Resistance plan to blow up the research facility?’
With a smile, John pulled out a big block labeled: semtex.
‘With this badboy they gave me.’
‘Mister Rayes, is carrying those explosives here really appropriate?’
Dwight and Valerie didn’t really feel comfortable as well, but John laughed reassuringly: ‘I disabled it before we even got to CynCorp Rotterdam, don’t worry.’
Rendsayff gave a short, barking laugh.
‘I never do, mister Rayes, I never do. Ah, that’ll be our drinks.’
A boy of 14 brought them four glasses of CynCola, which only John looked at with some hesistance.
‘When you said drinks, I thought you meant… alcohol.’
‘No drinking on the job, mister Rayes. However, the three weeks of paid vacation you’re receiving should leave you plenty of time for that.’
‘Oh, sweet! If you weren’t my boss, I’d hug you right now!’
Rendsayff scratched the back of his head, a little awkward for the first time since Dwight had seen him.
‘Let’s not.’
With a grin, John emptied his glass in one go and said to Dwight: ‘Hey Dwight, we should totally go work out together, once. You know, since we don’t have to pay for CynCorp gyms.’
Rendsayff shrugged.
‘Well, you and miss Anyolz do have vacation as well, of course…’
Dwight laughed.
‘As long as you keep calling me Dwight, I’m in. Just don’t shoot me in the head…’
‘Never fear! I’m a loyal company asset. That paycheck… I just can’t resist it.’
‘Neither can I,’ Dwight muttered.
‘And neither can I,’ Valerie joined in.
Rendsayff merely shrugged.
‘Everyone loves our paycheck…’
‘I know I do,’ Dwight replied, ‘But hey, we’ve got to go. I’m supposed to find a restaurant for tonight…’
‘Ah, I see. Might I suggest a very good Japanese restaurant? It serves an excellent sushi… and I’ve never said something like that before.’
‘Ooh, I love sushi!’ Valerie said, happily.
Dwight shook his head.
‘Thanks, I mean I love sushi, but it’s probably too expensive.’
With his signature smile on his face, Rendsayff merely replied: ‘The way your paycheck is looking right now, I wouldn’t worry about expense.’
And that's why CynCorp is so powerful. You can't resist the paycheck. Unless you're some crazy Resistance member.
‘So… I’ve got a very bright future ahead of me? With all these raises and bonuses and all?’
‘Why, Dwight, I was about to say that exact thing… a very, very bright future.’
Emptying his cup of CynCola, the last thing Dwight thought before he and Valerie went away, to make a reservation was: Yeah. You can’t resist the paycheck.

Constructive Criticism is always welcome. And once again, don't mind the mistakes in sentences, like missing words and such. Or, do mind, but don't tell me about them, I know they exist already .

An explanation of why I wrote especially this story, (only read after the story),:

We've all seen those movies like RE: Retribution, where evil, powerful corporations with epicly dressed soldiers are the bad guys. So I thought, why not give a corporation full power of a block of countries in Europe, set them against the classical good guy America, but have the perspective of a corporate employee?

So, I gave the corporation the generic name: CynCorp, (simple yet somewhat badass) had their epic outfits be a reference to the over the top outfits they have in action movies, and gave the resistance the cliché name... Resistance. Oh, and I made sure their evil plot succeeded this time.

[Occupied Deutschland]

Unofficial, Unlicensed, Unbelievable bad and outright unfathomably inconsequential critique*:

Characters - 18/25

Cordan and Alyzia I both like and both seem to fit well (their relationship in particular comes off as believable). Cordan was a general though correct? Perhaps it was intentional but I really didn’t get a ‘military general’ vibe off of him. He sounded throughout the peace much more like a scientist. Which may have been intentional, but doesn’t quite come across if it was. Especially as at one point Cordan identified himself as a ‘general’ in relation to Alyzia. It’s a bit of a nitpick, but one that ate at me a bit throughout the first section of the story. Alyzia came across well as a kind of brash intellectual that deliberately tweaks people (the scene where she taunts her captors with ‘there is no Creator’ did this very well). On this same tack, I had a ‘soft’ feeling that the roles were reversed between the two when Alyzia told Cordan to face his death with pride and take her hand as they went, etc. It’s here, for example, that Cordan’s more military side could be displayed alongside of Alyzia’s wish to spite these fundamentalists. A good example of this is when they’re about to be dragged off, ALYZIA is the one who takes Cordan’s hand. It’s a minor thing, but it would seem more appropriate if this were reversed to better reflect Cordan accepting his fate and abiding by his ladyfriend’s final wish to spite the crowds by being dignified.

The final character we are introduced to is both good and bad. Admiral Vallan is setup as being this kind of cold and distant guy who’s just doing his job, and this is done pretty well by use of his wistful thinking about his future on Titan when he’s done with what he’s doing, this works really well, combined with his report, for establishing him. At the same time, I can’t shake a distinct feeling that a little more would’ve been better. Some kind of ‘action’ of his we got that wasn’t the allusion at the end that showed him in this role. Just as an example here, after the report instead of jumping directly to the final line (which I like a good deal, by the way) showing him do something mundane to emphasize his utter disregard for these 160,000 ‘ferals’ he’s putting down would be useful. Perhaps he hands off command to a subordinate while he goes to take a nap, or he takes a drink and begins to read a book while the operation is underway. Or, if you want to maintain the ending where the report is directly followed by this powerful line, just before any mention is made of the report you could have a brief paragraph where this guy reflects about how boring he finds this job, or how uneventful this one is compared to the last one where X event happened, or something along those lines. I just feel like this guy is a pretty decent character, but just a little too little display and exhibition is holding him back from becoming much more prevalent.

I feel like all of this has been negative and scolding and I don’t want that to be the sole take-away from this. As I mentioned, Cordan’s and Alyzia’s interactions are very believable as presenting them as a ‘couple’, and Admiral Vallan is presented well.

Plot - 20/25

I feel like it’s been used before in similar forms, but the introduction of the fundamentalists and the scientist-burning gives it a bit of fresh life (though, here again, I’d complain it’s used a lot). But that’s more on the overall plot points, and I feel like this story is mainly concentrated around smaller character interactions and character action as it relates to the ‘plot’. Alyzia and Cordan’s interactions in and of themselves seem to be a plot point, despite nothing actually happening to really impact the storyline. As such, these easily carry the story over any ‘cliché’ feeling the major plot points might have to this guy. I feel here like a bit more of their interaction either as they were going to their execution or as the preacher spoke (or after he spoke, for that matter) would have provided another chance for something to happen between them or as they noticed the crowd that hated them or something else (I was expecting, for example, Alyzia to tell the preacher to ‘shutup and get on with it’, or something to that effect, for example and while it may have been good you didn’t do that since such is rather typical, I do think something here could’ve been beneficial to the plot, either by providing a good contrast between the end of Alyzia and Cordan’s lives and the upcoming end of everyone’s or providing a last crucial bit of interaction between the two).

The latter part of the story, I feel, suffers similarly to Admiral Vallan. We don’t get much for narrated occurrences until the final suggestion that ‘hey, everybody got killed, yo!’. A particular example here would be the report Admiral Vallan sent back. I think it would’ve been helpful plot/flow/character wise for us to actually witness Vallan ‘sending’ this report in some manner. It gives us both a bit of reference for events (Vallan sends the report and then opens up a can of toxic-gas flavored whupass on a planet of people)as well as presenting an opportunity for character to come through.

That said, this lack of narrated occurrence ALSO works for you. Aside from the opening line about the vessel hovering over the planet, we don’t get much of anything. Which makes the final veiled suggestion of this horrific action that just occurred that much more impactful.

And I realize I am contradicting myself by pointing out both, but I’m honestly not sure which way I’d prefer it. As it is, it works, just in a different manner. And seeing as the plot itself is really based on a kind’ve ‘different’ feel to it, the oddness of this last section might be just what you were going for.

Setting - 8/15

Here I’m gonna have to knock you a good bit. We have the cell in the first part (emphasized by the cell-door) and a nondescript spaceship bridge. Both could use significantly more scene-setting. What is the cell Cordan is in made of? What are the footsteps that are so distinctive hitting against? What are the guards wearing? What is HE wearing? What is Alyzia wearing (We do have good establishment for what she looks like, along with an observation that her wrists have open wounds around them, both very good).

I’m of two minds on the spaceship one. Either we need as much detail as you give us (if you’re going for that semi-odd feeling to the narration) or we need a lot more detail if you want to make the end sound a bit more ‘normal’. While not essentaial, we could use an idea of where Admiral Vallan is on the ship. This could be tied with the Character bit as well, perhaps he is sitting lazily on a command chair not really giving a darn about anything, or is he standing with his face pressed up close to a video monitor so he can keep track of all the goings on of the ship? Are there others around him doing stuff? Etcetera.

Creativity - 11/15

I probably would have put it lower, but…well, ‘dat ending honestly. The only way the story really works is with ‘dat ending and until it comes (with all its jarring oddness) I’m not sure what to say. As I mentioned, the overall plot points are typical, but the way you have the characters interacting and the things you’re bringing to the forefront are different. Combined with ‘dat ending, It bumps it up to me. Don’t think there’s too much else to say there.

Style - 9/15

Here, the main thing dragging you down is one bit where Cordan and Alyzia interact near the beginning of their interaction. It’s a large segment with no real paragraph breaks and that jumps between the two speakers a lot. Alongside this, you have a lot of ‘he said’ ‘she explained’, etc. in there as well. By itself it would work, but without paragraph breaks they make things a bit more confusing. But, also as a note, I think that would’ve worked better if you’d just had their words to each other and paragraph breaks instead of the ‘he said’ ‘she said’ bits all throughout. This could make the ‘payoff’ of their interaction (Alyzia turning to the guards and telling them ‘there is no Creator’) more rewarding in my opinion.

I’ve mentioned how I think the last bit is odd right? I’m going to mention it again. The last bit is odd. I’m uncertain if it’s deliberately odd or just comes off that way to me, but for the reasons I’ve mentioned it seems odd. This kind of works with the story though, so I’d call it more of a positive mark than a negative one.

Grammar/spelling - 5/5

I have said the same thing on all of these so far. I saw nothing wrong, but I’m probably the worst grammar critic that ever lived, so…

Overall - 74/100

*Occupied Deutschland is not a critic. Nor, in fact, is he a judge or, in all honesty, a sane and functioning member of the human race. Occupied Deutschland is not related with the judges of the Summer Short Story Contest and is providing this for entertainment purposes only. Occupied Deutschland should not be taken with alcohol. If one experiences chest pains or mood swings from reading Occupied Deutschland's critiques one should promptly quit reading his critics and send him an angry telegram instead. Occupied Deutschland is unaffiliated with the Bundesrepublik auf Deutschland and they should not be sent angry letters that are meant for Occupied Deutschland. Women who are smoking, pregnant, or may become pregnant are A-OK to Occupied Deutschland, especially that last one. Call me ladies.

[Page]

I do have to admit that Vallan is more a plot device than a character and that is probably a flaw. Originally I was going to have the narrative go back and forth between the fleet and the surface, and instead of a seasoned admiral I was going to have a young soldier with a girlfriend somewhere across the galaxy who he missed, and he was going to be casually contemplating the moral implications of "purges." But that took away from the "twist" value so I couldn't really do it that way.

Most of your critiques probably relate back to the general idea that it's hard to tell a story of two people about to be executed without relying too much on the omniscient narrator. If I rewrote it I think I'd let the dialogue tell more of the story, and I'd make it longer to that end.

The story does pretty much reflect my writing style though, I'm somewhat minimalist and try to leave it to the reader to fill in the gaps. Like, the first few paragraphs, I just wanted to establish that Bryn is a very bleak place. Some people might see 1945 Berlin and some people might see Dunwall from Dishonored and some might see something out of Mad Max or Terminator, to me it matters less what they see it as and more what kind of feeling they get.

So that is kind of how I'd measure the success of the story, in this case I think it should leave the reader feeling a bit colder and emptier.

Anyway some things you are very perceptive about and other things are just my way of writing for better or worse, but I appreciate your critique and thank you for reading.

[Occupied Deutschland]

I do have to admit that Vallan is more a plot device than a character and that is probably a flaw. Originally I was going to have the narrative go back and forth between the fleet and the surface, and instead of a seasoned admiral I was going to have a young soldier with a girlfriend somewhere across the galaxy who he missed, and he was going to be casually contemplating the moral implications of "purges." But that took away from the "twist" value so I couldn't really do it that way.

Most of your critiques probably relate back to the general idea that it's hard to tell a story of two people about to be executed without relying too much on the omniscient narrator. If I rewrote it I think I'd let the dialogue tell more of the story, and I'd make it longer to that end.

The story does pretty much reflect my writing style though, I'm somewhat minimalist and try to leave it to the reader to fill in the gaps. Like, the first few paragraphs, I just wanted to establish that Bryn is a very bleak place. Some people might see 1945 Berlin and some people might see Dunwall from Dishonored and some might see something out of Mad Max or Terminator, to me it matters less what they see it as and more what kind of feeling they get.

So that is kind of how I'd measure the success of the story, in this case I think it should leave the reader feeling a bit colder and emptier.

Anyway some things you are very perceptive about and other things are just my way of writing for better or worse, but I appreciate your critique and thank you for reading.

I will add that you do that very well just from Cordan's reflection and thoughts as he's in his cell. The first time I read it I had the image of something akin to a ransacked Jerusalem, and the second after considering the likely technological base for a 'rocket to the void' I had a clear 'feel' of a 1945 Berlin without much of ANY setting detail, so I'd applaud that.

And yeah, I tend to do the opposite of 'minamalist' and bring up things that are both inconsequential and unimportant and make WAY too big a deal out of them, so feel free to account for that in my critique .

[Nazi Flower Power]

It's OK. I just think it's funny how much Nazi stuff we get on NS.

Yeah... *scratches head awkwardly* I just like World War II.

I know how that is. WWII is interesting.

[Nazi Flower Power]

You mean if you're supposed to like him or not? Or what? He's meant to be somewhat sympathetic, but also somewhat flawed and corrupted by power.

In that case it came off exactly as you intended. I suppose my complaint would be then that I wasn't certain if that was what the character was supposed to seem like. Might be partially the length once again and my personal discomfort with short stories, but I felt/feel like there just wasn't enough display of him as being this somewhat sympathetic character (but, we do get a good deal of this, so this complaint might be rather nitpicky and more based on personal discomfort with too little character development as is required in a short story rather than an actual problem so take from this what you will).

It's definitely a story that different people will see in different ways depending on their politics. Even when Braxton isn't running for office or being selfish, he's still an ideologue. That creates some ambiguity because if you don't know what my political views are then you don't know if his ideology is meant to be a good thing or a bad thing.

[Frisivisia]

I will try to put something up. I can't say I'll try very hard, but I might get something.

[Nazi Flower Power]

*Occupied Deutschland is not a critic. Nor, in fact, is he a judge or, in all honesty, a sane and functioning member of the human race. Occupied Deutschland is not related with the judges of the Summer Short Story Contest and is providing this for entertainment purposes only. Occupied Deutschland should not be taken with alcohol. If one experiences chest pains or mood swings from reading Occupied Deutschland's critiques one should promptly quit reading his critics and send him an angry telegram instead. Occupied Deutschland is unaffiliated with the Bundesrepublik auf Deutschland and they should not be sent angry letters that are meant for Occupied Deutschland. Women who are smoking, pregnant, or may become pregnant are A-OK to Occupied Deutschland, especially that last one. Call me ladies.

This disclaimer is awesome.

[Unitaristic Regions]

*Occupied Deutschland is not a critic. Nor, in fact, is he a judge or, in all honesty, a sane and functioning member of the human race. Occupied Deutschland is not related with the judges of the Summer Short Story Contest and is providing this for entertainment purposes only. Occupied Deutschland should not be taken with alcohol. If one experiences chest pains or mood swings from reading Occupied Deutschland's critiques one should promptly quit reading his critics and send him an angry telegram instead. Occupied Deutschland is unaffiliated with the Bundesrepublik auf Deutschland and they should not be sent angry letters that are meant for Occupied Deutschland. Women who are smoking, pregnant, or may become pregnant are A-OK to Occupied Deutschland, especially that last one. Call me ladies.

This disclaimer is awesome.

Yeah, that should be his short story