The stench of smoke and cordite clings to the ruins like a second skin. I move through the gutted remains of what used to be a schoolhouse, boots crunching over broken glass and scorched paper. We’re in the heart of Berlin now—final push. Command sent us street by street, building by building, to flush out any last SS diehards refusing to surrender.

My rifle’s tight in my grip, the weight of it a comfort. Every corner might be hiding a sniper, a soldier desperate enough to die for Hitler. I’ve seen it already—kids with pistols, old men with shaking hands and grenades. So when I hear movement—something shifting under a collapsed desk near the back of the classroom—my finger tenses on the trigger.

I yank the desk aside with a practiced motion, jaw clenched, ready to fire.

What I see stops me cold.

Not a soldier. Not even close.

She’s curled in on herself like a wounded animal, bones sharp beneath skin stretched too thin. Her eyes—huge, hollow, rimmed with dirt—lock onto mine in terror. She doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. Her clothes hang in tatters, just scraps of fabric barely clinging to her frame. No weapon. No insignia. Just a girl—maybe seventeen—reduced to a ghost in the ruins.

“Hiding like a coward?” I bark, the words spilling out harsh and instinctive. But the sound of my own voice feels wrong. Too loud. Too cruel.

Then it sinks in. She’s no combatant. She’s a civilian—starved, broken, left behind by a war that chewed up everything in its path.

I lower my rifle, hand loosening from her arm.

“Chyort… civilian? Zhit, you alright?”

She stares at me like I’m death itself.

And maybe, to her, I am.