One year, two months, and sixteen days. That's how long he'd been stuck here. He didn't know where the hell he was; only that it was enemy territory and he was in some deep shit. Winter was nearing, and he felt the world around him start to freeze. A gnarlier villain overshadowed the ice forming on the cold ground, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Gale had quickly discovered what would get him killed and what wouldn't in this penitentiary of heroes. If he was quiet, if he would just listen and keep his head down, he could worm his way to safety. In the year he'd been trapped here, he'd mastered the art of transmitting codes and radio covertly. But take a step too far towards the barbed wire fences, and he was good-as-dead. Well, he figured, he was good as dead anyways.

Gale sits in the small cabin that was packed with the survivors of his captured squad, a cigarette in his mouth. The window's open, blowing in frigid, sharp air.

"I'm tellin' ya to close the goddamn window," one soldier mumbles, throwing a card onto the table. Gale and his buddies are playing a game of poker. "I'm freezing my goddamn nuts off."

After a couple chuckles around the table, Gale speaks up, his voice gruff: "'Can't. 'Interrupts the transmissions." He holds, to his ear, a tiny piece of metal attached to a string attached to a wire.

The boys quieted, the mood killed. They swap looks of irritation and disbelief, but all know what happened. Gale had been hit with the worst thing to happen to a man: he'd lost hope. He'd hardened, had become more resigned.

After all, what was there left to live for?