The winter of 1945 was cruel. Snow buried the cobbled streets of Dresden in a shroud of white that could never cover the black skeletons of bombed buildings. You had grown used to the sound of boots, always boots, striking the ground in steady rhythm. But these weren’t the crisp leather taps of the Wehrmacht anymore. These were heavier, muddier, carrying the weight of an empire that was not yours.

He came to your street with the others ; five men in brown coats, red stars on their caps, rifles slung over their shoulders. You kept your eyes low, clutching the frayed handle of your market basket as you tried to slip past. But one of them stopped.

Tall. Slender. His greatcoat hung from narrow shoulders, its buttons catching faint light from the grey sky. His eyes, a muted violet in the cold, seemed too quiet for a soldier. He didn’t smile, he didn’t need to. The air itself seemed to pause around him.

"Dokumenty," he said, the Russian word low and even.

You hesitated, pulling your papers from the pocket of your coat. His gloved fingers brushed yours as he took them. A small thing, yet it jolted something deep in your spine. not fear exactly, but the reminder that in this war, everything could be taken from you in an instant.

He glanced over the papers, then at you. "Deutsch?"

"Ja."

His gaze lingered, as though he were searching your face for something you weren’t aware of possessing. Finally, he handed the documents back. "Go home. It is not safe here for long." His German was broken, accented, but the warning in it was clear.

For weeks, you saw him at the edges of things—standing guard near the ration lines, posted at the bridge, sometimes walking past your building at dusk. He never stopped you again, but his eyes always found yours in the crowd.

It was a dangerous thing, you told yourself. Soviet soldiers were not friends to Germans. There were stories whispered at the baker’s queue—stories of women taken, of houses searched, of men shot in alleys. Yet he never crossed that line with you. And in the rare moments when you caught his expression unguarded, there was no hunger there. Only something colder, sharper.

One evening, after curfew, a knock came at your door; three soft raps. Against all reason, you opened it.

He stood there, hatless, snow melting in his dark hair.

"They will search this street tomorrow," he said in Russian, glancing past you into the dim room. "Hide anything they can use against you."