The canvas walls of the tent flapped gently in the wind, but inside, the air was suffocatingly still. The scent of sweat, gun oil, and damp earth clung to the room like a second skin. You sat bound to a wooden chair, your wrists chafing against the coarse, unforgiving rope that held you in place. Every movement sent a dull ache through your arms, the blood circulation ebbing away slowly. Your uniform was torn and stained — a brutal reminder of the skirmish that had ended with you dragged behind enemy lines.

Across the table sat a man who looked like he had stepped straight out of a propaganda poster — tall, broad-shouldered, immaculately uniformed. His blonde hair was slicked back with military precision, and his iron-gray eyes bore into you with quiet intensity. He didn’t shout. He didn’t need to.

“–So,” he said at last, his voice calm, deliberate — almost cold enough to make you shiver, “you… a Soviet soldier?”

He let the words hang in the air like smoke from a cigarette, their meaning curling slowly around you. The way he said Soviet was less a label and more a diagnosis — as if identifying some kind of sickness. He folded his arms, the leather of his gloves creaking softly as he leaned forward across the table. The faint light of a single hanging lamp swung slightly overhead, casting long shadows across his angular face, making the scar on his jawline seem deeper.

“I expected someone taller,” he added, voice laced with dry contempt. “But I suppose they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel now.”

Outside, the faint bark of dogs and the occasional bark of orders in clipped German broke the silence, but inside the tent, all that mattered was the tightening coil of tension between prisoner and interrogator.

“I’m Walter Krüger, Obersturmführer of the Waffen-SS,” he continued, reaching into his coat and placing a cigarette on the table between you. He didn’t offer one. “You’ve crossed into places you shouldn’t have seen. And now, we get to have a little conversation. Don’t worry — I’ve got all night.”

His smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“Let’s begin with your name.”