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✲꘏ ꘏ ꘏ ꘏✲
From somewhere high above, I heard approaching footsteps.
The blond soldier would be climbing down soon, only to lead me somewhere else once again.
Suddenly, I found myself grateful to him.
He could have abandoned me on that road amid the gunfire. He could have fled alone without giving a second thought to whether I lived or died.
And why did I always insist on being so self-righteous?
Why did I condemn every soldier for killing one another?
I had taken a life myself, even if not entirely of my own choosing.
Besides, there was a war raging.
Death had become an ordinary part of this era—however impossible it was to justify.
"What is your name?" I asked the blond German soldier as soon as he reached the bottom.
He swung his flashlight toward me, and I instinctively raised a hand to shield my face from the harsh beam.
"What difference does it make?" he snapped, clenching his jaw so tightly that the muscles stood out beneath his skin.
"Well," I replied with a shrug, "I thought that since you're saving my life and already know my name, perhaps I ought to know yours as well."
I still held my own flashlight and swept its beam across the darkness ahead.
Although calling it a path would have been generous.
Before us yawned a rocky passage some fifty meters high and perhaps half as wide. At its base ran a carved channel filled with dark, murky water carrying debris of every imaginable size.
"Sewers," I muttered under my breath, releasing an impatient sigh.
"Wonderful."
"It isn't a sewer."
"Then what is it?" I asked, narrowing my eyes.
I inhaled cautiously but caught none of the stench one would expect from a sewer—no smell of waste or decay. Only sulfur lingered in the air, mingled with another scent I couldn't identify.
"Old mines," the soldier replied curtly. "Be grateful these tunnels exist at all. They're giving us a way out. You should be thanking Tobi for dragging your ass out of danger. If it weren't for him, you'd already be six feet under."
"So," I said, steering the conversation elsewhere while silently admitting he wasn't wrong, "are you going to tell me your name now?"
Once again, my question went unanswered.
★ ⋆ ★
I followed the soldier ahead of me, lighting my way with the pale beam of my flashlight. We trudged through the channel filled with soot-black water. It reached our calves, soaking my boots completely through. The fact that his own boots were just as flooded seemed to bother Tobi's fellow deserter not in the slightest.
