Alliance in the Ice - The Guardians of Noindaith

Copper Heights - Soldier Paul

The thick, cold raindrops ran stubbornly down my nose and chin and into my collar. My own uniform, which I had retrieved behind the border, clung wet and cold to my body as I dropped exhausted into the frozen mud of a trench. We had run headlong from Lichtenfels and got caught in the middle of a battle.

Machine guns had rattled, men had shouted orders and wounded men had whimpered for their mothers.

The war was upon us again. The pervasive smell of earth surrounded me, mixed with the stench of death. But all these sensory perceptions faded to a distant background noise, drowned out by a loud rumble of thunder that suddenly rose above us. My blood drained from my face and I froze in shock. And then a bolt of lightning raced down from the sky, striking a treetop about thirty meters in front of me, splitting it and setting it on fire. The demon!

"Lars! Weber!" I called out once and then again. I listened, but there was no answer.

In the turmoil of battle, when it was just a matter of everyone saving their skin, I had lost her. I pressed myself down on the floor of the trench and didn't move. I just lay there and waited for all hell to break loose. My thoughts drifted off. They drifted to Kaya, who had betrayed me so bitterly. And to Sophie. Sophie, yes, Sophie ...

I held her photo in my trembling hand, crumpled from the constant touching. It showed Sophie with her lively, energetic eyes and seductive smile framed by her soft brown hair.

The picture didn't fit in at all with the atmosphere of doom around me. And that's precisely why I couldn't let it go. Sophie, my great love. The memory of her had been the only ray of hope in this dark time of war, before Kaya had entered my life. The thought that Sophie's disappearance would be resolved at some point, that she would come back and fall into my arms, had carried me all this time.

I stared at the picture and a wave of anger rose up inside me. How could she have done this to me, to put me in such a heartless position after all those moments of tenderness? I had thought we had something special, something indestructible, but now I felt betrayed and alone. And Kaya was just as much to blame for that as Sophie.

My anger turned to hatred. I clenched my fists, my jaw tensed and my whole body trembled. The rain pelted down on me incessantly, as if it wanted to wash away all the abysmal emotions. But it was in vain. The betrayal burned too deep inside me, leaving wounds that would not heal so quickly. The war took so much from me, changed me and made me hard.

And now Kaya's betrayal was brutally tearing the last remnants of innocence and trust out of me. Why the hell had I gotten involved with her in the first place? She hadn't just betrayed me, she had stolen everything I believed in. How could she have fooled me like that? Her lies had been pure poison and I had blindly trusted her! Served me right. If only I had learned my lesson from the first one! I felt dizzy and dark spots danced before my eyes.

As I lay there in the mud, surrounded by the traces of war, I felt lost at the bottom of my soul. Lost in a world that I no longer understood and that had torn away everything that had once been dear to me.