CITY OF THE DEAD ✓

I. RED

A group of German soldiers was breaking into the second level apartments; looting what they could find in the devastation. They often came after bombing raids to loot the bodies of Red Army soldiers who had been killed in the blasts.

My hands shook, my shoulders tightened, and I paced as their shouts persisted.

I overturned the rug over the hole in the floor and slipped into my obscure childhood hiding space which was between the ceiling of the apartment on the level below and the floor.

Minutes dragged by and the surroundings fell silent. I looked through the cracks in the wood planks as well as the hole in the rug. Perspiration seeped into my palms and formed beads on my hairline.

They bashed the door in and the floorboards shrieked with the weight of their bodies and rifles. Footsteps continued to make the floor tremble until they stalled meters from my hiding place.

Their voices were harsh, and the conversations faded. My stomach tightened as they rummaged through the kitchen cabinets, eager to find something no longer there.

A pair of steel-toed boots returned to the living room, and I clenched my jaw to keep myself silent. Fear pushed the thoughts of hunger from my mind.

"Look at the rug."

"If a rat is there, it'll come out by itself."

Silence fell across the battle-ravaged city, with the exception of night skirmishes that echoed in the distance. I pressed myself against the bottom of the cavity. The darkness spun, and the eeriness persisted.

I forced the three boards off their balance. They dropped to my chest and the woven rug came along for the fall. I rose from the pit and stacked the boards so they appeared undisturbed. While setting the woven rug over them, a cloud of ash rose into the air. It wasn't surprising, the entire city was coated in the charred remains of bodies, building, and blood.

My hand tightened on the frame of my rifle before I emerged into the rubble-filled hallway after checking for stragglers.

I crashed into a sea of blue eyes.

"Found you."

Before my feet or legs had the impulse to move, one soldier seized my arm and the other cut the canvas rifle sling. The gun clattered to the floor, and I stared at it with concern and fear pooling in my eyes while the second frisked me and then my coat.

I could only pray a German bullet wouldn't be in my head by the end of the night.

"We should kill her," the man behind said.

Shit.

The second shook his head. "No. Use her first."

He shoved me forward into the hallway and escorted me to the stairwell. His grasp was tight on my narrow wrists and when he let go, he put his rifle to my back. The soldier's counterpart merged into the main hallway on the third floor.