Fighting For Love

XII - An Unpleasant Surprise

     Hello everyone and welcome back to another chapter of our most beloved (and, so far, only) book.

    Some of you, actually, most of you, are gonna want to kill me after reading this chapter, because I did something bad... And it doesn't feel so good.

     (let me know who got this reference)

    As always, thank you very much for your support and enjoy your reading, I love you so much <3

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     Chapter 12: An Unpleasant Surprise

    May the 9th, 1940. 17:30.

Frankfurt, Germany

The trip to Frankfurt was very quiet. Otto walked into the cabin some twenty minutes after I did and he sat there. He looked at me and faked a smile, but we did not exchange a word the whole way and this was slowly killing me. I regretted calling him useless, but I was too proud to say "I'm sorry". He didn't help either, he knew I didn't want to talk about that but kept insisting on it. Thankfully, we reached the station before I could get any more uncomfortable with the atmosphere inside our cabin.

I was finally back in Frankfurt. The orders this time were looser than they were in Poznań. We were free to go anywhere we want, as soon as we came back to the train station the next morning, which, for me, was a useless thing to say, since I was decided I would visit my mother, no matter what the rules were. I didn't invite Otto to come, too, but I noticed he was walking with me. For a moment, I had forgotten he was my neighbour.

Not far from home, there was a division on the road: Otto's house was to the right; mine was on the left, so we parted ways, still without saying a word. Whether I felt bad for being harsh on him or he felt bad for pressuring me to talk about Günther and Hilde is irrelevant, because, at the end, the result was the same: we were no longer talking to each other.

I tried not to focus too much on that and instead pictured my house and mum and realized close to it I was until I finally got to see it. There it was! Standing right in front of me like so many dreams I had had !

And there it was! Oddly, the lights on the bottom floor were off, the oil lamp on the balcony was dim, the flowers were dead and the grass was badly trimmed. The only light I could see was on the second floor, coming from my mother's bedroom.

That's unusual.

When I opened the door, more problems: the furniture was dusty and the dishes were towering in the sink. The whole floor smelled of mould and in the corners, I could see spider webs. The whole set made it look like a haunted house.

"My God, what happened here?" I said to myself.

I climbed the stairs, equally dusty and crowded with termites and walked to my mother's bedroom. The door was ajar. She was lying on the bed, covered with a blanket from head to toe. There was an empty teacup on the nightstand by the bed, which concerned me: she had never liked tea.

When she saw me, her eyes shone, she sat up and tried to get up, but her knees weakened and she fell to the floor. I rushed to help her go back to bed and I sat by her side.

"Mom? What is happening?" I asked while covering her cold body with a woollen blanket.

"My son, you are back," Her voice was low and hoarse, almost a whisper, nearly inaudible. "I knew you would be back for me."

She choked on something and started coughing violently. She placed a tissue in front of her mouth and what I saw once she stopped coughing scared me.