Dinah

One Thousand Years

The wet was biting through his boots, and his stiff toes tingled as his feet managed to power him another step forward through deep snow. Constantijn was not attached to his own feet, and yet they carried him along with the rest of the regiment, surrounding four giant tanks. Constantijn found himself at the front of the whole of the division. He dared to break formation and look behind him at all of the boys traisping through mounds of thick white snow. Boys. He saw Rolf among them, marching next to his friend Conrad. His face was still pale with fever and his eyes didn't meet Constantijn's, instead glued to something in front of them.
Constantijn turned around and would have stumbled had he truly been attached to his surroundings.
There was blood, a great lot of it, and bodies. Red soaked the snow and spread, flittering alarmingly fast through the white and growing towards them. Tanks with the Russian flag, ten times larger than the Germans', loomed above Constantijn. The tanks and the blood and the bullets from angry, war-crying enemy soldiers reached him all at once and he woke up on the cold floor.
He didn't dare move for a moment, and then when he did his fingers creaked like he'd been laying on the living room floor for centuries. He rather wished he had been. The war could not have lasted that long.
Then he opened his eyes into a room lit dimly by light from the open window. He looked outside into a violent sunrise, orange sun and blood-red skies.
His legs still felt uncertain when he took a step towards the back room, but he kept going. There were three suitcases and a laundry bag, all packed tightly with things that would go with Mama and Katrin when they left for Berlin. Rolf would follow as soon as he was well.
He turned, spinning much faster than he had intended, and looked at the clock on the wall. It was 4:59.
At exactly 5:00, Mama came downstairs. She was dressed just as she always was for work each day, in her simple gray dress and tight bun, plain as paper. Katrin was dressed similarly, with the addition of a gray hat on her head.
Constantijn blinked, and suddenly they were covered in blood. Head to toe.
He gasped and stepped back. "I'm dreaming," He said aloud. His voice bounced around the room.
They were both soaked in crimson red. They walked, expressionless, past him, oblivious to the footsteps they left and the sticky blood on their faces, tangling Katrin's hair, soaking her neat stockings... each step they took synchronized the pounding in Constantijn's ears.
They picked up the suitcases, and Mama threw the laundry sack over her shoulder. The door opened for them and they walked into the rising sun.
Constantijn stared at the spot where they disappeared, and then turned back into the house.
And then he was laying on a dirt road, and someone was screaming. She was cold, and still, and something gnawed inside of her. Dark, stringy hair clung to her face. There was a burning hole in her chest, through to her back, rushing forever into the sky. She twitched a bony, emaciated hand and suddenly the ghetto disappeared.
He lay on their living room couch. His mouth was dry and his skin felt tight to his bones. Sweat coated his skin in a sticky layer.
Mama and Oma stood over him, wide-eyed, "He's still sick," Mama whispered loudly. Her voice swam in his head.
And then Constantijn awoke, his eyes flying open.
He held very still, scared that he was in another stage of his dream. He lay curled on the couch next to Rolf. Oma sat, rocking back and forth in the rocking chair, her knitting growing quickly and efficiently at her hands and needles.
Constantijn moved his fingers first, and then reached to his arm and pinched a chunk of his flesh. It hurt.
He swallowed his dry throat and stretched out his legs, "Good morning," He murmured to Oma after glancing at the clock.
"You too," Oma said sourly, "You missed them."
"What?" Constantijn just remembered to keep his alarm at a low volume.
She looked at him, "They left early this morning. Johanna told me to tell you she was sorry she couldn't say goodbye, but you hadn't been sleeping very well so we didn't want to wake you up in case you got what Rolf has,"
Constatnijn rolled his shoulders back, silently lamenting the sore spot in his arm where he'd slept on it funny. "Mmm," He supposed she was right. Oma was always right, regardless of whether she was actually - right - or not.
He yawned. Nightmares were terribly exhausting. "I feel fine," Physically, that was. It felt like a grenade had gone off in his head and completely cleared out his brain.
He stood, pausing as his blood pounded in his ears, and walked into the kitchen. Isold sat there, stirring an already-stirred cup of watered down coffee. Augusta and Pieter sat at the table, playing with a puzzle that the pair of three-year olds would never be able to solve - although not for lack of trying, it appeared.
Isold smiled in relief as Constantijn entered, “Oh, Con’. I'm glad you're up - Mama thought you might have caught what Rolf has." She was exhausted, elbows propped up on the table and dark circles lining her eyes as she stared at the coffee she stirred.
"Ja," Constantijn said, and glanced back into the other room at Rolf,"Rolf."
Isold looked up, frowning, "Ja, Rolf. Why?"
"No," Constantijn strode towards the couch, "Rolf,"
Isold followed him into the living room and Oma looked up as Constantijn cupped a hand under his brother's chin, looking into his lidded eyes. No reaction. "Rolf,"
His eyes widened with fear and he grabbed Rolf's wrist, put his finger on the slight bulge of a vein, and stood there.
Finally Isold choked,"Con' -"
Constantijn shook his head. He was numb, "He's dead,"

They sent one of the neighbors on a horse to try to catch up with Mama and Katrin, but he came back empty-handed, horse shuddery and flaked with sweat.
They buried Rolf in the town cemetery. Constantijn left for the Heer base in Muhlberg the next day.