No Sacrifice Too Great | COD WW2 Story

Reclamation: Revival

I'm dreaming. Oh god, I must've over-worked myself. I have to be hallucinating. No...it's real. It's definitely real. And he's real.

"There's the trophy." Aiello mumbles quietly.

Zussman's his trophy? The trophy he swore was going to be better than the pendant? That's...sweet.

I climb out from behind the rock and expose myself freely without a care in the world. I rest my gun against my shoulder and aim directly at the Nazi's head as he points his hand gun to the victim. He turns around slowly and widens his eyes, surprised by my entrance.

"Go to hell, you Nazi piece of shit." I say in German. He opens his mouth to yell a signal, but instead, I fire one bullet into his head, a bullet filled with all the anger, all the grief, all the hopelessness that consumed me. I let it fly straight into his brain, and he stumbles back before falling and letting his head bleed out in a puddle.

I drop my gun and run over and fall to my knees next to the victim, placing his weary head on my lap.

"Zussman..." I whimper. I begin to cry, but not just from happiness. From a flurry of emotions, really. From overjoyed to terribly guilty.

"Princess?" He mumbles. I watch his mouth move as he calls me by my nickname, and notice how cracked and dry it is. I immediately take out my canister of water and hold it against his lips. He slowly drinks it, the sight of his weakness breaking me.

The boys rush over and keep an eye of the area just in case.

This isn't the Zussman we once had. His hair has been all shaved off. He's gone terribly pale, with bruises and scars peppered all over him. His eyes have lost their spring-green colour and have turned into a rainy-day grey, no life in them. He shivers helplessly under my hands, the cold consuming every inch of him.

"Is it over? I must be dreaming..." His voice is so rough...his eyes can barely stay open. They drained him of all his strength.

"What did they do to you?" I question, not expecting him to answer. It's a question I ask myself and to many of the other innocent lives taken hostage by those Nazis.

"Thought we were left behind." He carries on. It's painful to watch and hear.

-"That I might die alone out here."

More tears fall from my eyes. If this is what they do to him, they must do that to so many other lives out there.

"Darling..." I whisper, laying my forehead on his. Reality strikes, and it strikes hard. I didn't know what to expect if we find him, but this is beyond my expectations. The future is inevitable, after all. And because of that, I end up facing a painful outcome.

I place a hand on his cheek and run it gently, my eyes seeing all the brutal scars around his face. We have to get him out of here.

"Pierson, please." I ask, and he takes hold of Zussman's other arm as we wrap them around our shoulders, lifting him up slowly.

"Gently, gently. Let's get him onto the jeep." Pierson says, and once he's up on his feet, Stiles and Aiello catch up to us, their faces written with unsettlement.
Stiles takes out his camera, and snaps a quick photo. The importance of this one is that it proves the brutality the Nazis have done, and if they do this to one person, they do this to millions more.

As we make our way back to the Jeep, Zussman can barely walk. He's practically limping. He can't barely keep himself up. I get a small pang of relief that he's alive. But, he's barely holding in. We need to get him fixed as soon as possible.

That's it. Now, the war is finally over. It hurt to see Zussman like this. What he experienced will always be glued to him, and what I saw and felt will stick with me forever, too. The feeling of guilt and rage, yet, sadness and dejection.
During this war I got taught many great things. One of them being 'No Mission Too Difficult, No Sacrifice Too Great', but another one being is that you never leave your brothers behind. I fought alongside the greatest and strongest men on earth, but Zussman's no brother to me. He's more than that. And I'm just happy that he's coming home, with us. With me.