LilyMorganWriter
In the fall of 2015, three best friends in rural Bavaria vanish during a livestream.
Andreas, Mathias, and Johannes ran a small YouTube channel called WDBYBS-We Don't Buy Your Bullshit-dedicated to debunking historical lies. When an old diary arrives in the mail, claiming the Nazis perfected a working time machine, Andreas sees a chance to prove the lies. Mathias sees a chance for fame. Johannes just wants to stay with his friends.
The footage shows them waiting in an abandoned factory. Shows a man appearing out of thin air, grinning, walking away. Shows the boys stepping forward. Then the feed goes dark.
They land in October 1941, separated, disoriented, and trapped in a world that will consume them.
Johannes, the youngest and most innocent, lands in a Russian forest, his name buried in Soviet and Wehrmacht logbooks that won't surface for seventy years. Mathias lands inside the time machine itself and becomes a prized asset of the Reich, where he slowly forgets he was ever a prisoner. Andreas lands near a base camp, where his father's survival training saves him, and the SS turns him into a weapon, and finally a hero of the Reich.
The present-day investigation unravels: the viral video, the grieving parents, the government agents who won't stop asking questions, and records begin to surface that reveal: A Wehrmacht sergeant's log that leaves a mother shattered. An SS file thick with commendations and atrocities that drive a father to alcoholism. And interview transcripts from a young man who liked being valuable...and buried his parents in shame.
By then, the question isn't whether any of them can get home.
It's whether any of them are still the boys their parents are looking for.