HOGAN'S HEROES - The Misplaced Messenger

PART 1

The time is 12:03 AM. The date is January 19, 2011. You are lying in your bedroom, the light still on, and in your hands sits a book you got for the holidays last year. Its title – "War Airplanes of World War II". You've always been a bit of a history buff, and your parents know this. Your eyes are shining with enthusiasm as you read the specs on the then-revolutionary Mitsubishi A6M Zero, the Supermarine Spitfire XVI, the Russian Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3…

Suddenly you look up. A strange ringing has just begun to swell in your ears. You get the sensation of diving to the bottom of an eighteen-foot swimming pool as the world begins to shift and change around you…

The next thing you know, you're outside lying on sodden mud and squelching leaves, dark firs obscuring the night sky above you. You hear the humming of airplanes going back and forth across the atmosphere, and the baying of dogs slowly registers as you stumble to your feet, moving your jaw around to clear out the residual ringing.

Your clothes are different, too. Instead of your camouflage jammies and stocking feet (one a checked black-and-red "No Nonsense", one a bright lime-green designer embroidered with a cartoon skeleton), you find that you are wearing the standard GI wear of an American Air Force pilot. The barking gets louder, and as two growling, snarling German Shepherds plunge out of the foliage and start bounding toward your position, you turn and run instinctively.

It's dark and you can't see more than three feet in front of you. Your left foot gets snagged on a low-hanging, broken branch and you fall on your face. The dogs catch up to you and continue barking, snapping at your arms and face in a vicious warning. Your hand clutches something tightly; you peek through the darkness and dog fur to realize that it's a German Phrasebook.

Shouts rise in a guttural, familiar language and flashlight beams dance in front of you.

If you choose to make a run for it, go to Part 2.

If you choose to submit to your captors, go to Part 3.