Welp. Here we are. Hello everyone. *sigh* I'm ready to release my multi-chaptered work to the public.

IT WOULDN'T BE A GOOD FIC WITHOUT DISCLAIMERS, AMMIRITE?

If you were expecting something like The Mercs Take New York, then you should proooobably click off of this. Actually please don't; please love me. Since that story was so well received, I decided to take a plunge in the complete opposite direction and write something serious and dark just to expand my horizons, yo.

I've done more studying and research for this fic more than anything in my life. I've tried to keep this as close to history as possible, but if anything is off I'm whipping out my creative license.

The silly mercs we all know and love ARE IN THIS, trust me. You'll just have to stick this out to the end to see them. ;)

I realize the ages of a couple of characters are not realistic with game cannon but *whips out creative license* deal with it.

I've rambled way too long. Here you all go~

***PROLOUGE ***

"We have become orphans and fatherless, our mothers like widows" -Lamentations 5:3

"Your circle of influence dictates your path." - Jon Bielecki

It was raining.

Small, stinging drops drenched the mass of people below.

A mother tightened her grip against her son's small wrist and he nearly cried out in pain as her nails dug even deeper. They had been walking for what seemed like hours, but it could have been days or even minutes. Hundreds of mothers holding children just marched, slipping in the thick gray mud that covered the ground. They slowed to a halt as a line began forming. The little boy strained forward to see what was happening. Several guards stood around with guns strapped to their belts, separating the children from their mothers. The little boy felt panic flaring in his chest. His mother had told him what was going to happen, but he wasn't fully prepared for this moment. Nobody could have been fully prepared for this moment.

They were nearly to the gates.

The mother suddenly stopped and knelt down until she was face to face with her son. She swallowed, her eyes misting over. Anyone on the outside could have guessed they were closely related. Even at the young age of twelve, the boy had inherited his mother's long, solemn face and steel gray eyes. She stared deeply into his, silver reflected against silver. She straightened his tie and his glasses then pulled him into a hug.

"I love you, Josef," were the last words she said to him before he was pulled away by a guard three times his size and sent to stand with the other children.

Stuttgart, Germany: 1914

"Up! Time to get up!" A voice barked at young Josef and he was jolted awake, rubbing his tired eyes as he felt the memories from the day before rush into his mind. His mother's unwavering face as she left him at the train station, his new life in the orphanage even though he wasn't an orphan. The families of Stuttgart had fallen on extremely difficult times, and all of the lower class citizens had sent their children away in hopes of them leading a better life. It was his first official day here, and he was exhausted. Trudging three miles through thick gray mud up to the huge, cold building was how he spent most of his day yesterday, then he was kept awake all night by the cries of the younger children in bunks around him. Josef groped for his glasses and just laid, staring at the grimy ceiling for a moment longer.

"You better get up, friend, we have a tight schedule around here," a boy much younger than Josef popped his head up from the bottom bunk and Josef sighed, swinging his legs around the precarious bed. They were allowed ten minutes to do all of their morning duties, which included dressing, freshening up, using the toilet, and whatever else they had to do in the morning. Josef moved slowly compared to the other boys who were systematically buttoning their shirts and straightening their collars. They all wore a uniform, but the clothes hung very loose on Josef's tiny frame. A simple, white, button up shirt with gray slacks and black penny loafers was their daily attire, but Josef also found a raggedy three piece suit which he only guessed was for Sundays, when they had chapel.

Josef shuffled his way into the bathroom where he brushed his teeth and examined himself in the mirror. He was a ghostly figure at the young age of twelve. Nearly skeletal, with hollowed cheeks and steel gray eyes. His small round spectacles curved around the bridge of his nose which seemed too big for his face, and his mouth settled into a perpetual disapproving frown. He wetted his hands in the sink and combed through his thick black hair, parting it deeply on the side and twirling the end into a cowlick, like his mother had always done on Sundays.

He followed the line of boys into the main assembly room and filed like a colony of ants into one of the endless rows of pews. Josef was smaller than all of the other boys, so he was crammed into the end of the pew, hardly able to breath. They turned their attention to the man in charge.

"I know most of you have had a rather eventful day yesterday, but that is all in the past now. We have a very strict schedule around here which I'm going to go over. We are not slackers. You will wake up every day at seven and perform your morning tasks. Then, you will be sent to class. The head of your room will provide you with schedules. After we break for lunch you will be sent to work. We are not slackers here. Work will be divided into several jobs according to the capability and circumstances of you children. After work you will have two hours for respite then we will break for dinner. Lights off is at nine for the younger children and ten for the older children. Please file into lines according to age and your work will be assigned to you. You are dismissed." The man in charge waved his hand away and the adults at the ends of pews stood and motioned for their group to follow. Josef tried to push his way through the surging crowd but he was lost underfoot, his cries pathetic against the din of the mass of children.

Suddenly Josef felt cold fingers tighten around his wrist and he gasped as he was pulled roughly out of the crowd. He was jerked so swiftly and suddenly he fell to his knees, scrambling upward, trying to twist away from his captor.

"Stop writhing, boy!" a gruff voice sneered in his ear. Josef looked upward, feeling his eyes wet with tears. "Just let me look at these," the man loosened his grip slightly and knelt down, pressing his thumb at the base of Josef's hand, forcing his fingers to spread out. The man mumbled words like "…perfect…" and "…flexible…" Josef was terrified.

The man was very old and very thin, so thin that if he turned sideways he might blend in with the wallpaper. He was completely bald, but had an untrimmed beard surrounding his cracked lips which were pulled back in a strange smile. He wore a white coat, pressed to perfection, that looked like it was the smallest size they could make but it was still loose on his shoulders, a black belt cinched around his tiny waist.

"Do you know what these are?" the man suddenly asked, still holding Josef's hands in his own. The old man's hands felt cold and hard like he was dead, but the fingers twitched and spasmed slightly, as if he was itching to do something with them.

"Um…my hands?" Josef wrinkled his nose in confusion. He felt like he had given a wrong answer but what else could he have said?

"Yes! Precisely!" the old man nodded enthusiastically and suddenly Josef felt even more uncomfortable, vainly attempting to squirm away from him again but this just caused the old man to pull him closer. By now most of the children had exited the huge auditorium, laughing and fighting with each other, folding their schedules into paper airplanes and play-batons, whacking each other with them. None of them had seemed concerned that an old man was kneeling down in front of a little boy, holding his wrists so tightly his fingers were turning blue.

"I…I want to go back to my room," Josef whimpered, his hands tingling.

"Others might look at your hands and think: Pianist. Others might shake their heads sadly and think: Pickpocket. Do you know what I see? These long, pale fingers, so steady at such a young age, so deliberate in every motion, delicate even. I see a surgeon." The man grinned as if he'd just said something funny but Josef wrinkled his brows in confusion.

"A...surgeon? Like, cutting people open?" he felt bile rise in his throat at the mere thought of seeing someone's innards. Those things were supposed to be inside your body, and as long as they were functioning Josef didn't really care how they did it.

"Yes! A surgeon! A doctor, a caretaker, a practitioner…a prodigy." The man looked crazier than before, his watery eyes so wide Josef could see the whites around them.

"Who are you?" Josef asked timidly.

"My name is Doctor Austerlitz, and I run the nurses' station here at the orphanage. You are Josef Schmerz, brought here not by a couple of tragic deaths but by poverty. You're going to come work with me exclusively, and I'm going to teach you everything I know."

Coming up: "All of you, quiet. We all get nightmares here." The boys quieted down and Josef felt his face flush with embarrassment.