1944.
He was standing all alone in a long, shallow, mud-drenched trench in Collepietra, a small village a few miles from Bolzano. Thunder rumbled a few miles away and he had to hold his breath to keep himself from trembling convulsively, thus making his Carcano bolt-action rifle rattle relentlessly against the black crate he was balancing his weapon and elbows on. He pushed his messy, sweaty hair from his eyes and swallowed hard, overcome with the realization that he's the only one there. It's not that there were reinforcements in the nearest trench or half-bombed building, no. He was simply the last man standing, the most unlikely to survive, and yet, seemingly the luckiest one of the soldiers.
"I can't do this," he whispered to himself, his heart thumping in his chest as if were trying to ram its way out of his ribcage. He clumsily pulled up the pair of binoculars suspended on a thin cord from his neck and peeked around in a 180 degrees angle, but couldn't see very far in the pitch darkness. Just as he slumped slightly, letting his head rest on the wooden crate, he heard a twig snap behind him.
"Who is there!" He rotated in the direction of the sound, aiming with his Carcano, poking at the darkness with the attached bayonet. Silence.
He cleared his throat, "Wh-who's there!". Silence again. Then he heard footsteps behind him but before he could do anything –
.
.
"Where am I?" he instinctively asked as he floated back into consciousness, his eyes adjusting to the bright neon light surrounding him. His voice bounced off the walls and after a few seconds he could see that he was, in fact, in an empty, concrete room with bare floors and walls and no windows – presumably underground. His arms felt heavy and as he tried to stretch he realized he was handcuffed and bound, each limb captured and strapped to different points on the ceiling and floor, leaving him to dangle there like a ragdoll with his arms outstretched uncomfortably.
He heard a heavy door unlock and then hinges squeaking mercilessly, and then heavy footsteps on the concrete floor. He turned his head and whimpered at the sight.
In walked France, holding a small leather suitcase, dressed in his uniform – khaki pants and shirt – both tucked in smartly – and a small, blue beret sitting snugly on the Frenchman's long, flowing blond hair.
The military boots kept trodding along the floor until the soldier had walked a full circle around him and now stood facing him, eyeing him with an evil smirk on his face.
"Please, no – "
Francis started laughing maniacally for a prolonged time, the entire concrete room resonating with the raucous sound as he found pleasure in the significantly smaller and shorter man's misery. Then he stopped laughing as abruptly as he had begun, and, with a rapid movement of his long arm he slapped the brown-haired captive's face so hard all the chains shook and the room was filled with an echoing clap. The blond man then grabbed the brunet's face with one of his white-gloved hands and inspected it closely, listening to his frantic breathing. He then grabbed the messy brown hair and tossed his whole head aside again, letting go and focusing on opening the small leather suitcase.
France snapped open the two golden latches and, to the smaller man's horror, revealed two rows of a dozen utensils. Sharp, blunt and spiky utensils. Things to cause pain and suffering with.
The two gloved hands ran over the contents of the suitcase and then maliciously hovered over an exquisite butterfly knife. They plucked the weapon from the suitcase and soon the Frenchman was right by the captive's side again, holding the opened knife against his chest.
"Let the games begin, oui?" Francis asked, smirking, and cut into the shorter man's uniform, cutting through the coarse, sweat-soaked material and pushing slightly harder to have the blade graze against the man's soft skin. The chains rattled as the captured man tried to writhe away from the stinging sensation, but that merely angered the Frenchman who grabbed the two halves of fabric and tore them away from one another, exposing the other's torso.
"Let us start with calling you what you really are, hm?" France pressed the specially sharpened knife against the man's skin again, but this time cutting through it, deeper and deeper, and hot, red blood trickled down the captive's torso, leaving a dripping dark-vermilion trail after the intricate design the torturer was making. The smaller man was in excruciating pain and cried out in agony, wriggling around in the chains, only making it worse as the Frenchman cut deeper than he even intended a few times.
Finally, Francis retracted the blade and marveled at his own work, wiping one of the blood drips, smearing it across the now-crying man's chest. The word "DISGRACE" was written in the crimson color of red across the captive's entire slim torso.
He whimpered as the blood began dripping lower and lower, swimming across his abdomen and then slowly starting to stain his sage-green pants. He thought, "nothing can be worse than this," as he gritted his teeth and cried in pain and exasperation at the burning spreading across his entire chest. Just then, France was right back on him, this time doing something twice as bad, something as horrendously atrocious as the man's very worst nightmares.
France laughed barbarically and said, "Let's get those bloodstained pants off, petite pute."
"LUDWIIIIIIIIIIIIIG!"