"The object of war is not to kill for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his."-George S. Patton

Mikhail fired in the trenches, downing one Jerry after another, and letting the adrenaline rush through his veins. In this state of mind, seeing the grey-green helmets fly off the German troops' heads, watching as their dark red organ blood spewed from wounds caused by his lead, was strangely satisfying to the young Russian. He tried to remember not to loose himself, as loosing yourself makes you go mad.

And mad men are not acceptable soldiers.

Yet, such thoughts seemed fuzzy and unimportant in these moments, jumbled up and tossed into one ear and out the other as soon as they popped into his frantic mind. He listened only for one voice, and it wasn't his own. "Over there, behind that rock!" it shouted, barely audible over the sound of screaming and shells going every which way. "Another one, southeast, coming up the hill! Christ, they're everywhere!

Don't just stand there, idiot! Pick up that 40, and start firing!" Obeying, Mikhail scrambled for the PPD-40, a personal favorite of the Sergeant, and whipped around to face a wall of the German Shütze. One of the bastard's took a step forward, and raised his gun in defense. His Russian was extremely poor, that was sure.

The sloppy sentences were broken, consisting of virtually no grammar or correct pronunciation what-so-ever, and Mikhail was sure he heard the phrase "jobannoi v rot" thrown in there. Still, he managed to make out the words "surrender" and "execute". So, they will execute me if I do not comply, he thought. With sharp ears, there was a dull tsk sound from behind him, and a sharp command: "duck!" He dived into the bunker, listening to the sounds of screaming and ripping flesh and bone, and giggling.

Sweet, childish innocence mixed with a darker feeling and the noises of death, noises that still disturbed him, even after all these years. Only when the giggling, and ripping, and crushing echoes stopped bouncing around in his skull, did he have the nerve to peak around the corner. And there she stood, amongst mangled corpses and carnage. Tall and covered in a deep grey greatcoat, ebony hair cascading down to the small of her back in a neat braid. Beautiful and horrifying at the same time.

Slowly, she turned to him, with eye the darkest hue of black you had ever seen, void of all remnants of a soul, and spoke. "Finally. I thought you'd never come out. You piss yourself in there, or what?" Her tone was blatant and flat, inquiring if he had wet himself out of cowardice with as much interest as if he had cleaned his toilet recently.

Scowling with chagrin, Mikhail crawled out of the low wooden box that served as shelter, stood, dusted off his trousers, and snorted at the woman. "No. Did you eat any babies this afternoon," he paused, contemplating if he should call her by her formal name, or just be an ass and go against it. He decided to go with the latter option.

"Hexe."

Explanations of terms you may not understand

Jerry: a name used for the German troops by the Allied nations in the World War II era

PPD-40: Pistolet-Pulemyot Degtyaryova, (Russian: Пистолет-пулемёт Дегтярёва) is a World War II era sub-machine gun originally developed in 1934; mainly used by Soviet boarder guards and NKVD troops

Shütze: a Private in the German Nazi army

"jobannoi v rot": Russian for "fucking shit" (i got this off of a wbesite, and confirmed it with my good friend in russia)

Hexe: German for "witch" (i think it's right. i crossed referenced this word so many times, it's not funny)