A.N. has more info. It was rather interesting.

I bring the ax down for what must be the hundereth time today, though three months is far too long to still be keeping count. Clap! Clap! Clap! The sound never leaves, even in my sleep. My only relief is that this will be the last time I have to do this horrible job. With a final swing, I fall to the ground. My Nation Strength is used up, making way for the sickness to take control. Happily, I surrender to sleep.

I awake in my bunk. Turning my head, I nudge the man next to me to see if he's still alive.

He responds with a low moan.

"How are you doing?" As if I need to ask.

"Worse. I don't think I'll live to see morning." My comrade hacks multiple times before continuing "It's so unfair, isn't it, surviving so long. I actually thought I'd go home one day. Cruel fate."

If only he knew. "Now that you mentioned it, I don't think it would be fair to tell you."

"What?"

"It's nothing."

"Surely it's can't be that bad."

"You won't be jealous?"

"No."

I sigh. "I'm going home tomorrow."

His face light up. "That's wonderful, I'm so happy for you."

"Not that home; my prison in Moscow."

"Still, you get to leave this hellhole. Maybe you can even escape-..."

"We don't speak of escaping. I'll leave when the time is right; one way or another..." I sigh, dreamily.

"Thinking of freedom?"

"I'm sorry."

My comrade nods understandingly. "Don't be. I can celebrate your fortune, even if I will never have it myself. How did you manage to fight so long anyway?"

"That one would just raise too many questions, but I promise, you'll know it soon enough." I'll make sure of that.

"My family lives near Moscow."

"You told me."

"Well, I was thinking, if one of your guards would happen to know them. Maybe they could give them my love."

"Perhaps that could be arranged."

"Thank you. Would you mind if I went back to sleep."

"Not at all. Thanks for being my friend."

"Same. Goodbye, Gilbert."

"Goodbye, Alistair."

I open my eyes to pitch black. It's freezing. All around there is the horrible feeling of being crushed. I can't move. I can't breathe. I'm falling. Falling back into the Darkness...

Light. A figure. It lifts me into the light and throws a long coat over my bare shoulders. I collapse onto the snow. A coat, snow. "I'm not dead," I groan.

"Of course not," the figure, a man in a guard's uniform, replies. "How was Gulag? Much more lenient, not that you would know." I almost bite my tongue off.

"Hypocrite!" I mutter. My face is pushed into the snow.

"What was that?"

"You were just to bring me here. Germany will never repeat such horrors for so long as it will live."

"Much better."

I look behind me at the pile of bodies I was previously laying on. "There was a man, Alistair Lapotnikov."

"Number 24... Death by Pneumonia… Husband and father … Wrongly accused of speaking out against the Motherland... And there he goes. That's the thing about the average dead. Once they're gone, they're just random names with no known past. Pretty sad, yes."

"Of course, seeing how much you care about them." He really does care for his fallen; he just has a rather somewhat strange way of showing it, i.e. this stupid personal avengance. "I guess I'll add him to the list."

"He wasn't killed by the war. Speaking of which, I'll make this thirty thousand. Ten for each month."

"Thank you." 3,834,000 down, 10,116,000 to go.

"Now why did you mention him?"

"He was-... we slept in the same bunk, kept an eye on each other for safety reasons." I wouldn't dare imply that I had any friendly relations to one of his precious children, even a fellow prisoner. It would be insulting. "I told him I would see if you could visit his family; tell them he loves them. For his sake."

"I'll see what I can do. Now let's go."