***A SMALL FACT***

You are going to die.

But you most likely already knew that.

***ANOTHER SMALL FACT***

This is not my story to tell.

Very few of the stories I tell are truly my stories. Being, after all, only a result of life, I do not have many stories of my own. But there are certain stories I consider mine to tell. My story is, among others, that of Liesel Meminger. This is not the story of Liesel Meminger, though they do overlap quite a lot, and I will make the occasional cameo appearance. After all, on a street named after Heaven, you can only go so long without running into someone else's story.

The story of Silke Amsel belongs to another, and she will do a much better job of telling it than I would in any case. I'm not the sentimental type, and Silke's story is decidedly one of sentiment. Honestly, I'd probably just bore you.

The "She" in question is, I guess, one that a human would liken to being a sister to me, though neither of us would describe our partnership as anything so common. She decides who I take and who I leave – up to the point where her sentimentality gets in the way and I or another has to make the hard decisions. That was the case for Rudy Steiner. I certainly didn't want to take him, and she didn't want to see him go. She had so much more planned for him than he ever got.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Again.

***A TRANSITION***

For this is not my story.

For now, I bid you all adieu. I leave you in the capable hands and words of your new narrator.

Getting straight to the point, I will not bore you with introducing myself. After all, you aren't here to listen to my story - only one that is mine to tell. I will begin, instead, with introducing you to our dear heroine, Silke Amsel.

If you follow the events of Silke Amsel's life far enough, you will find that unlike most great people, her story really did start with her birth - in Stuttgard, in 1918. Because when Silke was born, her mother died. I had a run-in with my brother that day, for as I stood over the pale infant in the crib, about to place a kiss on her forehead - an apology for all she would have to face in her future - he appeared behind me, gently lifting Krista Amsel's soul from her weakened, sweaty body. He would later tell me that as he pulled her away, though she was weak and limp in his arms, he could hear her screaming for the child who would never know her - to be let go, taken back. It was useless, of course. As he faded away, her body went limp, and Silke started to scream - wanting to be given to a mother who could no longer hold her.

I needed to go.

I reached down into the crib, intending to brush back the fine strands of pale blonde hair as a gesture of something resembling comfort. Instead, one of her tiny fists reached up and caught my finger.

Her crying suddenly halted and her eyes opened to stare at me with far more awareness than a newborn should have.

"I'm sorry," I murmured to her, before pulling my finger free, and turning to leave. The last thing I heard was a shout from the hall as Krista's body was discovered.

The next major development in the life of Silke Amsel was the day she got out of school half an hour early.

She was thirteen years old, though her body remained convinced she was still 12. Her hips were still narrow and her chest still flat - though her face, with its large blue eyes and high cheekbones, was certainly developing into something that might be called "pretty". Her pale blonde hair was worn long in two pigtails which rested on the shoulders of her worn coat.

Silke's eyes brightened with excitement when she spotted her brother in a crowd of boys on a nearby corner then her forehead creased as she frowned. The boys were...fighting?

She quickened her pace, pushing through the outside circle of boys until she was close enough to get a good look at the center. I followed close behind. My job had already been done, but when I can, I do like to see the results of my work. None of the boys felt my presence the way Silke did.

When she finally broke through to the front of the throng, Silke was shocked by what she was seeing. Her brother, Mathias, was there - tall and slim, a shock of pale blonde hair trained back from his face to reveal his wide blue eyes, much like her own. His fists were raised as he faced off against a boy about the same age as him, but that was where the similarities ended. The boy opposite her brother had yet to hit his own growth spurt and stood only an inch or two taller than Silke herself and was wire thin. His hair was thick and dark and his eyes were thick and dark. Both boys already had scraped knuckles. Mathias had a split lip and the other boy had a lovely bruise blooming on his right cheek.

As I'm sure you may have already figured out, the other boy was Max Vandenburg.

The two circled each other for long seconds when Mathias locked eyes with Silke over Max's bony shoulder. His eyes widened and Max, seeing the distraction, seized the moment and lunged for his opponent, landing a punch on Mathias' jaw. He managed to turn his head in time that it didn't hit him too squarely, the smaller boy's fist glancing to the side, but it still had to hurt. As Mathias lurched forward to retaliate, Max leapt back and the boys fell back into their pattern of circling.

Silke watched with wide eyes, her heart going fast as the boys threw and dodged punches in a sort of violent parody of a tennis match. Her fingers clenched in her skirt as she watched Max land a punch on her brother's chest, knocking the wind out of him, and then in his stomach. Mathias managed to get one on Max's right cheek, briefly knocking him back as the bruise already there deepened but before long, he was back at full and had somehow knocked Mathias to the ground - making Silke let out a small shriek that was not quite lost in the voices as the crowd of boys started counting. Max's eyes flicked to her, following the sound and his eyebrows went up, his mouth popping open just a fraction. Silke noticed his eyes for the first time. She had thought they were just brown at first - the eyes of your average Jew, dark and murky. They were not.

Pale, safe blue locked with dark, mossy green and I sighed with contentment. My work was done for now. Just as the gathered boys reached ten and cheers went up, I drifted away. From the corner of my vision, I could see Mathias climbing to his feet and raising Max Vandenburg's hand into the air. Max didn't even seem to notice.

It was many years before I saw Silke again. As she flitted around the cramped, yet surprisingly bare, apartment, making sure she hadn't forgotten anything before locking up, I reached delicately into her emergency bag just before she lifted it, dislodging one of the items.

The air raid sirens were urging her on, though, and she didn't hear it or see it fall to the ground, and it wasn't until she was halfway down the stairs of the shelter, bringing up the rear, when she realized it wasn't there.

Silke froze, horror-struck, before whipping around and flying back up the stairs. Voices called after her but she ignored them. Her feet were quick and light and nearly silent on the broken pavement of Himmel Street and the moon was high and bright overhead, illuminating everything like a cruelly sweet spotlight. It wasn't until she was on her way back to the shelter - moving somewhat slower, since she definitely couldn't hear any planes - that she saw it. No, not it.

Him.

A figure stood in the center of the road, his head thrown back in what could only be described as euphoria. He turned slowly in a circle, admiring the sky. As he faced her, Silke could see the wide smile that split his face like a crack in drywall. It was a nearly perfect image, looking at the tall man standing there, his arms spread wide in amazement as he watched the stars. Then the wind shifted, pulling at Silke's pale hair. It caught the moonlight and the man's trance was broken as his eyes snapped to her. The smile vanished, replaced by what could only be described as terror.

Silke's eyes met his, and even in the blue-grey wash of the moonlight, she could see it.

Dark brown hair floated like paper caught in a breeze around the dark moss green eyes that stared back at her.

Her mind processed all of this at what felt like an agonizingly slow pace, but it was only mere seconds later when her mouth formed the single word that saved them both.

"Max?"

Things I discovered today:

1. Writing fight scenes is hard.

2. Writing scenes with next to no dialogue is hard.

3. I'm glad to have this part done with.

Thanks to Hannah for coaching and coaxing me though the process and helping me work out backstory details and such. I'm also fairly aware that this is basically one small step up from a shameless self-insert but I can't really be bothered because I like Silke and also Max is adorable.