War… such a simple word. Three letters, very easy to pronounce… easy to make fun of. But represents a very terrible thing. Behind that word is a history of mankind. Our ancestors, ourselves, our future. We are destined to fight each other, we are like that, it's our nature. Even though there will always be those who stand up against the bad ones, it can only end up in more fighting.

Our story begins in such a time. Evil men were conquering other nations, enslaving or killing their people. Worst and bloodiest war off all eras. No conflict was ever so full of blood and death. World War II.

We are in a city lying on a certain famous river in Soviet Union. Once a great and peaceful town was now nothing but rumble. Not even a single house stood unharmed. For months now, have Soviet soldiers fought to keep their lines, but essentially, were pushed back house after house. They fought hard, but there were just too few of them. They had no chance and yet… here they were. Fighting Germans with everything they had. The city was theirs and nobody was going to take it.

Such was their battlefield. Their prison.

Stalingrad.

High above what used to be square, in a half crumbled building, was a person in grey cloak. It was a girl and a young one at that. Strands of pale red hair were hanging out from underneath her cloak as she was lying on highest floor. Her sniper rifle was aiming out, into a street on the other side of square. There, she saw several Wehrmacht officers and soldiers preparing for an assault. Her task was to stop them.

Right beside her, hidden behind a pillar was a radio. As she was sure of the position of the enemy, she put down her rifle and reached for the radio. While putting an earpiece to her ear, she spun the dynamo few times. Then she heard voice from the other side "62nd army artillery here."

"This is Scout 9." Girl replied "Enemy on coordinates 6 20. Repeat 6 20. 6 tigers, several SS and a lot of other Nazi bastards."

"Rodger. Coordinates 6 20." Came a reply "Stay for conformation. We'll show them hell."

Girl put down the ear piece and picked up her rifle again. She looked through her scope and aimed at the enemy position. Then she heard it. Familiar whistling from right behind her. She saw into faces of Wehrmacht soldiers. The moment they heard the whistling, they knew it was too late to do anything. First she saw flashes almost blinding her, then a thunderous sound. Dust flew up and created a thick cloud of dust. This was a good sign. At least for the girl.

Few minutes later, the artillery stopped. Cloud of dust was slowly settling and as it did, it revealed the result. All 6 tanks lied there in flames. 3 had torn off towers, 2 were hit into engines and 1 was just full of holes. Those very few soldiers that survived and made it out of the rumbles were quickly taken care of by girl's rifle.

With a satisfied smirk, girl picked up the radio earpiece "Good kill guys. My next share of Vodka is yours."

"Rodger that. I'll take you on that one."

Girl quickly crawled back a little and picked up her things. She had to change her position, while still keeping good view over the area. But since there pretty much couldn't be anyone who would see flashes of her rifle, especially in bright light of noon sun, she didn't have to move that much. She just ran to the other side of building and stayed there. She was to wait and report any movement of the Paulus soldiers.

For rest of day there was nothing else to do. No more bigger movement from Nazi. At least not in this part of town. The night was falling onto Russian soil. Cold was already becoming unbearable as young girl soldier was walking down a street towards Volga River, where her comrades were. She knew she had already passed several layers of defense on her way there, even though they were very hard to spot.

"Hey guys." She said walking to a group of Soviet soldiers around a campfire.

"Ah, Bloom, it is good to see you're still all right." Said one of them making room on a bench for young comrade.

Girl took down her hood and revealed her pale white skin and red hair. It was very obvious she was poorly fed and had some hard times behind her. Her eyes were bright blue. She sat down beside her fellow soldiers "Yeah. It's good to see all of you here too."

"Heard you promised artillery guys your share of Vodka."

Bloom smirked "Seemed fair to me. I am a minor, so I cannot drink and they hit the target really good."

There was a brief silence. Above fire was a bowl of bean soup. One soldier picked up and empty bowl and put some into it before handing it over to Bloom "Here you go."

"Thanks." She said and immediately dig in.

Her comrades just stared at her with thoughtful and concerned looks. Finally, one of them broke the awkward silence "I know we shouldn't question orders… but why would Comrade Stalin send you to front lines and to worst place at that."

"What do you mean?" Bloom asked looking up from her dinner "Am I a bad soldier?"

"Oh no…" everyone said in unison shaking their heads. Another one continued "It's just that… you're a child… and a girl."

"You should be far from here, maybe even behind Ural."

"He's right. Children are not supposed to be anywhere near such fights. I mean… you're just 16."

Bloom looked down uncertainly "I… I'd like to tell you everything. But… Stalin told me not to reveal it. Not even to my closest friends and family. That is if I had any left."

Another silence filled the air. They all knew Bloom had a huge deal of suffering behind herself. She managed to escape from grasp of death itself. A place… where nobody can survive for long. Place where nobody could live. And only one sentence, one lie was keeping some alive 'Arbeit macht frei'.

I wander if anyone will know what place I mean here. No searching, no googling. I'd like to know how many of you know that place of death.

Bloom however wasn't sad at all. She tilted her head to right and just smiled. Soldiers saw Bloom as their own daughter and were giving her all luxury they could. Her smile was the only thing keeping them fighting. If they can survive one more day, just to see her warm smile, it was worth it. Nobody knew how she could smile in a time like this, some could even find it offending and disgraceful, but nobody could be angry at her.

As night went on, soldiers went to beds. Bloom's tent was in the back of the camp, right next to river. If something happened, she would be in biggest safety. Stalin's only order was that she would be safe during sleep. Other than that she was to serve under her superiors just as any normal soldier. Since she excelled with sniper rifle, she got duty of a sniper. She was to kill any soldier she'd find, report any activity and give targets to artillery on the other side of river.

Morning came sooner than Bloom would like to. It almost seemed as if she just fell in her bed. But she needed to get to her position before sunrise. Her area wasn't too frequent due to large number of fallen buildings that were making roads unavailable to use. Troopers had hart time advancing and tanks had no chance to cross these barriers.

She was simply walking through dark roads. She was rather small in size, yet strong enough to lift herself up these barricades and make it over them. When she made it to her nest she hurried up the stairs and quickly hurried to her prepared position. Warm thick blanket was lying before a hole in wall and right beside it was her radio.

She took a rifle off her back and lied down on her blanket. Through her scope, she was observing and waiting just like any other day. She heard gunfire and explosions that were going throughout entire city. She wanted to head out and help them, but she knew that her task was just as important. If she wasn't there to spot German forces coming, she would endanger south wing of her comrades. Plus all things considered, her kill count was way higher than an average Soviet warrior. Even though most of those kills was by artillery.

Day was slowly going by. Fights were becoming fiercer as enemy airforce bombed their positions. But then came Soviet artillery. German tanks ran in and Soviet molotovs took care of them. Besides that, all she could hear were guns firing all the time.

But then… something came. A strange noise from the same spot as last time. Bloom quickly turned her rifle at that direction "Same spot as yesterday? Are they nuts?"

She saw Wehrmacht soldiers again. SS in front although… something seemed off. There was a tank, an ordinary tiger, but… this one seemed different. Armor was pitch black, almost giving no reflection at all. It was as if the Nazi cross was just floating on black hole. Barrel was wider and engine wasn't smoking. Considering how these tanks were built… it was almost impossible.

The SS then turned and talked with someone. Bloom couldn't get a clear view since that person was behind the tank. Well… that didn't matter anyway. Bloom put down her rifle and picked the radio "This is Scout 9. Enemy in Coordinates 6 20. Repeat, 6 20. SS, several soldiers and I think 4… Tigers."

She hesitated how to call those tanks.

"Rodger that." Came a reply "6 20. Ha, Germans must be desperate if they use the same tactic 2 following days. Scout 9, stay and confirm hit."

Bloom did the same as yesterday. She was observing the enemy. Whistling of shells came and then… explosions? Shells exploded before hitting the target. Bloom was watching it with mouth wide open. Artillery soon stopped and Bloom couldn't believe her eyes as the enemy was still there, talking as if nothing happened.

"What the…"

"Scout 9, report."

"N… negative. The… the… the target… they are still there." Bloom's voice was stuttering.

"Did we miss?"

"No…" Bloom's reply really confused the artillery officer "You… you didn't miss. The shells were going straight at them, but… they just exploded above them."

"WHAT?"

That was when the SS soldier looked Bloom's way. She knew it was a really bad sign and when that tank turned its tower towards her, she could say only one thing "Oh crap…"

The tank fired, but this was not a grenade. Instead, a bright yellow ray of light shot out and hit her position. Luckily, Bloom managed to jump back and get out of its way. However she was nowhere near safe. The ray was cutting through the walls. It burnt her nest completely. She had run away.

She quickly grabbed her rifle and just ran. The ray of light was wide and dangerous, but that wasn't the end of it. She looked left at the tank just in time to see some big impulse of energy fire out of its barrel and following the line of ray it hit the building. Huge surge of fire spread across all floors. From outside, the building just exploded. Half of building was immediately enveloped in flames and just disappeared while the other was blown away in pieces, hitting everything around.

Bloom however… was alive. Barely, but alive. Explosion threw her away and she flew through the crumbling wall and on roof of next building. That was her luck. All of her equipment was gone and she was wounded, badly.

She was barely conscious. Her ears were ringing, her sight was all blurry. Her whole body hurt like hell. She was lying on her belly. As her senses were clearing out. She noticed somebody was standing before her. She could say it was a girl, just by her legs. Bloom tried to get up at least to see who it was, but… that intense pain was just killing her. She couldn't move.

"Still alive I see." Came her voice. She was young. Older than Bloom, but still young. Bloom was really pushing herself trying to get up. Her moans of pain were echoing though now quiet city… wait, quiet? Bloom suddenly realized there was complete quiet all around. No gunfire, no explosions, no sound "Yes, you hear that? Your people have fallen. All it took was one minute."

Bloom was shocked. Such force that it could completely break 62nd and 64th army in only one minute? She didn't have time to think about it as that woman kicked her in side, making her fall down on her back. Bloom's pain was unbearable.

"Look at you." Woman mocked her "You are a soldier? You are barely able to stay alive."

"You, bitch." Bloom just had to curse. Not just it helped her take the pain, but she felt so much hate for this woman.

She kicked her again "Silence you pig. Be grateful I haven't killed you yet. I came here to fight men in battle, not a weak girl." Woman crouched down and grabbed Bloom's throat. She pulled her up and Bloom could finally see her bright orange hair and green eyes "But don't worry. You will burn too. You all will know the great power of Domino."