4.
When the wounded and fatigued peasant and his wife entered the yard, they stopped again, taking in the scene of wholesale slaughter my swarms had left behind.
After a moment, the man started to utter short, monosyllabic words in a harsh tone, a whole torrent of them.
A second later, I realized with a mental hiccup that he was cursing like a sailor.
His wife stood still beside him until he seemed to run out of expletives, then she started to pull him in the direction of my hiding place.
I felt anticipation and mild anxiety run through me, but they spiked into outright fear when I sensed the farmer bend over next to the corpse of one of the thugs, only to come back up with a submachine gun in his gnarled hands.
The pair started walking again, and I had only seconds before they would spot me.
"I won't die at the hands of my would be saviors, no way!" I resolved fiercely, battling back the scared teenager inside and pulling up my "hero mindset", however flawed it had shown itself to be by not rescuing the toddler in time and mass murdering a dozen people.
Their first look at me had to show them a hurt young girl in urgent need of help, not a freak hiding behind a scary mask. Without further deliberation, I reached up and took the disguise off - better to be known by people whose lives I'd saved, than to be shot by them at point blank range.
My still slightly wet hair fell down, framing my face, which I forced to show a weak but visible smile. No time like the present to meet your destiny, right?
Flickering candle light fell on me.
They were there, two people in their mid- forties, he with broad and weathered features, the left side of his face swollen and his eyes wide in shocked disbelieve as he mustered my appearance.
The gun hung loosely in his hand, pointing at the ground and obviously forgotten.
His intense gaze traveled over my whole body, first to my face, then down, stopping at my breastplate and my legs, and I felt my face flush from utter embarrassment. What was his problem?
The woman, who was wearing a head scarf and a traditional costume, including a checkered apron, had stood back and looked on warily, but now clucked with her tongue in obvious disapproval of her husband's fascination with me.
In swift, determined motions, she untied her skirting, stepped up to me, and threw the cloth over my midriff, so that only my head and my feet could still be seen.
"Wow, my rescuers have some very strange priorities," I thought with a mix of lingering abashment and a tiny bit of humor. What next, would they scold me for inappropriate attire in the midst of the carnage that was their yard?
But no, the farmer had taken control of his senses again at his wife's intervention, and said something to me, just a few words that I interpreted as a greeting.
The tone of his voice didn't give me any hints at his further intentions towards me, it was rough but not unfriendly, cautious and neutral seemed a fitting description.
Well, maybe he or the woman spoke English as a second language? Hope springs eternal, after all.
"Hi, my name is Taylor and I'm glad to meet you," I said pleasantly, with the same fake smile I'd kept plastered to my face for the whole time.
Going by the very confused looks they exchanged, I could forget about an easy way to get through to them. Damn!
I pointed to myself with a shakily lifted finger and repeated only my name, going for the clearest possible pronunciation.
This seemed to work better- the farmer thumped his chest with his gun hand and declared himself to be "Jaromierz".
I nodded in understanding and looked over to the woman, who finished our little naming ritual by introducing herself as "Basia".
It fit with what I had surmised before about the language used by the translator - these were clearly eastern European names. I'd had some lingering doubts about my whereabouts before, but now it seemed pretty darned sure that I wasn't „in Kansas anymore", as the saying goes.
"Stop woolgathering!" I told myself.
There was no time just now to dwell on my utterly bizarre displacement to wherever this was. I urgently needed shelter, water, food and to see a doctor.
I laid a hand onto my chest carefully and grimaced, pantomiming pain as best as I could.
The farmer and his wife looked on uncomprehendingly.
Ugh, they were dense!
I pointed at the MP in his right hand and produced a series of rapid "Bang, Bang, Bang!" noises that sounded more like beat boxing than the terrible snarl of the real machine gun that hit me.
I trained the finger back at me and stabbed myself into the chest with it.
"Ahh!"
There was no need to fake the hurt expression this time, because I'd overdone the motion in my eagerness to explain. The injury ached as if someone was prodding my ribcage with a dagger.
My impromptu bout of self- harming had gone through to the pair, because after an exchange of a few words, the farmer - „Jaromierz" was his name, I reminded myself - walked away as quick as he could, while Basia kneeled beside me and started to talk to me in a low and soft tone that was obviously meant to sooth me.
The pain faded only very slowly, and for a minute or two, I just concentrated on Basia's murmuring.
It was a foreign language, but Basia had a mother's knack to induce calm through her voice alone, and it was like a balm to me, especially after being isolated from any human contact for days.
Jaromierz returned shortly, pulling a hay filled trolley behind him.
He had visible difficulty to manage the work due to his injury, but carried on determinedly until he had placed the small vehicle directly by my side.
The next minutes were filled with a lot of embarrassment and pain, as the two tried their best to help me into the cart without either hurting me or touching my privates.
I sighed in relieve when it was finally done and I rested on the hay, surrounded by its fresh herbal scent.
Jaromierz started to pull the cart towards the house while Basia pushed from behind.
I closed my eyes quickly when we reached the yard, horrified by the view of the dead goons and murdered child from close by.
Yes, I had done this, by hesitating too long and lashing out with lethal force, but that didn't mean I had to see the swollen blue faces and glassy dead eyes right now.
Bile rose in my empty stomach in reaction to the shit- stench of death hanging over the place, and I had to force it down several times as the trolley bumped its way through the butchery I'd done.
The low but nearly constant neighing of the tethered horses made the atmosphere even more eerie, and I was relieved when we arrived at the smashed front door.
Luckily, the cart was small enough to pass through the entrance, and Jaromierz simply went on into the house.
They brought me to a small room beside the kitchen, furnished with just a wooden bed and a roughly timbered side table.
A gruesome crucifix hung on one of the whitewashed walls, the deep suffering on Jesus' bloody face reflecting my the pain I felt as Basia and her husband hoisted me onto the bed.
They'd been as careful as possible, but moving my torso sent stabs of white hot agony through me and tears to my eyes.
I lay on the soft mattress, totally winded and unable to utter a single word, not to speak of miming.
When the slow ebbing of the pain allowed me to concentrate on something else than keeping my screams of distress inside, I noticed that my two rescuers were still standing beside the bed, whispering to each other.
They looked helpless and confused, and were surely as overwhelmed by all that had happened to them as I myself.
I didn't blame them, they had just lost a grandchild, seen a massacre committed by bugs, and been "spoken" to through butterflies and cockroaches.
It was a miracle that they had come out of the house to safe me at all.
"Basia!" I said softly, to get the woman's attention.
They both looked over, and I mimicked taking up a glass, putting it to my lips and drinking. I went on by simulating the use of cutlery, and put morsels of imaginary food to my mouth.
I added a "Please!" in my most polite tone, and struggled to express need and thankfulness in equal measure.
She nodded decidedly, as if she was rather happy that the moment of total strangeness between us had passed, and left the room in quick strides.
Jaromierz stayed back, the thug's gun slung over his shoulder and his hands deep in the pockets of his work jacket.
He leaned against the wall, obviously exhausted by his injury and the exertion of my transport, but there was still a cautious intelligence in his eyes when he examined me with his gaze.
I looked back with fake confidence, trying to put the most open and trustworthy smile I could produce on my face.
There was so much I needed to find out, starting by where I was and not quite ending by the real identity and background of the goons I'd killed.
Despite of that, I couldn't even tell the man in front of me how sorry I was for his granddaughter's murder, how I wished that I'd stopped the Nazi- scum in time.
No, our communication had to happen in an excruciating snail's pace.
There was no break for me, it seemed.
Thinking of the people whose bodies littered the yard outside made me aware that I – or maybe "We" was the operative term now – needed to get rid of them.
There were unknown numbers of those bastards out there, including ones in warplanes.
They would come looking for their comrades, and if they found a single trace of what happened here, they would probably kill everyone in the farm without a thought.
I couldn't leave this place before I had at least eaten my fill and rested, but I would really prefer to stay until a doctor could see me.
Trying to run from armed men in my condition and in unknown surroundings was stupid, and if I was honest with myself, quite impossible.
Deciding that solving the "corpse problem" should be my first priority, I summoned a crew of bugs into the room, to act as my supers in another act of improvised theater.
Jaromierz jerked away from the wall when the butterflies came in, but he calmed down somewhat when he saw them landing on the wall in a familiar pattern.
When the likeness of the farm had formed, I pointed at it, then back to me, indicating that I was responsible for it.
He nodded slowly, but I could tell that Jaromierz was still very much bewildered and scared by the displays of my power he'd seen.
That didn't bode well for me, because it probably meant that he had never heard about capes and powers before, but I pushed that thought down.
Concentration!
Gesturing in the direction of my bugs, I snipped with my fingers, and started to play out everything that had happened.
It went exactly like in my first "bug show", but after my rescue had been shown, I added a huge group of cockroaches that descended on the farm from every direction.
They "found" the ones symbolizing the bodies outside, and instantly stormed the "farmhouse", tearing it apart and killing the "inhabitants".
Jaromierz looked back and forth between me and the bugs, baffled and scared, and I felt my frustration rise another notch.
The man had seen the first "play" and had reacted as if he understood its meaning! Why was he faltering now that we needed to act and hide the corpses?
Maybe I should've shown him what I wanted him to do, not what I feared would happen?
Getting replacements for the killed insects into the room took only minutes, which I used to run a short check on everything in my range.
I sighed in relieve when my bugs couldn't find any living humans or other threats in the surroundings of the farm. There was still time.
Basia came in a moment later and put a huge mug full of cool water into my hands.
She didn't look at the bugs on the wall, just waited until I'd taken a deep draft of the deliciously clean liquid and thanked her, before she bustled out again, all business now.
The second attempt to make Jaromierz understand what needed to be done went better.
Maybe it was because I pointed back and forth repeatedly between him and the firefly playing his role, maybe because he had just needed time to wrap his mind around my alien bug- drama, but he finally grasped what I wanted.
I could actually see how realization set in on his roughly hewn features, because his face fell and he closed his eyes with a despondent moan that spoke of both his fatigue and emotional turmoil.
When he looked at me again, he shook his head slowly and pointed to his swollen face and to his legs.
It understood that he didn't feel ready to do the clean-up, but that didn't make it less necessary or urgent.
Waiting for morning would be a suicidal risk, and I tried to make him understand that by nodding firmly and looking as severe as I could.
I pointed at the frozen scene on the wall, where several fireflies had shoved "dead" Nazi- cockroaches into the pretend- river.
"This must be done now!" I declared, emphasizing the pressing need through my deep inflection and clipped tone.
Jaromierz started to deny my demand again, but was interrupted by Basia, who came in carrying a tray filled with heavenly smelling food.
My stomach reported for duty at once and grumbled like a bear, which made both Basia and her husband smile a bit.
She placed the tray on my lap and I felt my mouth water at the mere sight.
There was steaming broth in a huge terrine, a big chunk of brown bread, some huge onions and even a sliver of butter.
This meal was probably be a rich one, going by the standards of this family, at least judging by the condition of the farm, and I thanked Basia insistently, despite her gestured prompt to just start eating.
When I felt I had made my gratitude for their generosity unambiguously clear, I attacked the food like a starved girl.
Reflecting on it while I stuffed myself, I realized that I could actually be counted as "starved" after three days without nourishment.
While I inhaled the soup, I heard the two discuss lowly, and I could see Jaromierz point to the still "paused" bug show out of the corner of my eye.
"Maybe Basia will come up with an idea." I thought hopefully.
Some confidence in my future seemed to return with every spoonful of soup and bite of bread, it was quite peculiar.
And here I thought endorphin was only discharged when you ate chocolate!
The warmth of the broth and the filling bread worked to make me drowsy within minutes, I had to fight to keep my eyes open while I ate everything in front of me, even the onions. They weren't as fiery as I'd expected.
When I finally finished and leaned back into the pillow, I saw that one of the couple had fetched the younger woman into "my" room.
She stood between them and stared at my bug display, while Basia and Jaromierz talked at her by turns. Their voices were lowered, but I thought I caught urgency in their tone.
Something was going on between them, but I couldn't motivate myself to think about what this meant.
Simply put, I didn't care just now.
I felt safe and full for the first time in ages, and it would be so nice to just close my eyes and drift…
Worm/ Worm/
Worm/
I came to with a start, but kept my eyes shut, informed to do so by an instinct I didn't know I had.
To my consternation, there were three men in the room with me.
I could hear them talk between themselves in the incomprehensible language of this place, but what really startled me was the data gathered by my bugs.
The corpses of the thugs were gone, as were most of their horses.
Only three of the animals remained, and they were tended to by a man in civilian clothes.
The horseflies scurrying over his chest sensed a bulge on his left side - he was carrying a concealed pistol under his jacket!
There weren't enough swarming insects for it to be after sunrise, and I felt sure that much had happened in the short hours since I fell asleep.
I really regretted that nap right now.
The farming family had made up some plan, and the new situation was surely a result of it, but due to my own phlegmatic behavior, I'd missed the crucial moments.
I squinted through my eyelashes to get a good look at the men in my room, and felt relieved when I spotted Jaromierz sitting right next to my bed.
He looked very exhausted, but wasn't harmed further than he had been, or constrained in any way.
On his right sat a man in his forties, who wore blue workingman's trousers and a fitting coat.
His flat cap was fatty and threw shadows over his features, but what I could spot of them sent a shiver down my spine.
This guy was something else – he had the look of a hungry wolf, muscular and lean, with deep creases in the tightly spanned skin of his face.
His eyes were a piercing gray, and the expression he wore while talking to Jaromierz was fierce and demanding.
Combined with his body language, he gave of a vibe I'd only noticed on very few people until now – tense but self- assured, ready to jump at a moments notice and at the same time slack as a resting leopard.
He reminded me of Sophia Hess, and that wasn't a compliment.
The third person in the chamber was a man in his early twenties, who was standing up at the wall, and was evidently junior to the tough guy.
He wore the same blue- collar clothes as his older companion, but they didn't fit his elegant hairstyle and the silver-coated eyeglasses resting on his nose.
His face was open, and his soft brown eyes, slightly enlarged by his glasses, seemed to reflect a friendly and outgoing character.
While I'd mustered them stealthily, I had ordered bugs of all variations into the room, just in case.
I'd placed some of the flying ones on the newcomer's bodies, and now found that they too were armed, in the case of the older, scary guy, with both a pistol and a long dagger strapped to his lower leg.
Whatever had been arranged, whoever these new people were, I wouldn't find out about it through playing possum.
I yawned loudly, blinked like I thought a waking person would, and looked at the three men in front of me.
"Ah, awake now," the older guy said in a gruff, heavily accented voice, and gave me a rather sharkish smile.
It took a few seconds until my thoughts had caught up to my senses, then I jerked in surprise.
I stared at them open mouthed, still not fully realizing that my time of ridiculous pantomiming was over.
At least one person here spoke English!
"Who are you?" I sputtered finally, crossing my arms in front of me, and wishing that I had my mask at hand to hide my identity, as well as my shock and accompanying weakness.
When he answered, his tone was a mixture of amusement and practiced assertiveness.
"My name is Commander Komarov, Red Army Partisan Batallion of Pinsk."
