3:00 AM, August 15th, 1914

A shrieking ring in Ivan's ears pulled him back into reality. His head spun heavily and all he could see around him was total and utter destruction. People running and screaming. Mothers holding their children's limp bodies in their arms, wailing and sobbing in the rubble of their ruined family home. Fathers desperately calling their sons names in an effort to find them. Bullets flying in every direction, piercing the hearts of the very young and the very old.

He began to hear a low echo of yells coming from behind him and he snapped his head around, which pulled him out of his trance-like state of perturbation. The soldier he knew as Eduard was calling his name at an alarming pitch. All of a sudden, he realised why. The moss-green iron shell of a grenade lay beside him, softly ticking. His eyes widened as he began to internally panic, running as fast he could away from the time-delay bomb. Launching himself into the dirt when he prayed he was far enough away for the explosive to take his life, he covered his head with his hands as tightly as he could and squeezed his eyes shut.

He began to sing to himself. A sweet lullaby his mother would sing to him and his sisters when they were unable to sleep as children. He opened his eyes hesitantly and his arm was grabbed roughly by another soldier. 'You are okay, Braginski.' the fighter assured him as he pulled Ivan up from the dirt, running away with another soldier back into the open battle. He almost started to cry. He just wanted to go home. He didn't want any of this.

'Come on Ivan, you can do this. You need to stay alive. For mother, for father, for Natalya and Yekaterina. They need you.' His mind repeated over and over again.

Ivan stood up straight, he dusted himself off and sprinted across the ground to the fresh corpse of one of his own.

Picking up his rifle, he closed his eyes to spare his memory the horrific image before him and frisked the soldier's pockets for bullets. He sighed in relief as he felt the familiar conical shape of the bullets they trained with and shoved them quickly into his own front pocket. Emotions were high on Ivan's end as he respectfully shut the glassy-blue, lifeless eyes of his comrade.

He ran towards a ruin of a house as fast as he could in order to buy himself some extra time to reload the rifle. Throwing himself onto his knees, he fumbled frenetically to get one bullet into the gun and needed a moment to collect himself.

Once the rifle was fully loaded, he placed it on the ground, took a deep breath and stood up again. He could the cock of a rifle come from behind him. A German soldier stood behind him, holding a gun against his back, 'Dreh Dich um.' was all Ivan was told in a raspy voice as he slowly began to turn to face his opponent. The man wore a long, royal blue coat that was draped in a white sash and brooches of his accomplishments. He wore a thick black hat and had piercing red eyes and hair that was just that bit lighter than Ivan's with a silver tint.

'Warum bist du hier?' the man asked. Ivan didn't know how or what to answer so he stood in silence with his arms behind his back, one of his hands holding the blade he kept in his back pants pocket beside the key to where he hid the American earlier that evening.

'Gib mir eine Antwort' the soldier spat at Ivan angrily. Their eyes met as Ivan narrowed his, grip tightening on the shaft of his blade.

'Gilbert!' a much deeper voice called from behind the ruins the two were currently facing off in. 'Bruder?' Ivan's opponent replied as he slowly lowered his gun and turned to face the direction the voice was coming from.

The moment he turned around, Ivan picked up his rifle and booked it over the rubble and ran as fast as he could into a crowd of other fighting soldiers, a string of angry curses in German coming from behind him. He shot his way through his rivals and back to where his group was stationed earlier that night, the tavern, which was now a safe area. Unfortunately, in the midst, he also left a lot of innocent civilians dead and wounded.

Once at the tavern, he threw his rifle onto the ground and himself with it, leaning against the wall. Emitting a soft whine of disapproval, he looked down at his uniform which was covered in blood and dirt. He tilted his head back against the wall and stared at the sky as faint gunshots, screams and cries filled his ears from deeper into the town.

He stayed like that for a while until one of his comrades found him, yelling over at him that they had won this battle and that Königsberg was now under Russian rule. The gunshots and fighting stopped at about 7 AM that morning and it was finally safe again. All surviving Prussian soldiers were seized and imprisoned and the living civilians were put under strict rule and watch by the General.

Ivan was, again, left to his own devices at the tavern as the other soldiers were helping clear the bodies from the town.

He took the key to the cellar from his back pocket and jammed it into the end of the padlock while removing the piece of wood from the handles with his now-bandaged hand.

He opened the doors and to his surprise, Alfred was already standing at the fourth step up, staring up at him in relief as he had been down in the cellar for hours without food. Luckily, the dark room was used as a storage unit for water, beer and spirits.

'Hurry up and follow me.' Ivan whispered sternly as he grabbed the American by the arm and helped him up the stairs. The two of them ran quickly through the streets so Ivan wouldn't be seen by the others.

Alfred's face took on a horrified expression as they passed the lifeless corpses of men, women and children sprawled across the area as Russian soldiers hauled them together onto a pile. Right beside the pile, they were putting together a bonfire to burn the bodies in. Without a single ounce of remorse.

They ran until they arrived at a small shallow river that flowed over stone slabs and had a light brown, brick bridge casting over it. Alfred followed Ivan down underneath the bridge onto an empty stone slab where they stood and caught their breath.

'So-' Alfred panted out, 'Are you gonna fill me in on what the HELL is going on?'

'I just saved your life. You should be saying 'Thank you, Ivan.'' Ivan responded, tone laced with sarcasm.

'Fine...Thank you, Ivan.' Alfred mumbled his gratitude with a light blush.

TRANSLATIONS:

'Dreh dich um' - 'Turn around'

'Warum bist du hier?' - 'Why are you here?'

'Gib mir eine Antwort' - 'Give me an answer'

'Bruder' - 'Brother'

aye lol rusame gettin closer in the next chap finally