Anna was pulled into the real world rather quickly; with the young able men gone from daily life, it was up to the young women to take their place. Anna, like most, had been sent by her mother to the factory districts. The conditions there were unlike anything she has ever experienced before. Blistering heat and humidity, accompanied by the sweat, aching muscles, and constant ringing of hammers on hot metal replaying in her head. All of it was necessary to shape artillery shells for the fronts.

From what Kristoff had said to her in his last letter, the battle was a violent and unnerving stalemate, and from her school house education, she could tell that everything rode on Germany's work force on the homefront. Without an economy, there would be absolutely nothing to fight with.

Recently, the boss had given them the order to speed up production, and Anna knew there was something big on the line. But the people spared the boss their whining, for they were promised a raise from the short period of time.

She worked on one of the assembly lines, using her little strength to hammer down bolts into the sides of the metal casings. Repetitive motions, vibrations of impact that ran up her arm had rendered it in times of rest to an uncontrollable shake. The glove on her hand had rubbed and scratched it's fibers across her skin so much that it had become sensitive every time the gloves were removed. The sweat dried on her palms, leaving behind a putrid and memorable smell; the other sweat poured and wet her arm pits and drenched her work dress, and yet she barely had time to clean herself.

The food during lunch break started off as decent, but eventually turned to grime. The boss was attempting to put the budget more into resources for production and forgot completely about the well-being of the employees. Soon, Anna had grown a tolerance for it, eating ketchup mixed in water; she hadn't vomited as much as before. With a stomach full of cheap and disgusting food, they would go back to work in the uncomfortable and blistering heat. Those that worked in the smelting chamber had it worse; the stomach aches, cramps, hard labor, hellish heat and drenching sweat nearly forced out vomit, sickness, and heat exhaustion. Anna was lucky that she only worked on the assembly line, hammering the same part down, over and over and over again until her arms gave out at the end of each shift.

Workplace deaths were…common, but most of the time they would happen in the smelting chamber. She never saw it happen before her eyes, but she has seen the damage. Sometimes a work dress would catch on fire, and it would burn a poor young girl to a crisp, leaving behind meaty skin of blood and char and nothing but absolute pain. Anna had seen some of them carried away, still very much awake and alive, screaming out in agony as though the devil's fires had engulfed them eternally. She worried about which soul was next to the call, to be sacrificed to the concerns of industry.

Her sister must've been in a more psychologically threatening position, having to play nurse and tend to the good as dead. Her friend, Rapunzel, was the same; the girl was too sweet and innocent to be involved with pain and grief, but then again, so was Anna. The war not only takes lives, but stretches the boundaries of innocence as well. There's always a war around somewhere.


"Nurse…" A painful, groggy voice whispered out. Elsa turned from the clipboard and pen to see a man with brown messy hair, half closed eyes, and his head turned sideways on the pillow.

"Yes?"

"Will I…be alright?" He asked. His voice was very weak and sounded like he spoke with a lisp. Elsa worried about him, taking a closer look at the hurt expression on his face; a deep frown, black and blue bags under his eyes from sickness, and skin that turned a deathly pale. She gulped down and blinked.

"I'm not sure, Kristian," she reluctantly replied. Kristian Himmel, she read a report on him; she read a report on most of her patients. He was apparently a really young man, and he was so clumsy on the ground that people quite often referred to him as 'Hiccup', and it became his nickname. He was supposed to be an Air Force pilot that flew reconnaissance over Verdun. Unfortunately for him, French soldiers had fired on his aircraft, and a single bullet had surprisingly penetrated the metal hull and tore through his left ankle, completely severing it from the rest of his foreleg.

Though he was supposedly clumsy, it was made up for in the air, and by a stroke of good fortune and piloting skill while under tremendous pain, he made a crash landing back at the air base, where he finally passed out from the loss of blood. It was a good thing now that the bloody stump on his left leg was wrapped up, stopping the bleeding. His blood count was low, but he should make it, his body will produce more; he just…doesn't look well.

Elsa thought, out of misfortune for him, since he was already clumsy on the ground it would only get worse now that he is reduced to one foot and will have to use a cane; it's even worse considering how young he was.

"Please, people call me Hiccup," he said, stirring in his bed. Elsa laid a hand on him to stop him from moving.

"That doesn't seem appropriate," she replied, repositioning the pillow under his head as he rested back down. He huffed in through his nose, and his face puffed, eyes watering.


Hans

I look in this world and I see nothing but savagery. This war was started because of savagery, people are dying because of savagery. The reason I'm so shut out is because I hate the world as I view it from safety. I wanted to be a nurse, but now I want to give all of that up now that I'm pulled into this.

I hope this short letter can answer your question; and NO I'm not afraid of it.

In other words, it's good that my father is okay. Send my love to him.

Elsa


Hans sat crisscrossed in the mud, back up against the wood. In his hand he had the letter that was finally sent to him from Elsa, and he was rather…displeased with her answer. He could read the way she wrote; as a writer, he has to sense these things. She's very insecure about herself, and likes to bottle things up…much like him. At least she was able to milk out her world view…and it's a lot like his.

Wow, a lot of similarities he can detect between them in just one simple letter.

Suddenly, he felt something thud in his lap, and he pulled the paper away from his view to see a bag green bag with something stuffed in it. He looked up to see who threw it, and saw that it was the other Sniper in the battalion, Eric Schafer, with his combat helmet on, the edge just above his eye line.

"Be ready, we're prepping an attack," he said, turning around and walking off.

"What is it?" Hans called out, but he got no reply as Eric disappeared behind one of the turns. That damn Eric, all stern and stuff. Hans could figure why.

From the stories that was told by his comrades, Eric was supposedly born in Denmark, but had German nationality; for Hans, his father's father immigrated from Denmark, so they were kind of reversed. Like him, Kristoff, and Eugene, Eric was from a northern town in Germany. Before then, he was supposed to be a wise and witty fellow, living an average life with a love of his who went back and forth between Germany and Denmark to meet him. His father was a navy officer, but he had no higher rank to achieve the title of 'von Schafer'. Eric had thought about joining the navy with his father, but he was told to go into the army instead. He was supposed to have been a part of the earlier engagements in the war, more specifically Germany's initial invasion of Belgium.

But those talks were told by a mix of people who knew him and rumors made up by newer ship ins. After the initial invasion, Eric just lost his humor, and lost his sociability; he's even gone as far as to not write letters to his love and cutting off communication with his father. It was apparently such a drastic change that the new recruits began to think of what happened. Of course, they didn't know much about what they did to Belgian citizens, really only the old breed knew that. Eric has committed some awful travesties and it let him destroy him on the inside; that is why he is so quiet and stern.

Hans looked down from the trench way and held the bag in his hands, feeling certain solids in it. He slid the button from the hole and flipped up the top, and then he pulled out something that looked like a face with large circular eyeholes, large cylinder shaped object being held in place of the mouth, a piece that goes over the head and a set of straps.

Hans now knew what was being planned…the thing he held in his hands was a gas mask.