2.
Every time the Sonderkommando went into the chambers to retrieve the bodies of the dead, they knew it might be the last time. The Sonderkommando was purged every so often, a team locked in while they worked and then the gas turned on to claim them, and the next team of Sonderkommando would have to retrieve their bodies as well.
Today it was Erik Lehnsherr's turn to die.
He gasped for air that wasn't there, his lungs burning, his eyes on fire. Choking. Dying. The men he'd survived hell with for the past few months writhing and screaming and dropping all around him. The death they'd led so many others to, had cooperated with by keeping the furnaces going and leading the doomed to the chambers, had reached out to claim them today, and it didn't matter how much of his soul he had sold to stay alive, it wasn't enough. He was dying.
Even as his vision dimmed, rage filled him. He would not die this way! Not at their hands, not after all he'd suffered-- not when he was the last one left to remember his family, to carry their names and memories in his mind--
Something rose within him, something electric and powerful. Something he'd felt only once before, the last time he had been falling into a man-made death. Erik saw the world as arcs of light, patterns of force, and he pushed, shoving against the lines with some force within him.
The doors, metal, blew off the chamber. Then the ceiling and the walls, lined with steel I-beams, exploded outward. The gas dissipated. Choking men staggered to their feet, breathing in fresh air.
Erik could not be in a box. Nothing could enclose him, could imprison him. Not now, never again. More and more force flowed through him, pushing outward, sweeping all metal in its path. SS officers could not hold onto their guns, or were dragged across the mud or pulled screaming into the air if they tried to hold on. Buildings collapsed as I-beams warped away from the center of the force. Barbed wire bent and tore and flew outward, broken into a thousand sharp bits.
None of his former comrades knew what had happened to Erik, why he was glowing or why blue arcs of electricity danced around him or why he was floating half a foot off the ground. None of them cared. The Sonderkommando had already been prepared for rebellion; whatever mysterious force had transformed Erik and was currently ripping all the metal out of the camp, it just sped up the timetable. Those that were strong enough, given their exposure to the gas, raced out of the remains of the chambers.
Hundreds of inmates milled through the camp, wondering what was happening. The weakest of them dropped dead of heart attacks or aneurysms in the magnetic field, but many were left who were strong enough to survive. It took a few minutes to realize that none of the guards had guns any more and there was nothing holding the inmates prisoner. And then the former prisoners became a mob, some making a beeline for the fallen fences and freedom, others turning with a vengeance on their kapos and the SS officers. They were weak from starvation, but when a mob of twenty starving madmen descends on a single well-fed man, it is rare that the single man wins. Most of the SS did not win.
No one tried to touch Erik, to lead him out. No one could; the electricity dancing around his body had already killed all the former comrades around him who'd been made too weak by the gas to flee.
He saw visions, images sparkling in a brain overloading from power. He heard the voice of God, saw choirs of angels. He was the Messiah, he was Moses, destined to lead his people to freedom. All he had to do was keep sending the power out, destroying or flinging everything metal in its path. Train tracks warped and twisted. No longer would trains be able to bring the doomed to Auschwitz. The power hurt now, burning, and his head felt as if it would explode, but he was also riding high on it. No longer human. He was an angel, he was a prophet. His pain, his sacrifice, was saving his people. It coursed through his veins, the perfect drug, pain and ecstasy and power.
And then some bright pain exploded behind his eyes, and he fell.
He was so very cold.
The power was gone. He couldn't call it back. He tasted blood in his mouth, felt wetness trickling down his lip from his nose. His eyes were open but everything was blank, neither black nor white, just nothing. His limbs were so very tired, too tired to move a muscle, and he could feel nothing except a sense of terrible inner cold.
Moses had never been allowed to reach the Promised Land.
Erik understood then that he was dying.
He should have thought it unfair, should have raged against it. He had been trying to save his life, not to end it. If he had known when he flung the power out against the doors that he would still die here, alone and unmourned…
...he still would have done it.
The darkness was slowly devouring him, but Erik smiled, barely able to feel the movement of his muscles against the cold of the ground. By his sacrifice, his people were now free. It was a good reason to die.
He couldn't see, but he closed his eyes anyway.
Papa, Mama. I'm coming home now.