I flick my eyes open to find myself in between two seemingly endless brick walls. I twist my body around and look behind me. The walls are endless in that direction, too. Which way do I go?

I don't know where I am, but I know that I'm supposed to get somewhere. And when I do get there, I'll receive a prize. A prize in the form of Santana, and a one-way ticket out of this hell of a war. A one-way ticket to a better place, a better time, where we could raise our baby together without a single thought of worry on our minds. But how do I get there? How do I find what so desperately needs to be found?

I stand facing one of the walls, my head snapping back and forth between the two directions, the two options that I have. I decide that I've always favored left over right, but there's a problem. If I turn around and face the other wall, then left will be right and right will be left. Which left do I choose?

I squint my eyes in each direction, attempting to see beyond the mysterious mist and never-ending path. But it's no use. All that I can see is darkness on either side. I inhale deeply and make my decision—or my un-decision, choosing to leave it up to fate. I close my eyes and begin to spin in my spot. I continue to twirl, faster and faster, and for a moment I feel as though I am going to take flight. I feel young and liberated, and I forget why I'm here and what my goal is. But the moment ends, I begin to feel dizzy, and I stop in place. I shake my head a bit, swaying unsteadily, Santana's face returning to my mind, reminding me that she's the most important thing in my life, and that a young and liberated feeling could only exist with her. I open my eyes and find myself facing one of the endless paths. I take a deep breath and begin to cautiously walk down it.

I walk for hours, or maybe seconds, before I see an opening in the brick wall to the right. I hurry to it, wondering if that's the way to get to Santana. On the other side of the opening is another brick wall, and I suspect that it is an adjacent path. I shake my head in confusion. What is this? A labyrinth? If so, Santana must be at the center. I look above me at the night sky, silently begging for some help. But no one is out there to hear my wish. It's just me and these brick walls. A challenge that has been set up for me, and me only, to complete.

I close my eyes and try to think. If I am at the outermost path, then this opening should lead me towards the middle. But if I am at a more inner path, then this opening may lead me outward, which is not what I want. I bite my lower lip and scratch my head in thought.

Suddenly, an idea pops into my mind. I close the gap between myself and the continuous wall of the first path, and put my ear to it, my palms flattening on the cool bricks. I can faintly hear nightlife on the other side of the wall. The hoo of an owl, the squeak of a cricket. I quickly make my way to the wall that stands past the opening, and put my ear to that one as well. Nothing. I smile triumphantly.

I decide to take the left and begin to jog down the path. After a few minutes, to my great dismay, I reach a dead end. I let out a frustrated sigh and run in the opposite direction, past the opening and along the trail. Eventually it turns left, and before I know it, I'm standing in front of another dead end. I pound the wall with the side of my fist, but immediately regret it as pain soars through my arm. I shake it a little before turning on my heels and running back along the isolated pathway.

No matter which way I turn, which opening I enter, I always meet a dead end. After what seems like the hundredth one, I fall to my knees, frustrated beyond belief, and yank at my hair. I lose all hope, thinking that I will never see Santana again, that I will never have the happy ending that I so wanted with her. I sit back and wait for some sort of miracle to happen. I'm there for what seems like forever until the cold darkness of the night envelops me, and I, too, like Santana, am gone.

I yawned comfortably in bed, my eyes still closed and my hand gliding down to my belly. I stroked my fingers across it, longing to meet the baby that was inside of me. I opened my eyes slowly but felt too lazy to get out of bed. Warm sunrays shone through the curtains of my window and my baby was moving calmly inside of me. I faintly remembered my dream. I was in a labyrinth, and I tried to find Santana, but I couldn't… What did it mean?

I remembered how I fell asleep with Santana placing soft kisses on my belly. My heart swelled to twice its original size just thinking about her and the love that she had for our baby and I. The most important decision that I had ever made in my life was going down to that wretched camp for the first time and stopping those soldiers from forcing themselves upon her. I remembered the look on her face, a mix of incredulity and gratefulness. I remembered how I fell in love with her instantly, with her plump lips and desperate eyes. How I took her back to the house, and fed her, and let her play the piano. The look of disbelief in her eyes at any kind act that I bestowed upon her. I remembered how I brought her back up every day after, and how her uncertainty slowly melted into comfort. I remembered the gas chambers and our first kiss, and the second kiss that came a few weeks after. The first time we made love, and how golden it was. How she embraced me as she rocked us back and forth, our hurried gasps and damp bodies. Her lips on mine, her tongue sliding slowly in and out of my mouth. Her warm hands on my body, her soft whispers in my ear. How she told me that she loved me, and how this situation, this house, this war, suddenly became brighter. So much love filled me that I was sure that I would burst.

But lately, it seemed as though Santana was restless. I knew that she hated being in the house, that she felt confined and anxious. I knew that part of those feelings came from her worries, of what was to become of us. She was frightened for our lives, and frightened of what the future might hold for us. I wanted so badly to fix that feeling within her, but I couldn't find a way to. Nothing that I said washed it away. She needed for us to leave. But what do we do? Where do we go? And how do we get away unnoticed?

I wished that I had the answers to those questions. Not so much for me as I did for her. I couldn't blame her for being so anxious and lost. I was sure that I would have felt the same were it me who was stuck in that house for seven long months. I shook my head hopelessly and climbed out of bed.

After getting dressed and brushing my teeth, I made my way down the wooden staircase to find that Herr Eberhardt had not left the house yet. He was sitting at the dining room table, apparently waiting for his breakfast. He turned his head to me when I walked down the stairs, his gaze cruel and hateful as always. I walked past the dining room, looking for Ora, until I found her dusting a dresser in one of the spare bedrooms. She turned when she heard my footsteps, a worried expression on her face. "Did Santana sleep well?" I asked her quietly as I sat down on the bed.

Ora blinked a few times and took in a deep breath before answering. "She never came back down to the room, Brittany."

I stared at her, unwilling to believe what she said. "Did she sleep in Chaim's room, then?"

Ora shook her head, a pained look on her face. My eyes widened and my breath caught in my throat. "What are you saying?"

She opened her mouth, about to speak, when Herr Eberhardt walked into the room. We both snapped our heads to him and held our breaths.

His eyes jumped between Ora and I, assessing the situation. I searched his face for some sort of explanation for Santana's disappearance. His eyes were cold and distant as usual, but there was something different. I tried to place my finger on it. What was it? Happiness? He didn't seem like the man to be happy about anything. I exhaled shakily as fear enveloped me and I realized what it was. Victory.

His eyes fixed on me. "Come eat. We're celebrating." He turned and marched out of the door.

I snapped my head to Ora, and found her eyes to be as wide as mine felt. I gasped, unable to catch my breath. It can't be… This is not how it's supposed to end… She can't be…

Ora grasped my shoulder. "Go, before he returns and beats you for not obeying him."

I let out a dry sob and cupped my hand over my mouth, every ounce of energy put to holding back my tears. Ora stroked her hand lightly down my arm. "Go, Brittany."

She pulled me up and guided me to the dining room. I tried to steady my breath and regain composure, but that task seemed utterly impossible. Before we arrived at the dining room, Ora let go of my arm and pushed me lightly forward so that I would continue on my own. I was so panicked that I could barely see where I was walking. I stumbled into the dining room and shakily took a seat opposite Herr Eberhardt. I clenched my jaw tightly closed, my breathing sharp and uneven. I began to get lightheaded, and it felt like everything was going black. It felt like the whole world was crashing down on me, on my shoulders, weighing me down. I felt like there was no point in living anymore, not without her.

My baby kicked inside my belly and snapped me back into reality. I remembered that I was supposed to act like nothing happened. But if he killed her, then he knows. He knows that I kept her hidden here for months. I raised my gaze to him and found his eyes staring me down unyieldingly.

Chaim entered the dining room with two steaming plates of breakfast food. He placed them before us, shot me a worried glance, and hurried back to the kitchen. I gazed at the food. There was no way that I was going to be able to eat even one bite without throwing up. I already felt like my body was shriveling up from holding all of this panic inside.

Herr Eberhardt lifted his knife and fork and began to scoop up massive amounts of food at a time. After a few large bites, he looked at me and then down at my untouched plate. "Eat."

I felt myself going numb, detaching from my body, as I picked up the silverware. Another Brittany somewhere else was sobbing her heart out at this very moment, crying hysterically and miserably at her lost love. She was curled up on the ground, her eyes swollen with grief and her voice hoarse from crying. She was closing her eyes and wishing, more than anything, to die at this very moment. Knowing that there's no point in living a life without the only person that she ever loved, the only person that she will ever be able to love. She was grabbing a knife from the kitchen and carving her heart out of her chest so that it would stop aching so badly. She was thrusting that knife in and out of her, her only desire to die.

But this Brittany had a child inside of her. This Brittany had to protect herself in order to protect that child, because she knew that that's what Santana would have wanted. This Brittany had to try to remain calm so that her maleficent husband wouldn't kill her and her baby. Her baby was innocent. It had no reason to die. Santana would have wanted them to live.

I forked a small piece of the omelet and brought it up to my mouth. It felt like paper against my dry tongue. I chewed and swallowed with some difficulty, glancing back up at Herr Eberhardt. His eyes, once again, looked triumphant.

I wanted to throw this plate of food in his face, to punch him until he fell to the ground, to stomp on his face and his genitals until he became a pool of blood. I wanted to tear those triumphant eyes out of his face and to break his nose and to scream at him. To ask him why, why he had to kill her. What she had ever done to him. I wanted to, but I settled for a quiet utterance, "What are we celebrating?"

He eyed me coldly, his mouth chewing slowly. When he finished, he muttered, "Wouldn't you like to know."

I held his gaze for a few more moments before he turned indifferently back to his plate. This was all just a game to him. Killing her was probably easier than brushing his teeth for him. She was just another worthless inferior, another nothing, dirt to his feet, worse than scum. In his eyes, he was doing the world a favor by getting rid of her. He was cleansing the world of its filth.

I remembered my dream again. I felt like I was in that labyrinth again, meeting dead ends everywhere when all I wanted to meet was Santana. All I wanted to do is to be able to kiss her lips again, to be in her caring arms, to have her whisper comforting and loving words to me. I thought about the options that I had. I could kill myself now and be done with it, but my baby would also die. I could kill myself after my baby is born, saving its life, but dooming him or her to an Aryan's life. Letting him or her be raised by that horrid man, without a mother. Or I could continue to live in misery. Deep down, I knew that Santana would choose the last option for me. She would want me to be with our baby and to raise it to be like us. But how was I to face a life in which I am this man's wife and have no comfort of real love? How was I to face a life without her, Santana, my love, my soul mate, my everything? I knew that I wasn't strong enough to live such a life.

Herr Eberhardt finished his plate, and without another word, stood up and left the dining room. I heard the front door slam and his automobile drive off. I sat in the dining room for a few more moments before getting out of my chair and making my way toward the front door as well. I wanted to at least find her body.

Once outside, it was like all of the feelings that I was holding back in the dining room swept me all at once, at an overwhelming speed. I dropped to my knees on the hard gravel, weeping helplessly, utterly agonized. Hurried sobs left my throat, each one racing the other to leave me faster. My face was washed with tears as I leaned down to the ground, hugging my torso in torment.

I knew, then and there, that I would not be able to live a day without her. The seven months that I spent with her were like a glimpse of heaven. It was still a war, still a crime, still forbidden, but it was heaven. Every touch, every kiss seemed like a God-given miracle. Our fairytale world would never be. We would never get our happily-ever-after. But those seven months were like a peek into the world of Hans Christian Andersen. How was I supposed to go back to hell when I've had a glimpse of heaven?

Suddenly, I heard a shuffle in the gravel behind me. "Brittany…"

A/N: Don't lose hope. :)