Eine Grausum aber Shcone Welt (Teil Vier)

He came a week after she felt that she had nothing to live for. Liesel was staring at the ceiling, an empty expression on her face as she waited for herself to die. There were still soldiers in the Russian Republic, waiting to fight and die for nothing in return. Perhaps all they want is a death, Liesel thought. A beautiful death. If this had been two years earlier, then she would have laughed. No laughter escaped from her lips. There is nothing beautiful here. Nothing.

"Despite years at war, you're strangely beautiful," someone stated. Liesel turned. There was nothing but darkness inside. Even so, Liesel squinted her exhausted eyes onto the person standing in front of her. There was a faint ruffling and suddenly there was light. Liesel gasped. The candle of fire illuminated the person's face. He was much older than she. Light brown hair coated with gray and a face with dark lines stared at her. From the faint illumination, she could see a faded physician's white uniform. Dirt and blood smeared the formerly bleach-white uniform.

"Who are you?" she whispered.

"Who I am does not matter," he stated. His voice was calm and hardly above a whisper. "What matters is what I can do for you." Before Liesel could speak, he put a finger to her lips. It was rough with scars and layers of dirt and blood. Like her own. He smiled slightly. "Do want to see your brother again, girl?"

"What?" Liesel must have heard wrong.

"I said," he whispered with a smile, "would you like to see your brother again, Liesel Eichenlicht?" A wordless scream was building up inside her. Mein bruder…? An echo of a gunshot ran through her mind. Mein…bruder? Her eyes widened, and her breathing started to grow rapid and loud despite the man's fingers on her lips.

"My name is Mikhail Molotov." His dark green eyes, calm and serene, bored into Liesel's own. "I am a physician. I used to work for the Russian Republic. Now I work for no one really. So much death. For nothing, don't you think, Liesel?" He stated her name softly.

"How…can I trust you?"

"You can't." He lifted his fingers on her chin. "You can only trust yourself." He removed them. "Your brother, Liesel. Don't you want to see him again?" He took out a vial of blood. Liesel could see the dark, almost black, blood against the fire. Within his fingers he started to move the vial until she could barely see faint writing. It was crude, but she saw the initials. F.E. The blood type. Against her pale face, she could see the letter in black. He had been a universal donor, like her. And the number. 3175-990321.

His ID. It was him. Mein bruder… Liesel's breathing started to become uneven and choked at the memory that echoed in her mind. "Hey, Liesel!" her brother yelled. Liesel and the other members in their squad turned toward Friedrich. The dark haired girl saw that he held a letter in his hand. "It's from Mutti!" The laughter was in his eyes, and Liesel found herself running to him. Finally…a letter from home! Laughter built up in her chest. She didn't care that she gave her twin a hug that almost caused him to fall to the ground. She heard Edmund scolding them, but could hear the relief and fellow happiness on his face. Liesel could see Friedrich's face now, his face wet with tears…

"Don't you want to hold him again?" The doctor's voice sent waves of memories through Liesel's breaking mind. Pain built up in chest, in her heart. All the thoughts that she held imprisoned within her came free. Hot, thick tears streamed down her face and onto her lap. Friedrich… How long had it been since she had allowed herself to think of his name? Too long. Oh, my Friedrich… She was aware of her hands tightly gripping the physician's, turning both of the fragile fingers and bony hands white. I…want…to see you again…

"Bitte…" Liesel pleaded. "Bitte…" A choked gasp escaped from her. "Ich mochte mien bruder weider zu sehen." The tears dripped into her mouth, tasting like the salt that she and Friedrich used to love before the war. "Halten sie ihn weider. Bitte…Ich…werde alles tun. Alles. Bringt ihn zu mir zuruk. Ich…werde alles tun. Alles…"

The doctor only nodded at her pleading. He smiled softly, and carefully dried away her tears. Her swollen blue eyes leaked more tears as she remembered the brother that she had killed. Liesel could only remember a soft caress of lips upon her forehead when she blacked out.

She was home. Liesel could only see debris and broken buildings where she stood. Her haunted eyes, knowing five years of war at home and three years of war at the front, could only follow her surviving comrades as they embraced their family members. Or if they had none, including comrades, watched them with somber eyes as they walked down the broken paths where their paths to where their homes once stood. Her now short hair – she had cut it whenever it became longer than her ears compared to the long-haired blissful child she had been, complete with a brother – softly raised in the wind. Liesel watched as a boy with dark blond hair embraced his elderly sobbing parents.

Another girl his age picked her baby sister, only about two years old, as the child cried out in fear. She must have been the only surviving member of the family. Liesel sighed. Where is my brother? she thought as she searched the dark and forlorn faces of the families of the dead. It had been only a month since she had pleaded with Dr. Mikhail Molotov to bring her brother back. And there was no dark haired boy with her blue eyes waiting for her as other broken families embraced. Liesel and thought that her bruder would have come back to life by now.

After all, she thought as she looked back at the train that had brought the surviving soldiers back to the war-torn Germany. It had been the only train left in Western Europe. All the others had been bombed in the fourth and fifth years of the war. Many had feared that they would have to walk home from the thought that all of the trains had been destroyed. "There's one last train," someone had replied. The only memory of him Liesel had now was that he was dead. "It's almost dead, and doesn't run very well, but it'll take us back home." He had morosely chuckled. "There's more room now, not like last time."

Liesel too remembered. The train had taken them to the front when she and Friedrich were fifteen years old. It had been crowded, with warm bodies pressing against them and so much noise. The seriously wounded that had survived until now had died on the train. Liesel still remembered of how the bodies fell with a hard thump, with maggots wriggling among the wounds that had killed so many of them. Others had simply died of starvation. She, along with the others that had survived the way home, had been the ones to dump them. Liesel remembered of the one that had told them about the train, his face pale and almost grayish looking, as he leaned heavily against the table. His gaping eyes followed her in her dreams. After all, Liesel thought as she continued to stare at her feet, the war was somehow won.

No one truly knew how the war was won. All they heard was that the entire miserable Russian Republic had been slaughtered. Not one of their soldiers had died. Many had been stunned. Others had been lost. What were they supposed to do know? More than half of the world, and the population of the world, had been destroyed. Many of them had no homes to return to, or didn't want to return to them. There was nothing left. Others had cried tears of joy, and had almost sobbed themselves to sleep with happiness. Liesel didn't know how to feel about the war's end. Her thoughts simply remained on her bruder. If he was here, then only she would live again.

"Liesel!" The broken woman turned from her thoughts and saw a familiar shape that she never thought she would see again. "Liesel!" Tears were streaming down her impossibly thin face. "Liesel Eichenlicht…you're home! At last...my daughter." Mutti… Liesel thought as her legs somehow moved forward. Her breath started to become erratic as her footsteps came closer to the woman that had soothed her nightmares away as a very young child. The woman that had scolded her father about teaching them to drink beer. Suddenly Liesel found her arms tightly around the woman. Mutti… Thoughts about her brother, about the war, about everything, vanished when she was at last in Ebba Eichenlicht's arms again. Both of the women held onto one another as if they were each afraid that each other would disappear. Then the warm arms belonging to her mother returned to her sides.

"Let me take a look at you," she whispered hoarsely from the amount of sobbing that emerged from her mouth. She held her daughter's face in her hands, looking. Liesel could see that her mother had aged rapidly since they had seen her waving at her oldest children on the train. Her once beautiful blond hair had turned completely white. Wrinkles were deep in her skin. The frayed shirt and pants that she had on were drowning her. Oh, Mutti… Liesel thought as her mother continued to exclaim of how thin she was and of how exhausted she must be. I'm… Suddenly coldness spread through Liesel's stomach as she searched her mother's haunted eyes. Where's Isabel? Where was the little girl with blond hair and such an adorable smile that had begged Liesel and Friedrich to play with her? Is she…?

"Mutti," Liesel whispered as her voice slowly choked, "where is Isabel?"

For the first time since they had met again, Liesel's mother smiled. "She's hiding behind me, Liesel." Her fingers, cold and thin, gently touched Liesel's cheek. "See?" Liesel watched as her mother slightly moved her leg and could see a small child cowering. Her blond hair was so long that he almost covered her eyes. "Isabel, it's your sister. Don't you remember?" Her mother tried to move the girl, who was clutching her leg tightly, and staring at the dark haired stranger wide and frightened eyes. "Isabel…look." The child wouldn't look. Looking closer at her, Liesel could see that her younger sister's ribs. They appeared sharp against her worn clothes. She didn't look much bigger than she had been when she had been three years old. Her hair was brittle, and didn't shine like it used to. Liesel crouched down, and forced herself to smile at the crying child before her. "It's okay," she whispered. She held out her hand. "I'm not going to hurt you." She softly, cautiously, stroked the child's cheek. "I promise."

Suddenly after a couple of moments, the tiny child buried her head into her older sister's chest. It didn't feel warm…not at all what it had felt like when she had cuddled with her father…but it felt different from the coldness in her heart. Liesel felt herself smiling as she lowered her head onto her sister's own, seeing her mother smiling as well.

Her mother and Isabel had lived in a small abandoned apartment building for the past two years since the house they had lived in had been bombed. Like much of everything, there wasn't much they had. A small dirt hole where firewood was placed and burned stood where a television once sat. There was no running water or food in the pantry. A thin and hole-ridden blanket was all her mother and sister had to sleep in. Liesel could remember of the moldy bread and the hard cheese that she had eaten for the past week that she had been home. She and her mother began to know each other again. The once calm and cheerful girl she had been had lengthy silences and wouldn't often speak. Sometimes her mother caught her staring at nothing with emptiness in her eyes. Her mother too had been visibly affected by the war, as had Isabel. Both of them tired easily, and they spent most of their time sleeping, leaving Liesel to think about her brother. Her mother had mistakenly spoken of Friedrich one night, on the fourth day that Liesel had come back. "I was pleased that he was given a hero's burial for what he had done," her mother had stated to her as she tried to make conversation as she urged Isabel to eat. "I have to say that…" Liesel's face had become white as a sheet, and for a moment her breathing stopped. Her mother's eyes widened as she threw her food across the room, breaking the cheese in half and ran away into the night. Unmistakable rage echoed across her face. Why then, did Liesel cry?

Isabel was always happy to see her though. She always had a smile on her face whenever Liesel was in the room, morose and quiet, although Liesel didn't even notice her until the little girl was in her arms. She was happy when Liesel was with her, although Liesel didn't feel the same way. When Liesel found herself crying out and sobbing from an unknown nightmare, she found two hands trying to encircle her waist, attempting to soothe her as a girl long dead had soothed her when she was a very young child. Liesel should have known that it wouldn't last. She should have known that something had been dreadfully wrong with the offer the physician had made to her. Liesel should have held her family tight, and never let them go. But it was too late.

It was not to be.

The massacre started in the early morning. Liesel remembered what she had been doing before the moment when it had happened. She had been staring at her food, half hoping that it would disappear and that her bruder would come back. Her mother was resting. Isabel was lying against her mother, trying to wake her up. Then the screams came. Liesel's soldier instincts resurfaced, and she immediately crouched down onto the ground, listening. The screams occurred again, more blood-curling and desperate than before. What's happening? Liesel thought. Her mother started to stir, and weakly tried to reprimand Liesel, who was running outside.

Liesel's feet stopped at the doorway, the sound running through her ears as her breath was shocked out of her. Her mind froze. Her heartbeat thudded against her chest, drowning out the screams and the pleading for mercy and shock. Towering monsters stood as Liesel watched them with a gaping mouth. They looked…almost human. Two eyes. One nose. A big, gaping mouth full of teeth. Towering above them. A scream almost exploded through Liesel's ears as the scream of confusion and horror turned into agony as the…human-like creature ate the human. The screams ceased.

There was so much blood that it soaked and bled into the ground. A smile…filled with blood echoed in Liesel's haunted eyes. She became aware of the screams around her. They seemed to be everywhere. Liesel could see them towering above them, crushing the miserable huts that they had pathetically created and ate them. Bile rose in her throat, and Liesel turned away and searched her panicked eyes to her mother's. "We need to leave," Liesel yelled as screams and crashes continued to surround them. "Now." She picked up Isabel, who was light in her arms, and started turn towards the door as her mother shakily stood.

"But –" came a hoarse whisper.

"Now."

Liesel ran. Against the slim form of her little sister, she could see the bodies of humans being lifted into the air and eaten. Screams, cut off, echoed throughout the sky as blood rained onto the ground. Liesel looked back towards her mother, who was struggling to keep up as both of them could see people dying around them. Eaten. Limbs of soldiers and civilains started falling, almost knocking Liesel off her feet. She started to slip and fall from the amount of blood on the ground. Why…? Liesel thought as she continued to run as she dodged the human-like cannibals. Why…is this happening? What…are they? A child's scream tore through her thoughts, making Liesel stop and look back. Her mother almost crashed into her. A child with dark hair and round glasses was screaming with tears flooding from his eyes. His desperate arms tried to reach the woman below him.

"Ghrisa!" The woman had lost the use of her legs, which were thin and emaciated. Tears and sobs tore through her as she desperately tried to pull her legs up with no success. "Grisha!" An ear-splitting scream echoed through the air as the child was eaten whole. The woman screamed. "No! My son! Grisha…" she sobbed. "My poor son…please…Grisha…come back –" her sobs of torment completely ceased as the human-like creature crushed her beneath the feet. The blood ran red. Liesel was about to run again, pulling her mother's hand, when suddenly the human-like creature turned towards her.

Blue eyes.

Dark hair.

The teeth coated with blood.

"Bruder…?" Liesel gasped. She wasn't aware of her mother pulling her hands or the screams emerging from Isabel's throat. "Bruder…is that you?" Tears rolled down her face. Her feet stood, frozen and shaking. "What…is this…form?" Liesel whispered as the smiling creature came towards her. The sound echoed in her ears, shaking the ground beneath her. "I don't understand…" she whispered as it came closer and closer to her. Her voice choked. "Why…is this happening?" Liesel whispered as the blue eyes that were identical to her own bore through her. "He told me…that you would come back…but why like this…?"

The screams of the dying and the blood running across the ground echoed in her mind. She remembered of the doctor stroking her face, hearing his words. "Don't you want see him again, Liesel Eichenlicht?" Then she understood. "No, no, no!" she cried. "No!" Her pale face, whiter now as gruesome thoughts filled through her head. "This…can't be…" she murmured. "Not like this…bruder!" Liesel screamed as sobs tore through her and as an inhuman scream was about to explode through her mouth as she yelled. "Friedrich, don't you remember me? Friedrich!" Her mother trembled against her as the last form of Friedrich approached them. His hands reached out. "Friedrich, it's me, Liesel!" The blood from his last kill dripped onto her face. "It's Liesel!"

Liesel gasped as she felt her mother being pulled away from her. She didn't even scream as he the mouth opened wide. Horror broke through her as her brother squeezed their mother until a sickening crack echoed through their ears. "Mutti!" Liesel screamed as her mother's empty face was the last thing she saw as the last life's blood splatter onto the ground. "Nein…" she cried as the blood continued to drip onto the ground. It was so dark…and the blood smeared against Liesel's feet. "Nein…" Isabel was screaming. Everyone was screaming as it seemed that everyone was dying. Liesel tried to move from where she was, but she couldn't. I…can't…move… Liesel thought as Isabel's screams tore through her very being as she was held in the bloody hands of…the monster. Why…? Liesel thought as sharp pain seared through her eyelids as tears streaked across her frozen face. Why did this happen? Her sister's face, pleading with screams, mindlessly echoed as they were the only thing she knew.

"NIEN!"

Isabel's legs thudded against her chest. They fell as the blood trickled down. Liesel's eyes widened impossibly and her face showed an emotionless and empty mask as she felt herself lifted into the air. Friedrich… she thought as the face came into view, the smile coated with blood echoing against her broken body. I…want to sing now. The song…out of all times… The eyes, so much like hers, a mindless mind with nothing but wanting to eat flesh. Why…do I…? The teeth and breath against her skin. She was crying again. Of all times…to remember…

"Alles lebendige…stirbt eines tages
Ob wir zum sterben…bereit sind oder nicht
der tag kommt…sicher

Ist das der engel…der vom dämmernden himmel hinunter flog?
Ist das der teufel…der aus der felsenspalte heraus kroch?

Tränen…Ärger…Mitleid…Grausamkeit
Frieden…Chaos...Glaube…Verrat
Wir werden gegen unser…schicksal ankämpfen
Wir dürfen uns nicht in unser…schicksal ergeben…"

There was nothing but a world of pain.