"Idiot! Stop moving! You'll hurt yourself more than you previously did!" My arms desperately moved around as I strained to sit up, but the woman who offended me was resilient and pushed me down. I could not perceive what she looked like, my senses were blinded by bright lights as my pupils are additionally sensitive than most due to my unfortunate albinism. "It is not in the slenderest way proper or polite for you to call a wounded adolescent an 'idiot' while he is alarmed and utterly unaware of his surroundings. Nor is it ladylike, Elizabeta." My eyes began to adjust to the light just enough to see the man who spoke was tall, lanky and elegantly attractive. The surprisingly strong woman, Elizabeta, wasn't elegant in most ways. Her wavy hair was in a disorganized bun with hair pins that stood out in distinction from her tresses. She wore a commonplace kitchen dress with a floral arrangement nearly veiled from sight by dirt and residue. Even her skin and hair was layered in filth excluding her hands and apron. I struggled to talk, but my throat was parched and only a pitiable whimper escaped my lips. Elizabeta looked at me, reached for a glass of water on a stand near the makeshift cot I lay on. "Here," she held the cup to my cracking lips and tilted it. Cool water rushed down my throat and I had never been more appreciative of water in my life. It felt like cool rain finally reaching a desert damned by a 100 year drought. "You called for your brother in your sleep. Ludwig, that's his name correct?" I jerked up only to reel backward in a shriek of pain that shot up my abdomen. My pale hands cupped the origin of the pain, I looked down to see cherry-red blood soaking through sterile, white bandages tightly wrapped around me. "Where… where is he?" I managed through grit teeth. "I can get him! Just don't move, you'll rip your wound again if you do and you're running out of blood to lose." Elizabeta let out a nervous laugh and walked away in a hurry. He was alive, Ludwig was alive. I was alive! The last thing I saw was the world crashing around me and fiery rain shrouded in human ash and concrete dust. Now I lay on a hard cot and stare at eggshell white roof. I wait to see my brother, my little brother who was alive. I wonder if he was hurt, he must not be if he wasn't in a cot like the other children and adults. All around me, people wrapped in bandages stained with blood and a strange yellowish fluid. This fluid was a sign of infection, we didn't have the correct supplies to care for this many people, especially after being bombed and everything was contaminated by rubble. Just in earshot, I heard the voice of the woman, I couldn't make out the words, but I knew she was talking to a child by the friendly pitch. There was no reply, no childish laughter. Just empty silence and the one sided conversation held by Elizabeta. "Your brother is here, he wants to see you. Don't you want to see him, Ludwig?" Her footsteps grew close until I saw her face looking down into a wheelchair. The wheelchair squeaked as the wheels were rusty and flat on one side. Ludwig was motionless, he stared at me with cloudy eyes behind a wall of obvious sadness. He used to be so radiantly happy yet mature for his young age. My teeth grinned as I pushed through the pain to sit up. I felt tears welling up in my eyes, he was virtually uninjured except for a bloody bandage on his forehead and a few scabs and bruises. I remember watching him fall from my arms onto the brick streets. Ludwig's blue eyes wandered over my face until they went back to blankly starring at seemingly nothing. "Ludwig, it's me. Look at me, Ludwig, its Gilbert!" my voice cracked, I wanted him to look at me. To see me, I just need him to look into my eyes and smile, nod, anything. "Why won't you look at me?" "Gilbert," the woman said "that's your name, right?" I wiped my cheeks clean of tears and nodded. "I'm Miss Héderváry. Over there," she pointed to the elegant man "that's Mister Edelstein. We came here to Germany like we came to many other counties, to save refugee children. Most of them are Jewish and their parents gave them over to us before the Nazi's take them to a camp. Since the bombings started to occur frequently we began to find children orphaned by them. Mister Edelstein and I believe you and your brother to be one of those orphaned by the war." "No, we are not! My father is alive. Just like me and Ludwig, he's out helping people and then he will be back for us. When he comes back we'll fix Königsberg and everything will be okay again!" I yelled at her and I fidgeted with my bandages. I knew he was dead, I just never wanted to admit it to myself. "Gilbert, I'm sorry." Miss Héderváry leant out a hand to my shoulder but I quickly smacked it away. "We asked if anyone knew where your father and mother was and we were told your mother died a few years ago and no one knows the whereabouts of your father. Unless anyone here happens to be your father…" She paused for a moment, "Everyone here was either an orphaned child or in a coma when we found them." "Ludwig, stop staring like an idiot!" I shouted. "LOOK AT ME!" Mister Edelstein ran towards me and Miss Héderváry quickly caught me as I fell off the side of the cot, screaming at my silent brother. "Goddammit, Ludwig! Dad is alive, tell them! TELL THEM!" "Gilbert, calm down!" Miss Héderváry whispered and with all her strength restrained me as I raised my fists and slammed them on the ground. "No! Answer me, Ludwig! What's wrong with you? Ludwig! Why won't you talk to me?" "Ludwig can't answer you, Gilbert." Mister Edelstein gazed down upon me with utter disgust as I kneeled on the filthy ground covered in blood, sweat and tears. Ludwig merely stared forward with eyes like dying crystals and his body hardly moved. "Why not?" my voice was sorrowful as I struggled to form words through sobs. "He's brain-dead."