This chapter deserves its own warning for blatant references to genocide, torture, and hitting waaaaay too close to reality. For plot purposes, you can reread 'Pretty Swastika' and hang out until the next installment if you're worried.

For the rest of you:

Song for this chapter: 'Buchenwald Alarm Bell' composed by Vladimir Mouradeli. English or Russian. Your choice.

Chapter 4: Save the Sacred Peace

"I know you were out. I know you were with Sweden. I know everything and see everything." Nazi Germany growled. Denmark balanced in the boat as the waves jostled it to and fro, distinctly disappointed the superpower had the advantage of higher ground to stare down at him.

Denmark cut him off with a vociferous moan. Then he spoke impulsively, far more concerned with salvaging his pride than consequences. "What are you going to do about it?" He climbed from the boat and pushed past the superpower, who stopped him short with the crop to his chest.

"I'm not comfortable with your attitude change." Nazi Germany's voice held a chilling calm. "Perhaps you've been poisoned by rhetoric. I can't fault your malleable mind, but it makes my job harder."

Denmark rolled his eyes and received a smack from the crop in return. Nazi Germany held his temper in check, but that wasn't unusual. If flared and died not unlike a supernova. Denmark only needed to ride out the wave.

"Perhaps it's time I exposed you to the grand plan. As my model state, it's imperative you understand. Come, boy! I'd like you to meet Poland." Nazi Germany said.

Denmark shook from a nameless sorrow at the barbed wire walls that stretched into infinity and the thick chimney that spewed a pillar of smoke up to the heavens. Nazi Germany kept close at his side. The blood seeped from the soil everywhere he walked and sucked at his shoes. So much of it that it seemed Mother Earth herself had been scourged.

"What have you done?" Denmark said quietly and desperately. "What have you done to everyone?"

"Not everyone. Not you." Nazi Germany nudged him onward. "I'm doing what everyone else was too afraid to do and this is take control of something very powerful."

Denmark gripped on the wire to keep stable, not making a special point to avoid injury yet not seeking it either. He peeked over his shoulder more from habit than expectation- no Norway or Sweden standing by for him to interpret their reactions so he could know how to feel.

Nazi Germany took his hands with an unexpected tenderness. He wanted to run, but to where? All roads led right back to the enemy. It was that abject helplessness that he hated the most. Nazi Germany walked him over blocks of concrete and gravel pathways since transformed into rivers of mud.

When bullets whizzed by them, Denmark jerked free to make a running dive behind a steely gray barrack where Poland sat in watchful anticipation, gripping a shank.

"I've been following you. He'll be looking for us. He's looking for both of us now." Poland muttered as if speaking Nazi Germany's name would cause him to materialize.

"So we stay here." Denmark tried to soothe. "I don't think he saw where I went. We'll be okay." He put his hands behind him into a puddle of this hellish combination of blood, oil, and something else that smelled tangy and foul. Then he drew in a long breath to scream, but Poland clapped a hand over his mouth.

"Why did you come here? You're a fool to come here! I was the warning bell back in 1940! Why did you not run then when you had the chance?" Poland snapped.

"I… I didn't know." Denmark said sadly.

"You didn't know?" Poland hissed. "You didn't know! How did you not know? You're the only one Nazi Germany treats like a human being and you didn't know! We all knew about you."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what your home-" Denmark said. He lacked even as much energy as it took to cry.

"I'm sorry for all of us."

"There you are. You're both quite the chatterboxes aren't you?" Nazi Germany towered over both of them and Poland rose to meet him with a handful of grime.

"Get out! You raze my home, imprison me, and call me a parasite! What more are you here to do?" He screamed.

"Listen to him, Denmark! What an imagination this creature has! He's trying to make you pity him, but we know better. Don't we?" Nazi Germany let out a low-level cackle.

Poland fired the swill at Nazi Germany's face from point blank range. "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on! I am slavering at the mouth for the day the Allies come in and bury you alive."

"At the risk of appearing to talk nonsense I tell you that the National Socialist movement will go on for 1,000 years! Don't forget how you all laughed at me 15 years ago! And the Allies? God himself can't stop me." Nazi Germany deadpanned, while cleaning his face with a handkerchief.

A pregnant second passed in which Poland fixed Nazi Germany with a hate-laden glare and Denmark cringed like a beaten dog. Wordlessly, Nazi Germany's hand shot out and wrenched Poland's neck in a vice. With a nod at Denmark, he dragged Poland into the barrack.

Though Denmark covered his ears and squatted in a fetal position, through the walls he heard with ease the muted thuds of metal crunching bone. Denmark cursed his own indifference and priority to save his own skin. That should have been him in the barrack. He did nothing special or noteworthy to stay safe and comfortable- timid and lacking resources. Even worse, he knew this demonstration was conducted for his benefit, because he mouthed off after visiting Sweden.

Best he could do was rationalize away his apathy as a matter of survival. Even that though, couldn't keep him entirely still and he resorted to tense knocks at the door. His efforts were summarily ignored and overshadowed by an emphatic crack that only served to underscore what Nazi Germany was capable of.

Long after his feeble effort to end the brutality, Nazi Germany strode out with Poland behind him, cradling a swollen and deformed wrist.

"Are you okay?" He ventured.

"I'm fine." Poland answered, his voice inert. "The pain is good for me. Thank you both for stopping by. Would you like me to show you out?"

"That won't be necessary." Nazi Germany pushed Poland aside and led Denmark out of the heartbeat of the war zone into a well-furnished barrack that managed to be confining and too spacious all at the same time. The abrupt change in scenery too jarring to be real. Denmark quivered in place and scratched at his armband while Nazi Germany wandered to an improvised kitchen. It had to be a nightmare. He waited patiently to see if it would all end. If Norway would shake him awake and hold him and tell him that it would all be okay.

Denmark inhaled and took in the scent of apples, fresh ground cinnamon, brown sugar- all untold luxuries that he was one of the few allowed access to, especially in this time of scarcity. Outside, it began to rain.

Nazi Germany tapped him and passed him half an apple strudel he procured from… somewhere- one of Austria's recipes no doubt and a rare treat under any circumstance.

"Have some." Nazi Germany said.

The falling water did nothing to soothe him as it knocked the window.

"I can't. My stomach hurts."

"It may be hard to see and you may think my actions immoral, but I'm paving the way for a utopia." If Nazi Germany continued to talk, Denmark didn't hear it. Whatever grandiose plans he held were rapidly coming to fruition and no one would emerge unscarred.