Chapter Sixteen
Any Other World

She fell on the ground, pushed herself away until her back hit a wall. She sobbed, her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands. Her heart was beating hard and she felt her head throb against her skull. That man was certainly playing a trick with her. She only didn't know how much she was being tricked. But she knew that since she met him, things were bad for her.

Her body was shaking, but not from cold. She tried to stop it but the shivers kept radiating through her body.

Despite her scream to leave her alone, the Nazi came to her anyway. He threw the large, abandoned coat on her bare legs, then sat beside her on her left with a bowl of water and a clean cloth.

She hadn't seen him get the bowl. Or the water. She was surprised he owned clean cloths. Was that his bowl or did he get it out of the kitchen? Why did she stop noticing these things?

"You have shit on your face."

Alice flinched away from his blunt remark, while shifting her bare legs underneath the coat. She was staring at the shut door. All danger seemed to be coming from there. First there were the three men who'd had cruel intentions for her. Second there'd been the man who could have shot her to death, were it not for the Nazi who saved her life. That's what he did. Alice could not deny it. And perhaps a third danger was on its way right now.

The Nazi could tell she was looking at the door, but her gaze wasn't focused. It was a sign of someone having deep conflicting thoughts.

"I'd offer for you to take a shower. But..."

At that he slowly trailed off. His eyes were on the wide open door to the bathroom on their right side. She caught glance of the ripped apart bodies and snapped her head away. For the first time she realized the water of the shower was still turned on.

She almost spoke when she looked at him. But her mind wasn't working at that moment. She had been meaning to tell him that she wasn't like him, but that she didn't stop him from taking a shower as it seemed that that was what he'd been planning to do, before the attack.

"Don't go weak on me, America."

She glared at the door. He didn't know her real name, but he sure found a suiting nickname for her.

America.

"You still have disgusting shit on your face."

She flinched, narrowing her eyes while rubbing her hand on her cheek to see why he kept saying that. When she felt hard bits on the tip of her fingers, she shuddered and felt her stomach twitch. She needn't a mirror to see what he saw. The images in her mind were plenty for her to know what she looked like.

A thousands times over and over she could see that man's head above her explode into countless pieces. Most of them were stuck on her body and she went paranoid. He was everywhere around her.

"Get it off me! Get it off! Get him off!"

Her body jerked violently, her hands touching her face in wild gestures. Partly she didn't want to feel or see any of the horror, but another part of her didn't want her to have those nasty pieces on her face. She was rubbing it away but the feel of it on her hands scared her even more.

"Okay, okay!" the Nazi said. "Hey, take it easy!"

"Get him off me! Make him stop!"

"Be quiet, right now!" the Nazi snapped quietly, touching her lips with his thumb.

He had gotten on his heels before her. His body pressed Alice's legs closer to her body.

"Hush now. We don't know who's out there. Okay?"

He waited for her to respond, but when he saw that same far away look in her eyes, he knew he lost her.

"This is war, America. This is what you signed up for the moment you came to Germany."

Deep breaths in and out, very forced, relieved her upset stomach from some of the stress. Alice brought her now dirty hands on the ground. She didn't dare to look at her fingers, to see what color they now were and what exactly the hard pieces were. It could be clotted blood. Perhaps they were pieces of his skull or teeth.

She quickly placed her hand on her mouth and pressed hard. Her stomach heaved, but she was able to keep herself from vomiting again.

"Does your nose hurt?"

A sob escaped from between her fingers.

"Yes or no?"

Than she nearly started hyperventilating, but she never released her mouth. She was afraid she would scream if she did that and he was right. They didn't know who was out there. Screaming was not an option, not again.

He got on his feet. She heard him shift, so she turned to see what he was doing. He was searching in her bag, finding that big needle with her bottle of morphine. He ripped of the foil, put the needle inside the bottle, and filled the tube with just enough morphine to kill the pain, but not enough to kill her.

He knew medicine.

He came before her, needle already close by her nose. She pushed herself away in horror, with a scowl, only to flinch again as the movement of her eyebrows went to her broken nose, causing more pain.

"Hold still," he said, the tip of it now close to Alice's face.

She whimpered and held out her hand to stop him.

"You need sedation. If not for your nose, at least for you own piece of mind. Do you understand?"

She shook her head to which he raised both his eyebrows.

"Morphine is not just a painkiller, America. Didn't anybody teach you this?"

She swallowed a few times because a massive lump was stuck inside her throat.

"I-It's...also...lethal," she muttered shakily and incoherently because of her hand still against her lips.

She shrunk away from his hard stare.

At least it could be lethal when someone used too much of it.

He took her wrist but surprisingly gentle and pushed her hand away.

"That's not what I meant," he replied curtly.

He held the side of her face with his free hand and was quick to insert the needle at the near edge of her nose, pushing the burning liquid inside her skin. He pulled out the needle, and repeated the same action on the other side of her nose. The morphine was promising at doing it's work. Everything was hurting a lot less. She even felt alright, just the tiniest bit.

The Nazi brought the clean cloth in the water, then started dabbing at her face. She blinked lazily and looked up at him. Perhaps she needed to stop seeing him as the Nazi. His name was Adam.

The pain near her nose and even her eyes had lessened significantly. He brought the wet cloth to the bowl, to her face, and repeated it until the water was too dirty to be used. She turned her head away once he was done, because she couldn't stand to see the insides of that bowl.

Adam stood up and this time she watched what he was doing. He emptied the bowl in the sink. There was a water pump and surprisingly, water came out of the tap. He refilled the bowl and placed it beside her. He handed her a bar of soap which she only stared at.

"Your hands have shit on them."

She looked at him in horror when again he used his blunt way of speaking to her. But when she looked at her hands, she noticed he was right. It was covered in dirt, blood and stuff she didn't even want to name out loud. Quickly she brought her fingers in the water and tried to clean her hands as fast as she could. In her haste and panic, she accidentally bumped the side of the bowl and it flipped over.

Her breaths were more like gasps as she stared at the mess she just made.

"It's alright," he said. "Come here, America."

He got on his feet and placed the soap on the counter. Then he leaned down and took hold of her hands as if they weren't disgusting and violated with dirt, grease and blood.

Once she stood on shaky legs, he placed her hands under the tap and started pumping. The water was ice cold and turned red when it hit her hands.

She glanced back to watch the door. Getting her hands clean was nice and all, but she didn't like to stand with her back against the door.

"I've got your back, America. Don't worry."

Surprisingly, he wasn't even lying. He was leaning with his side against the counter, while pumping the water pump with his right hand. His eyes were maneuvering from between the door and Alice.

She took the soap in her hands and rubbed it all over her hands and wrist. It wasn't a shower, but still it was worth gold.

He stopped pumping and looked at her face.

"I-I still have s-shit on my face, is that it?" she said with a weak voice.

"I did a decent job," he said with a smirk. "Are you talking to me again, America?"

"No," she mumbled, bringing her eyes to her hands.

He didn't understand how badly Alice was shocked.

"Lass dich nicht unterkriegen. Nur wenn dass passiert, hast du verloren."

She was very aware of her state. Her body felt sweaty, her hair was dirty. She wasn't sure what she was feeling. Everything seemed unreal.

"Talk to me, America. I'll translate what I said, if you talk."

She didn't even glance at him. Why should she care what he was telling her in German? Everything he told her could be lies.

She wasn't tempted, not even a bit.

"Don't let them get in here," he said, tapping her temple. "When that happens, only then have you lost. Roughly translated. It sounds better in German."

She turned her head to him. Despite her silence, he was still translating to her what he'd said in German. That wasn't the deal, was it?

This seemed like an act of kindness. Maybe even generosity.