Posters bloomed on every wall in Berlin like invasive weeds: heroic soldiers with bayonets drawn, blond-haired children clutching flags, and slogans shouting promises of destiny and vengeance. Radios crackled from every shop and café, pouring out the voice of the Reich with mechanical certainty. Yet beneath the bluster, Christian could feel it—the taut silence before thunder. People hurried through the streets faster than usual. Black cars prowled the avenues at night, and men vanished into them without returning.
For Christian Wolfe, the world outside felt like an extension of his training halls: disciplined, sharpened, always watching. He woke each morning to the rhythm of the Shadows. Herr Müller's endless regimen that had left his muscles hard, his reflexes honed, his mind sharper and colder than he ever thought it could be. The faces of his fellow trainees had changed too. Jansen, once brash and talkative, now carried himself with a predator's stillness. Otto, thin and nervous, flinched less with every exercise but had grown a shadow in his eyes, as if expecting a blow at any moment.
And then there were the whispers.
"Gestapo needs more hands," one of the instructors had muttered as they led a group of Christian's colleagues away under guard. The rumor spread that these young men barely older than Christian were being sent to hunt down Jews, dissidents, anyone unlucky enough to be branded an enemy. They had not returned. At night, some of the remaining trainees spoke of it in hushed voices, half in envy, half in fear. To be chosen meant one had proven useful to the Reich. But Christian, lying awake in the narrow bunk, thought only of Kristina and her family. Each time another agent vanished into the Gestapo's grasp, the knot in his stomach tightened.
Müller's lessons grew darker with every week.
"Your mind is your fortress," Müller barked one evening, pacing in front of them like a wolf. "But fortresses fall. When they do, you will not speak. You will swallow the capsule." His eyes had landed on Christian, lingering a fraction too long. Christian forced himself not to shift under the gaze. He could almost feel Müller peeling back his skull, searching for disloyalty.
By March, the Shadows had finished shaping them into weapons. Christian's body bore bruises from weeks of unarmed combat drills, his ears rang with the endless click of coded messages tapped out on telegraphs, his hands knew the weight of explosives and pistols alike. Each skill was a key to survival, each lesson one step further from the boy who had once stood outside his family's house with bread on the air and sunlight on the rooftops.
But at night, in the rare silence of his quarters, Christian would take out
Kristina's last letter, unfolding it until the creases thinned. Her slender handwriting was graceful and almost defiant was a world apart from the inked orders and ciphers that now defined his days. Paris is waiting. Please. Don't let the shadows take you. He pressed the letter to his chest, eyes closed, and wondered whether she could still feel him thinking of her across the growing abyss.
By the time spring crawled over Berlin, the city had become a place of rehearsed obedience. Every street corner bore the swastika, fluttering above queues of citizens who whispered less and saluted more. The Reich's grip was no longer subtle, it was absolute, and its cruelty showed itself in small, daily humiliations.
Christian noticed the changes most when Müller allowed the Shadows to patrol the streets in twos. It was supposed to be "field conditioning"—learning how to disappear in plain sight while carrying out errands. But it became impossible not to see the aftermath of the Reich's machinery. Men in tattered coats being dragged from doorways. Children clinging to mothers who screamed names into the void as black cars swallowed their loved ones. The stench of fear became as familiar as the gasoline that powered those cars.
More Shadows disappeared, "loaned" to the Gestapo. Müller never explained where they went. Instead, he praised their usefulness. "They serve the Reich directly," he told the rest one evening, his voice full of pride. "They hunt those who poison the purity of our nation. Some of you will earn that honor. And remember, what is loyalty if not obedience without question?"
One of the agents muttered afterward in the barracks, "Honor? More like being turned into wolves to devour the weak." His words were bitter, but his eyes glimmered with the hunger to be chosen all the same. Christian said nothing. He only thought of Kristina's father, who still owned a bookshop in a part of Berlin where "un-German" words were burned by the crate. If the Shadows were sent there, what then? Would one of his own brothers-in-arms drag Herr Beckmann into the street?
The unease coiled inside him like a serpent. One night, unable to bear it, he found himself slipping away from the barracks and drifting toward Kristina's neighborhood. The city seemed to breathe differently there; quieter, as though the very stones were trying not to be heard. He watched her window from the shadows, but dared not knock. Instead, he memorized the way the curtains moved in the candlelight, the faint sound of piano keys as Kristina played softly into the night.
The memory of her touch, the smell of her hair, the warmth of her defiance and it cut through him like a blade. The next morning, Müller gathered them in the courtyard. His boots clicked with ritual precision against the stone. He carried a cane that he rarely used but always displayed, like a reminder of what would happen should one falter.
"You are no longer children," he began, his eyes sweeping the row of young faces. "You are instruments. Tools do not doubt, they do not hesitate and they do not break unless their master commands it." He paused, letting the silence press down on them until someone shifted uncomfortably. Christian kept perfectly still. "Some of you may dream of escape," Müller continued, his voice low now, intimate, as though confiding a secret. "Let me clarify: there is no leaving the Shadows. The Reich owns you, body and soul. And if ever your loyalty fails, I will personally see that your ending becomes an example."
He turned then, the cane striking once against the stone, and walked away. The sound echoed long after his figure vanished.
That night, Jansen asked quietly, "Do you think he means it?"
Christian stared at the ceiling of the barracks, where moonlight cut sharp lines through the rafters. His lips parted, but the words caught in his throat. Because he did not just think Müller meant it; he knew.
The phrase Müller had left them with lingered like a curse: There is no leaving the Shadows.
The following week brought a new kind of chill, one that no fire could drive out. The air in Berlin was restless, thick with rumors, with whispers of troop movements eastward. Even the citizens seemed to feel it; ration lines grew longer, voices hushed as though the city itself anticipated the sharp crack of thunder. War was close, so close Christian could feel it in his bones.
But Müller was not interested in rumors. He was interested in control. One evening, just as the sun sank and the barracks shadows stretched long across the courtyard, he summoned the entire cadre of trainees outside. The night was cold, damp. Their breath rose in pale clouds as they stood in formation, boots aligned, hearts pounding with unspoken questions.
Two men dragged something into the courtyard. No, someone. A Shadow, one of their own. His face was swollen, lip split, uniform torn. His hands were bound behind his back, his knees buckling as they forced him into the center. Christian recognized him, Weiss.
Müller appeared last, cane in hand, his stride measured and theatrical. He did not raise his voice when he spoke, yet every syllable carried through the courtyard with dreadful clarity.
"This one," he said, tapping Weiss lightly on the shoulder with his cane, "thought he could disappear. He thought his oath to the Shadows was weaker than the pull of family, of foolish love. He left his post to see his fiancé. They planned to flee together to France."
Müller tilted his head, studying Weiss as though he were a specimen pinned beneath glass. "Tell them, Weiss. Tell them what loyalty bought you." Weiss's voice cracked, raw with fear. "Please… I only wanted to see her, just once…" The cane struck his face, sending him sprawling into the dirt. Blood spattered dark across the stones. Müller's calm did not waver.
"You betrayed the Reich, your own people," he said coldly, "and you betrayed the love of your life." No one moved. No one breathed. Christian felt his stomach twist into knots, but he kept his eyes fixed forward. His heart thudded violently, yet he knew, to flinch was death. Müller raised his hand. A pistol was placed into it by one of the guards with mechanical obedience.
Christian's pulse roared in his ears. Surely, Müller would not. The shot cracked the night open. Weiss collapsed, lifeless, the echo shattering what little innocence remained among them. Blood pooled black beneath his body, soaking into the earth.
Müller holstered the pistol without expression, his voice steady as stone.
"This is not cruelty. This is clarity. The Reich demands loyalty that does not tremble at love, or family, or conscience. You are Shadows. You are nothing without us. Forget that, and you will be erased."
He turned then, his gaze sweeping over the rows of pale faces. His eyes lingered on Christian for a heartbeat too long, as if sensing the storm raging within him.
When Müller finally walked away, the silence he left was unbearable. Only the sound of boots scraping stone as Weiss's body was dragged out of sight remained.
That night, Christian lay awake in his bunk, his thoughts a battlefield. Weiss's blood had stained more than stone; it had stained Christian's resolve. He thought of Kristina, of her father's bookshop, of Müller's words. The trap was absolute. He could never leave, not without sealing his fate like Weiss. But another truth coiled inside him like fire: war was coming. The east was whispering Poland, and if Müller spoke true, the Shadows would be unleashed as its spear point.
Christian stared into the darkness of the barracks, the image of Weiss's lifeless eyes carved into his mind. The oath bound him tighter than chains, but within him something hardened. He was no longer just afraid. He was becoming what Müller wanted, a weapon, but a weapon with his own secret fracture: a heart that still beat for Kristina.
And so he whispered into the silence, words no one else could hear:
"Hold on, Kristina. I will survive this. I will find you."
Outside, the night smelled of smoke and iron, as though the city itself was preparing for the firestorm to come.