The forest swallowed everything; light, sound, even breath. The only reminder that the world still turned was the thin plume of smoke twisting above the tree line, the last remains of the radio outpost Christian and his unit had burned to ash.
But silence was not safety.
The partisans were hunting them. It began with the crows. Their sudden flight tore through the canopy like a warning. Then came the sharp crack of a rifle shot. One of the Abwehr men crumpled beside Christian, blood blooming across his chest. The forest exploded with chaos, shouts in Polish, muzzle flashes darting like fireflies in the underbrush.
"Ambush!" Jansen roared, diving behind a fallen log. Christian hit the dirt, returning fire with quick, precise bursts. The enemy was invisible, scattered like ghosts. The Germans were pinned. Christian's pulse slowed. This was where he lived, in the space between heartbeat and death.
"Flank left!" he barked, crawling low, dragging one man with him. The woods echoed with gunfire, bullets shredding bark, showers of splinters raining down.
For every partisan they dropped, two more seemed to appear. Their faces flashed through the trees: men in peasant clothes, rifles gripped like lifelines, eyes burning with hatred.
This wasn't war. This was vengeance. They broke contact after what felt like hours, retreating deeper into the pines. Christian's unit was reduced to four. The dead were left where they fell, swallowed by moss and silence. They paused in a hollow, chests heaving. The air reeked of pine sap and blood.
"They'll keep hunting us," Jansen muttered, wiping mud from his face. "They won't stop. Not after the outpost." "That's why we kill them first," Christian said flatly, reloading his pistol. His voice carried no doubt, only iron.
Jansen's eyes flicked to him, full of something unspoken. Then, quietly, he said: "Do you ever wonder if we'd even be here, if not for the Russians?" Christian looked up sharply. Jansen continued, words low and bitter. "Everyone celebrates the Reich's victory in Poland, but you and I know the truth. We didn't conquer this land alone. Without the Soviets cutting in from the east, the Poles might have held us longer. Maybe even bled us dry."
He spat into the dirt. "And now we're left to clean up the scraps fighting ghosts in the trees." The other men shifted uncomfortably. To speak like this, to even suggest that Germany's triumph was not absolute, was dangerous. Treasonous.
Christian's gaze lingered on Jansen. A thought flickered like a blade: He's already dead. He just doesn't know it yet. Night fell heavy, and the hunt became more suffocating.
The partisans lit no fires, but their presence pressed from every direction. A twig snapping behind them. The faint glint of eyes in the dark. Once, a knife was found wedged into a tree trunk where Christian had stood seconds before. They were being toyed with. Worn down.
The youngest Abwehr man cracked first. He bolted in the night, screaming, crashing through the trees. His cries were cut off in seconds. When dawn came, they found what was left of him tied to a branch, throat slit, his eyes open to the canopy.
Jansen cursed under his breath, fists clenched. "We're not soldiers here. We're animals in a trap."
Christian stared at the body, unmoved. "Then we kill the trapper." That evening, Christian set his plan. He would become bait. He smeared blood from the dead soldier onto his tunic, staggering into the clearing with his pistol hidden under his coat. His limp was convincing, his breathing ragged. He muttered German curses under his breath, just loud enough to carry.
The woods answered. A rustle. A whisper. Then, figures emerging, rifles raised. Three of them, moving cautious, their eyes hungry. Christian's lips curled into a cold smile. The first died with a bullet through the eye. The second caught his knife in the throat. The third managed to fire shattering Christian's shoulder with searing pain before Christian smashed him to the ground and snapped his neck with brutal precision.
Blood poured hot down his arm, but he felt nothing. Only the stillness of the kill. The forest hushed. The partisans melted back into the dark, spooked by the violence of his counterattack. For now, they were broken. Later, as Christian bound his wound with torn cloth, Jansen crouched beside him, fury in his eyes.
"You risked all our lives pulling that stunt." Christian's gaze flicked up, flat and cold. "And yet, we're alive. That's more than the others can say." "You think this is survival?" Jansen hissed. "This is madness. Every mission we go deeper into hell, and you…" He stopped himself, voice cracking. "You're not the man I met in Berlin."
Christian tightened the bandage, ignoring the sting. "Maybe I never was."
For a long moment, they stared at each other. The idealist clinging to shreds of humanity, and the killer who had embraced the dark. The gulf between them had never been wider. And Christian knew: Müller would see Jansen's weakness for what it was.
Sooner or later, the Reich would demand a reckoning. But until then, the hunt was not over. The pines whispered with wind. Somewhere in the dark, partisans still prowled, waiting for their moment and Christian felt the shadows drawing tighter, pulling him down into the abyss.