The sky itself seemed to have frozen. It was not the clear winter of storybooks, but a ceiling of gray so low and heavy it felt like another weight pressing down on them. Snow fell not in flakes but in dust, clinging to rags, to unshaven faces, to rifles that no longer fired. The steppe stretched endlessly, white and dead, while inside the city the ruins stood rimed with ice, each broken window filled with teeth of frost.
The Sixth Army was encircled. Christian could feel it in the air, in the way men spoke; clipped, whispered. Some did not speak at all. The ring was closing, and with it came the slow suffocation of hope.
It began with hunger. Not the sharp pangs of a missed meal but a hollowing that never ended, an emptiness that gnawed at muscle, marrow, thought itself. The bread ration was gone, the horse meat long consumed. Now the men boiled anything that could be softened by water and flame.
One evening, Christian returned to the dugout to the sour smell of something simmering. A pot balanced on broken bricks, the water inside a pale brown. A soldier ladled it out carefully, handing each man a dented tin cup. Christian raised his to his lips. The liquid was bitter, fibrous. His teeth caught something stringy. Only when he spat it into his palm did he understand: strips of boiled leather. Boot leather.
Around him, the others chewed mechanically, faces blank. No one spoke. To acknowledge it aloud would have been to admit they were animals now, gnawing at their own skin.
At night the frost was worse than hunger. He wrapped himself in everything he owned; cloak, scarf, the remains of a wool blanket. Still the cold seeped through, a silent invader that numbed his fingers, his toes, his thoughts. Men slept huddled together like corpses laid in rows. Some did not wake.
The next morning, Christian watched as two soldiers pulled a frozen body from the dugout corner. They did not weep or curse. They only searched the corpse for cigarettes, for rations, for anything left to steal from the dead.
The eyes of the corpse were open, a pale blue rimmed with frost. Christian looked away, clutching Kristina's ring in his fist until his knuckles ached.
The despair seeped in slower than frost, but it was deadlier. Officers still barked orders, still spoke of "holding the line," but their voices no longer carried weight. Men went through the motions, firing at shadows, stumbling on patrols, their minds already half-buried.
Christian heard whispers in the night. "Better the Soviets take us than starve like rats." Another voice: "Better a bullet than this."
He did not join the whispers, but they lodged in him, festering. He had seen the Soviets mourn Antonov, had felt their fury, their unity and he had seen the Reich fractured, devouring its own. Were the Germans truly any better?
Through it all, Müller was unchanged.
He still walked upright, coat immaculate despite the filth, eyes calm, lips almost amused. Where others trembled, Müller seemed to thrive. He moved among the men like a shadow in command, offering no warmth, no rations, only the steady reminder that he was watching.
One evening, as Christian gnawed at a strip of leather, Müller sat across from him in the dim light of a single candle stub.
"You've grown quiet," Müller said softly. His tone was not accusation but something worse: curiosity.
Christian forced himself to answer. "There's nothing left to say."
Müller's smile was faint, unreadable. "There is always something left to say. Men reveal themselves when pressed. Hunger makes the mask slip."
Christian looked away, heat rising in his chest despite the frost. He felt stripped bare beneath Müller's gaze, as though the man could see every flicker of doubt, every whispered thought of treason.
Later that night, lying awake in the cold, Christian wondered if Müller knew. Knew about Kristina. Knew about his doubts. Knew about the dream of the Red Tide that still haunted him.
Müller was waiting. Waiting for him to stumble. Waiting to tighten the noose.
The next day, another pot was boiled. The smell was worse now, a stench of rot and tar. Christian forced himself to swallow, each bite scraping down his throat. Around him, men groaned, some retching it back up. One muttered that the leather was poisoned, that it was killing them faster than hunger.
Still, they ate. They had no choice.
Christian looked into the pot and saw not broth but a reflection of himself, hollow-eyed, gaunt, skin stretched thin. The image wavered with the steam, as though mocking him. He clenched his jaw, forcing another mouthful down, telling himself he would survive.
But the voice inside whispered otherwise: Survive for what? For whom?
The days blurred into one another. Snow, hunger, frost, whispers.
Christian began to feel eyes on him always. Not only Müller's but others. Soldiers who lingered when he passed, who seemed to hush when he drew near. Perhaps they suspected him. Perhaps they only envied the warmth of his coat, the strength he still managed to show.
One night he woke with a start, convinced someone was standing over him. His hand flew to his knife, only to find the dugout empty, the others sleeping soundly. His breath came in ragged gasps, clouding in the frozen air.
He realized then: Müller did not need to kill him. The cold, the hunger, the silence; they were all killing him already. Müller only needed to watch.
On the tenth day of encirclement, Christian watched a soldier collapse in the street, snow settling on his body before anyone moved. No one tried to help. No one had the strength.
Christian wanted to scream, to rage, to claw at the walls of fate itself. But the sound that left his throat was not a scream. It was a laugh. A hollow, broken laugh that startled even himself.
Men turned to look at him. Müller, standing nearby, tilted his head slightly, as though amused. Christian swallowed the laugh, biting it back until his mouth filled with the taste of blood.
Inside, he knew the truth: he was breaking. Slowly, inevitably. The frost, the hunger, the despair; they were tearing him apart piece by piece and Müller was there to watch it all.