The frost had crept into the bones of the Sixth Army.
There was no food left, no fuel, no illusion of victory. The city was a mausoleum, and the men inside were writing their epitaphs not on stone, not on monuments, but on scraps of paper, the last tatters of a world that had already slipped beyond their reach.
Christian sat among them, watching as soldiers bent over crates, over broken helmets, over their own knees, scratching words with pencil stubs and bits of charcoal.
The farewell letters.
They wrote on anything they could find; ration wrappers, torn maps, cigarette cartons, even strips cut from uniforms. The words themselves were fragile things, barely legible in the dim light, but the men clung to them as if they could ward off death.
"Dearest Anna, forgive me…"
"My little Hans, I hope you grow strong…"
"Tell Father I fought bravely…"
The letters would never leave Stalingrad. They all knew it. The encirclement was absolute, the sky controlled by Soviet wings. Yet they wrote anyway, hands shaking, words scrawled crookedly.
Some folded their notes carefully, tucking them into breast pockets as if the earth itself might deliver them. Others handed them to chaplains who promised nothing but still accepted them, their own coats heavy with paper prayers. The letters were not for the living. They were confessions for the dead.
Christian found himself staring at a scrap of paper in his own hand the corner of a field manual, torn and smudged with dirt. Someone had pushed it on him, along with a splinter of charcoal. "Write, if you want your soul lighter," the man had said.
The words sat before him like a wound waiting to be opened.
Kristina.
Her name came first, traced in hesitant strokes. For a moment, the letters looked alien, as though they belonged to another language. He had not written her name in months. He whispered it under his breath, tasting it as if for the first time.
Kristina.
He began.
My dearest
The charcoal snapped. He cursed, pressing harder with the broken stub.
If this reaches you…
But his hand stopped. His chest tightened. The thought of her reading these words, the thought of her face tightening with grief, was unbearable.
What could he write that would not poison her with his death?
That he had killed men with a knife and felt their warmth fading on his hands? That he had eaten horseflesh raw, envied corpses, howled like a dog in his sleep? That he had served masters he despised and betrayed himself with every breath?
What could she do with such words? They would not keep her warm, they would not keep her safe. They would only bind her memory to his ruin. He pressed the charcoal harder until it crumbled.
The page remained half-empty.
Around him, others clutched their scraps to their chests, lips moving in murmured prayers. Christian's hands shook.
Then, slowly, he reached for the candle stub guttering in the corner of the dugout. He held the page above it. The flame licked, spread, devoured.
The paper curled, blackened, turned to ash in his hand.
He watched it burn without moving, the smoke stinging his eyes. Only when the last ember winked out did he close his fist around the ashes and let them fall to the dirt.
No letter. No words. No goodbye.
Kristina would never know, and perhaps that was mercy.
But in the silence that followed, another thought slithered in. Müller.
Even if Christian died here, even if his body was lost beneath snow and rubble, Müller lived. And Müller had said it plainly: I know where your heart is.
What if his death did not end it? What if Müller reached across the lines, across the miles, and brought suffering to Kristina anyway?
Christian shivered, though the air was already bitter. The thought gnawed worse than hunger. To die here was one thing and to drag her down into the grave with him was another.
He closed his eyes and saw Müller's smile, faint, amused, patient.
Death would not protect her. Only survival might.
And so he clenched his jaw, his breath ragged, and whispered into the dark:
"I must live. For her. I must live, even in hell."
The words felt like chains tightening, but also like fire catching in his chest.
That night, as the wind howled through shattered rafters, the men murmured in their sleep. Some spoke their children's names. Some recited prayers. One wept openly, calling for his mother until his voice broke.
Christian lay awake, the ghost of his unfinished letter haunting him. He felt the ashes still on his fingers, smelled the smoke still in his hair.
Sleep came in broken fragments, and with it dreams: Kristina's face, blurred by snow, turning away from him as letters blew from her hands into the sky. He ran to catch them, but each turned to ash before his fingers closed. Behind her, Müller's figure loomed, faceless, his gloved hand resting lightly on her shoulder.
Christian woke with a gasp, heart hammering. He pressed his hand against the cold ground, grounding himself, forcing his breath to steady and around him, men still wrote down their farewells. He alone had burned his.
In the morning, the scavenging resumed, the hunger unbroken. The letters were tucked into coats, hidden in boots, pressed against hearts.
Christian had nothing. Only silence and the knowledge that if he lived, it would not be for himself. It would be for Kristina and to keep Müller's hand from her throat.
The war had stripped everything from him, but this truth remained: his heart was still chained and someone else held the key.