February 23rd, 1943 (Episode 1)

It was one of the coldest and fierce winters of Russia. The City of Stalingrad, the pride of Stalin and the Russian Soviet Union had seen havoc in the last 6 months like no other city had seen in the history of warfare in Russia. The city was almost destroyed in a clash between German and Russian Armies, buildings crumbled, families detached, once the city of abundance is now nothing but the bits and pieces of collapsed buildings and weeping and suffering of the lives lost and the destroyed livelihood of people.

Somewhere outside Stalingrad, in the overfalling snowstorm, there was a camp of German soldiers, The way from German camp to the city of Stalingrad was piled up with bodies, it was hard to identify the bodies lying over there in the cold snow, they were the military soldiers from both Russia and German.

The bodies were half-buried into the snow and other half left uncovered towards the sky and nature was doing its cleanse, Vultures were regaling on them. We could see the snow-covered blood in every direction your eyes could observe, the bloodshed happened on the battlefield, it was shattering and dreadful sight that a man could ever encounter.

In the camp, some of the soldiers were wounded and ripped apart due to bomb blasts, but the majority of the soldiers were dead due to extreme weather conditions of Russian winter and hunger. This was indeed one of the biggest failures and the wrong action took by Hitler.

The desire for command and power of one self-interested person is always the basis to start a war. And this one over Russia which led to devastation, in those freezing temperatures with not even appropriate winter garments and food German soldiers were counting their miserable days, most of them were not even German’s.

After Germany occupied France, the people of France had no other choice than kneeling before Hitler’s regime, without even adequate training young men of France were sent to Stalingrad as scrap goats who were ready to be massacred for the power monopoly game of German.

At this stage Germany was at the verge of its failure and the Hitler regime was going to deteriorate sooner or later, the soldiers knew that they were surrounded by the Russian army and they would be pushed from all sides simultaneously, they were not frightened but they were indeed waiting for it. They were waiting for this to end, they were waiting for this nightmare of pain and agony to finish.

If Russia wins the war all of this will be over, their suffering will end, and some of them were waiting for the war to start and get killed or kill rather than suffering a terrible wound and dying with cold and hunger, in this whole devastation and miserable atmosphere at the center of the camp some of the soldiers were guarding the perimeter at the end of their sniper towers, it was around 5 in the morning, the snow began to drizzle, even in that brutal situation without proper garments to withstand that cold, soldiers were guarding the perimeter.

“Hey Mate! I think we will die?” said one of the snipers in that tower.

A man who is Six feet with a fit muscled body, blonde and aged between his mid 20’s turned back and said “Not yet George, not yet”.

“We’ll die with hunger or hypothermia if this war continues more than 2 days,” said George with a low and trembling tone.

“I know George, but dying is not an option, it is not at all an option” reassured Micheal.

“You still got hope to see her mate?”

Micheal closes his eyes, even in the freezing snow, he can feel the warmth of her body around him, her eyes, her smell, and everything was crystal clear for Micheal. The memories flashed in before his eyes as real as if he was there with her.

“You know what mate? I can still see her smile, I can still feel her lips touching mine that soft and warmth sensation I still remember it, I promised her I will get back to her no matter what, and I am going to get back to her, whatever it takes.”

“Yay mate, she is lucky, and you too,” told George and took a picture from his pocket.

“You see them mate?”

“Your family?” said Micheal with a guessing tone.

“Yes, I was not used to be like this, we were really happy I used to have a bakery in Germany after work I would always go back home to my family, I used to play with my children, once in a while, we used to go for picnic’s, we were a happy family, and Amy, I am lucky to have her, but suddenly everything changed when German began to invade Russia.”

“I wonder, what he gained by this invasion?”

“Who?” asked George with a confusion.

“Hitler, I mean look around mate, most of the soldiers who are in this regiment do not even know why are they still fighting this war, this devastation, this destruction, what did the people of Germany gained from it?”

“It’s war mate, that’s how it is, one day after this is over I will get back to my family.”

“Sure, mate we will survive this.”

In amidst of the conversation, Just in a flash of a second, the bullet penetrated through the eye of George, the blood from his injured skull plunges on to the face of Michael, he was traumatized, and he could hear the noises of gunfire and the footsteps of the horses and soldiers running, he slowly turned his head towards the opposite side.

In that snowstorm he could see that from a distance Russian army is running violently towards their camp, Michael took his sniper and looked all over the perimeter and in no time he came to learn they were outnumbered and surrounded by Russian Army, there was no chance of surviving them, so Micheal thought he could surrender, one of the soldiers dropped his gun and kneeled as a sign of surrender at the perimeter of the camp, but Russian army shot into his head multiple times showing no mercy.

Then Micheal realized there was no option for surrender and mercy, they need to fight till death, or else they will be slaughtered by the Russian army, Michael ran quickly towards the siren and began to thud the Siren, the whole camp woke up and prepared for their final standoff with Russia. Whereas some soldiers ran away from the war zone after seeing the devastation and merciless killing of the Russian Army, they ran like cowards to save their own lives rather than fighting as a soldier.

But Russian snipers without hesitation shot every German soldier who began to run out of the war zone, Micheal was at the center of the camp near siren tower, he was able to see the whole camp and the perimeter from the tower. Micheal had seen Russians fighting before but today was something different, they were like wild elephants, a stampede in the wilderness, the Russian soldiers were killing, just as the wild elephants which destroy everything in there path with their tusks. They were moving towards the German camp as the fire in the forest of summer.

Some of these soldiers were killed instantly and some of the soldiers were tortured, their hands and legs were being torn apart from their body by Russian soldiers until they pleaded for mercy and death, within no time the Russian Army breached the perimeter. There was nothing but blood and amputated body parts spread across the whole perimeter camp. The legs, heads, the bodies smushed of the German soldiers who were taken by surprise from this move. The whole battlefield was filled with the horridness and the cries of the German soldiers, the sight was extremely dreadful.

Micheal was terrified by this and his hand began to tremble, he laid down inside the Sniper tower with fear, he did not want to face them but deep down he realized that he made a promise, he made a promise to Regina, that no matter what he would return from war, there was no option of hiding the only option he had was to fight, he gathered himself together and began to kill as many Russians as possible with his sniper.

One of the Russian soldiers saw Micheal in the sniper tower and threw a grenade into the tower, Micheal saw this coming and by the time it was about to detonate he jumped from the sniper tower. Due to the blast impact, he was blown away from the tower towards the snow.

He has seen dead people before but not like this, Never, there where dead soldiers all around him mutilated, ripped, and lying in the pools of blood in the snow. Soldiers were saying their last words, crying out for help, for mercy, and looking at him with horror in their eyes, choking on their blood and dying a horrible death.

Wherever he could look there were dead bodies and chaos, it’s was a gory sight, his head was still buzzing because of the blast, his ears and nose were bleeding, his hands and his face was covered with blood, all he could see was a red color pool around him, his ears were keep ringing like a siren due to the impact of the blast, everything was blurry around him, he cried out of pain, he slowly crawled to a crate and leaned against it.

He could not feel his left arm, it was dislocated and was hanging inside his blood-covered shirt, he could hear soldiers crying, running and shouting, he struggled to keep his eyes open, but they were burning, he could feel his skin burn because of the blast, but at that moment he could not define the pain whether it is from the cold weather or from the burns he had, all he can feel is immense pain.

“Are you okay?” Someone shouted near his ear,

He was not able to see who it was but he could feel that person lifting him and taking him away, he stumbled across the dead bodies in the field, he could see dead faces covered with blood all over the way he was being taken, there were soldiers gravely injured, shouting and pleading for help. His foot stumbled over them many times and walked away from them, he was helpless.

Finally, he was dropped at a place with his fellow German soldiers who were injured and kneeling in the field. He was made to sit down on his knee’s with them, he was able to see all of his fellow soldiers kneeling before the Russian Army. The Russian were shouting and celebrating their victory over German, the battle is over. All of a sudden a Man shouted “STOP”.

The field became silent for a moment after a lot of violence. From the Russian Army a tall man, with a scar on his face across his cheek to the forehead entered with a cruel smile, was the General of the Russian Army walking up to the captain.

“My comrades today is the day which will be remembered in history for a long long time, we made sure these German Son of B****s are served with justice, It’s time for the world to know the true power of Russia and the world will get to know the truth about the False power of Adolf Hitler.”

“Today is the day, we make sure German payback for the sins and atrocities they did to our people, our women and our children in Stalingrad, We set an example to the world loud and clear, that if they want Russia, they’ll get just blood and chaos, ALL POWER TO SOVIETS” shouted the General.

Russian soldiers repeated this with revenge in their eyes and with all their power “ALL POWER TO SOVIETS”

“Now tell me where are the remaining soldiers who are hiding in the city?” asked the Russian general.

“F**K you, you’ll never be able to make me talk,” said the German soldier and spit on the face of the General.

General became furious by this and said “Well, let's keep it simple, shall we?” and drew his sword and separated the head from the body of the soldier, the blood was spilled on his face and the severed head rolled towards Micheal.

“Sir! What should we do with these soldiers?” asked one of the Russian soldier

“Load these wimps in the truck, and throw them in the prison so until they can tell the whereabouts of the remaining Germans in the ruined city,” said the general and slowly walked back into his tank, the Russian soldier began to hit the german soldiers and started to load them into trucks.

Micheal can feel a hit on his head very hard that he fell on the ground, things became more blurry and he passed out.