Maximilian awoke on a cobbled road. It was the middle of the night. All around him, there were burnt-out ruins of buildings he could vaguely recognize, though it was hard to tell exactly what they had once been as everything was shrouded in thick white fog.

Where am I? he thought.

Suddenly, he heard something he hadn't heard for a long time: sounds of gunfire and explosions that were coming from all around him. That got him up and he desperately started looking for cover. Without any better options, he dove into a ruined storefront. The inside of it was so ruined he couldn't even start to guess what its purpose was. Löwe wanted to stay inside for a while, but something beckoned him outside. Try as he might, he couldn't refuse it. Giving in, Löwe left the building and set off in the direction the beacon was guiding him. Soon he started seeing almost translucent corpses lying on the streets: some dressed in khaki, the others in feldgrau.

It can't be… Am I home?

He looked around. Yes. The architecture was German, but it somehow felt wrong. Like someone tried to reconstruct it from incomplete information. Before he could investigate this further the beacon urged him to keep going. As he went on, everything became more distinct, and the feeling of wrongness decreased- the houses were looking more natural, but there was still something off about them. He also started seeing people: German soldiers exchanging fire with the equally Red Army. Old men and teenagers joined the Wehrmacht regulars and fired upon the Bolsheviks from the cover of houses’ windows.

So Maximilian was home! And yet… Why did no one notice him? He was standing in the middle of a firefight and no one even took a pot shot at him.

The beacon urged him on.

So Löwe walked past the firefight, he could have sworn some of the bullets passed through him, and as he came across more small battles. A group of Bolsheviks hiding behind a knocked-out T-34 firing on some irregulars hiding in a shop. Suddenly, something zinged past him and the Russian tank exploded, killing the Red Army men. Some of their body parts landed by Maximilian. A Panther tank emerged from a side street, smoke still flowing out of its barrel. It set itself up in the middle of the road to blockade it, but soon afterwards a wing of Russian planes flew over them and dropped a bomb on the armoured vehicle. Löwe instinctively threw himself to the ground, but he didn’t even feel the explosions.

The beacon urged him on.

And so he went. Soon, Löwe stopped paying attention to the skirmishes. There was nothing he could do to affect them, anyway.

Eventually, he reached his apparent destination. He was standing in front of a network of fortifications and trenches, behind which there was a massive neo-renaissance building. Reichstag.

Berlin… Löwe thought, shocked. But… how?

The thing was… the city did not look like Berlin. He noticed a firefight going on between people inside the building and the Russian soldiers outside.

‘So the elf bitch wasn’t lying…’ Maximilian muttered to himself.

‘No,’ confirmed a cold imperious voice behind him. ‘She wasn’t.’

The sudden appearance of another person made Maximilian jump. He quickly regained his composure and turned around. Behind him stood a slender blue-eyed woman with long white hair. She was quite young-looking, yet something about her made Löwe very wary. He felt like a fawn standing before a hungry alpha wolf. The woman was wearing a form-fitting khaki Red Army uniform and a wrap-around camo cloak. There was a sniper rifle on her back.

‘Who are you?!’ he demanded.

‘Pardon my manners, Maxie,’ the woman said in an exaggerated manner. ‘I am Ereshkigal.’

Wait… how does she know my name?

‘Oh. I know everything about you Max. More than even you do.’

There was a predatory smile on Ereshkigal’s face.

‘And yes…’ she continued. ‘I can read your mind. You don’t have to ask.’

‘Wh- What do you want from me?’ Löwe asked, terrified for the first time in a long time.

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

‘All shall be made clear in time. Follow me, please.’

In complete silence, Ereshkigal led him past the trenches and soon they reached the entrance to the Reichstag. There was a barricade set up in front of the door, behind which German soldiers were trying to stop the Bolshevik onslaught. Löwe recognized one of them. It was himself. His doppelganger was looking haggard, his uniform was torn, but it was him.

‘How-’ he started, but Ereshkigal cut him off.

‘...Is this possible? This is one of your possible futures, had you not been brought to Dwynveia. At least the best I could do with the information I had.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mostly had to construct this out of Lilyth’s memories. I still had a record of these from when I helped the poor thing remake her body. A lot of this comes from some video game Lilyth played twenty years before she was brought to Dwynveia and could vaguely remember. Which is why the place looks the way it looks. I filled some blanks with some online tank game she played a lot, and the rest is my invention. I honestly don’t think historical accuracy matters here.’

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Video games? What?

‘No… that’s not what…’

‘Oh… you meant the possible futures…’ Ereshkigal interrupted him again.

This was starting to get on his nerves. He would teach the bitch to respect him. Ereshkigal’s sudden smile told him “No, you will do no such thing.”

Scheiße. I forgot she could read my mind.

‘So, you are learning. Good. Anyway, to answer your question: you’ve been a naughty boy Maxie.’

Löwe tried to protest, but his mouth wouldn’t open. His body refused to move and he realised the time stopped around him.

‘Sorry about that Maxie, but it will be faster this way. You see when you came to Dwynveia, in a way you became a part of a domain, and there is almost nothing a Goddess of Death hates more than a necromancer.’

A Goddess of Death? What? Am I dead?

Ereshkigal ignored him and continued.

‘The first place is taken by people who commit genocide, and hey, you check both of these boxes. And, while your nutjob colleagues were outside of my reach… ’

The goddess smiled once again in that terrifying predatory manner.

‘Since nobody can evade my embrace forever, normally, I have a special punishment prepared for necromancers when they inevitably join the ranks of the dead. You Earthlings have this nice saying: “There is a special room in hell waiting for people like you”. Necromancers who end up there have their skin ripped off and their wounds salted. Then once the pain subsides their skin is regrown and the process repeats anew. Forever. I come there to watch when I am having a bad day. Oh… By the way - Rivard is not very happy about how he ended up there thanks to you. He was looking forward to seeing you end up there as well, but he’ll never get that satisfaction. We can count that as a bonus torture for him. People who commit mass atrocities get an extra painful version of this. It really gets drawn out. But, for you mein freund, I had to prepare something special. Which brings us to your punishment.’

Ereshkigal snapped her finger and they found themselves right by the barricade. She resumed the flow of time. They watched the battle continue. Wehrmacht soldiers were getting overwhelmed and eventually, Red Army men started making their way up the stairs. One of them was carrying a flag of the Soviet Union. Löwe saw himself being one of the last Germans standing. He killed the Russian carrying the flag, but another man picked it up. The second Löwe ran out of ammo, tried to take on the soldier in melee, but ended up impaled on the flagpole. Then the Bolshevik got shot, but the flag remained in Maximilian’s stomach. His stomach, he corrected himself. Maximilian could see the agony on his doppelganger’s face and involuntarily shuddered.

I can move again.

‘Yes,’ Ereshkigal confirmed. ‘You can.’

Before Max could say anything else, Ereshkigal snapped her fingers again and they found themselves in a trench on a frigid field. Max saw his doppelganger standing in a trench in a winter uniform. He was trying to stop the advancing Russians, but there were just too many of them.

Time stopped again.

‘Welcome to the Kursk Salient. 1943. Which would be a year after you left Earth. This is where Germany really started losing on the Eastern Front. As I said, what happened in the Reichstag in 1945 was only one of your possible futures. Let’s see what happens to you this time.’

The German soldiers were forced to retreat, the second Löwe among them. Before his doppelganger could get away though he got shot in the back. He tried to crawl away, but the Bolsheviks were joined by a tank squad. One of them ran over him.

Ereshkigal snapped her fingers again and they found themselves standing in a pillbox overlooking the sea.

‘Normandy, 1944,’ the goddess explained. ‘The so-called D-Day. Allies are returning to Europe and are here to stay. And speaking of them…’

An American soldier with a flamethrower stood at the entrance to the pillbox and fired. Everyone inside, including Maximilian’s doppelganger, was burned to death.

‘So… is this my punishment? Am I to watch myself getting killed over and over again?’

Ereshkigal laughed.

‘Oh no, mein Freund. You are not going to just watch. You are going to be the main star. I’m just showing you the highlights.’

Löwe paled and felt his bladder loosen. He fell to his knees and started to beg.

‘Mercy. Have mercy please.’

‘Mercy? That’s a curious thing for you of all people to ask for. You never showed mercy to people you persecuted. You didn’t show mercy to other people in the Tower of Trials. You wouldn’t show mercy to Lilyth and Aki. I know what you were cooking up in your lab. And you have the gall to ask me to show mercy to you?’

Ereshkigal laughed coldly and continued.

‘And speaking of Lilyth and Aki. You see, I had a friend help me design all of this. Turns out, it’s a small universe. Allow me to introduce you to Zekuthran.’

A tall blue-haired man entered the pillbox. He had a pair of black horns curving upwards on his forehead and an arrow-tipped tail. The best Max could tell, the demon was wearing a black US Navy uniform. Löwe realised he was paralysed again.

‘Greetings, scum.’ Zekuthran said, with a hate-filled voice. ‘As Ere, here, said my name is Zekuthran. Archpraetor of the forces of the Abyss. I’m also Aki’s grandfather, as I learned in the past few hours. While I haven't had a chance to meet her yet, I hope to change that in the future. Her dying in battle would be unfortunate, but as a soldier, I would find it understandable to some degree. But since you wanted to use her and then kill her… well… that changes things, now does it? Furthermore, you almost killed Lilyth, twice I believe? The best I can tell, Aki cares about her, so Lilyth’s death would really break her heart. And that’s even worse. So when Ereshkigal asked me for help here… I was more than pleased. Especially, once she explained your disgusting organisation to me.’

‘And that’s that, I think?’ Ereshkigal said.

‘Yup. All I wanted to say.’

‘If you want to ever watch, I’ll be happy to oblige.’

‘Thanks. I might take you up on this. Anyway, I have my duties to go back to. See ya.’

‘Bye, love.’

Ereshkigal blew Zekuthran a kiss and turned back to Löwe.

‘I also have things I will need to get back to soon. And you, if I remember correctly, are due for a visit to a place called Stalingrad, I believe? You Earthlings have the funniest city names.’

The goddess laughed.

‘No point in wasting more time talking. Try to enjoy yourself. Or well… not. Don’t worry, it’s only for eternity.’

‘No!’ Löwe shouted.

The only thing to answer him was Ereshkigal’s laughter.