PART III

NOTICE:THESE NEXT CHAPTERS CONTAINS DEPICTIONS THAT ARE GRAPHIC IN NATURE. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

Dante's Inferno, Canto lll, Line nine.

After sprinting the three miles to the city, I pause out of breath. My mind flips between worrying about Kurtz and Irina. I ultimately decide that I need to find Kurtz. Irina is smart and strong, she has to make it. Kurtz however could get himself killed if he is not careful, I need to find him. The sirens no longer sound. The bombers, finished with us, now drone away. I must find Kurtz, I know his grandmother lives in an apartment in the northeast corner of town, so that's where I shall go. I worry about Irina and pray she is alright. My trek begins at the outskirts of the city. It shocks me to see this once beautiful town so devastated. The smoke burns my eyes and makes me gag. As I walk I come to where the dirt and paved roads meet. I pass through a grove of trees on both sides of the road, their limbs and leaves are alight with flame. The heat is almost unbearable as it singes my face. The heat of the road can be felt in my boots. I enter what appears to be a residential area. Small houses line the road or what was left of them. Many of the houses are alight, some are reduced to ruins. No house was spared, I wonder if there was any survivors. As I walk I look at the smoke that accumulates into a large cloud that hangs over the center of the city. I walk amongst the ruined houses when I come upon a figure ahead of me. As I come closer I get excited, someone lives! But something is wrong. As I approach I see a woman carrying something in one hand. She shuffles slowly in a circle. I shout to get her attention but I find something else that horrifies me. She stops and looks at me. Her eyes have melted out of her skull! Her hair has been burned off. Her body is nude and blackened as chard flesh hangs from her. I see her cradling in her left hand a bundle and an infant whose face is smudged black.It cries softly like it can't muster the strength to cry any longer She drags behind her a limp object that I soon come to realize is a small child that is so burned beyond recognition The child’s limp body drags the ground being held tightly by the mothers firm grip on the the child’s hand. The poor creature doesn’t even realize that she is dragging her dead child. The woman then starts her slow circle once again, her hanging flesh drags behind her, completely disregarding me. I step around the wandering creature who stays in perpetual limbo.

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I continue on my way through the residential area. I soon walk by the fire station and find it abandoned and the engine sits burning. I walk amongst the ruins of the two to three story buildings. Some of them still stand but are badly damaged. From an alley I hear screaming and I look. There three men corner a woman in tattered dress in an alley, they approach her menacingly. She cries aloud,” Someone please help me!” Like wolves they savagely attack her tearing at her garbs like a pack of lustful wolves. She screams aloud with a shriek of horror. I turn away to not bear witness. Suddenly the woman runs out into the street partially nude. On her heels are crazed men, who pull at her clothes ripping them further. They drool and grin with the most sinister of intentions. One bumps into me, knocking me back. When he turns to look, all I see is crazed savagery in his eyes, like that of a wild animal hunting. He catches up with the pack and they soon disappear into another alley among the rubble. I am shocked because I know what I just witnessed but I am sure that I know those men's intentions.

The fires are spread about, burning from the roofs sending columns to the sky. My boots crunch on broken glass and I trip over scattered bricks. The roaring sounds of buildings collapsing and the loud crackling of the fires reverberate in the air. Craters litter the road in various sizes. I come across a grizzly scene on my venture. I see before me, scattered on the road and in the craters, burned and shriveled up bodies. Must be at least twenty of them and the smell of burnt flesh overwhelms me. But what shook me the most was several ragged individuals inside a bombed out shop, taking canned goods and slamming them on the ground causing the contents to burst. They scoop, with their hands, the food stuff off the ground and eat savagely from their palms. Their stomachs are heavily distended from their feasting. They look up at me with eyes like that of dogs guarding their bones. I give the savage creatures a wide berth and continue on my way through the burning devastated city.

As I pass through the city, I walk amongst the collapsed three story buildings. I hear yelling and look up to see high in the ruins, two men fighting over a small black box. The men are in rags and horribly burned. They tug aggressively at the black box in a perpetual match of tug of war. No sooner does it pass to one recipient, It is soon in the grips of the other. This is it, the town has gone mad!

I pass by the struggling figures, and soon find the cratered street blocked by rubble from a building collapse. Damn my path is blocked! I decide to take a near by alleyway, I find, to my shock, to be littered with dismembered corpses who sought shelter here. Blood pools in places and I try to avoid the sticky liquid. Shredded organs and dismembered limbs lay about. I tread carefully and try to keep from vomiting.

I exit the alley of death and continue on another street that is equally strewn with burning corpses, rubble, bricks, pieces of destroyed furniture, and broken glass. Many of the buildings have imploded on themselves.I stand in shock at the devastation and think Kurtz is surely a brave kid going through all this.The air is fowl with the scent of death and the smell of smoke. I suddenly hear running behind me, the sounds of glass crunch and bricks being kicked echo. I turn around and see a man who is now in my face. He grabs me by the collar and I see half of his face is horribly burned to where I can see the bones of his skull through the darkened flesh. His cheek has been burned away to revel his teeth. He screams at me spewing spit and blood all over my face, " You were supposed to stop them! You fucking bastard! Look what they did! Look what you did! You were supposed to save us!" He releases his grip and falls to his knees. With his burned face buried in his hands, he sobs loudly. I take advantage of this and back away slowly. I continue my trek through this burning city.

I come across of a pair of shoes in the middle of the street. Not just any shoes, but a pair of little girls shoes. They have been melted into the road from the heat. I just noticed now that I can feel the heat seeping through my boots. I can only imagine what happened to the wearer. Burning embers fall from the sky and land upon my uniform and skin. My skin sears from their heat and they burn holes in my uniform. The heavy cotton ignights before quickly extinguishing leaving smoldering black hole in my uniforn. I try to brush the embers off of me but they only burn my hands. Leaving seared burn spots on the back of my hands. I seek to take cover from the ash and embers. I make a dash but it burns me all the same. I

Soon after a short distance I come across the market district. As I step in to the square I find it almost unrecognizable from this afternoon. The smoke is thick here, my eyes burn and tear up and the shops that were so wonderful and full of life are now ruins. The book store now burns, the pages of tales unread now produce thick black smoke that rises high into the sky to join the massive black cloud that rises over the city. The cathedral's dark bricks have been scattered about. It has been heavily damaged. The steeple with its cross that had risen high above the city had now collapsed and landed upon the fountain. The steeples rubble divides the square in half. Its large brass bells come to rest in the remains of the beer hall, smashing the shop. The fountain spews water over the cobblestone walk, its great statue has been knocked off and is buried under rubble. As I close, I see bodies that lie in the fountain pool. There are at least twenty corpses that lie on top of each other while water from the broken fountain pours over them. The glass shop's windows are destroyed and its precious ornaments strewn about shattered.

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I choke and gag on smoke and the heat is intense here. I walk up to the now cracked steps of the cathedral in an effort to find my way around the steeple that divides the square for it is far too high to climb the rubble.

Blood trickles from under the door and down the stone steps. I push open the massive wooden door and I stumble upon a tragic scene. Within the cathedral I find that hundreds of people must have been sheltering here in hopes that the allies would not destroy this holy place. They were wrong, they found no salvation here. The ceiling collapsed, crushing them, arms and hands juts contorted from the rubble.The large stones stained red from crushing their poor victims. Blood runs from under the stone, below the door and down the stairs. The smell of iron holds thick in this place. I just realized I am standing in a puddle of blood. The rubble is so high that one cannot see the pews. The ceiling is gone revealing the smoke rising into the night sky. The beautiful stained glass sits high above, fragmented and cracked pouring in blue, red and violet light, from the inferno, on the grisly scene. I think of Irina and pray she is alright.

There by the cross stands a lone priest, Father Hulmut. He cries aloud in tattered robes. He screams at the cross and curses God's name in the most vile of ways. His words echo only for the dead to hear. His yells defile this once holy place.

I find my exit through the ruins and come to the other side of the steeple. This side of the market fared no better. The butcher shop has collapsed on itself, glass, bricks and fallen timber litter its insides. The restaurant in which we ate so those many times now sits burning, its smoke pollutes the heavens. The bakery of wonderful scents so pleasing, now has half of the building collapsed onto the walk making a ramp of rubble. Debris, glass, and bricks are spread across the yellow cobblestone.

Suddenly I see a man, in torn clothes, on his knees in front of me. He cries over the remains of what used to be a woman, now horribly mutilated, a pool of blood surrounds her. The crying man looks up to me, tears pour from his eyes as he sobs in sorrow. Our eyes meet and I see nothing but grief. I am shocked for in a quick movement he pulls a pistol on himself and in a flash ends his life before my eyes. Blood, brain, and bone spill on the ground. His body slumps over the woman's remains.

"A damn shame isn't it." A voice says behind me. I turn and see a man in a torn gray uniform, blood drips from gashes on his head. Its Sergeant Rudenstoff. He speaks, "What are you doing here kid?" I reply " I'm trying to find Kurtz, He came here to find his grandmother." " So you lost your little soldier huh, well I'll help you." "You will?" I ask. His response is "Yeah, I'm trying to get out of this God forsaken city. "Where was your little soldier heading?" " To the apartment blocks in the northeast." I answer. "Then let's get going." he says. We climb the ramp of rubble that used to be the bakery and jump down to the street below on the other side.

Me and Sergeant Rudenstoff leave the market district and trek north through the burning city. The fires can be seen rising high into the night sky. A column of smoke hangs high above the city. The flickering inferno lights the darkness. We walk down a street littered with mutilated corpses and debris. These poor people! I have failed them. I feel ashamed. We soon come across the government building and hear a commotion. As we close, we hear the cries of little children and the sobbing and moaning of men and women. The wails of the grieving fill the hot night air and echo throughout the burning city. They plead their cries to a God who has abandoned them. We turn the corner and see hundreds of people standing in lines in the government building's park. There are crates strewn about as the local garrison hands out supplies.

Many of the people wear dirty and torn night clothes. Many are horribly burned. I pass a small girl whose hair has been burned away, cuts cover her body. Her face has been horribly burned to the point where I believe she is blind. She clings to her mothers tattered garbs. Her parents fared no better, for the mother has a large gash across her forehead, her blood stained dress torn to reveal multiple deep wounds. But the girl's father bore the worse for his right arm had been amputated. A tight belt serves as the only means of keeping the man from bleeding out. Blood drips from his severed arm, the meat and bone visible. There he stands blank expression upon his face, he stares ahead as though he looks at some distant unforseen object. I stand in shock in the presence of these half dead people as they stand in line for meager rations and medical treatment. Hundreds of people have gathered here in the aftermath. Trails of blood are streaked across the ground from the lines of people. A small girl of about six holds an eviscerated teddy bear while crying out for her parents. I see a makeshift medical tent where medical officers perform an operation on a still consciousness man who wails in agony as surgeons attempt to remove glass that has embedded in his abdomen. Near the medical tent is a pile of discarded bodies of those who couldn't be saved. They are stacked on top of each other like matchwood. What horrified me most of all was the families that lay together among the corpses. Mothers, fathers and children are all laid side by side as disfigured corpses.

Upon the steps of the government building, a party official with a bull horn announces over the sobs, "The great and glorious Fuhrer will rebuild our great city. The Fuhrer will provide to you in these trying times. You must remain strong for the Fatherland and together we can march forward to final victory!" "Can you believe those lies?" Rudenstoff says, "Is this what final victory looks like? Even Sodom and Gomorrah fared better." "Come on, lets go." I say.

We approach the vicinity of the lake and this once beautiful place is devastated. I am incredibly shocked for the lake is full of bodies. Hundreds have drowned here in an attempt to quench their burns. Their bodies float with one stacked on to another. Few still move among the dead as they try to struggle from drowning. The trees that ring the park are either a flame or have splintered and have been knocked over. This place looks like an image straight from hell. The glass dome of the train station looks to be cracked and shattered. Rudenstoff speaks in horrified awe," You know kid, I have seen a lot of battles but I have never seen anything like this." I stand utterly horrified by this devastation.

We leave the lake and head northeast. The brunt of the bombing took place here. Many of the once three to four story apartments have been leveled. Craters, bricks, glass, and pieces of furniture are strewn about. We walk carefully avoiding the many deep craters in our path. There is so much destruction, I wonder if Kurtz's grandmother survived this. As we walk, the city is illuminated by the inferno. Then I see a shape in front of me. Could it be? The kubelwagen! It still looks in decent condition, how it survived, I do not know. Kurtz must be close! Then it returns. Our eyes widen with fear for the terrible droning sounds in the distance. The bombers! They're back! Why are they coming back? Haven't done enough damage!

"I gotta get out of here!" shouts Rudenstoff. "No, we have to find Kurtz" I say. "Forget him! He is dead, let's take the car and drive out of the city!" "I can't let you do that!" I shout. "Then I am sorry kid." He says as he suddenly punches me in the face. I reel back, my face burns and my nose bloody. He swings again but I step back and dodge. He sprints forward and tackles me. He slams me into the ground and he sits atop and beats me savagely with his fists. I cover my face and out of the corner of my eye I spot a lone brick. I grab it and slam it into my assailant's face. It knocks him off me and I take advantage of this and am now atop of him. I beat him savagely with brick in hand. I beat his head brutally and I watch, with every beating, his face becomes even more and more unrecognizable. Blood and teeth are spilled. Soon he stops struggling and I come to find, in my fury, I discovered I had smashed his skull. Blood, brain matter and bone are all that remains before me.

I jump back to my feet. I feel gut wrenching guilt. Oh God! I just killed a man! I gag and vomit. Oh God forgive me! I feel so cold. This is truly hell on earth! Then I remember as the droning grows louder. I have to find Kurtz. I must find him.