Prologue

Pouring over a console with many flashing buttons was a man with a crazed look in his eyes. Dressed in a white lab coat and he had various instruments dangling from his coat. He was mumbling to himself about this and that. He took a sip of his coffee when an officer walked in.

“Sir the reactor is operational.” The officer said.

Slightly crazed and filled with ecstasy from the officer's statement the scientist whipped his towards him and gave him a smile far too wide to be considered normal.

“Good. Good! We’ll be the pioneers to a new age!”

The scientist fiddled with a few nobs, dials and a switch before finally setting his coffee on top of the machine. He pressed two buttons, one to reset the machine, the other to initiate it.

The scientist and several following soldiers including the officer left the control room and entered a hallway labeled “portal rooms” with four different doors tightly secured. They all entered room four where minutes turned to hours and hours turned to days. None were found leaving the room.

~~~~1994, several days after D-Day~~~~

Several American soldiers lined up to a door, ready to breach it. This was one of several key German research bases. All other bases were heavily armed and occupied by a small force of elite German soldiers and scientists, many of whom were crazed by the nazi brainwashing. There were horrors they encountered in each research base, and this was the most heavily fortified and secretive base they found out about by piecing together bits of information left by each research base. They expected this place to have the greatest number of horrors and the greatest resistance.

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“Even after shelling this place continuously for hours they still put up fierce resistance.” One of the soldiers whispered to their Captain.

“Quiet lieutenant, we don’t want to let them know we’re here.” The Captain replied, whispering.

With a wave of his hand the door was smashed down and the soldiers filed in, flash lights brightening the dark corridor. Unlike the other bases, this one led underground.

Encountering no resistance they swept the area and timidly trudged down the stairs. Once there, they encountered a split Y corridor with one of the two tunnels collapsed. There was a small illuminated sign over the collapse tunnel that was partially covered. It read “-alräume”

Unable to find a way through the rubble, they ignored the collapsed tunnel to find a control room with several glowing lights, some blinking, others not, and buttons. There was a depressed switch and a spilled coffee on the floor, knocked over due to the shelling probably.

“No one is here sir.” The lieutenant said.

“Apparently so.” The Captain said, clenching his jaw. “Whatever the hell this is, I want it off.”

“I don’t think we have anyone here that knows German sir.” The lieutenant said while viewing the various controls and buttons.

“Maybe one of these?” The lieutenant gestured to three buttons, one was smudged and colored yellow, one was colored red and read “leistung” with the last button being similarly red and read “einleiten”.

“Probably the yellow one, looks like it’s been used the most.” A private called out inspecting the buttons also.

“Worth a try.” The lieutenant said.

The lieutenant pressed the yellow button then lights blinked out and the whirring of the machines they tuned out quieted down to a halt.

“Good job. We’re leaving. We can leave the rest to our boys, they can figure out what the hell all this stuff is.” The Captain said. The soldiers began filing out of the laboratory, but two soldiers lagged behind.

“I always wanted to press a big red button.” The private from earlier said.

“Don’t do it, we don’t know what any of this stuff does.”

“It’s all off anyway…” the private moved over and with a satisfying click he pressed the button that said “einleiten”

“Worth it, now let’s get out of here.” The soldiers rushed out, regrouping with their squad.

Unfortunately, the machines and lights came back on seconds after they left the room, the whirring growing louder and louder. Little did they know, “Leistung” means power, and “einleiten” means “initiate”