Chapter Text
They thought it was the end in November.
It wasn't.
It was a dress rehearsal.
Kristallnacht had been the initial draft of a larger book of blood.
That evening, I carried so many souls, their screams still linger in the crevices of my ribs.
I watched as flames engulfed the houses of living people. I picked up children with shards of glass in their hair and fathers with prayer on their lips. I held them, but I was not fast enough.
Now, one year has gone by. Time in Nazi Germany does not heal.
It festers. Bruises turn to scars, and scars become rules, and rules become knives.
And here — here in this tainted earth — two boys grew up, harder, more broken.
One in the shadow.
One in uniform.
Both are at the edge of being consumed.
I have tracked Todd for a year.
He was born in 1923, so he is sixteen now, but you would not think it if you saw him. Hunger is what he knows. His cheeks are sunken, his shoulders as sharp under his worn shirt. His ribs protrude when he stoops, and his eyes, oh, those eyes, they are older than I wish.
Once, there had been a loud laugh in Todd, a laugh ready to burst, even in the dark. Now, laughter lies trapped in his throat, unvisited, unmarked. A tomb
He ran after Kristallnacht. His neighbors were burned that night his kind was killed. His mother died earlier, his brother and father were killed, and his sister died of despair. His town was then engulfed in flames, took from him the one he could have loved. Todd survived by his words alone: run.
Run.
Run.
Run.
The word branded itself into his bones.
He rummaged over scraps from stables and barns ever since, slept under floorboards, in haystacks, in gutters of houses belonging to strangers. He once stole a loaf from a market stall and was chased three streets by boys whose coats had the sign of evil pinned to them.
He has lived in silence. In shadow. In being something less than a boy and something more than prey.
But not forgotten.
At night, out in the fields where he lies alone, Todd sometimes sticks the battered hat — always his hat, now dried with blood — into his chest and softly speaks a name.
Neil.
And he bites down on his tongue, hard enough to make it bleed, because to remember is to pain. Because yes, Neil is dead. Or worse.
Neil was born in 1922, and that would make him seventeen now. His hair is darker, shoulders broadening, but the most extreme transformation is stitched onto his chest: a Nazi uniform.
You would think he would wear it proudly.
You would be wrong.
Neil is two people now. On the surface: a soldier, the son of a father who only respects obedience. His knuckles are burned by drills, his ears still ringing from slapping by his father. He was taught to spit at a Jew's name said in school. He was taught to hate, to burn, to destroy in the Hitler Youth.
But in him is something else. A rebel.
A boy who once stood in a sea of yellow flowers with Todd.
A boy who once laughed too loudly, who once defended Todd against the cruelty of his masters.
A boy who will not be witness to the final of his soul be strangled by the noose of his own kind.
So Neil is then a silent traitor.
He warns Jewish families. He leaves doors ajar. He turns aside when a man jumps out of the back of a building. He vows to himself he will save one more, always one more, at any cost.
And soon he will leave this army for good.
He just needs his master's trust.
Certainly, his captain has suspicions. The captain sees the flash in Neil's eyes, the hesitation in his salutes. He drives at Neil with sharp words.
"Compassion is weakness."
"Jews are rats."
"You're a German, so act like one."
Every word hurts. Every word wounds.
But Neil's heart is stubborn. It won't die.
His uniform lies.
His heart doesn't.
It is difficult for me, you understand.
I am not supposed to decide. I am not supposed to grieve. I am the collector, not the mourner. And yet here, I am unsettled. Gazing at them both, the thin Jew and the reserved rebel in Nazi, I cannot help but mourn.
They were children who shared a paper boat. Laughed on rooftops. Whispered secrets under the sky.
Now, the world has pulled them under. And I know, because I see the threads of time as other people see the threads of hair, that they are not complete.
Their story is not complete.
But first, there will be blood.
The morning the order was issued, the sky was bright, cutting, merciless. Neil stood in line, his boots alongside those of dozens of other men, as his captain bellowed out the command.
"Tomorrow. Raid. The Jewish quarter is still teeming with vermin. Clean it out. No hesitation."
The men assented.
Neil's stomach churned.
He gazed at his boots, the black leather shining, polished to a shine.
But in his head, he saw Todd. He saw Todd's face that night out in the field, tear-stained, angry, begging him to leave while he still could.
He heard Todd's voice crack.
"They killed my family. And now it's my turn."
Neil swallowed hard.
He could not think of Todd at the moment.
And yet he did. Every time he breathed. Every time he pounded his heart.
I will tell you something.
Because I am cruel, or kind, or perhaps only what I am.
That raid will take place.
The soldiers will move in.
The glass will shatter again, worse.
And amidst it, two boys will meet.
But not yet. Not tonight.
Tonight, Todd searches for a crust of bread in an alleyway.
His hands shake as he brings it to his lips, swallowing it before the cold can claim it. His hat is over his eyes, worn and dirty, but his.
Neil sleeps in his bunk tonight, the uniform folded next to him. He scowls at the ceiling, his fists clenched, muttering to himself,
"I will save one. Just one."
And I stand over both of them, knowing the truth.
Tomorrow, the world shall break again.
Tomorrow, I shall carry more than I have fingers to count.
Tomorrow, two strands long, torn apart, will twine about one another.
And I, well, I shall be present.
Waiting.
Always waiting.
The day was pale, cruel.
Todd crept quietly along a neighborhood that still showed the scars of November. He was famished, his stomach devouring him like an animal, and he held in his hand a piece of carved wood he had found under rubbish. He hoped to trade it for bread, for anything to satisfy the hollowness in his chest from eating him alive.
The alley was quiet to begin with.
All the sounds he heard were the scrape of his boots, the wind rushing through broken shutters, and the occasional thump of something falling to the ground, maybe a rat, maybe remnants of another person's life.
He stopped, leaned against the darkness, and closed his eyes.
A recollection surfaced unbidden: Neil's grin, the way his shadow had fallen upon yellow flowers.
The laughter of the boy at things previously unknown to him of cruelty.
Todd shoved his hat—bloodied, worn, a reminder of the boy he once was—into his chest.
And the first cries.
A yapping command in German, harsh, commanding, slicing through silence like the stroke of a blade.
Todd awoke. He was still. Boots, heavy and cruel, banged on cobblestones somewhere far away.
The thud of charging men, bellowing men, shattering, crashing.
The assault began.
He pressed against a wall, his face against cold stone.
The stench of smoke, fear filled his nostrils.
Troops spilled down the street into the district.
Glass shattered as doors were pounded in. Screams were echoed by the bark of dogs, wood splintering. And in that moment, Todd knew: no time to wait. No place to hide.
He tried to sneak quietly, but instinct got the better of him.
He had seen faces before, eyes like lanterns in the dark, pleading. He saw families ripped from their homes, hands bound, children screaming. And despite himself, his feet carried him closer, driven by a heart too large for a boy his size.
Neil marched with them.
Every step measured. Every order was obeyed. But inside, his chest throbbed with guilt.
“One I’ll save one.”
The soldiers' boots smashed splintered wood and shattered glass. Todd ran, scraping elbows on cobblestones, blistered hands from clenching the stone walls to keep himself upright.
The first body fell before him: a man, battered, bruised, eyes wide and frightened. Todd swallowed down bile.
His stomach roiled. He had to turn away, to hide, but the child beside the man reached out for him. And Todd couldn't. Todd dashed through the fire.
Neil's heart was racing. He spotted the family.
The father on the floor, the mother screaming, the child clutched against her chest. He wanted to intervene. He wanted to shout a warning.
But a captain's voice thundered. Orders snapped. And he obeyed, going on automatic, boots dragging, rifle strapped over the shoulder, a uniform masking the rebellion in his heart.
Neil whirled to catch a boy-
Time stood still. Neil's body stood still. His eyes met those blue eyes, a glow with fear.
Todd glanced up. His eyes, brimming with fear, crossed with the shadowed one of Neil.
Todd stood at the edge of the world, and everything came to a halt.
Neil.
Todd.
And when their eyes met, time was slowed.
Through the madness, through the shouts.
Todd was faced with the brown, crystal eyes that witnessed so much.
But Todd looked beyond his eyes and saw the symbol that haunts him stay on his chest.
His heart falls, and he is filled with panic, agony. He regards Neil as a stranger....an enemy.
Glancing over the devastation to look at the boy he finally professed to love, Todd aimed his eyes at him in horror. Neil felt his rifle loosen in his hands. It fell, echoing through the earth. Lurching in agony and despair, he mouths one word.
please.
Neil's heart stopped and broke at the same time.
Time froze. Neil's body was frozen. He watched his eyes focus on those blue eyes once more, which sparkled with fear.
Todd saw the apparition of the boy who once walked by his side through fields of golden flowers. The boy who had laughed too hard, who had pushed him aside from danger, who had confided in him secrets he had never confided in another living thing.
And Neil, he knows he lost the battle for his heart.
It was already taken by the boy who looked at him in
fear.
Neil's heart crumbled and splintered at the same time.
Against all sense, against all rules, despite the uniform that held him prisoner, Todd lived. Breathed, perhaps not too alive, but lived.
All his instincts screamed. Neil wanted to run to him. To hold him in his arms, to shield him from the world, to show him how much he loved him.
All his muscles screamed, his heart racing out of control. But he couldn't.
The captain bellowed orders. Probably cursing himself for why the devil his weapon lay on the floor. Comrades passed by. He was a soldier. He had a job to do. He could not fail, not now.
Not when he was so close.
And Todd could see nothing but what he was meant to see: a soldier. A man in uniform.
A figure from the monster side that he had been hiding with for a year. Betrayal drew its ugly line on his face.
His lips parted, ready to scream, to cry, to beg, but his voice was mute. His legs trembled, split between running and remaining immobile.
Neil's lips curled. He wished to say something, to call out a name, to break the impossibility.
But his voice was captive.
Imprisoned as him.
All the scars, all the losses, all the hunger, all the nightmares stacked on each other. The boy who'd been alone for a year run, the boy who'd rebellion hidden in a uniform, both of them carrying burdens of the world on still-young shoulders not yet equal to just boys in love.
The world sped by them. Todd's eyes welled with tears that refused to fall.
Neil is filled with guilt that he cannot be let go. The screams, the fire, the chaos, the brutality
It didn't matter.
Except for the glance that held everything they ever knew, everything they ever lost.
And then—
Todd fled.
A movement so swift, so desperate, it tore the moment in two.
He lost himself in the crowd, consumed by terror, agony, and anguish, and he wished he couldn't feel.
Neil's hand cramped.
His body yearned to obey. Each step he did not take was a betrayal, snapping like a thread he had promised never to break.
I stood between them.
They stood one heartbeat apart, and yet an abyss of years, of uniforms, of brutality...
The fire burned, the screams boomed, and the universe went on. But for them, for that moment of eternity, time had ceased. But nothing matters.
because they knew they had each other's eyes.