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Dimitri had always suspected that something was off with his life…
Ever since the battle of Stalingrad everything had just seemed weird. Not normal. He always felt like he was being watched, and it terrified him….
During Stalingrad, he couldn’t remember anything before meeting Viktor Reznov at that fountain; but that wasn’t all.
One of the first instances was during Stalingrad; he had to shoot a German from a window. The man kept moving and it was incredibly difficult. But at some point… he got shot. Twice actually. Right in the face. But by some random twist of fate… he came back to life. Right before he was supposed to shoot the German. He had been shot, he KNEW he had been shot, he should’ve been dead, but he wasn’t. Dimitri figured it was god giving him another chance as a way to show favor to mother Russia. At the time, it seemed as though even god was disgusted and enraged at the Nazis, but going off the look of things, it seemed as though god had abandoned everyone a long time ago…
Major General Heinrich Amsel. Dimitri had to kill him. He was responsible for the murder if so many innocent men, women, and children… he had to die. All of the Nazis, all of them. All had to die. All must die.
And so Dimitri went to go kill him. But when he went into that window looking for the general… he could barely see him. He kept calling for Reznovs help with the other German soldiers that were shooting at him, but nothing seemed to be getting through. It frustrated him to high hell, but whatever, he could do this himself. And he did! …but not before letting him get away by accident three times and getting shot on two of those times. He had died TWICE, and somehow still came back to life.
The next time anything weird happened was years later when him and Reznov had to drive a tank through a legion of German ones.
Well-
It was more like DIMITRI drove the tank and was somehow doing all of the shooting despite that job supposedly being Reznovs.
As Dimitri drove through a legion of German tanks, he also had to dodge Germans in towers with panzerschrecks, AND germans on the ground with panzerschrecks. Actually- now that he thought about it- when had he learned and gotten a license to drive a tank in the first place??? How he survived he didn’t know.
Especially given the fact that his comrades weren’t helping, AT ALL.
They were going in opposite directions and barely shooting, all of the towers and groups of Germans were taken out by Dimitri Petrenko and Dimitri Petrenko alone. He would’ve given credit to Viktor Reznov had he done any of the actual shooting, LIKE HE WAS SUPPOSED TO DO.
That day had been April 16th, 1945. Once it was all done, they had gotten on the train, and was heading towards Berlin.
But when he woke up…
He had awoken to multiple Germans in a small shed-looking type space; he had been captured… but how???
He looked around and tried to grab a rifle off of a dead comrade; but before he could grab it, he got kicked in the face by a German and yelled at. Dimitri couldn’t understand the man’s language, he didn’t have a single clue what the Nazi was saying. But before he could think about it, a bomb exploded and in came sergeant Viktor Reznov and private Chernov; the sergeant called out his name before finally spotting him in the wreckage.
Reznov gives him a hand and Dimitri stands up, taking the rifle and once again going through Seelow Heights, this time in another area. They fought through a small farm-like area with houses and a barn, and then eventually a base camp.
In one of the houses they were fighting in, Dimitri ran into a kitchen and found a calendar hanging on the wall. April 18th, 1945. The calendar said Seelow Heights on it; how the FUCK was he still in seelow heights…??? They left Seelow two days ago- they were on the train to Berlin- how did Dimitri get here? Why was he taken? He was just a private- he wasn’t of any importance- and more importantly… how had he not noticed or known…? Why couldn’t he remember…?
Simulare things happened akin to the kind of shit he experienced in Stalingrad; dying and somehow coming back to life, comrades not being of any help, comrades being excruciatingly repetitive, it almost got boring. It would’ve been boring had Dimitri not always been so alert.
In Berlin… he checked a calendar to see if he would experience another weird time loop, and he did. When he first checked, it was April 24th. And the Germans had flooded their own metro in an effort to kill the 3rd shock army.
But when he woke up… Viktor Reznov was dragging him out of the tunnel, explaining everything that had happened.
As Dimitri took a few very needed breaths, Reznov went and berated Chernov for wring in his journal. Dimitri looked at Reznov with a slight disappointment in his eyes, one day Reznov will be thankful there were people documenting the war… documenting first hand accounts of their struggles against the Nazis…
When he got up and ran to go fight with the other men, he found a small library in a bombed out building. He checked the date… It was now April 30th, the last he remembered was almost drowning in the metro tunnels— had he really been drowning in there for a WEEK before Viktor had bothered to pull him out…? How the FUCK was he and Viktor both not dead already!?
Dimitri once again died when trying to get up to the Reichstag… multiples times, actually. Mostly because grenades, god he hated those… but what really got to Dimitri was the fact that Chernov kept dying on the steps of the Reichstag… and every time Dimitri died and came back, Chernov did too. Except for the fact that Chernov did not seem to learn from his past mistakes like Dimitri did…
Also- nobody seemed to move until Dimitri did. Dimitri kept staying in one spot at some point, afraid, hoping his comrades would advance forward and give him some cover to move. But nobody did… just like in the past, nobody really seemed to advance unless Dimitri did. He knew that Viktor Renzov had kind of put him on a pedestal, but surely he hadn’t gained such a reputation that he was leading the whole red army now? Right???
After Dimitri planted the flag on top of the Reichstag and the Germans surrendered, Dimitri went to go take a smoke break alone back inside of the library from earlier; lord knows he needed it.
As he smoked, he thought about it all. He scoffed and almost laughed at the mere absurdity of it all. Dying and then coming back to life? His comrades not listening? If he told this to a psychologist, they would call him insane. They would say that he was trying to one-up his comrades by saying that they weren’t doing anything… but it was the truth! They hardly did anything while Dimitri did practically everything! And not a single promotion too… he was still a private, and given all of the work he’d done, that kindly pissed him off. But then again… nobody else got promoted either. It was strange. Battles and fought on the front lines of a war like this gained experience and promotions, and yet not even sergeant Viktor Reznov had been promoted to captain.
Dimitri really needed a break…
And so he decided to walk off for a bit and think; take a little bit of a mental health walk.
Except that “mental health walk” turned into him walking right through a building and falling into a void that looked like the sky had encapsulated him in one massive box.
Dimitri screamed as he fell down into the air, watching in fear and confusion as Berlin above him faded away until he fell into an all black space… vast and seemingly endless…
Until he saw it.
The loading screen.
Or at least that’s what he soon discovered it to be after seeing a gaunt glowing rectangle in front of him, displaying the name: “Call of duty: World at war.” On the left side of the screen he saw multiple options, one for campaign, one for multiplayer, and another for something called “Nazi zombies”. That one freaked him out a little bit.
All around him, he file file names; he saw files with character names… his comrades names… HIS OWN NAME… Voice lines, absolutely terrifying textures of everyone’s character models- the character models themselves which looked— Erie… to the day the least… He explored the maps within the campaign, he took a quick Look into zombies before quickly retreating. Multiplayer looked pretty nice; but that’s what got him… the name… multiplayer implies that multiple people are playing a game.
Was he… In a game…?
No- that was ridiculous- he HAD to be hallucinating all of this-
But the thought of that made his stomach churn; churn as a reminder to what he had just endured falling into what he decided to call “the skybox”. Dimitri felt like his world was falling apart one by one, everything felt like a lie.
But the fact that Dimitri couldn’t escape the games parameters like this…
That meant that he could leave anytime he wanted.
Dimitri grinned and laughed out loud, stumbling around at his newfound power.
“I CAN LEAVE!” He yelled, “I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT!”
And so he left.
He ran into the dark and jumped…
The next thing Dimitri knew, he was in a bedroom. He looks around, confused at the sight before him. He turns around and sees the PC with the game loaded up on it. Dimitri awkwardly sat in the odd looking chair—which was shockingly comfortable—and tried to figure out the controls of the game. And the next thing he knew he was playing as himself. It was terrifying and creepy and deeply amusing all at the same time.
After he played, he looked around what he soon was realized was an apartment, more. The place was mostly clean, nobody seemed to be home. Dimitri sure hoped so, lord only knows how the owners of this home would react to seeing someone like Dimitri just standing in their home.
Dimitri decided that, after everything, he desperately needed a break. So he decided to stay for a while.
He rested his aching bone on the bed, letting out a sigh of relief as he finally was able to rest on something soft in comfortable after years of poorly put together military cots, and the ground. The sheets were clean and seemed to be fresh; it made Dimitri smile as he took in the scent and kicked off his shoes, letting them tumble off of the bed.
Dimitri stretched and curled up in the blankets, laying his head down onto the soft pillows and finally letting himself rest for once, drifting off for a little while into a very deep and comfortable sleep. He had decided to take a nap, lord knows he needed it.
When he woke up, he stretched again and got up from the bed, walking out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. He didn’t know how to work half of the shit that he saw in that kitchen, but oh well- he’d make due.
And he somehow managed to cook himself some chicken nuggets in the microwave without exploding it, somehow. (Despite him pressing damn near every single button trying to figure out what they all do).
Regardless, the man got his chicken nuggets. Weird first meal after a literal WAR, but given the games mechanics, it seemed as though that wouldn’t be the only time him and his unit conquered Berlin. Besides, it’s not like anything was going to continue without him.
Dimitri noticed that the nuggets were—not only very delicious—but shaped like dinosaurs. Dimitri had looked at the bag again- “Dinosaur chicken nuggets”, it read. The packaging was cute, colorful. Dimitri laughed a little, smiling. This must’ve been a thing for kids. And well… there were no kids here, so that meant that all of this nuggets were him!
He found more stuff in the fridge; some fruit, milk, vegetables, chicken broth, all were fresh, nothing expired. Nothing dirty by the debris of bombed out buildings. Oh Dimitri had found a jackpot.
Finding some other things in the pantry, like canned vegetables, beans, and various kinds of noddles, he decides that he is going to fix some soup. A soup with chicken broth, noodles, and vegetables. He had no clue what this would even be called but fuck it, this was HIS time to relax. He was gonna fix whatever the hell he wanted.
As the noodles and everything else cooked, he sat on one of the chairs that was next to the kitchen island, and he sat down and thought. Thought about the war, the game, everything that had led his life his life up to now. It was all still so strange… he still felt weird, but good god did he need the break. There were pros and cons to this, certainly so. There always was to life.
Dimitri thought about it when the soup finished and he began eating.
On the good side of things, he could leave anytime he wanted it seemed. Come here to this apartment and eat. Sleep. Rest in a way that nobody else seemed to be able to do or access. On the contrary… due to the respawn aspect of the game, it seemed as though he’d be doomed to the same war forever. Fighting the Nazis over and over again; and worse? He was the main character it seemed. Him, and whoever that private C. Miller fella was with the Americans. The story didn’t advance unless Dimitri advanced, and that… that unsettled him to be honest. But on the contrary of that though… he could change the story to be whatever he wanted. He could have fun with the story. Try new things; the outcome would always turn out the same, yes? Regardless of what happens, the soviets would win, right? So by that logic, as long as Dimitri played by the script in some kind of way, they’d win.
No time to dwell right now though, Dimitri had a lot to explore. He could tell there were other apartments around him, and he got curious about the building itself. Leaving the building would be a risk though; how would people react to him? He was in a full Soviet era military uniform, and this seemed to be a very different day-and-age.
And so Dimitri decided to stay in the apartment, for his own safety and for the sanity of others. He walked into the bedroom again and saw the game still open, he want to touch the screen and…
Dimitri woke up in a fountain full of other dead soldiers; he watched as a Nazi killed the last ones that were alive. When he realized where he was, he stoped in shock and slight dispar. He got up on his knees, covered his ears, and yelled:
“FUUUUUCCCCKKKK!!!!!”