Chapter 1
Part 1 – Before Death
Location: Berlin, Germany
Time: 2135 Hours, 18 August 2035
The soft hiss of the espresso machine filled the apartment like white noise against the hum of the city beyond. Erich Stahl leaned on the counter, eyes following the last drops of thick Turkish coffee spiraling into his cup. He didn't drink it for the taste. It was the process—measured, focused, silent. A ritual that pulled his mind into a quiet place.
The apartment bore the signs of a man who lived alone but didn't mind it. One wall was lined with board games—mostly historical simulations, many unopened. Another projected muted news feeds across glass panels: Ukraine. Poland. The Caucasus. The same headlines cycled in silence, looping through images of smoldering wreckage and digital maps bleeding red.
He hadn't listened with sound in months.
Cup in hand, Erich moved to the window. The Berlin skyline glowed with artificial color. Neon signs blinked against black glass towers, interrupted by the slow drift of drones cutting between rooftops. From this height, the city looked clean, alive. But it was a shell. Underneath—tension, unease. Something everyone felt but refused to name.
His phone buzzed on the counter. He didn't check it. The sender didn't matter. He already knew what it would say.
Things were moving again. War wasn't coming. It was already here—it just hadn't kicked in the door yet.
Erich took a slow sip, eyes locked on the distant sky. He'd done his time. Fought in Ukraine for years. Watched cities burn, bodies vanish into dust. He had scars—some stitched, some beneath the skin—but he'd walked away. Taught military history. Lectured about the same conflicts he'd once survived. Told students how empires died while ignoring how close the next one was to waking up.
But history had a rhythm. And tonight, he felt it returning like a tide.
A sudden screech echoed from the street. Tires skidding. A sharp yell. He tensed, gaze dropping just in time to catch the flash of headlights and the metallic groan of a car scraping a guard rail. The driver corrected, cursed, and vanished down the road.
Erich's hand was already on the windowsill, white-knuckled.
Too alert. Too fast.
He let the breath out slowly. Set the cup down. Grabbed his jacket.
Whether it was instinct or inevitability, he didn't know. But something had shifted. And deep down, he knew this wasn't about returning to war.
It was about something worse.
---
Part 2 – The Accident
Location: Berlin, Germany
Time: 2230 Hours, 18 August 2035
The cold settled in deep. The kind that crawled under skin and lingered behind your ribs. Erich moved like a man in a fog—focused, but detached. One foot in the present, one in some space just behind it.
Streetlights cut long shadows across wet pavement. The city never really slept, but it quieted. Fewer people. Less noise. Except for the distant murmur of patrol drones and the occasional cough of an electric engine down the boulevard.
He walked without looking up.
He didn't want to see how empty Berlin had become. Or how many more checkpoints had appeared. The call from Klaus still echoed in his mind. Just a voice from an old life. But that voice had weight. And history. And history had a way of dragging men back.
He rounded a corner.
A sudden burst of light.
His body reacted a half-second too late.
The truck came out of nowhere. No warning. No time. Just a wall of metal and blinding white.
Tires shrieked. The vehicle veered—too fast, too close.
Impact.
The world exploded into noise and pain. His ribs cracked first. Then the pavement took his shoulder. Something in his skull rang like struck steel. The sky twisted sideways as he hit the ground hard, breath torn from his lungs in a choked gasp.
Then silence. Not peace—just a vacuum. A pause between one breath and the next.
And then—
Pain. Dull at first. Then sharp. Raw. Hot.
His vision blurred as he saw a face—wide-eyed, panicked—staring down from the driver's window. Lips moved. No sound. Then everything fell away.
Darkness surged up from the edges.
And Erich Stahl died.
---
Part 3 – Reincarnation
Location: Unknown
Time: Unknown
He came back to pain.
Sharp. Centered in his chest. Every breath felt like dragging razors through wet cloth. But it was air. It was real.
The darkness around him wasn't urban night. It was natural. Cold. Wet. Alive.
He gasped again, limbs sluggish as he tried to move. His fingers clawed into mud. Leaves crunched beneath his weight. The smell hit him next—damp earth, oil, and smoke. And something metallic.
Not city smoke. Not synthetic oil.
Gunmetal.
He blinked, and trees came into view. Towering, close. The sky above was dark with storm clouds, not neon. The only light came from faint flickers between the branches.
His pulse kicked up. Fast. Irregular.
This wasn't Berlin.
He turned his head.
Voices. Harsh, foreign. Orders shouted in clipped tones. Somewhere, an engine rumbled. Tracks clanked.
Military.
He tried to rise. Stumbled. Every nerve screamed, but adrenaline buried the worst of it. His head throbbed, but his mind—his mind was waking fast. Trained reflexes spun up, old memories resurfacing like code booting in a damaged machine.
Dense forest. Winter gear. German. But not his Germany. The uniforms. The gear. The language, even—slightly different.
Then it clicked.
It wasn't just the where. It was the when.
His breath caught. No drones. No satellites. No digital noise.
This wasn't 2035.
It was 1939.
---
Part 4 – Occupation of Czechoslovakia
Location: German-Czechoslovak Border
Time: 0600 Hours, 15 March 1939
The truck jolted, dragging Erich back to the moment. He sat wedged between strangers, their faces blank with fatigue beneath steel helmets. The canvas walls around them flapped with cold air. Outside, the world was soaked in gray—the snow still melting, roads clotted with mud.
He clutched the rifle in his lap like he knew how to use it.
And he did.
Sort of.
"Stahl," a voice said beside him.
He turned. A soldier in his twenties, broad-shouldered, blond, cigarette in hand. He wore a half-smirk like it was standard issue.
"You do that daydreaming in front of a border patrol, they'll ventilate your skull. You good?"
Erich blinked. "Yeah."
"Helmut," the man said, offering a handshake.
Erich took it. "Stahl."
"First time on campaign?"
"Yeah," Erich said, voice flat. "First time."
Helmut grinned. "Then enjoy the smell. We'll be in Prague by lunch. Nothing glorious about marching into a country that didn't even fire back."
The truck bumped again, drawing grunts and curses from the men. Erich steadied himself—and caught sight of the tag on his coat.
Stahl, E.
They didn't change my name.
The cold tightened around his chest—not from the wind. From recognition.
Whoever—or whatever—had dropped him into this, hadn't given him a new identity.
Just a reset.
And a rifle.
---
Part 4 – Occupation of Czechoslovakia (continued)
Location: Outskirts of Prague, Czechoslovakia
Time: 0830 Hours, 15 March 1939
By the time they reached Prague, the streets were choked with Wehrmacht trucks, motorized columns, and uneasy silence. The flags had already changed. Czech tricolors stripped down. Red banners with black swastikas raised like punctuation marks on history's next chapter.
Civilians watched from windows—silent, unmoving. Not defiant. Just… watching.
Erich stepped off the truck behind Helmut. Boots on wet stone. Rifle slung awkwardly over his shoulder.
A sergeant barked orders near an administrative building. "Assignments! Form up!"
Helmut nudged him. "Let's see who the brass decided we belong to."
The man behind the clipboard looked like stone in uniform. "Name?"
"Stahl. Erich."
A pause. A mark on the page. "Second Platoon, Ninth Company. Barracks—two blocks north. Unterfeldwebel Reinhardt, 0900."
Helmut got the same posting. "Lucky you," he muttered.
The barracks were a repurposed school. Chalkboards stripped, desks stacked in corners, now filled with cots and cold stares. Men cleaned rifles or smoked in silence.
One of them stepped forward—lean frame, buzz cut, eyes like broken glass.
"You the new ones?" he asked.
"Helmut," Helmut said.
"Stahl," Erich offered.
"Jonas," the man said, shaking hands. "You look like you woke up in the wrong war."
You have no idea, Erich thought. But he nodded. "Didn't sleep much."
"You won't," Jonas said. "Not here."
Erich sat on a crate beside Helmut and stared through the broken window. Prague was quiet, but it wouldn't stay that way.
This wasn't peace.
It was the eye of the storm.
The Underground Resistance
Location: Prague, Czechoslovakia
Time: 2200 Hours, 16 March 1939
Rank: Schütze Erich Stahl, 2. Zug, 9. Kompanie, Infanterie-Regiment 45, 4. Armee
The city of Prague slept under foreign boots—but not peacefully.
Schütze Erich Stahl stood beneath a crumbling archway, the weight of his Karabiner 98k pressing against his chest, his gloved fingers tapping the bolt with quiet precision. Habit. Not 1939 instinct—2035 muscle memory. The kind drilled into him across two lifetimes.
His helmet sat snug, chinstrap firm, boots caked with a mixture of March slush and urban grit. The night air bit through his wool uniform, but his nerves kept him warmer than the overcoat ever could. He was on second rotation for 2. Zug—freshly assigned, still settling in. Tonight was supposed to be uneventful. A routine watch in a city cowed into silence.
But the silence was wrong.
Not quiet, but hollow.
No barking dogs. No drunks weaving through alleys. No clatter from windows left open too long. It wasn't peace—it was absence. Intentional. Manufactured.
Erich shifted his stance, eyes drawn to the dark windows and higher rooftops. His brain was back in Ukraine—Kharkiv, Donetsk, Mariupol. Places where stillness didn't mean safety. Places where a missing sound meant a waiting trigger.
This city wasn't sleeping. It was holding its breath.
Footsteps approached from the alley. Erich turned, lowering his guard only when he saw the familiar silhouette.
Oberschütze Helmut Krüger. Bunkmate. Squadmate. One of the few who didn't talk like war was a parade. He carried two mess tin cups, one sloshing with company-issued beer, weak and watery.
"You look like you're about to bayonet a drainpipe," Helmut muttered, handing one cup over. "Relax."
Erich didn't smile. "The city's too quiet."
Helmut leaned against the stone wall and took a sip. "You always this jumpy?"
Only since an old man turned a garbage cart into an IED and took out half a squad, Erich thought.
Instead, he nodded across the narrow street. "That bakery's awning—it was red over white yesterday. Now it's white over red."
Helmut squinted. "Okay... and?"
"Czech flag. Inverted. Could be a signal."
"You sure it's not just the owner flipping it for decoration?"
"Coincidences get people killed," Erich said flatly.
Helmut took another drink, slower this time. "They told us this was a peaceful transition. That we're here to stabilize."
"Yeah," Erich muttered, voice low. "They said the same thing in Kyiv."
Helmut blinked. "Where the hell is Kyiv?"
Erich didn't answer.
Across the square, a trio of officers strolled past—two Leutnants and a Feldwebel, judging by the walk and the tabs. Night protocol didn't require salutes unless addressed, so Erich kept still, alert.
But something pulled him back to the bakery.
A shape behind the curtain. A brief flicker. No light, no movement—just presence.
Then, near the base of the steps, he saw it: a chalk mark. Subtle. An "X" with a line through the center. Fresh, deliberate, and hidden unless you knew to look.
Drop point.
In 2035, resistance cells had codes like that. Sometimes QR stickers behind signs, sometimes string or twine on fence posts. In older cities, chalk remained timeless. The medium changed—meaning didn't.
Erich's fingers tightened on his rifle.
"Helmut," he said quietly, "We're not dealing with scared civilians. Someone's organizing."
Helmut straightened, suddenly sober. "You gonna report it?"
Erich hesitated.
Not because of fear—but because of what came next.
"No," he said finally. "Not yet."
Reporting would trigger roundups. House raids. Suspicion falling on anyone too old, too smart, or too unlucky. Without proof, it would just feed the machine.
Better to wait. Watch. Confirm.
A whistle echoed from a few blocks away—shift change. Time to rotate.
They turned, heading back toward the converted schoolhouse serving as temporary barracks. Snow began to drift lightly from the clouds above, swirling beneath streetlamps like ash.
As they passed a stone corner, Erich caught another mark etched just above eye level—three dots arranged in a triangle.
Old as revolution. Universal.
We are watching.
He said nothing. Just walked.
Helmut muttered about soup rations and the lice in his collar. Erich barely heard him. His thoughts were elsewhere—on rooftops, alleys, window panes that might open just a little too wide.
The uniforms said the war hadn't started.
But the fight had.