Wounded Heart of War (Completed)

Acelin Adler sat in his room, a bottle of whiskey resting loosely in his hand, his leg propped up on the arm of the chair as his head hung gently off to the side. A gramophone needle bounced slightly along the record Das Engellandlied, performed by Hermann Lons in 1910. It was strange to him that the song was made thirty-three years before the war began. But it didn’t matter now, none of it really did. Hitler seemed to be going mad with each passing day, perhaps due to the fact that he and many of Acelin’s past fellow officers had been, and still were, on Meth. He glanced at his calendar that was splattered with blood.

Four years. It had been almost four whole years since this war had begun, at a time when he was only twenty-one and living with fellow soldiers. And before becoming a solider, he was with a family not his own. Most of his family was dead. Only his drunken Jewish uncle had survived by lying through his putrid, yellow, stained teeth that he wasn’t Jewish at all.

His uncle.

Acelin shuddered. He didn’t wish to remember the man who had tried to humiliate him; but if it hadn’t been for his uncle’s actions he would never have met the Himmel family who had taken him in after finding him beaten and almost castrated by his uncle. Hitler had always said that the Aryan Race was supposed to be untouched and pure. Untouched indeed, Acelin thought through a drunken haze. If it were really true then his uncle should have been hung for what he had tried to do.

But he had been saved by none other than Emily Himmel, a woman of nineteen, only nine years older than himself.

Acelin shook his head, sending his long blonde hair about and into his face. Soon it would be his turn to face the rope but he didn’t care. His soul was shattered the day before when his own commander told him something that he had feared.

“Oh Rosemary” he sobbed as he lay his head in his hands and the bottle of whiskey shattered to the floor. He hadn’t slept since the words had been said to him. He couldn’t sleep, he didn’t want to sleep, but maybe it was time that he did so he could savor the memories of the girl he loved so dearly. The song had stopped moments before. He rose from his armchair and began to walk over to his bed when his boot tapped against something. Looking down he saw his fellow officer Dedrik lying on the ground, coated in his own blood. It served him right. He looked at himself in the mirror; his blonde hair was now in matted knots and tied back into a small ponytail. His blue eyes used to hold so much life but were now dull and expressionless. His dark brown pants and white shirt had stains of blood and three blood drops lay on his right cheek near his eye. He was sure, if Rosemary were still here, she’d scold him for looking so dirty.

Behind him lay the other three bodies of Nazi soldiers whom he had killed along with his commander. Their blood coated the floor, walls, and some of the furniture. None of them had a chance when he had drawn his gun. Ignoring the rest of the bloody sight of his room he walked over to his bed removed his boots and lay down.

He closed his eyes and willed his mind to go back into his memories and dream from sixteen years ago. He didn’t care what his memories were about just as long as they were of her.