Chương 1: The Attic
Martin kicked one of the boxes to the side. The attic was crowded with them. Most were piled on top of each other like a king might stack his coins, and yet more boxes lay strewn all over the floor, making it difficult to walk through, let alone find anything. Martin didn't really care what he found he just wanted to find something. Anything at all. His mother Deborah had taken his phone two weeks back. It had been his fault. He'd gotten into some trouble at school. He was supposed to have helped on some group project but he hadn't done a thing, and in the end, he'd snuck his signature on the bottom of some random group. They'd ratted him out.
Whenever Martin was grounded he always went to the attic. The small room upstairs was one of the reasons he didn't mind being grounded and hence one of the reasons he never stopped being lazy or cheating. He even thought it quite relaxing to not be able to take calls or answer texts, and if one of his friends showed up at his house he could always just tell his Mom to tell them he was out and about in their garden or something.
He made his way to the corner of the attic that held most of his father's old things. His Dad had passed away a long time ago before Martin had been even two years old. A motorcycle accident. But he had had tons of cool stuff and most of that stuff was somewhere in the attic. Martin had been slowly piecing together who his father had been for years without his mother knowing. She wasn't against talking about him or anything, she'd used to speak of him often, but when she'd married Tony she'd taken down most of the pictures. "It's not because I don't love your Dad anymore, Martin. It's just that Tony doesn't feel comfortable with another man's stuff all over the house." Martin had never hated Tony. Tony was a good guy, a good Dad. But Martin still wished his mother would talk more about his real father.
As he made his way to the right corner of the little room he oversaw a small box and tripped over it. His foot slid forward but he managed to keep from falling by flailing his arms to balance himself. His shoe went right through the wall of one of the moving boxes. He pulled it out with a curse. Through the hole he'd made in the cardboard he saw something sparkle. He realized it was a box he'd never acknowledged. Since he had nothing on his agenda for the rest of the day he decided to open the box. His father's stuff wasn't going anywhere anyways.
It took him a few jabs with his pocket knife to break the duct tape seal around the box. "Who sealed this." He mumbled through gritted teeth. It looked like something that had been done a long, long time ago. A box that had always been carried around but never reopened.
He yanked the box open.
Martin was expecting pretty much anything. Kitchen equipment, baby clothes, and his parents' fits from the eighties. He was NOT expecting a very old and faded leather coat. He picked it up gingerly. It was long, reaching all the way down to his calves. "Who's is this?" He murmured. Without thinking much about it he slipped into it and started to button the front. He turned to look into the mirror that stood leaning against one of the walls. The leather coat made him look older, more serious. He laughed out loud and turned to the side, admiring himself from all different angles.
Seconds later he dropped to his knees again and continued to rummage around the box. There were leather gloves, an oddly shaped hat that had to be military, and big black boots. He pulled the boots on which were slightly too big but only by a size or so. The hat fit famously. He looked into the mirror again.
He realized that something was off with the hat. So he stepped forward. The mirror showed that something had been removed from the front. He took it off and looked at it more closely. There it was, a small string attached to nothing. He set the hat down on top of a shortish stack of boxes and went back to the box he'd found the stuff in. There was a small silk scarf at the bottom, one he hadn't paid attention to. But when he pushed it to the side to see if there was something under it he felt something hard. He picked up the silk strip and slowly unraveled it. Inside it was a silver eagle, and the eagle's feet were gripping a Swastika.
For a second he just stared at it in surprise. He knew that his grandfather was German and had fled from Germany after World War II in search of a better life. But he had never really thought about it. He stood up slowly. His great-grandfather would have been right around the age of most soldiers fighting for Germany. Martin drew a sharp breath in. He slipped off the coat and peered inside. And there it was. On the coat's inside right in the middle of the upper back stood a name: Franz Weiher. His great-grandfather's name had been Franz. For another long moment, Martin just stood there, too stunned to speak. And then he carefully slid the coat back over his shoulders, placed the Schirmmütze atop his head, and held the little bird clutching the Swastika up to it.
A little beam of sunlight filtered through the blinds and directly streamed against the little silver eagle. Martin held his breath. The bird sparkled in the light, sending little dots of gold all over the attic that mixed with the glowing dust particles in the sun's rays. It looked beautiful.
And then the little bird started to move.
Martin's breath hitched. Had he imagined it? But then again, it fluttered slightly with its wings. Martin's mind reeled in fascination. It sprung off his Schirmmütze and into the air, hovering over his head. It's wings sliced through the ray of sun. He tilted his chin up. The light reflecting off of the silver wings almost blinded him, but it was too captivating to look away. Instinctively Martin raised his hand, fingers extended. He needed to touch the bird, to make sure he wasn't just dreaming. But the little eagle just stared at him. Martin's hand froze, and he turned it gently, palm up. The eagle gave him one last look, then blinked and dropped the swastika into his outstretched hand. The metal was cool against his skin. He gazed down at it, and his fingers closed around it protectively. When he looked up the eagle was gone. "Where-?" But his voice was cut off when another sharp ray of sunlight cut into the room and shone directly into his eyes. He raised his arm to block out the light.
"Take the gun and go, go, go!" Someone pushed him from behind. He blinked away the sun, but it didn't go away, it just got closer and closer. "How-?" It wasn't the sun, it was the headlight of some vehicle plowing through the field toward him. "Go!" He heard another cry from his left. He turned on his heel. "What the fuck are you waiting for? GO!" Another man, dressed in tattered and dirty clothes screamed at him. A gun was pressed into his hands and someone grabbed the back of his neck. Martin didn't question it - he just ran. He followed the men off of the field. "Faster!" He heard somebody bark, but he couldn't tell where the command was coming from. The men in front of him all half-tripped and fell or jumped into the trench. Martin was pushed forward by someone behind him and he stumbled into the little grave. "Fire, fire!" Somebody screeched. Martin covered his ears. He realized he'd dropped the gun. He heard something explode somewhere back on the field. Had they hit the truck? Somebody hit him on the head and growled: "Keep your head down low, soldier." Martin obliged. His breath came in short and shallow gasps.
To his right a man sacked down, his head hitting the back of the tunnel as he fell. Martin stared in horror. Was the man dead? Or had he just fallen backward to reload? The man's head lolled forward and faced Martin. For a second Martin was disorientated. The man's nose was blown off, and on both his forehead and his chin there was a gaping hole. One was his mouth the other a bullet's nest. Martin gagged and leaned forward, he retched, but nothing came out. His vision speckled and the edges grew fuzzy.
The sharp sound of firearms blazing brought him back.
He grabbed the gun from the dead soldier and held it close to his heart. He closed his eyes, digging his back into the wall of the trench. He didn't know how long he sat there. He heard several thuds, men falling back into the trenches around him. Somewhere further down the dirt tunnel, he heard an explosion. He gripped the gun more tightly. Something cracked.
He realized he had never been holding the soldier's gun.
He'd been holding his arm.
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