It was 1944

Sitting in the big chair was SS Arnold, a bit plump and rather content in uniform. His bright eyes remained steady underneath perfectly shaped brows. Slathered on his face was a smirk.

"I recieved your letter," Maksim said, standing before him. "I would like to assign something else."

"You'll take what I've given you," Arnold shot back.

"I'm afriad I have other plans," Maksim admitted.

"You've been putting your departures off for too long," Arnold grumbled. "You've done all you can here. They need your help at the camps now."

"Since when did they put you in charge?" Maksim asked.

"Himmler himself assigned me a higher posistion," Arnold replied.

"And whave you done all this time to deserve that?" Maksim asked.

"What would you know about me, Maksim?" Arnold snickered.

"I'd like to speak with the higher officials then," Maksim replied. "As I won't be departing to the camps."

"Why? Are you too high ranked for that sort of labor?" Arnold smirked.

"I think we all know the answer to that question," Maksim shot back as he left the room.

A man in the same uniform stopped him in the hallways.

"Did you speak with Arnold?" he asked.

"What do you want?" Maksim questioned.

"You have been offered a number of positions, of course, being exceptionally good with the wepons you can't stay here," the man said.

Maksim continued walking away from him. He left the large building and down the wide steps to the streets where people walked about rather gracefully.

He continued walking down the stone road. Much time had passed until he came to a brick wall where he stood there for a while, staring at the haunting structure, knowing he had helped make this wall some time ago when he was even younger than he was now.

Of course he couldn't help remembering how he assisted lining people up against it and shot a few.

They aren't innocent he'd try to say to himself. If I didn't kill them, they would have been the death of me.

Damn it wasn't true, he knew it, but he had to tell himself that to keep his mind clear and steady.

He had to admit to himself one way or another how he truely felt. All along he had never truly believed in such things. Even when he started to go to a school where they'd teach him the death of any jew was acceptable. Killing, was good.

The people he knew, his friends from childhood, the ones he went to school and played games with, had believed everything they were taught. He wanted to call them brainwashed. Everyone else wanted to call anyone who thought differently than them, suspicious.

I was always suspicious, he thought. To even my mother, who encouraged me to believe in the Nazi ways.

Now he suddenly he found himself on the otherside of the wall. A different set of eyes were staring at him now. Eyes not showing a high respect, but a pitiful, shameful look of pure disgust and hatred.

The stoney streets were cracked up, buildings where broken down. Bodies rotted here and there, helping the smell of death reek even more than it already did.

He noticed crows nipping at whatever fleash was left, though it was all skin and bones.

He looked through the houses, monitoring all that was going on. Some houses were empty. Some held what was left of a family, scowering in a corner.

A part of me wanted to help them! he thought. With the way I obeyed my orders and followed society, they would never know it. They could never know how I truly felt, as good of an actor as I am.

Yet on most days he didn't feel a thing for them at the exact same time. It was odd.

He continued to stare at the boney creatures,who all appeared so deathly and inhuman. Their souls were already far gone.

Maksim took out his gun and shot them all in the head. He wasn't sure if he did it out of orders, or to take them out of their misery.

Looking at them, no longer alive, gave him a sense of peace. They were no longer hungry, they were no longer in pain, they were no longer missing someone they had lost, and they were no longer fearing for their lives.

No, they were no longer any of those, because their lives were already taken.

He walked out of the building and into the next. He searched in each room, making sure not a soul had been there except her.

He opened the door to where he expected her.

A girl whose name was Irene, thin, but not nearly as thin as the others stood shaking, looking out the window. It was the only window around where you could oversee the city.

Maksim came towards the girl and put his steady hand on her shoulder.

"They want to deport me to the camps," he murmered.

Amongst all the prisoners, only Irene had known about the camps.

"Why do you keep returning to me?" she asked, crosing her stick-like arms.

"I ask myself the same question most days," he admitted.

"Are you trying to disguss what will happen to me?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied.

"Though it's plain and simple, I will die," she said.

"No, war will stop this," he said. "This will all end sooner than you think. Many people have escaped and will survive. I know you can."

Her eyes, so inocent, gapped into his. She was so dehydrated she couldn't cry. She didn't want to, either. She hated him, and at the same time, loved him with all that was left of her being.

"You're a coward," she said.

"Sometimes I feel I am," he admitted. "How far would I get if I just admitted my feelings to my comrads? I wouldn't be here with you right now, don't you understand that?"

"They've always been suspicious of me, but because of who I am, how admirable I am, my high rank has just drowned all suspicion."

"If anyone had found out I saved even ten jews, I would be gone."

"You can't save me," Irena muttered.

"I can, I promise. I'm already making my plans for when I leave," he said. In his voice he sounded almost delusional.

"I can order the same train to be brought here, we can leave to the same camp, where I'll find you and you may escape into a nearby woods, where you'll be out of watchful eyes."

"You promise?" she asked, skeptically.

"I promise, Irene," he said, wrapping his warm harms around her thin body.

A vision of how she used to look when they were young flashed threw his mind. Her body was heathy, her eyes were bright. Oh, she was so beautiful. She still is, even in these conditions.

"I'll do everything I can to save you," he whispered in her ear. His words were enough to realease a tear from once of her eyes.

He reached in his pocket and pulled out a candy. He handed it to her.

"This is what I have for now," he said. "I'll be back tonight with enough food and water to sustain you. If you can just hold on we might be able to escape."

"You're ridiculous," she whispered, taking the candy.

"I know," he said before he left the room.