[ WP ] After a disastrous battle ( American Civil War , either of the world wars ) your company , made up of relatives , friends , neighbors , and the majority of your towns male population , has been decimated . Now it 's your duty to make sure the last five men of your town get home alive .

Adler was in poor shape. The bullet wound in his leg kept bleeding through bandages, we were running out of things to use. Klaus the only person we knew who had any medical experience, a vet. His expertise was almost limited to horses that we reared on the land near our village. He… He didn ’ t make it. With little medical knowledge between us it wasn ’ t looking good for Adler. It wasn ’ t looking good for any of us. 
 
 Moritz led the way. He was always good with directions. But when you ’ re only heading is east that wasn ’ t all too hard. The war had been hard lost. City ’ s destroyed. Roads demolished. Tunnels caved in, bridges crumbled. There was no easy path. We were in no good shape. Our shoes worn down and our feet bloody. The only thing driving us on was the thought of home. 
 
 Fritz was being worn down and you could see it in his face. Black surrounded his eyes from sleepless nights. Yet Fritz had both his eyes and his ears. Fritz was the main reason we were still alive. The war may be over but for such a small company, there were plenty of people who ’ d want us dead. Suicide missions to attempt to destroy what we could not keep. Enemy soldiers to release their pent up anger. We were a small group, easily pushed around. We could be killed and no one would bat an eyelid. Fritz was the one responsible for keeping us away from them. Just playing dead wasn ’ t an option. They ’ d shoot at our bodies and then we would be dead. We lost Heinz that way. But with no shrubbery to hide in in the fields of death the only option was to dive into craters where the shells had fallen. Sometimes sleeping alongside unexploded ordinance. 
 
 Ulbrecht was a mad man. We had always thought so. The war only confirmed it. Ulbrecht had the only functioning rifle, not that he had many bullets left if any at all. He had the only knife. He had the last grenade. He was responsible for food. Not that food was great. We just learned not to ask what it was. Bird, rat, human. We didn ’ t care. Food was food and when you haven ’ t eaten for weeks at a time a single mouthful of mystery meat is as good as anything. The last thing you needed was to gag when you found out it was your best friend, who had died some several months earlier, pickled tongue. 
 
 And me. My some miracle I had survived. Despite how many bets there were on my death. Bets that had been made in jest. We were great soldiers of the motherland. Our race was superior to all. Our plans iron clad working in conjunction with our allies half way round the world. It was impossible for us to loose. That ’ s what we had been told. Now there were so many bets to pay and no one to pay them too. 
 
 As we travelled language changed. People of our tongue cried out in anguish. Of the unspeakable things that had been done with them. But these cries were rare. More were the cheers of those in foreign tongues. The further east we travelled the less we could recognise, of the land, of the language, of the people. 
 
 As we travelled home I tried to keep everyone sane. Tried to bring back the normality of home. Remind people of their mothers, of their girlfriends, of their wives. I swear Adler only held on to life in the hopes of seeing his wife one more time. She was pregnant when we left. The child would be a couple of years old now. But even I had been away so long I couldn ’ t tell you how long. We talked about what they might be like. Would it be a boy or a girl? Would they have their mothers clear blue eyes? His mother was Fritz ’ s world. He was always a mummy ’ s boy. However much he would deny it. These nights he would cry about how much he wanted to see his mother. No longer caring what the few of us left thought about it. I can ’ t say I understood what drove Ulbrecht. He was the eldest and even at home we didn ’ t really talk to him. His slightly mad ways tended to repel the rest of us. I couldn ’ t get much more than a grunt out of him when I asked him what he was going to do when we got home. But I continued to try. War had scared us all more than just physically. I was simply trying to glue together what I could find of the broken pieces. 
 
 We continued east as the lands around us changed. Always hoping that home was just round the next corner. Just over the next hill. That once we were there the sun would shine and the lands would be green, that home would be exactly as we had left it. Despite knowing deep down how unlikely that would be. 
 
 We headed through East Germany. Searching for our home we knew to be somewhere round here. Wandering in circles where we thought it should be. Hoping that we would soon find our home and that the tragedies of this Second World War would fade away when we got home. That better times lay ahead of us. That no one would ever have to live through a third. Hope was what kept us all alive. 
 
 I didn ’ t have the heart to tell them that we had long since passed the ruins of what we once called home. I was trying to keep the five of us alive. Not realising in doing so it had killed me inside. 

