1939

Chapter 15: Chain Links

Wooden boards threatened to spill splinters upon broken feet, their nails scratching through the morality of men as they sat in the embrace of a scratching rope, chairs threatening to swallow them whole as all absence of light pushed them into the darkest corners of their rotting minds. Soft downy hair covered decaying skin as Pete sat, hardly conscious. Frail body slipped closer to death whilst Mikey faced the wall, unable to look at him as he gripped a belt tightly in his hand, commands of torture swimming through his mind. Every second they screamed and screamed and screamed and-

Pete's screams masked all thoughts as leather collided with bruised skin. His head hung low, breath heavy Pete kept his eyes closed as brown hair fell from a thinning hairline. Mikey choked back sobs as trembling hands dropped the belt. He held onto Pete's bones.

"I... I didn't mean it. I'm so sorry I..." he wrapped his arms around his neck and buried his head in Pete's collarbone, bones scraping at his head. "Please just tell me where it is. I love you, don't- Don't make me do this again." Pete cracked a smile, teeth crumbling to dust from the lack of nutrition as he nearly starved to death before Mikey's very eyes.
"I can't tell you Mike's." He weakly gripped his hand. "It's okay, you do what you need to to survive." Mikey sobbed into his shoulder as body was wracked with suppressed emotions. He looked back at the officer. He watched him and muttered that he was going to go smoke, and that he better have answers when he comes back.

Eyes scanned the room as fingers trembled, fumbling with ropes around scanned wrists as he untied Pete. "I can't just let them hurt you. I don't care about the codes or the war, I care about you. Come on let's go, let's run away from here." Mikey pulled Pete to his feet who immediately collapsed to the ground, legs too weak to stand as muscles decomposed before him.

"I can't. I can't go on Mikey. Run without me. I don't want to hold you back." He tried to push him away, body trembling as Mikey grabbed him and pulled him over his shoulder.
"Like hell I'm leaving you here to die." Kicking in the poorly made back wall he crawled through the shabby structure and glanced around at the fields with soldiers crawling through. The moon lit his way in the darkness of the night as people patrolled the premise, scanning every single corner for signs of attempted escape.

The whistle of a plane ahead brought calls of panic as a German bomber was spotted. He held to the figure known as Pete as he dragged him through the mud and towards the gate as he leaned heavily on his good leg, attempting to relieve the pressure on his wound as the howls of the night brought the attention of the lights trained upon the sound of falsehood hope providing a faux escape to those that would soon be nothing but corpses. Names forgotten by the world as thick mud was coated with footsteps. Glancing around at the atmosphere lights trained upon him dragging Pete through the dirt. Lights blinded by the boom of a shell that rocked the earth only metres from where he ripped the bottom of the chain link fence from the mud.

Bleeding fingers held it high enough for Pete to crawl underneath. He pulled himself underneath as sharp fence clawed at Mikey's injured leg as he heard nothing but buzzing from the shell nearby. Limping through the nothing of purgatory plains he kept the feeble figure on his shoulders, blood mixing with those of his betrayed brothers whilst he risked everything to save his enemy.

His enemy whom he loved. His enemy who he harmed. His enemy which would never be an enemy.