Darkness. I thought I was blind, then I realized my eyes were closed, upon opening them I see a sky filled with smoke. I felt something hard on my back, then I found out I was laying on concrete, and I stood up, finally taking notice of my.... environment.
This place. What is this place? Where is it? When is it? Why is it that I'm here? A city. I'm in a city. Or a demolished city. It looks ancient ruins yet with signs of modern technology, or what's left of that too. Automobiles that have been burnt, the windows of shops shot out, power lines knocked over, piles of rubble surround the many buildings that look like they're reading to collapse, creating more rubble. The streets are littered with craters, bullet casings, buildings reduced to rubble, and a few blackened tanks.
Dust flies through the air as the wind carries it to who knows where. The smell of gunpowder and charred metal is faint yet unsettling, especially being accompanied with this unnerving silence. The wind shifts, blowing its slight tempered air against my face, that's when I noticed the eerie smell of blood, smoked flesh, and- a building? 60 feet behind me and 70 feet tall, the side of it, half way from the top has a large hole in it, possibly from an explosion or projectile.It starts to let loose more of its structure to the scarred earth, emitting its sounds of bricks tumbling and knocking against each other or anything blocking their path to the ground.
Pops. The sounds of popping are picked up from out in the distance. The pops go off one at a time, then there are rapids pops. Wait... gunfire! Rifles and machine guns is what they sound like. Yes! That's what they are. Men shouting in foreign languages, sounds of the air being ripped and screeching before making an explosion.... Ah I remember where I am! The city of Stalingrad. Its sitting on a river north of the Caucuses in the Soviet Union. Its.... October, the 15th... I think and its 1942. I'm a Russian soldier sent here to fight in the defense of the city, and that's why I'm here.
With my rifle slung over my shoulder and with only four bullets, I wander the lonely and scarred streets of this once... peaceful and.... living city. I have no other words to describe of what this city used to be. The loudest sound is the dirt and rubble crunching under my boots as I go along. The Germans started the destruction of the city in August and I haven't even been here for two weeks and it somehow feels like I been here long enough to conclude... that this was always the case for this city. Since coming here, I've witnessed fellow countrymen, soldier and civilian, die in the hundreds if not thousands by the Germans bombings and storms of bullets, hitting us with everything in their arsenal, all in the effort to capture this place for... whatever value Stalingrad holds.
Then I begin to wonder, why exactly am I here, risking my life? I was born in a small village 100 miles north of here, untouched by the purges, that no else cares about. Why do the Germans, no, why does Hitler insist on capturing this heap of ruins? The city bares the name of our.... glorious leader Joseph Stalin, capturing it, as Hitler probably believes, that it credit our leader. But other than political importance, all other reasons for capture seem irrelevant. This was a heavy industrial city and its destruction would hurt the Soviet Union's war effort economically. Since its destroyed, I don't see the reason why Hitler and Stalin should sacrifice tens or hundreds of thousands or millions of men, along with thousands of tanks and planes in order to control this pile of rubble.
I come to a police station, or secret police, its hard to tell which is which. Though it doesn't matter the front of it has been blown that you can't tell what it was before. I look around and I see dozens of dead bodies, half of them German.
This place. What is this place? Where is it? When is it? Why is it that I'm here? A city. I'm in a city. Or a demolished city. It looks ancient ruins yet with signs of modern technology, or what's left of that too. Automobiles that have been burnt, the windows of shops shot out, power lines knocked over, piles of rubble surround the many buildings that look like they're reading to collapse, creating more rubble. The streets are littered with craters, bullet casings, buildings reduced to rubble, and a few blackened tanks.
Dust flies through the air as the wind carries it to who knows where. The smell of gunpowder and charred metal is faint yet unsettling, especially being accompanied with this unnerving silence. The wind shifts, blowing its slight tempered air against my face, that's when I noticed the eerie smell of blood, smoked flesh, and- a building? 60 feet behind me and 70 feet tall, the side of it, half way from the top has a large hole in it, possibly from an explosion or projectile.It starts to let loose more of its structure to the scarred earth, emitting its sounds of bricks tumbling and knocking against each other or anything blocking their path to the ground.
Pops. The sounds of popping are picked up from out in the distance. The pops go off one at a time, then there are rapids pops. Wait... gunfire! Rifles and machine guns is what they sound like. Yes! That's what they are. Men shouting in foreign languages, sounds of the air being ripped and screeching before making an explosion.... Ah I remember where I am! The city of Stalingrad. Its sitting on a river north of the Caucuses in the Soviet Union. Its.... October, the 15th... I think and its 1942. I'm a Russian soldier sent here to fight in the defense of the city, and that's why I'm here.
With my rifle slung over my shoulder and with only four bullets, I wander the lonely and scarred streets of this once... peaceful and.... living city. I have no other words to describe of what this city used to be. The loudest sound is the dirt and rubble crunching under my boots as I go along. The Germans started the destruction of the city in August and I haven't even been here for two weeks and it somehow feels like I been here long enough to conclude... that this was always the case for this city. Since coming here, I've witnessed fellow countrymen, soldier and civilian, die in the hundreds if not thousands by the Germans bombings and storms of bullets, hitting us with everything in their arsenal, all in the effort to capture this place for... whatever value Stalingrad holds.
Then I begin to wonder, why exactly am I here, risking my life? I was born in a small village 100 miles north of here, untouched by the purges, that no else cares about. Why do the Germans, no, why does Hitler insist on capturing this heap of ruins? The city bares the name of our.... glorious leader Joseph Stalin, capturing it, as Hitler probably believes, that it credit our leader. But other than political importance, all other reasons for capture seem irrelevant. This was a heavy industrial city and its destruction would hurt the Soviet Union's war effort economically. Since its destroyed, I don't see the reason why Hitler and Stalin should sacrifice tens or hundreds of thousands or millions of men, along with thousands of tanks and planes in order to control this pile of rubble.
I come to a police station, or secret police, its hard to tell which is which. Though it doesn't matter the front of it has been blown that you can't tell what it was before. I look around and I see dozens of dead bodies, half of them German.
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