Comrade Alik Aleksandrov huddled in a ditch on the outside of Stalingrad. He breathed slowly, his red fur matted and muddy, barely visible against the backdrop of blood and dirt. His heart stopped as he heard footsteps, and he froze in place, holding his breath. After a few tense seconds of silence, he quietly breathed out, and started crawling along the ditch again. No sooner had he gone 5 inches than he heard the click of a semiautomatic weapon above the ditch. He glanced up, panicked, to see two German Shepherds aiming their guns at him.
“Dachte er sich versteckt hielt! Ha! Ich roch ihn einen Meter entfernt,” one of them chuckled to itself.
The other stepped into the ditch and hauled him to his feet. It drew its pistol, cocked it and put it against Alik’s head. He closed his eyes and heard a gunshot. When he opened them, the shepherd was lying dead in the ground, its brains blown out. The other was firing into the lines of burning houses. It turned to the side, noticed him still standing, and kicked him to the ground. Before it could even turn back to the houses a spurt of blood erupted from the back of its head and it dropped to the ground with a surprised look on its face. Alik lay in the ditch for a moment, and a squirrel dressed in Soviet colors peeked its head over the edge.
“Comrade! I thought I vas too late for savink you. You are lucky I vas here.” The squirrel dropped over the edge and helped him get up. “I am Anton. Anton Kyznetsov. I vas makink my vay towards ze edge of ze city, I trust you are doink ze same?”
Alik coughed, clearing his throat, and then nodded. “I am Alik Aleksandrov. A pleasure meetink you.”
Anton looked back at the two corpses, then took a rifle lying in the ground and put it in Alik’s hand, closing his paw around it. “You vill need zis, comrade. Good luck, ant God be vith you. I must be searchink for more survivors; every soldier lost today is beink a blow against ze Soviet Union.”
Alik nodded, and the squirrel darted back towards the wrecked houses, disappearing into a leaning doorway. He stared that way for a while, and then glanced back along the ditch. He knew this would take him to the edge of the city eventually. It was just a matter of following it there. He glanced at the houses, then at the ditch again, and decided to follow the ditch along from the cover of the charred houses.
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As Alik strafed along the side of a house, he suddenly heard voices. He crept to the nearby door, and very slowly and quietly opened it, then tiptoed up the creaking stairs, avoiding the pockets of small fires. He snuck across the second floor to a window facing a courtyard, where he saw a group of four German Shepherds surrounding two captives, tied up in the center.
“Russisch Narren, denken, sie können aus dem deutschen Zorn zu entgehen,” one of them said, prompting the other three to laugh heartily.
“Wir werden sie beide zu brennen, und weiterhin die Patrouille,” it said, then walked up to the two and kicked them. Alik took aim, lining up his sights on the shepherd’s head. As it drew a match from a book and struck it. As it lit, Alik pulled the trigger, and the bullet erupted from his barrel into the back of the shepherd’s head. It dropped like a rock onto the prisoners, and Alik hit the floor as return fire tore into the walls, easily biting through the weakened wooden walls and spraying over the second floor.
“Russischer Soldat! In dem Haus!” one of them yelled, and he heard footsteps slamming up the stairs. The shepherd turned and sprayed bullets across the floor and over Alik’s head, to which he responded with a bullet to his leg. He ran over before the shepherd could react and planted his knife in its neck. He stepped over it as it gurgled and choked, blood pouring out of the wound on its neck. He ran down the stairs and to a window, where he took aim on the two soldiers rushing towards the house and fired on them.
One of them cried out and fell to the ground, and the other suddenly lurched backwards, flipped and landed on its back. Alik quickly reloaded before entering the courtyard and looking around, counting the bodies. Four. Good. He walked over to the two prisoners and pulled the corpse of the German officer off of them. A grey-and-white cat and a pitch-black dog. He untied them and hauled them to their feet.
“I am Alik Aleksandrov, comrades. Who are you, and how did you get captured?” Alik said to them.
The black dachshund answered first. “I am, ah, Alexei Vasilev. Thank you for savink us.”
“Und I am Innokentiy Yermolai, comrade. Ve vere recoverink from ze attack vhen zis patrol snuck up on us und captured us,” the cat responded.
“Are you ze only ones left?” Alik questioned.
Alexei sighed. “I am afraid so, comrade. Ze rest vere killed, ve hid amongst ze corpses.”
Alik handed Alexei the rifle and Innokentiy an assault rifle. He picked up the officer’s pistol and submachine gun. “Follow me. I know ze vay out of the ze city.”
“Ve vill be followink you to ze ends of the ze earth, comrade,” Innokentiy said.
The three continued towards the outskirts, darting through the alleyways and collapsing buildings. They came across a fortified position, littered with Soviet bodies and a few Germans.
“Zis is vere our regiment fell. Zose german bastards.” Innokentiy hissed, venom in his voice.
“So you vere goink ze wrong vay?” Alik queried, somewhat amused.
“So it vould seem, comrade.” Alexei responded.
“Zen maybe you have somezhing to thank ze Germans for after all,” Alik mused. “Come, we go zis vay,” he said, pointing to the distance where the ditch ended and the fields began. “If any of our comrades are still alive, zey vill be regroupink and pushing zat vay. Ve vill find safety zere.”
“It is soundink like a fine plan, comrade. Let us be on our vay.” Innokentiy replied.
Behind them, Stalingrad slowly burned.