Chapter 179: In Darkness and Light (4) | Volume 3 Finale

"Shit!"

Werner cursed as the impact hit. The plane shuddered violently, the landing gear screaming against the tarmac, the fuselage shaking so hard his vision blurred. He grabbed the instrument panel with both hands, muscles contracting, knuckles white.

The buildings of Frankfurt Airport rushed toward him through the cracked cockpit glass. Closer. Closer.

He pulled back on the stick with everything he had.

The plane slowed.

Degree by degree, agonizingly, it sped across the tarmac until, with one final shudder, it stopped.

Then the alarms. Then the smoke.

Cough. Cough.

Werner drove his shoulder into the door. It resisted. He hit it again, harder, and it gave way, swinging open and spilling him out onto the concrete. He caught himself on one knee, one hand flat against the ground, and stayed there for a moment, just breathing.

The smoke poured out of the cabin behind him.

Somewhere across the airfield, sirens had begun to wail.

He straightened slowly, his hand returning to his shoulder. The fabric was dark and wet. He pressed down, exhaled through his teeth, and looked up.

He was back in Germany, yet his journey wasn’t over.

Berlin. He had to get to Berlin. He had to get to Paul.

Then he ran.

Behind him the trucks were already crossing the airfield, lights cutting through the smoke, converging on the wreck of his transport.

They hadn’t seen him yet.

Werner reached the outer fence and didn’t slow down. He hit it at full stride, fingers closing around the chain link. He began to climb. His shoulder screamed with every pull.

"Hah... hah..."

At the top he paused for half a second, the fence swaying beneath him, the sirens louder now.

Then he dropped to the other side.

He hit the ground hard, rolled, came up running.

The fence rattled behind him.

Nobody called after him.

He looked around hectically, stumbling more than walking, one hand still pressed against his shoulder.

He ran for a while.

Finally he reached a road.

He leaned against the railing at the roadside, raising his thumb.

A car passed. Then another.

"Hah... hahahaha."

The laugh came without warning, desperate and weak.

"This is absurd," he said to no one. "So absurd."

He stood there, thumb raised, car after car passing without slowing. The wind pulled at his clothes.

Again and again.

Then finally, a car slowed.

Werner’s eyes focused on it.

"Police."

The car pulled over quietly, tires crunching to a stop on the asphalt beside him. The door opened and a single burly officer stepped out, stroking his mustache as he approached, taking in Werner’s appearance.

"A beggar, or a..."

He tilted his head.

"Tell me."

Werner looked down at his clothes. Dark with oil and blood.

He should have changed.

His head lowered. Above him the sky had grown darker, not just with night but with something heavier, the particular darkness that arrives before rain.

"What else," Werner whispered. "What else is waiting for me."

The betrayal. The orders. The killing. The lying. The Atlantic. Spain. The prison cell. The fence. The shoulder. All of it cycling through his mind again and again, cutting into him.

When was it enough?

"Hey." The officer stepped closer. "Are you listening to me? Should I take you back to the station?"

Werner stared at the ground for a moment. He thought about it. Just standing here. Feeling the light breeze against his face. Letting someone else decide what happened next. Stopping, just for a moment.

He couldn’t.

He just couldn’t.

"No more," he whispered.

"What?"

"NO MORE!" Werner grabbed the man by the collar with one hand and swung with the other.

The punch connected. The officer took it, stumbling back a step, more surprised than hurt. He recovered fast, the punch weaker than both men expected.

Werner took the hit full on, his head snapping sideways. His knees buckled but he didn’t go down.

He grabbed the officer’s wrist before the weapon left the holster. Both men struggled for it, stumbling off the roadside into the wet grass, neither willing to let go. The officer was heavier, better fed, unhurt.

The man drove his elbow into Werner’s injured shoulder.

The sound Werner made was not human. His grip loosened. His vision went white at the edges.

The officer shoved him and Werner went down hard into the mud, face first. He tasted blood.

"Stay down."

Werner’s fingers found the grass. Then the mud. He pushed.

One knee. Then the other.

"I said stay—"

Werner lunged from the ground with everything he had left, driving his full weight into the officer’s midsection before he could finish the sentence. They went down together, the weapon skidding away into the wet grass. Werner landed on top and didn’t give him a second to recover.

One hit. Two. Three.

Ugly. Desperate. No technique, no strength behind them.

The officer’s resistance slowed.

Then stopped.

Werner panted, stumbling toward the car, spitting out the blood that had collected in his mouth before falling into the seat.

The door swung shut behind him.

The car began rolling.

He drove in silence, one hand on the wheel, the other pressed against his shoulder. The rain swept across the windshield. Outside, the road was empty and dark.

His breathing slowly steadied.

Then his eyes dropped to the instrument panel.

Something in his face changed.

Disbelief first.

Then something worse.

He stared at the fuel gauge for a long moment.

"Not enough fuel," he whispered.

He laughed once. Short and hollow, the kind that has no humor in it whatsoever.

He looked back at the road ahead. Dark and wet and endless.

"Of course," he whispered.

In that moment of desperation and exhaustion and the particular unfairness of a needle sitting just above empty, Werner did something irrational. Something that did not help him pursue his goal. Something he could not entirely explain.

He turned the steering wheel slightly. The car drifted off the main road onto an exit ramp.

The large sign he drove past read:

Cologne.

Two Hours Later

The police car rolled to a stop on cobblestones, in the middle of the city. The lanterns along the street cast a dim glow across the stone. Werner stepped out into the quiet.

It was completely deserted.

He stood there for a moment, just breathing.

The place was painfully familiar.

His eyes found the sign above the shopfront.

"Lehmann Tailors," he read aloud. The mocking undertone in his voice was directed entirely at himself.

The sign was crooked. The paint was peeling at the corners. Nobody had touched it in a long time.

He stepped closer and searched his pockets. Both of them. Then his coat.

And why would he have it. The key.

He shook his head.

With one last heave he threw his weight against it. The wood gave way more easily than he had anticipated, splintering at the latch, swinging inward with a groan that echoed down the empty street.

He stumbled inside and found the cellar stairs without needing to look for them.

His old office. Exactly as he had left it.

Werner pulled open the bottom drawer of the desk. Inside sat a metal chest, small and dented, a red cross painted on the lid.

Quickly he stripped, revealing the wound on his shoulder. Already inflated, dark at the edges, the bleeding slow but persistent.

He looked at it for a moment without expression.

Then he reached into the chest.

The bottle of alcohol came first. He uncorked it with his teeth, held it over the wound, and poured.

The sound he made was short and sharp, bitten off before it could become anything louder. His free hand found the edge of the desk and gripped it until his knuckles went white. The liquid ran down his arm and dripped onto the floor in a steady rhythm.

Then he poured again.

He caught himself on the desk, leaning over it, forehead almost touching the wood, waiting for the worst of it to pass.

It passed.

With what remained in the chest he worked in silence, pulling out the bullet.

He did not make a sound. Not because it didn’t hurt. Because he had nothing left to make sounds with.

Then a bandage.

He stood in the dim light of his old office, half dressed, patched together, and looked at nothing in particular for a long moment.

Then he reached for the bottle again.

This time he drank.

With the bottle in hand he walked quietly through his old office, touching things. The edge of the desk. The back of his chair. The shelf where he had kept things that no longer existed. He let his fingers trail along each surface, feeling the texture of it, breathing in the dust.

This is were he had woken up.

"Friedrich Lehmann."Werner said the name out loudly.

Slowly he ascended the steps once more, his eyes scanning the store.

It was all as he had left it.

"I should have become a tailor," he whispered, taking another sip.

His eyes moved across the suits hanging in the storefront, something close to nostalgia in them, which was strange because the life that went with this place had never really been his.

He put the bottle down.

Then an idea came to him.

He began to change. It took longer than it should have, accompanied by quiet groans. But after a few minutes he straightened up and was finished.

His boots struck the wooden floor as he paused before the mirror.

He looked at himself.

A long look.

Slowly his hand rose, moving through his hair, adjusting it until it sat right. Then his collar, smoothed down with no hurry at all.

In the mirror he met his own blue eyes. He held them for a moment, searching for something he may or may not have found.

He exhaled slowly.

Then he picked up the bottle, considered it for a moment, and set it back down.

He stepped outside.

The rain was still falling, quiet and steady.

Werner turned left without thinking about it, his shoes striking the cobblestones, the only sound in that lonely street until there was another.

Water.

The Rhine stretched out beneath him, dark and wide, moving the way it had always moved, the way it would keep moving long after tonight. Werner stood on the bridge and looked down at it, his hands resting on the railing.

His hair was already soaked when he thought about it...

He had stood here before.

A long time ago. With another man beside him.

Thud.

Thud.

It was distant at first, so quiet beneath the downpour that it nearly escaped him entirely. Werner’s hands tightened on the railing.

Then he heard it again.

Thud.

Thud.

At the far end of the bridge, a dark polished leather boot revealed itself from the shadow, stepping into the pale glow of a streetlamp. Then another.

Slow.

Measured.

The faint reflection of a metal cross, catching the light with every step.

Hundreds of drops landed on the shoulders, clad in pure dark leather.

Werner did not turn around.

He listened to the footsteps come closer, counted them without meaning to. The rain fell between them.

Then they stopped.

A few meters away, he stopped.

...

"Do you remember that submarine, Werner?"Paul asked.

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Finale of Volume 3.

I can’t believe how far we have come. Slowly but surely, this story is reaching its end...

And yes, I have to say it: Volume 4 will be the finale only. One last volume.

But trust me, it will be worth it.

This journey has been incredible, and I truly can’t thank you guys enough for all the support. See you in the finale. See you in Volume 4: A World of Darkness

Thank you all for the support! I appreciate every Power Stone, comment, and review.