Chapter 1: Treaty Broken

Stealthily, I crept behind the broken slabs and piles of rubble as I hunt. Not the way you think though, because I was not hunting for sport, I was hunting for my life as well as others. It was just the beginning of WW2 right after the Americans joined in. My name is Kristoff, I’m a Russian sniper, and my success brings life to the ground troops so they will not be ambushed, but my failure could cost us the loss of an entire battle. As I stalk my prey I keep a wary eye for all movement just in case the enemy has a seeker which, as the name describes, will seek us out and eliminate snipers like me. I’ve had that happen before and that’s when it all began.
It was September 1941 in one of the first Kiev training camps for snipers, even though we weren’t at war yet there were always people who wanted to be in the army, even if it was only for the popularity and manliness of it. Yet, if any of them knew what was coming none of them would have signed up. I wasn’t even a sniper at the time I was a rookie straight from high school, a rifleman. Though it’s not a preferred position in the Russian military it is a definite necessity, without them there would be no front line and therefore no protection.
It was five AM and the sun was just rising, but all the soldiers had been up for hours, including me. Every day for the last two weeks, we would wake up at the same time, run 5 miles then go back to the mess room for our breakfast. As you can tell by me describing training camp was worse than hell, I’d actually go there for some R & R if I had the chance. So we learned to just to do as we’re told or else.
“Kristoff! Get over here!” “Yes drill sergeant!” I quickly replied. “Go and teach Ivan how to snipe.” “But sir…” I said hesitantly, “I don’t have any experience in that field of the military…” “Were you at the seminars?” “Yes” I answered. “Then you can teach him” I knew it would not be wise to argue, so I rushed over to Ivan and watched. As soon as I saw him I could a million things wrong, he didn’t have the sight set, shoulder in position, and to top it off he didn’t have a sniper rifle. This is when I started to train him.
“Ivan, what in the hell are you doing?” I asked in bewilderment. “I’m sniping” he replied. “No you’re not.” “Yeah I am!” he shouted. “Ivan, that’s not even a sniper rifle.” “Oh…I knew that…” “Of course you did, here let me show you.” I went over to the armory, grabbed a beautiful Mosin-Nagant that clearly was the only one this training camp has. “Here you take it like this, line the sights up here, then look down the scope, and then… hey Ivan, are you even listening?” “Kristoff… help me…!” I then turned around to see the training camp being invaded by the Japanese. My first thought was, how could I not of noticed them! I hurriedly turn for my weapon just in time to see a Japanese seeker climb up the side of the hill and stab me with his combat knife in my right eye. All I could think about was the searing pain, nothing else existed, just me, and blood, lots and lots of blood. Then I saw a black hole in the distance, it kept getting bigger until all I could see was black.



To be continued….