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Munich [Hellboy FanFic] One- A Man Named Karl Kroenen



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Sat Jan 28, 2012 12:24 am
Amaranth says...



Part One: The Winter of 1939

“Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted from desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if I had to perish twice
I think I know enough of hate,
To say that destruction,
Ice is also great
And would suffice.”


-Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

Chapter One: A Man Named Karl Kroenen


In the hush of the spacious interior of the library that was housed at the University of Munich, a soft snoring wheezed against the soft ticking of the clock on the wall, drawing the attentions (and occasional giggles) of nearby students. The librarian on duty, a young college volunteer with spring-green eyes and ginger curls bound in a ponytail at the nape of her neck, glanced up from her book as she sat at her post at the front desk to the source at one of the study tables established about the library. With a disbelieving sigh, she groaned, “Ugh… Not again…” Shaking her head, the young woman shut her book and set it down, standing up from her chair to walk over to a sleeping student who was hunched over the study, utilizing her folded arms, an opened book and the tabletop as her platforms for rest.

The librarian loomed over the napping raucous and rolled her eyes as she gripped the sleeper’s shoulder and shook it firmly, whispering harshly into her ear: “Hey! Eva! Wake up! You’re snoring again!”

Groggily, Eva von Strauss lifted her head, bleary-eyed with her reading glasses crooked on her face and a tendril of drool dripping down her chin from her sleep. Although she was a ripe age of twenty-three, her large, blue eyes, small stature, and freckle-dappled face gave her the appearance of a high school girl. And, most assuredly, falling asleep during her studies did not help people to think any different of her child-like appearance…

Dazedly, Eva blinked her soft baby-blue eyes into awakening, her mind yielding as it was sluggishly processing where she even was much less the time of day. Or, the fact that she had a note card with all sorts of references scrawled across it in her chaotic yet precise handwriting plastered to her speckled cheek from falling asleep on it… With a huge, pent-up yawn, Eva sat up, leaning back in her chair, stretching her waking muscles with slow, deliberate pulls as she greeted the librarian with a groan. “Hmm… Guten Morgen, Greta…”

“‘Guten aben’, is more like it, Eva,” Greta corrected her friend as she peeled off the note card from Eva’s face, inspecting its contents curiously before sighing… “Fell asleep while reading about the occult again, did you?”

Ja, what of it?” Eva finished her yawns, snippily. She had a habit of being a grouch when awakening.

“What is it today?” Greta rested her hand on the tabletop as she leaned over Eva’s shoulder to glimpse the text she was reading before she fell asleep. “‘Mjölnir’?”

“… The Hammer of Thor,” Eva nodded before she reached for a heavy volume, worn and dusty, and opened it so that Greta could see the contents for herself. “I connected it to the Thurmuth Sword, which was found back in 1825 in Norway. It’s just one of the many artifacts that the Führer has claimed to be a part of our proud heritage. I mean, look at this…” She pointed towards a lithograph insertion of a worn, rusted blade with runes so weathered, they looked more like scratches than characters. “They believed that this sword belonged to Thor.”

“Because of the swastika, right?” Greta sighed and shook her head.

While Greta herself was German-born, her mother was an Irish immigrant and she still held close ties to her family back in Ireland. So, even as a proud German citizen, Greta was one of the few people in Munich who wasn’t exactly buying the “master race” propaganda everybody was spreading around.

Like a worried mother, she placed a consoling hand on Eva’s shoulder. “You know, you’re going to go bald if you jam all this Nazi nonsense down your throat in one sitting…”

Eva sighed as sat back up in her chair, slipping her glasses off of her face and tucking them away into her pocket.

She had inherited an annoying genetic trait that ran through her family for being far-sighted. While it had very little effect on her average sight, she couldn’t read very well because a book was definitely in that small range of vision impairment. She wore a pair of spectacles whenever she was reading, but was always tucking them away once she was finished because she found that the round, owl-like frames that she wore looked rather ugly on her.

“Oh, give me a break, won’t you, Greta? I stayed up all night last night looking for those books… ‘Nazi nonsense’ like that is what founded the Thule Society…” She motioned towards the card in the librarian’s hand.

“The Thule Society again?” Greta blinked, before she sighed, before reaching over her friend's shoulder to retrieve the opened book from the aspiring occultist’s sight, tucking the ancient tome under her arm. “Jeez… I don’t know why you do this to yourself, Eva.”

“Why I do what?” Eva asked, sounding somewhat irked.

“Why you practically kill yourself studying so you could try to vie for the attention of some blue-blooded Nazi snobs who probably don’t give a damn anyways... You could be doing something more valuable with your time, like majoring in a real field of science or meeting a nice guy to take care of you…”

Eva scoffed, rolling her eyes at Greta’s suggestion. “As if I have anytime for that… If I’m really going to impress the Thule, I have to devote every second of my time to Teutonic studies and ancient occultist theories, which is what the Society was founded on. That’s the only way someone like me can get it.”

“If you can get in…” Greta rephrased before Eva gave the librarian a stern look and emphasized the crucial conjunction as she said, “When I get in.”

Astonished, Greta could only stand silent in awe at Eva’s tenacity when it came to admittance into the enigmatic Thule Society she talked incessantly about ever since she got accepted into college, majoring in occult studies and metaphysical science…

Little known to most other than to her friends, Eva’s steadfast determination for achieving membership into the fabled and illustrious Thule Occult Society stemmed from the ambition of her beloved grandfather (who she lived with in Munich after she lost her mother and father to a car accident when she was four years old) to admit his family into the Society.

However, the Society was established strictly for German aristocrats and privileged individuals of Germanic descent, while the von Strauss family lost most of its wealth during the First World War and Eva was born to a Parisian mother in the Austrian city of Vienna. Nevertheless, Eva’s grandfather was determined to see that his granddaughter, who had a knack for recalling any and every text she read and was a German because she was a von Strauss.

Listen to me well, Eva,” her grandfather told her one day when she was a small child, sitting on his lap while he sat in his favorite chair. “I knew ever since the day your mother, God rest her soul, brought you into this world that you were very special. You bore these bright, intelligent eyes that looked as if you were already cognizant of the ways of the world, even though you were just borne into it. When I first looked into your eyes, I knew for certain that you would be the one to bring our family name to greatness.

The child blinked, completely enthralled by her grandfather’s words as he pointed through her chest were her heart was. “Always remember who you are, Eva. Your mother may have been French, but you are your father’s child for certain, what with your eyes, and that makes you a von Strauss- a German. No matter what anyone says, know that you are a part of a proud history of honorable warriors, good Christians, and proud Germans. And, don’t you feel proud of your German blood, flowing through your veins?

The tot nodded vigorously. “Of course I am, Opa!

His wizened face upturned in a smile as he fondly tussled his grandchild’s soft raven hair, making the youth giggle happily. “Good girl… Because, pride is far more important than blood. Always remember that.

And, young Eva clung to his every word, even when they laid him to rest in the family tomb when Eva had just entered high school.

Despite living on her own after she lost her grandfather, Eva was hell-bent on fulfilling her grandfather’s dream to become a Thule occultist, tirelessly working to impress them. No matter how many times they laughed at her, no matter how many times they slammed the door in her face, Eva’s will could not be diminished as such insults only stoked the fires of her dedication to becoming a Thule Society member.

When Eva thought on it, a confident glint shone in her cyan-hued eyes. “Definitely when I become a Thule occultist…”

Greta blinked at Eva’s sudden poise before her memory began to churn. “Oh yeah,” she recalled. “You said that those Thule guys were going to give you a chance.”

About a week ago to the day, Eva rushed into the university’s refectory, content to pull Greta up from her seat and talk her ear off about how she received a mysterious letter in the school’s main office that morning, bearing the serpentine red dragon seal of the Thule. When she had opened and read it, she happily found that it was allowing the chance of a lifetime for her. Greta took it from her friend’s hands and read through the neatly calligraphic letter with heavy scrutiny, to confirm this for herself.

To a Miss Evangeline Louise von Strauss, residing in the dormitories of the University of Munich-

As the newly-appointed Head of the Thule Occult Society, I have been seeking new minds to aid us in our ever-pressing journey into the unknown. As I was searching for such recruits, your name struck me as one of the highest potential and I have taken a great interest in you as of late. While I’ve noticed that many of your previous attempts for admission into the illustrious Thule Occult Society have either gone unanswered or rejected all together, I have decided to offer you a chance to become a member of our circle.

Your admittance now depends on our meeting on the fifteenth of December, at the Hotel Vier Jahrezeitenin, Suite #666, at 3:00 P.M. Please, be prompt and cordial upon your arrival. I hope to see you then.

Sincerely,

Herr Doktor Karl Ruprecht Kroenen, SS-Untersturmführer and Head of the Thule Occult Society.


Even a week later, Greta still couldn’t believe that the very thing that Eva had been insisting on since they first met in high school was about to come true… While she may have disapproved of her friend’s pursuits to essentially conform to the Nazis, she couldn’t help but feel happy for her high-school companion when she was presented with such an opportunity.

As expected, Eva beamed proudly. “Ja! I just need to earn the approval of this Karl Kroenen guy and then, I’m in!”

She allowed herself to smile for Eva before she asked, completely interested. “So, when are you supposed to meet this guy again?”

Eva was humming to herself as she interlaced her fingers, cracking her knuckles as she stretched, “Oh? At three o’ clock this afternoon.”

Greta’s smile dropped like a stone to the earth . “‘Three o’ clock’?” she echoed, hoping she didn’t hear right.

“Mmm-hmm,” Eva nodded, blissfully ignorant of Greta’s sudden anxiety, continuing to bask in her own pride. “That’s what the invitation said…”

“Uh, Eva… I hate to tell you this, but… It’s two fifty-two.”

Dead silence struck Eva as her once-cool demeanor sank with her now-rapid heart rate. As her staggered brain finally began to process the new development, her complexion blanched as she shot up from the study chair, tearing her coat from the back of her seat and forcing it on with clumsy haste, cursing all the while. “Damn it! God damn it! Ficken! Scheiße! I’m late!”

Greta watched passively as her friend threw herself in a rush, speeding out the door without really collecting any of her study materials, much less putting them away. Once Eva was out the door and her wild, raging spouts of foul language faded as she put distance between her and the front door of the library, Greta heaved a sigh as she got up to shelve the materials Eva left behind in her flight.

As she hoisted some thick dusty volumes into her arms, pressing them tight against her chest, Greta curiously blinked at the cover of one in particular which read, “Norse Mythology and the History of Valhalla”. With a long, drawn-out groan, Greta lumped it in her arms with the others and walked down the aisles, re-shelving them while muttering quietly to herself.

“Eva seriously needs to find something else to occupy her time with than this Nazi-Aryan bullshit… One day, she’s just going to bite off far more than she can chew, and she’d better not expect me to come pick up the pieces when things come apart on her.”

---

The heavy overcast sky above Munich was shedding crystalline tears, blanketing the city’s cobblestone streets in a glistening white veil. Whimsical snowdrifts danced happily about pedestrians huddled deep within their thick coats as they brimmed the snowy square, flitting like sparrows between the neighborhood shops and cafés that lined the frosted streets . At the corner of the square, a young boy, sporting a messenger satchel full of the day’s rolled-up newspapers, called the headlines for Germany’s victorious conquest of Poland, promising that more details could be found in the articles he was selling for five marks each. With silvery streets and golden laughter, the city sparkled as the wintry jewel of Germany.

Amid the bustling crowd of by-passers cautiously walking at a leisurely gait, Eva hastily sped along the icy sidewalk, her raven hair and black leather trench coat billowing behind her as she ran, racing against time.

Scheiße! Eva grunted inwardly. I’m late! The Society’s going to kill me! He’s going to kill me! Throwing caution to the wind, she picked up her pace to a furious speed.

“Gang way!” she howled as she skirted an old woman carrying shopping bags, maneuvered around a courting couple huddled together as if they were conjoined at the hip, and hurdled over a baby’s carriage, startling both the infant and the mother. An unstoppable blur, Eva sped around the street corner and was about to dash across the busy avenue when a sudden command barked through the snowy air.

Halte!”

In her abrupt break, Eva skidded to such a forceful stop that her feet slid out from beneath her on some ice, propelling her feet forward but her body backwards as she planted her backside into the frozen concrete, the back of her head crashing against the hard ground as the rest of her followed. Stars blotted her swimming vision as she tried to sit herself up with the officer who shouted at her rushing to her side. “Are you crazy?” the officer instantly set to work, scolding her. “Running on a day such as this! What if you had fallen into the street while that convoy was going by?!” He pointed to the train of military vehicles passing behind him.

She said nothing, but she shook her head to clear her rattled mind. “Ow!” Eva winced, instinctively gripping at the fresh bruise swelling on the back of her scalp, silently hoping that the dampness she felt on the back of her skull was merely melted snow and not blood.

The officer grunted in annoyance before he asked curtly, “Can you stand, Miss?”

J-Ja,” Eva nodded, shakingly. Utilizing the tall cast-iron lamppost as a crutch, she slowly rose to her feet, stumbling backwards a bit when she fully stood.

Once she was stable, the officer resumed reprimanding her, barking how she was stupid for running like that, how she could have fallen into the street and been crushed like a grape, and how she should learn to walk like a lady rather than run like a tardy schoolboy.

Eva inwardly rolled her eyes. She had been used to being scolded about her “unladylike” demeanor. However, this was hardly one of the times to have her hand slapped by some petty officer, who was spouting some complacent nonsense about how he was there to protect people like her.

Oh, damn it all, Eva groaned inwardly to herself. I’m already late as it is. This Karl Kroenen guy’s going to be so pissed…

In her mind’s eye, she pictured a shadowy figure with piercing eyes glaring at her. For some reason, the figure towered at almost ten feet and smoke was emitted from his mouth like hellfire as he spoke. She had heard from the other members that Karl Kroenen was the Head of the Thule Occult Society, but he rarely attended meetings, so she had never met him, face to face. Therefore, she was left to assume the worst…

You’re late!” the demonic illusion growled.

“I’m sorry,” she sighed aloud. Although she was answering her own delusion, the officer took it as that she was apologizing to him, and she was a rather cute girl, with ghostly pale skin and pretty blue eyes. He smiled to her, placing his hand on her shoulder reassuringly. “Now, now, girl. It's alright... Run along to your schoolbooks, and try not to run anymore.”

A prickle of anger shocked Eva’s spine. “Schoolbooks?!” That bastard! I’m 23-years-old! I’m no schoolgirl!

Regardless, she knew that this was no time to fight over something so trivial, so she feigned her most innocent smile, topping it off with a sugary-sweet, “Oh, ja, Herr Polizist. Danke! Vielen danke!”

The officer, flattered by her compliance and what he perceived as admiration and gratitude, nodded approvingly. “You may go, miss. Just please don’t run; it’s improper.”

Eva flashed the officer another toothy grin before continuing on. She started at a slow gait, but once she had reached the street corner and the officer had his back turned, she busted into a sprint as the city’s clock tower struck three in the afternoon, belting out a deep resonating cry.Damn it! As two more chimes rumbled throughout the city, Eva felt all her chances for entering the Thule Society fade with the clock’s evanescent bellows.

---

The Hotel Vier Jahrezeiten was a luxurious complex, where the Thule Society regularly held their meetings. It was only natural that the Head of the Thule Occult Society would hold a five-star suite there on permanent reserve.

Eva busted into the room so fast that the slush at the bottom of her boots caused her to slip yet again, only instead of falling this time, she slid head-first into the receptionist’s desk, giving the woman behind there a good start. The bespectacled girl nervously peered over the edge of the desk, fearing that the disheveled woman on the ground was dead. “E-Excuse me, Miss? Can I help you?”

To the woman’s relief, Eva sat up. After hissing a curse over the dark swell beginning to form on her head and muttering something about she, she nodded. “Ja, I’m hear to see a Dr. Karl Kroenen…”

The woman blinked in confusion. “…‘Dr. Karl Kroenen’?” Apparently, she had never seen the man. This man must be a real recluse if the receptionist has trouble remembering him… Eva thought to herself. I’m starting to wonder if he’s a ghost.

“He lives in Room 666.” Eva explained, hoping that the bit of information would help jog the woman’s memory. “He’s rarely home…”

“Ah!” the receptionist beamed in realization. “Yes, I remember! The man in the mask!”

“Mask”? Eva echoed privately. Perhaps, since he was the Head of the enigmatic Thule Society, he needed to be as… mysterious?

The receptionist smiled warmly as she picked up the telephone. “I’ll just call him and send you up there.”

“‘Call him’?”

She nodded as she spun the dial for the number for the necessary suite. “Ja, he made a request when he moved in here three years ago. ‘Any visitors must be approved by me via a telephone call,’ he said.” She then waited silently as the dial tone echoed in her ear.

Eventually: “Mr. Kroenen?” she greeted. “Oh, excuse me… Doktor Kroenen? It’s Claudia. Oh, you don’t care? I’m sorry, sir, but there is a young woman down in the lobby who would like to see you. ‘What does she look like?’ Well, she’s got long, black hair, pale skin, her face is dappled with freckles. She’s appears sixteen maybe seventeen, probably still in high school.”

“I’m twenty-three!” Eva muttered irritably under her breath.

“Oh, I’m sorry, she’s twenty-three,” the receptionist amended. “‘Her name?’” She placed her hand over the receiver. “Miss, what is your name?”

“Eva von Strauss,” Eva replied. “I’m an expected guest of the doktor. He just hasn’t met me yet.”

“She said her name was Eva. She also said she is an expected guest of yours.” She paused as the man on the other end spoke. “‘Send her up’?”

Was this woman a parrot in her past life? Eva wondered to herself, slowly losing her patience. She was still running late, after all.

“Very well, sir,” Claudia smiled obediently. “Goodbye.” She hung up before nodding to Eva approvingly. “Der Arzt wird Sie sehen jetzt.

Funny, Eva groaned before bowing the woman a ‘thank you’. After she was finally cleared, Eva proceeded up the stairs, mumbling to herself about a certain brainless tart, although she seemed friendly enough, but in that spacey, air-head kind of way. When she finally rounded the sixth corner, Eva followed along until she reached the door with a gold-plated 666 bolted to it. Eva took a nervous gulp, before knocking on the solid-wood door.

Kommen in,” a voice echoed from within. For some reason, it sent a chilling sensation down her spine.

After summing up every bit of courage she had in her body, Eva gripped the doorknob and pushed in, creaking open the door and cautiously peering inside. Just inside the suite, there was a dimly-lit den. All she could see was a chair that was turned from the door, a shadowy figure sitting in that chair, and a end table with a reading lamp turned on, providing the room’s sole source of light. A phonograph, playing Wagner, echoed through the room as if it were a vast ballroom rather than an apartment suite… “Hallo?” Eva blinked as she tried to focus her eyes into the darkness. “Herr Doktor Kroenen?”

“I am,” A figure stood from the chair and turned to greet her. “And, you are late, by forty-four minutes, Miss Eva von Strauss.”

“I’m so sorry, Dr. Kroenen,” Eva bowed her head respectfully as she stepped into the suite, shutting the door behind her. “Really, I am! I’m just---”

“Late, because you fell asleep at the library, right? On average, you spend at least eight hours there: four are spent reading, two are spent socializing with your high-school friend, Greta Kliest, and the remaining are spent sleeping.”

Eva’s mouth fell agape. “H-How did you know…?” She felt her body quiver like an arrow. She suddenly recalled how in his letter, the doctor said he had “taken a great interest in her” but she did not imagine it going so far...

“I’ve heard about you, Miss von Strauss. Do you think that the Thule Society would allow someone into our illustrious circle without knowing exactly who they are…” Kroenen replied as he stepped towards the door, reaching past Eva to flick on the main light. Eva winced as the bright light of the electric chandelier blinded her momentarily. But, when her spotty vision cleared, she could see him, a man dressed in an SS uniform and wearing a tight-fitting gas mask on his face.

“We have been watching you very carefully, Miss von Strauss. From what we gathered, you are a determined and brilliant aspiring-occultist, but you are also very childish,” the mask wheezed.

Although her body told her to look away, Eva found herself strangely enthralled by the man before her. Did he have an accident? Or, was he born with something wrong with him?

“Despite your tardiness, I am to still treat you as a lady.” Eva was about to protest, offended, but not before Kroenen swept low into a well-groomed bow. “Guten aben, Miss von Strauss. I am Dr. Karl Ruprecht Kroenen, Head of the Thule Occult Society.” His hand reached out to grip hers as he lifted his head slightly to peck a kiss to the back of her hand through his mask. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

---

Kroenen had a tea tray set out for her. Because it was made almost half an hour earlier, the tea was cooled to almost below room-temperature, but Eva opted against complaining since she was the one who was late after all. So, when he poured her a cup and handed it and the saucer to her, she quickly thanked him before sipping the tepid drink wordlessly.

The soft sipping noise seemed to be the only sound in the room, aside from the various clocks hanging on all four walls. In fact, it was in that silence that Eva had noticed the inordinate amount of clocks he had collected in one room. She spent a solid five minutes staring at them, her cerulean eyes shifting between each unique face. There were clocks with Roman numerals, clocks with the cogs visible, and even a clock where the face was painted like a sun and the planets rotated about it with each tick as a second passed.

What was more amazing was that each clock was so precise that their “ticks” and their “tocks” were synchronized… with the exception of one. There was a faint, so soft it was easy to miss, tick that was out of place, ticking far faster than the rest, but she couldn’t exactly pinpoint where it was coming from. She listened silently for a while before she figured. Perhaps it’s from a clock in another room…

She would have taken more time to muse longer on it, but the doctor took notice to Eva’s wandering eyes as they ran over the clocks on the wall before he decided to entertain her somehow. “I made them myself,” he said, pulling Eva from her thoughts.

Eva blinked in surprise- both in what he had said and that he actually opened a conversation with her. “Y-You made these?”

“That’s right.” Kroenen nodded, leaning his head back as though he were being lulled to sleep. “I find their ticking sounds rather soothing, especially when they’re all in sync with each other like they are now.”

“Except for one…” Eva noted.

“Excuse me?”

“You can’t hear it?” Eva asked, before she realized that she may have sounded rude. “I mean, there’s a small ticking noise that’s different from the others… Almost like it’s skipping the ‘tocks’ and only ‘ticking’…”

Behind his steel mask, Kroenen smiled to himself knowingly. “Speaking of differences, I’d like to discuss about what you came here for, concerning you and your desired membership to the Thule Society…”

Instantly forgetting about the mysterious tick, Eva eagerly (but carefully) set her tea down on the end table next to her chair, devoting her complete attention to the doctor as he prepared himself to divulge everything- her entire reason for living hung in the balance of his words. Her breath halted as he seemed to pause purposefully, sizing up her expecting stance before he finally said: “You’re in.”

Try as Eva may should could not hold back her smile as she finally heard the words she had so longed to hear for so many years. I’m in! she cheered inwardly. I hope you can see me, Opa! I did it! I’m in the Thule Occult Society! I bet you are so proud…

However, Eva had to cut her inner-celebration short as Kroenen went on. “Now, about you and your position in the Thule… The leader has asked me---”

“The Führer?!” Eva had no idea that even Hitler noticed her. But, she quickly pursed her lips as she could feel the heat of Kroenen’s glare from behind the mask. Apparently, being interrupted really irked the man…

Nein, I meant the leader, as in the leader of the Thule Occult Society.”

She couldn't stop herself. “But, aren’t you the leader?”

“No,” Kroenen replied, somewhat icily. “I’m the Head of the Thule Society, not the leader.”

“Isn’t that the same---?!”

“May I finish, Miss Eva?” he cut in, sounding as though he were restraining himself from slapping her across the face. After that, Eva took the belated wisdom bestowed upon her, mentally telling herself to ‘shut up’ and biting her bottom compliantly. She folded her hands in her lap before an embarrassed flush spread across her cheeks, conveying to Kroenen that she was now listening.

Once he confirmed her surrender, Kroenen went on: “Now, the leader asked me to look after you since you are new. Apparently, although you are merely a fledgling occultist, you show signs of potential. Therefore, he has charged me with the task of taking you on as an apprentice.”

Eva was almost unsure that she had heard him right. “Potential?” “Apprentice?” It all sounded bloody crazy. Why her? And, who the hell used the word “apprentice” in the 20th century?

“…You are to live here with me, and---”

“Wait, what?!” Eva woke up from her thoughts with a start.

“You know, you really need to drop this irritating habit of your’s…” Kroenen muttered, contemptibly.

Disregarding his annoyance, Eva insisted, “Did you just say I’m going to live here?”

“Yes,” Kroenen replied, cool as ever while Eva grew even more flustered as she pressed on with a barrage of questions.

“What about my house now?”

“You live in the dormitories at the University of Munich. Believe me, this is an upgrade in comparison to life there…”

Eva blushed a bit. “Well, that may be true. But, how will I get to school? The university I attend is on the other side of Munich! Even running here at top speed took me nearly half an hour!”

“I already took the liberty of withdrawing you from that second-rate school. I’ll be home-schooling you from now on. I think you’ll find that I’m a far better teacher than anyone you’ll find in Munich, or in all of Germany, for that matter.”

“Wait! You pulled me out of school?!”

“Yes. May I add that I don’t like to repeat myself?”

Kroenen seemed to be content with peddling out easy answers, as if she were flustered over something so trivial, rather than something so life-altering as this.

Bu, despite her outrage in the sudden change, Eva resigned, unable to find any further arguments that Kroenen would not counter with indifference. “…Fine,” she muttered weakly under her breath.

Kroenen nodded approvingly. “Very good. Now, you will return to your dorm… say your goodbyes to your friends and whatnot, and return here at nine in the morning… On time.” The underlying threat in his voice didn’t give Eva much room for argument and she made a mental note to set her alarm clock for five A.M. for good measure.

Later, as she ducked into a bow and left Kroenen’s room, bidding a goodbye to the receptionist as she passed by and walking out into the bitter-cold evening, Eva felt her head spin, and not because of the twin hits she had taken to her head that afternoon. As she walked down the street, at a far more leisurely pace, Eva felt the world about her shift, an impending sense that something great was coming her way and she knew not whether it was for the better or for the worse.

But, as when she stopped at the crosswalk, this time adhering to the officer’s instruction to stop and allow traffic to pass, Eva took a moment to look up at the dimming, evening sky as it poured thick, white flakes down onto the world and felt one large crystalline flake fall onto her cheek, instantly melting into a translucent droplet that ran down her face like a tear drop. With a resolute sigh, Eva watched as the gray cloud of her breath vanished into the frosted air along with what she had hoped would be her pathetic former self.

It was 1939-the beginning of World War II and the beginning of Eva’s new life, both a very tumultuous time.
"I'm working on it, dammit!"
  





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Sat Jan 28, 2012 2:48 am
dasiamari says...



I'm not a big fan a hell-boy but I really liked this! I'm also not the best at review so I will let somebody else cover that! But well done!
Know that she's back in the atmosphere I'm afraid that she'll think of me as a plain old Jain told a story 'bout a man who was to afraid to fly so he never did land. ~Train
  








HONK
— The Golden Goose