The dream was always the same. The cold smoke rising from the shell of a once-proud Berlin, the howl of artillery in the distance, and fire devouring the Reichstag like a gluttonous beast. Imel Dietrich stood chained to the iron gates of the Chancellery, eyes wide and throat dry, forced to watch the city collapse under a crimson sky.
The Soviets came like phantoms, faces twisted into mockery. They took his wife and daughter, tore his son from his arms. There was blood. Screams. The stench of burning flesh mixed with laughter. And then the noose—thick, scratchy rope tugging at his neck while the ruins of Berlin crackled and hissed behind them.
He always woke before the rope snapped his breath.
This time, it was the sudden splash of cold water across his lap that jolted him from the abyss. His hands shot up, eyes wide, still somewhere between nightmare and reality. He gasped, instinctively brushing at his uniform trousers. Then he heard the giggling.
"Papa, I spilled it! I'm sorry!" Gisela, his youngest, stood wide-eyed beside his study desk, the now-empty glass in her hand. Josef, his older son, sat on the floor nearby, building a miniature Tiger tank with toy parts. He looked up but said nothing. The room was heavy with silence for a moment—then came the shrill ring of the telephone.
Imel exhaled slowly and reached for it.
"Dietrich," he said, voice still thick with sleep.
"SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer," came the crisp voice of a young officer, clipped and eager. "The car is waiting. The meeting begins in one hour."
The line clicked dead before Imel could answer.
He leaned back in the armchair and turned his head toward the wide bay window. Outside, beneath the pale July sun, a squad of uniformed soldiers stood rigid beside a matte-black staff car. The double S insignia gleamed from their armbands. On the street corner, children played with wooden airplanes and paper swastikas, the red and black banners fluttering from every streetlamp like specters watching from above.
Berlin, 1962. The heart of the Greater Germanic Reich. Twenty years after the Endsieg. Twenty years since the last of the Allied resistance was stamped out. And yet, for Imel, the dream still lingered, like ashes in his lungs.
He rose slowly, brushing the creases from his uniform trousers and walked to the coatrack. He took down the SS jacket with practiced hands. It was a beautiful piece of tailoring—black wool, silver piping, meticulous stitching. The oak leaf insignia and silver braid shimmered faintly in the morning light. The armband on the left sleeve was pristine, the swastika centered perfectly within the white disc, bordered in red.
He slipped it on, adjusting the collar and smoothing the hem. The Iron Cross still hung from its loop, polished and immaculate. A symbol of valor. Or conquest. Depending on who told the story.
"Papa?" Gisela's voice was small.
He turned. She stood at the door, her eyes filled with that strange mix of awe and fear he had come to despise.
"I have to go, Liebchen," he said softly, brushing a hand through her hair. "Be good for your mother."
Outside, the soldiers stood to attention as he stepped through the threshold. "Heil Hitler!" they barked in unison, saluting with mechanical precision. He returned it, arm raised.
The door to the staff car opened for him without a word. He slid inside, the leather interior cool and still scented faintly of cigar smoke and oiled steel. One motorcycle roared to life ahead, another behind. They pulled into formation like predators.
Destination: the Chancellery. The seat of the Reich's power.
Heinrich Himmler, the architect of the New Order, lay ill. Some said dying. Rumors whispered in alleyways that the cancer had eaten through him like rot through a tree. In his absence, power shifted. Imel, as head of the Reich's Central Administration, had been summoned to host the meeting in his stead.
And he knew what was coming.
Tensions in the American Reich were rising. The Japanese Pacific States, once a tentative ally, had begun restricting trade across the Neutral Zone. Resistance activity in the Rockies had surged—bombings, disappearances, sabotage. And now, whispers of a man in the West claiming to be the rightful President of the old United States.
Imel clenched his jaw. The dream had not been merely terror—it was warning. The past, distorted and vengeful, had clawed its way into his present.
A world in which they had lost.
Impossible. And yet…
He turned his gaze to the window as they sped past the old Brandenburg Gate. Beyond it, atop the marble arch, the black eagle soared with claws wrapped around a swastika. A banner of dominance.
But even eagles can fall.