Emin hid his face in the collar of his heavy sheepskin coat, almost merging with the brown leather seat. The train was empty except for seven lone passengers scattered throughout the coach. He'd counted them while waiting on the platform. He was the only one occupying his compartment and there were also no passengers in the adjacent sections. That was good. He couldn't stand being around people. Even if they were behind a wall.
The train stood still, waiting for its departure. Emin had come too early. He had to catch the six o'clock train but arrived at four. He simply couldn't wait to leave Borderland. The hostile conductress refused to let him in at first but when the other seven early birds appeared, she realised her hostility couldn't weigh up to theirs and reluctantly let them on board.
The lights were out, and the heating turned down. He locked the door to his compartment. No one would've dared walk in on him, but he preferred to avoid surprises should he fall asleep. He hadn't slept that night, and although his mind was agitated, he premonished a sudden slumber.
Emin pulled back the worn red curtain with his index finger and stared out of the window. The bright moon illuminated the snow-covered railway station, revealing its outlines in the dark. The grumpy conductress went out for a smoke. Her shadow slithered past his window. Emin focused his attention on her dark bulky figure, attentively studying all her movements, the slight changes in her trajectory she made as she walked back and forth. The icy winter silence made it easy to count her rapid steps in the crunchy snow. Exactly sixteen paces every time.
Emin despised the conductress. He couldn't deny it. He disliked her the moment he'd addressed her on the platform. His aversion to her had nothing to do with her nastiness and her short, vicious replies to his questions. Women of her age, especially conductresses, acted this way quite often. Their excuse was always something like it's a hard job for a low wage. It also had nothing to do with the strong cigarette stench emanating from her hair and clothes, although that smell was unbearable. Her face wasn't at all repulsive, though. Some men would even consider her attractive. But not Emin. There was something about her that instantly changed his perception of her as a woman. He saw it and heard it as soon as she opened her mouth. She was from Borderland. That was reason enough for him to hate her, and that realisation frightened him.
She may be a quarrelsome bitch, but that doesn't necessarily mean she's a Nazi or sympathises with them, thought Emin. But he sensed how feeble that argument was and how little influence it would have on his decision to eliminate her or not. His judgment, once cool and reasonable, was now perturbed by hatred. But he couldn't change how he felt, even if he really tried. He wasn't the same man he was eight years ago. The personality of the young, good-natured Emin gradually faded to black before completely disappearing in the course of the execution of his obscure job. It all started eight years ago, when he was sent on a special mission to Borderland.
Emin had been instructed to infiltrate the most notorious of Borderland's Nazi battalions, the Aces, and report on everything he saw and heard there. After the fall of the Union, the former Union states were flooded with Gomorian agents disguised as benefactors supporting local national and cultural developments. In reality, the Gomorians were financing and monitoring nationalistic groups and politicians who'd descended from Nazi collaborators and betrayers to further undermine the Scythe Empire. Borderland, due to their history of having sided with Nazis, was fertile soil for the United States of Gomora. During the Turbid Times, a clause was introduced into the Borderland Army Contract, obliging the contractors to fight against the Scythe Empire should Borderland declare war on its neighbours. From that point on, Borderland's officials, assisted by the Gomorians, started to raise a whole generation of mentally and spiritually crippled and brainwashed people who believed in the superiority of their own nation. They indoctrinated the youth, telling them that Scythes, Judeans, Musulmans, gypsies, and half-bloods were untermenschen. But most importantly that Scythes were the enemy.
As a half-blood from Scythia who lived through the Turbid Times and came across neighbourhood skinheads, Emin didn't think much of the job. He heard it all before, those empty talks about the purity of the white race and the necessity of purging the unwanted from society. Some name-calling and fist fights. Just like in high school. He even looked forward to it. But he was wrong for believing those Nazis were just a bunch of bald shaven morons musing on white supremacy and not posing any threat to humankind. Their mindset had undergone a drastic change. The Borderland Nazis let people of all colours and creeds into their midst as long as they were willing to mindlessly kill on behalf of the Nazis. The truth was much darker than his young, kind-spirited soul could fathom.
Emin penetrated into the very core of their headquarters under the false identity of Mohammed Jihad, a Persian mercenary and battle instructor. His made-up background was that he was born in Parsa, graduated as a Mechanical Engineer, and after his studies joined the Persian Army. He was recruited by the Gomorians to steal important documents such as maps of strategic military value of his homeland, and spy on his own government. Next, he bonded with the radical opposition, Persia for Freedom, to undermine the main leading party of Persia by organising violent manifestations and bloody protests throughout the country. But the Persian government shut down their activity, imprisoned most of its activists and so Mohammed risked the death penalty for treason. He fled to the United States of Gomora, received a special status and protection as a political refugee, and got promoted to battle instructor. He was sent to different parts of the world, mostly Musulman countries and countries neighbouring the Scythe Empire, to train mercenaries and local radicals in the art of Gomorian terrorism. That was how Mohammed ended up in Borderland and got appointed as drill instructor of one of its Nazi battalions.
Emin spoke fluent Fârsi, Pan-Slavic, and Anglo-Saxon, so he didn't have any trouble keeping up with his made-up biography, although he had to add a slight accent when speaking Pan-Slavic to Borderlanders. That way, they would have no reason to doubt he was a genuine Persian. He'd grown a thick beard and gained some weight and muscle so his appearance would match his story. Nothing about him indicated he was a Scythian half-blood. That was how Emin slowly ceased to exist. First his attractive mestizo facial features changed to a grim face, then his soft-spoken voice was transformed into harsh guttural Anglo-Saxon sounds, and eventually his light spirit got broken. It didn't happen at once. The destruction of his soul developed at a slow pace, every day introducing him to new atrocities committed by the Nazis under his command. Crimes against humanity he never thought were possible.
The Library. A cold shiver ran down his spine every time he heard that word. To the initiated, that word meant more than its name entailed. It wasn't an actual library. It was an old, abandoned airport in Zhdanov that the Nazis used as a prison for Scythes from the Coal Mining Region and anyone else who was against the criminal Borderland government. Politicians, journalists, artists, writers, citizens, immigrants, and even tourists who were so imprudent as to criticise the Borderland authorities were sent to the Library.
Big guys in balaclavas abducted people from the street in broad daylight. Unsuspecting men and women were thrown into black minivans and transported to the Library. The kidnappers didn't shy away from the public eye and its opinion. They were invincible and stood above the law. Everyone knew that. That was why no one ever reported these incidents to the police because the latter sided with the Nazis. Besides, the people were afraid of becoming their next target, which is why no one spoke out or expressed their sympathy for the victims. The various Nazi battalions were also monitored and supported by the Gomorians. They were paid and trained to terrorise their own people at the expense of the Gomorian taxpayer. So, even if a case of Nazi brutality did manage to reach a court, the Gomorians would make sure to bribe the judge, the jury, and the lawyers to release their spawn.
But the Library wasn't just a place where one was imprisoned without trial. Most of the incarcerated didn't get out of there alive, simply because they didn't survive the gruesome tortures. People got beaten to death, mutilated, raped, starved, drowned, strangled … Sometimes with the aim to get some confession out of them but mostly just for fun. As the Aces liked to say, The Library is a place where you get to read a person like an open book. In other words, the Library was the portal to Hell.
Unfortunately for Emin, he'd spent a lot of time in that place. It was necessary for him to stay in the Library for several days. He was duty-bound to go with the Aces on abduction raids, acting as the driver and as support when kidnapping groups of people. He didn't participate in the tortures, but it felt like he was responsible for what happened to those people. Emin could easily kill all the Nazis while they were sleeping and simply release the prisoners, but he had to restrain himself to succeed in his mission.
The field behind the airport was perfect for the Aces' combat training, desolate and hidden from curious eyes. He was compelled to endure many nights in the abandoned airport. He slept in a remote room, far from the refrigerators that were used as torture chambers. But even there he could hear their bone-chilling screams, filled with so much agony and pain that he couldn't close an eye for a whole night. He heard the beatings, the breaking of bones, the smashing in of skulls, the whipping of sticks on naked skin. He heard the cries and pleas of women and children. Children …
Whenever Emin closed his eyes in a futile attempt to get some sleep, even after all those years, he was haunted by those grey eyes. The eyes of the scared skinny teenager, Alyosha. Emin and a few Aces were cleaning up bloodstains from the walls and floor in one of the refrigerators when Alyosha was brought in and led inside an unoccupied chamber. Their eyes met as Alyosha walked past the door. At that moment Emin could swear he saw recognition in the boy's eyes, as if he saw through his disguise and knew he was a good guy, a Scythe, and subsequently he'd save him from the Nazis. The reason why they imprisoned Alyosha was because the boy liked to play online video games. The child was so incautious as to call one of the abusive Borderland gamers a Nazi scum.
They beat poor Alyosha daily, trying to force him to confess to being a betrayer who sympathised with the Scythes. Alyosha liked the Scythes and despised his compatriots, but he was a smart kid. He knew that if he admitted to their accusations, they would instantly kill him. He held on to the belief that the torture would soon stop, that someone would release him and take him home to his father who had no idea where his son was. Emin managed a few times to smuggle food and water to the boy. The bastards had broken his wrist, and his knees were badly bruised after one of the torturers sat on top of him and punched him on the sides of his knees, causing the child the most agonising torment. Alyosha couldn't stand on his feet and suffered from pain in his back and stomach from being kicked frequently. A few times he opened his eyes to look at Emin. He wasn't afraid of him; he knew he wouldn't abuse him. He just silently stared at him as if waiting for Emin to tell him that help was on its way and that he would get out of there soon. But he couldn't save him with all the Nazis being in the Library. Emin just left the cell and bolted the door behind him, feeling Alyosha staring at him through the concrete walls. He knew he had to do something before it was too late.
Emin told Cleaver, the Ace who was responsible for the interrogation of poor Alyosha, that it was dishonourable for men to torture children. Cleaver was the most notorious torturer among all the Aces. His favourite way of abusing his victims was rape. He didn't really care who he assaulted, men, women, children, or elderly. He just really liked to fuck, as he once told his buddies when he was drunk. Cleaver was afraid of Mohammed; he knew the Musulman was dangerous, but he nonetheless taunted him, smirked in his face, and told him to go back to Parsa if he was so sensitive, that Borderland wasn't a kindergarten for social justice warriors. Cleaver turned his back on him and went inside Alyosha's cell. The Nazi bolted the door from the inside. Emin stayed and heard the boy screaming for Cleaver to stop. At some point, he couldn't stand listening to his cries, covered his ears, and ran outside, away from the Library. He collapsed somewhere in the field and lied there with his eyes open staring into the void of his soul until the sun came up.
The next morning, he returned to the airport. The Aces were all asleep after a long night of drinking. Emin was determined to risk everything to save the child. He snuck his way to the cells but when he unbolted the door, he found Alyosha dead. He'd hung himself from his belt tied to a hook in the wall, and all of that with a broken wrist. Alyosha was fifteen years old.
The tortures and rapes in the Library continued. And they got worse and more frequent. More people got abducted, even those who were not suspected of siding with the Scythes. The Aces were devolving into something lower than beasts. They got hooked on the smell of blood and their own impunity. After a while Emin stopped considering them to be human beings. He couldn't allow the thought that he was of the same flesh and blood as they, therefore he dehumanised them in his perception.
One night Cleaver returned dragging a young woman by the hair into the Library. She was screaming and kicking ferociously. Emin asked Cleaver's buddies what the girl had done and why he'd abducted her on his own. They joked that he had a crush on her for some time. She was a simple girl from the village who lived with her grandparents. When Cleaver came to get her, they couldn't do anything to stop him. The next day Emin found her cold body lying in the basement where all the dead were thrown into a deep pit. No one had an idea what the pit was used for before the Aces came but the latter soon found a purpose for it. The smell in the basement was so horrid that after disposing of the bodies they had to cover them with earth. Not that it really helped. The guy responsible for getting rid of her left her on the floor while fetching earth. The woman was covered in bruises but those weren't the cause of her death. She died from internal bleeding.
That same day Cleaver announced he had to visit his wife and daughter who lived in the capital. That was some ten hours driving from Zhdanov. But Emin knew that Cleaver would never make it to his family, and no one would ever find out what happened to him. He hid under a cover in the back of Cleaver's pick-up truck. The first stop the Ace made was in the most remote and quietest place imaginable. He parked his car at the edge of a dense forest to pee. As soon as the Nazi stepped out of the car Emin appeared from his hiding place and followed him into the bushes. Cleaver didn't suspect he was in danger that was why he'd left his gun in the car. Right as he unzipped his pants, Emin struck him on the back of his head with a baseball bat he'd found in the truck. The same baseball bat Cleaver used to smash the knees of his prisoners with.
While Cleaver was unconscious, he hung him upside down on a tree and waited until he came back to his senses. When Cleaver opened his eyes and saw Mohammed, he didn't realize that not only was he about to die but his agony would last for hours. He jokingly asked Mohammed what the hell was going on. Mohammed replied that his days were numbered as well as his Nazi friends and the entire nation of Borderland. That he would make him pay for what he did to Alyosha, the nameless woman he'd brutally raped last night, and for all those poor men, women, and children he'd tortured to death. He spoke Pan-Slavic to him, without an accent, without the usual grunting. It was Emin who spoke. The man who was silenced for a long time. The soft-spoken, attentive, charming Emin. When it finally dawned upon Cleaver that Mohammed was a mole he started to spit with rage. He cursed him, threatened he would kill him and his family but before he would shoot him like a dog, he promised to fuck him like a dog. Emin only smiled and told him that he wanted Cleaver to know that his real name was Emin and that the person who would slaughter him like a pig was a half-blood from Scythia. With these words the Ace roared like a madman but that didn't impress Emin. He walked up to him and made several deep cuts in his chest with a pocketknife.
That form of torture was unknown to Cleaver and at first, he didn't realise what a slow and intense death was awaiting him. He was yelling profanities at Emin, asking him mockingly whether that was all he was capable of. But after a while he noticed how hard it was for him just to open his mouth, let alone scream at the top of his lungs. He also couldn't focus on forming a simple thought like how he would kill the Musulman once he was free. He wholeheartedly believed that soon his buddies would come to his aid. But as the hours went by, no one came. It turned dark, although Cleaver couldn't tell because his sight was blurred by the blood that rushed into his head.
It felt like his skull would burst. A few times he passed out but when he came round and opened his eyes, he saw the Musulman sitting in front of him observing his struggle as if it was some sick performance. The Musulman wouldn't let him live, but he wouldn't let him die either.
Emin sat there quietly, watching Cleaver slowly die, suffocating but still breathing as he hung upside down, his face turning purple, his eyes bloodshot. He listened to his yells and feeble moans that eventually turned into wheezing after many hours. Cleaver died at dawn the following day. Emin left him hanging and drove his car deeper into the woods. Although, if someone really tried to track down Cleaver, they would discover his body soon and secretly Emin wanted one of the Borderlanders to find him. He'd left the Ace hanging there in such a horrible state as a warning of what would happen to them if they continued to terrorise people. But he knew no one would do that. Cleaver's chums wouldn't be suspicious if he didn't come back within a week. The trip to the capital and back was long, besides, Cleaver had told them he'd left to spend some time with his family. The only person who could possibly be alarmed was his wife, but Emin doubted she had contact with the Aces. And even if she did, his buddies would be too drugged to go searching for him.
From that point on Emin felt how he turned insane. He also got addicted to the smell of blood. The smell of Nazi blood. The urge to kill another was too strong. He begged for his superiors in Scythia to end his mission and let him go back home. He couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't take the impotency of not being able to stop the Nazis although he knew he could. He wanted to leave that cursed country and let someone else take his place. But he wasn't allowed to do that. There was too much at stake. He wasn't the only one involved, he couldn't risk cancelling the mission and letting his work and the work of so many other people be for nothing. Besides, there was no one else who could take his place. There was no way back. He had to continue if he wanted the madness to stop, and see the Nazis being executed. After he'd calmed down, he understood how impossible and selfish his request was. But that realisation didn't make it any easier for him. It meant he was trapped in the Library until he found some evidence, some valuable information that would change everything and allow his government to take the necessary measures to defeat the Nazis.
That time had come. After those unbearable long eight years he was free. It was far from over. A great battle was lying ahead and there was no guarantee everybody would survive to see the victory of the Scythes. Emin wasn't sure he would make it to the end himself, but his mission was finally over for him. He would never have to go back to the Library. He would never have to wish those Nazis a good day or shake their filthy hands. No. Next time when he met them, he would slit their throats. Nothing, no one, no obligation would prevent him from fulfilling justice and taking revenge for all the innocent people they'd tortured to death.
Yes, he was free at last. And his ticket to freedom was the information he carried in his breast pocket. An important document he'd stolen from the headquarters of the Aces. It was a photocopied page with the instructions, date, time, and place of a secret predatory attack on the Scythe Empire, dated and signed by Borderland's Leader Vladko Shut and his Commander-in-Chief Luzha. Every Nazi battalion, including the Borderland Army, received that communication. They were all ready to attack, thinking their suddenness would take the Scythes by surprise. By the time they found out about the disappearance of the document, Emin would've already crossed the border, and their little dirty secret wouldn't be so secret anymore. No one in the train suspected that the scary looking bearded man was a ticking time-bomb. Not even that suspicious nosy bitch conductress. They had no idea that tomorrow would be a special day, a day like no other. Tomorrow their lives will change. Tomorrow will start the final countdown of Borderland's annihilation.
Emin closed the curtain and relaxed in his seat. His face was covered in shadow, but his eyes were gleaming in the dark. He let go of the thought of killing the conductress. If she were guilty of siding with the enemy, she wouldn't get away with it. Soon, they would all pay for their indifference, their inactivity, and their collaboration with the Nazis. The time had finally come.