Year 1958
My name is Heinrich Smith.
If someone is reading this letter, then I am already dead.
I do not write this seeking sympathy, nor forgiveness. I write because silence has finally become heavier than fear. I write because there exists a monster in this world, and because of him, I no longer have the right to remain quiet. If this letter survives me, then let it stand as proof that I once existed—and that I understood too late what I had allowed to happen.
Let me begin from the beginning, while my hands are still steady and my memories remain intact.
I was born on December 5th, 1892, in Munich, Germany, during a time when the world still pretended to be orderly. My childhood was unremarkable—neither cruel nor kind. My father worked long hours, my mother prayed often, and I learned early that life rewarded obedience far more than honesty. I was not ambitious. I did not dream of greatness. I wanted only a simple life, and at the time, that seemed like a reasonable wish.
In 1914, everything changed.
The First World War broke out like a sudden sickness, spreading faster than anyone could comprehend. I was twenty-one years old, newly married, and deeply unprepared. I still remember the weight of my wedding ring on my finger when the orders arrived. I did not want to go. No man truly did. But refusal was not an option—it never is when a nation demands bodies more than it demands thought.
I left my wife behind with promises I did not know whether I could keep.
War teaches you many things, but none of them are noble. It strips the world of color, reduces people to shadows, and replaces morality with survival. Still, through luck or perhaps cowardice, I managed to survive. There were moments—rare, fragile moments—when I was granted leave, and I used every one of them to return home.
Those moments saved me.
In 1916, my wife gave birth to our daughter.
I remember holding her for the first time, her fingers curling instinctively around mine, as if she already understood that the world was dangerous and that she would need something to hold onto. I had never known fear like that before—not the fear of death, but the fear of failing someone who depended entirely on you.
For a brief period, happiness felt real.
We were poor. The war had drained everything—money, food, certainty—but none of that mattered. My wife smiled more during those months than she ever had before. She named our daughter with care, as if the name itself could shield her from the world. I believed, foolishly, that love was enough.
It never is.
In 1917, the war reached into my home.
There was no warning. No heroic moment. No final goodbye. A shell struck the neighborhood during an air raid, tearing through houses without discrimination. My wife was among the victims. She died not as a soldier, not as a hero—just as another name added to a list too long for anyone to remember.
My daughter survived only because she was not there.
She had been staying with my grandfather at the time. A coincidence. An accident. The kind of randomness that decides who gets to live and who does not. I have spent many nights wondering whether survival earned through chance is a blessing or a curse.
When I received the news, I felt something inside me collapse—not dramatically, but completely. Grief did not come all at once. It settled slowly, like ash, covering everything I touched. I wanted to scream. I wanted to disappear. But I could not.
Because I still had a daughter.
When the war finally ended in 1918, I resigned from the military without ceremony. There was nothing left for me there—no pride, no purpose, only ghosts. I returned to civilian life with a damaged body and a far more damaged mind, but Germany did not care for broken men. Survival, once again, was my responsibility alone.
I found work at a post office.
It was not honorable, nor important, but it was steady. Letters arrived every day—confessions, apologies, lies, and hopes sealed in envelopes. I handled them carefully, as if meaning itself were fragile. In some way, I think I envied those letters. They were allowed to speak when their writers could not.
Raising my daughter alone was the hardest thing I have ever done.
There were days I barely ate so she could. Nights when I sat awake listening to her breathe, terrified that the world would take her too. Slowly, as years passed, she grew stronger. She learned to laugh again. And when she laughed, the weight on my chest eased, if only slightly.
Finances improved with time. Germany rebuilt itself piece by piece, and so did we. I was never wealthy, never influential—but we were stable. We were safe. Or at least, I believed we were.
And for a while… we were happy.
Or so I believed.
In 1939, the world collapsed for the second time. War returned, but this time it did not arrive as an external curse—it was born from Germany's desire for revenge. Pride disguised as justice. Rage disguised as destiny. I had seen this sickness before, and yet the country welcomed it as if pain were proof of strength.
My daughter was twenty-two then.
She had just graduated from the university. I still remember the way she stood in her formal clothes, pretending confidence while nervously adjusting her sleeves. She had found work soon after—her first real job, her first taste of independence. For the first time since her mother's death, I allowed myself to believe that her life would be gentler than mine.
The war erased that belief overnight.
Businesses closed. Institutions fell apart. Food became scarce. Hope followed soon after. And then the military letter arrived.
They wanted me again.
This time, the tone was different. No threats. No pressure. Germany was powerful now, they said. Experienced soldiers were valuable. They offered me a higher position, better pay, stability—everything a desperate man should want.
But I refused.
I could not repeat the same mistake. I had already sacrificed my wife once to a war that promised meaning and delivered only graves. I told myself we would survive without the army. I told myself that dignity mattered more than money.
I was wrong.
Reality is not kind to principles. There was no income. No safety. My daughter began eating less—not because there was nothing, but because she insisted I eat instead. At night, I heard her crying softly behind closed doors, pretending during the day that everything was fine.
It was not.
We sold our house.
Piece by piece, our past disappeared—furniture, memories, security—until all that remained were two people clinging to each other in a country that had decided sacrifice was once again necessary. We moved to Düsseldorf, into a small, hollow place that never felt like home. It is from there that I now write this letter.
Every night, I heard her voice.
She never complained. That was the worst part. Suffering hidden out of love is heavier than any accusation. And eventually, I reached a conclusion that still haunts me.
She was grown now.
If I joined the army again, she would survive—even if I did not. She would receive the income. The inheritance. The pension. My death would at least have meaning. This choice, I told myself, was better than watching her slowly disappear in front of me.
So I returned to the uniform.
Within months, our financial situation stabilized. Food returned to the table. My daughter regained her job. Color returned to her face. For the first time in years, she smiled without forcing it.
I believed I had made the right choice.
That belief lasted three years.
After 1942, the war transformed into something else entirely. Germany began to lose. The Russians pressed from one side, the English and Americans from the other. Every report carried the same undertone—inevitability. Collapse.
Then the news arrived.
Düsseldorf had fallen.
English soldiers had taken the city. Women were rounded up. Detained. Disappeared.
For a moment, the world stopped making sound.
I remember standing still, unable to breathe, as if movement itself would confirm what I already knew. Something inside me broke—not loudly, not violently—but completely. This time, grief was replaced by something colder.
Rage.
I did not leave the army. I did not surrender to despair. I told myself that revenge was still possible. That Germany could still win. Or that I could at least die trying.
Neither happened.
After the war ended, I searched for her.
Lists. Records. Masses of names reduced to ink and paper. And there—among them—I found hers. One line. One confirmation. One sentence explaining that she had been assaulted and killed along with countless other young women.
I felt no hatred for the English soldiers.
I felt no hatred for the war.
I felt hatred only for myself.
I was the one who chose duty over presence. I was the one who believed numbers and promises over fear. Even if I had chosen differently, she might still have died—but perhaps she would have suffered less. Perhaps she would not have been alone.
We were content with our lives.
Germany was not.
In the years that followed, I gathered what money I could. Enough to last me a lifetime. Enough to ensure that survival would never again require obedience. But money cannot undo decisions. It cannot resurrect the dead. It cannot silence the past.
After that, I was completely broken.
I do not know how I continued to live. Days passed, then years, but none of them felt earned. I woke up each morning not because I wished to, but because my body had not yet understood that it was allowed to stop. I think that makes me a coward. I did not even have the courage to take my own life. I merely existed—breathing without purpose, aging without direction.
The world moved on. I did not.
Then, a few years later, in 1950, something changed.
A young boy moved into my neighborhood.
His name was Diable.
He arrived quietly, without announcement or ceremony, as if the world had simply made space for him when it was not looking. He was alone—no parents, no relatives, no stories he was willing to share. Somehow, without ever asking, he became part of my routine. He ate at my house often. Some nights, when the weather was harsh or the streets felt unsafe, he slept there too.
He never spoke of his past.
But there was something familiar in his silence. The kind of silence that is not empty, but crowded. I recognized it immediately. It was the same silence I had carried since the war—the kind that forms when memory becomes too heavy to touch.
One evening, without prompting, he told me that he was half French and half English.
The words struck me harder than I expected. For a moment, I could not breathe. Images of my daughter returned uninvited—her face, her voice, the knowledge of what had been done to her. I felt anger rise instinctively, irrational and sharp. But it faded just as quickly.
This child had nothing to do with any of it.
He, too, was a victim of the war. Whatever had taken his family, whatever had shaped him into what he was, it had not been his choice. I told myself that perhaps he had lost his parents, just as my daughter had lost her mother. Perhaps the war had hollowed him out early, forcing him to grow faster than he should have.
That would have explained much.
Because Diable was… unusual.
He was clever. Not in the way children are sometimes called clever as a form of praise, but genuinely—unnervingly so. He spoke with a calmness that did not match his age, forming thoughts with precision, asking questions that carried weight. He did not talk much, but when he did, it felt deliberate, as if each word had been measured before being released.
At first, this did not alarm me.
I told myself it was the war. That hardship accelerates maturity. That children who survive learn quickly. I had seen it before. I wanted to believe that was all it was.
Diable was not alone for long.
He had a friend named Marry.
She was everything he was not—open, gentle, warm. A sweet child with a laugh that came easily and eyes that still trusted the world. She often came with him, the two of them inseparable. Later, they told me they were classmates. Watching them together felt strangely comforting. They balanced each other in a way that felt natural, effortless.
For the first time in years, my house felt alive.
Because of those children, I began to live again.
Not fully. Not without pain. But enough. I cooked meals with intention. I cleaned more than necessary. I listened. I spoke. I laughed—quietly at first, as if afraid the sound might disappear if I relied on it too much.
For a brief period, I believed I had been given a second chance.
But I think a chapter titled Happiness was never meant to occupy much space in my life.
The years passed. Diable and Marry grew older. They remained kind, well-mannered, and respectful. They caused no trouble. No complaints ever reached me. To anyone watching from the outside, they were simply two good children navigating a damaged world.
I thought Everything is alright now.
I was wrong.
Because two years ago, in 1956, everything changed.
That was the year the Devil arrived.
It happened on a night when sleep came unwillingly. Rain battered the streets as if the sky itself were furious—angry, frightened, uncertain of what it was witnessing below. The wind pressed against the windows, carrying with it a strange restlessness, and I remember thinking that the weather felt wrong, as though it were reacting to something unseen.
Then I heard a voice.
Not loud. Not screaming. Just… present.
It came from the direction of Diable's house.
I rose from my bed and looked through the window, my breath fogging the glass. Under the streetlight, I saw him—Diable—standing in the rain, holding a boy in his arms. The child was unconscious, limp, frighteningly thin. Even from that distance, I could tell he had not eaten properly for a long time. He looked less like a boy and more like something the world had forgotten to finish.
The rain soaked them both, yet Diable did not seem bothered by it.
The next day, I asked him about the boy.
Diable told me calmly that the boy would be living with him now.
I was surprised—perhaps even uneasy—but I trusted Diable. I always had. He spoke again, more seriously this time, telling me that if the boy ever came to my house, I should not ask him about his past or his family. I nodded without thinking. Something in his voice discouraged questions.
Then Diable said something that stayed with me.
"The boy has suffered much more than you or I."
Those words shocked me.
I believed I understood suffering. I believed I had seen the worst the world could offer. Yet Diable said it with such certainty that I did not argue. I could only accept that perhaps there were depths of pain I had never reached.
Three or four days later, Diable brought the boy to my house.
That was the first time I saw him up close.
When our eyes met, a chill ran through my entire body. It was sudden, instinctive—like something buried deep within me had awakened. The same instinct that once kept me alive on battlefields screamed a single warning:
Danger.
I ignored it.
That was the greatest mistake of my life.
At first, the boy behaved normally. Quiet. Observant. Polite. I even felt something like nostalgia as I cooked for him, watching him sit at the table the way my daughter once had, the way Diable had so many times. For a moment, the past softened, and I allowed myself to believe this was just another lost child in need of warmth.
Soon, he began coming to my house on his own.
When I asked his name, he hesitated only briefly before telling me I could call him Kruger. He never shared his real name, and strangely, I never asked. It was as if the question itself had been removed from me.
Slowly, he began to speak—about things no child should be interested in.
Life. Trauma. Human nature. War. Suffering.
He spoke not with confusion, but with clarity. Sometimes, I realized with discomfort that I was learning from him. He told me about his father, Paul Kruger, who had fought in the war on the Russian side. Then he mentioned, almost casually, that his mother had been German.
A German and a Russian married during the war.
That alone should have unsettled me.
He asked me for stories—especially about the war. Not like a child asking out of curiosity, but like a scholar collecting data. While other children played with toys, this boy played with fear. He examined it. Turned it over. Learned how it behaved.
One day, he asked about my past.
And I told him everything.
I still do not know why. It felt as though my will had softened, as though resistance had quietly left the room. I remember feeling afraid—not of his actions, but of the influence he had over me. I was scared of him in a way I had never been scared of any man on the battlefield.
I began to feel trapped inside my own mind.
I even tried to end my life once—but failed. Cowardice, perhaps. Or perhaps something else held me back.
And yet… he was never openly cruel.
That is what confuses me even now.
I never sensed pure evil in him. What I sensed was grief. Guilt. A weight so immense that it bent everything around it. It was as if he were trying to be malicious, but the malice was not truly his. Sometimes he smiled—truly smiled—and yet that smile carried contradictions within it.
A genuine smile and not a genuine smile at the same time.
I know how absurd that sounds.
But that is the only way I can describe it.
He was not kind. He was not sweet. But he was not simple cruelty either. Being around him felt like being slowly turned into something else—like a puppet whose strings were tightening one by one. I have never felt such emotional pressure in my life.
Now, I thank God that my wife and daughter died in the war.
If they were alive today, they would have been consumed by this demon.
I am at my limit.
It has been six days since he last visited. When he came, he said nothing. He ate quietly. And before leaving, he looked at me and spoke a single word:
"Die."
Now… I finally can.
I am sorry. In the end, I am still a coward. I still wish to escape everything. But if you are reading this—please listen to me.
In my bedroom, in the left-side drawer, you will find a revolver and six rounds.
I beg you.
Kill the Devil.
He is too much to be left alive.
Please.
Kill him.
The letter ended.
The paper trembled slightly between the fingers of the one who had been reading it.
He was Teufel.
He stood in the quiet room, the air heavy with absence. Nearby, Heinrich Smith no longer moved, his final decision having already been made beyond words. Teufel's expression did not change.
Slowly, he took out a lighter.
The flame bloomed softly.
The letter burned.
Ash fell.
Teufel extinguished the fire,opened the Drawer,picked up the revolver, and turned away.
Chapter ends
To be Continued