Hey, this is pretty darn good! I'm looking forward to see what happens after he crashes, keep it coming!

Just to let you guys know, I kinda feel out of my element with this story, so if you feel that something wasn't written right, or you see an error somewhere, please let me know so I can fix it.  This definitely isn't my best work, but I'll try to keep updating it for anyone who wants to read it...
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A groan could be heard in the cockpit of the plane as the young pilot started to stir.  He slowly picked his head up off the plane and sat up, not noticing the glass from the window that fell off of his shoulder as he sat up.  Looking around, he saw that he was sitting on the ground in a trashed aircraft and sighed as he remembered what had happened leading up to then. 

Slowly, he pulled himself out of his seat, grinding his teeth at the pain in his leg, a sure sign that he had fractured it.  He carefully hopped over the side, making sure to hang from the top of the aircraft so he wouldn't have to fall all the way and risk aggravating his injured leg, then dropped, landing on his left leg.

"God," he muttered miserably, "why do you always have to play with me?  First you get me caught up in a war and make it impossible for me to get out of it, then you let me become one of the best aces of the war, and now after I've been praying for years for a way out you dump me in the middle of a frozen wasteland with a fractured leg?  I think you're just having way too much fun with me." 

He sighed and walked around the crash site, ignoring the pain in his leg as he tried to find something that he could use as a crutch.  Finally, he picked up an eight foot long branch that was clipped off one of the trees by his plane and drug it back to the side of the plane, choosing to sit down on the part of the wing that was still attached to the plane while he worked.

"I suppose that I should be grateful to be alive after my plane crashed with me still in it," he admitted, "but that's kinda like being glad that only your arm was cut off in the freak accident and you were left alive.  I would have been grateful never to have been in this mess in the first place.  Live in Switzerland or something where I don't have to fight in this stupid war and kill other people.  At least this gives me the chance to get out of here."

It took him a while, but finally he managed to peel all of the smaller branches off of the limb, and it was ready to be used as a walking stick.  Sitting it aside for the time being, he pulled out one of his flight charts from his cargo pocket on his brown leather pants, and looked it over.

"Okay," he muttered, tracing his finger over the map, "I'm somewhere around here, and this would be a lot easier if I had a land map, and my best bet is probably this town to the south west.  If I go there, I won't have to worry about going by the airfield again, and I should be able to make it there without being arrested.  Once I get there though, I guess I'm on my own.  Maybe I can find work with someone so that I can pay for a place to stay, that way I won't be out on the streets for the rest of my life.  I guess I obviously can't go back to Germany, and it's probably better if they think I'm dead, so I'm stuck here for the time being.  Great, a new start, and nothing to start with."

He sighed grumpily as he put the map back in his pocket and got up, leaning on his new walking stick.  "Time to go," he said, pulling the German eagle pendant off of his chest and tossing it on the ground.  "And time to leave that mess behind.  Last thing I need is someone seeing that and arresting me."

It took him longer than he had hoped to get used to walking with his injured leg, but finally with enough practice, and with his leg becoming numb since he was away from his burning plane, he finally got the grasp of walking without putting himself in pain.  He would occasionally pull out a compass to ensure that he was going the right direction, southwest, he would remind himself every time he checked it, "after all, how far could 'southwest' go?"  The landscape made him uncomfortable though, because all there was for miles and miles was dirt and more dirt, and even the occasional hill of dirt, peppered with a few clumps of trees.  If anyone was looking for survivors, he was a sitting duck out there, but he had no choice, because he had no 'back' to go to.

After about two hours of walking, he finally came to the edge of town, a bit cold, but nothing he wasn't used to from the temperatures back home."Great," he muttered, "I'm here, but I've still got no place to go 'here' and nothing to eat.  Not even any freaking water to drink.  Now's when I need a divine intervention."  He looked up to the sky as he said this and frowned, "are you listening up there?  If you wouldn't mind, I could use a little help here.  You put me out here, now how about lending a hand?"

Shaking his head hopelessly, he walked a bit further into town, then sat down on the side of the road.  "May as well take a rest," he grumbled, "nothing else to do."

Suddenly though, as if in answer to his prayers, or further complications to the issue, he heard the sound of a young girl's giggling coming from behind him.  Turning to look, he saw a young blond girl that looked to be no older than ten walk up to him and sit down beside him.  "Hey," she said, smiling shyly at him.

"Hello there," he said, finding himself smiling back at her.  Even though he was smiling, the girl being beside him kinda uneased him.  Here he was, a foreign soldier, from an enemy country none the less, and now he was sitting next to a little girl.  He was broken out of his thoughts though as she spoke again.

"Why are you carrying this stick around?" She asked, picking up the stick and inspecting it, as only the expert eye of a young child could.

"I hurt my leg in an accident, and I have to carry it so that I can walk," he said casually, trying to hide his nervousness.

"Oh," she said, putting the stick back down beside him.  Suddenly though, her eyes brightened up and she was up on her feet again, almost before he saw her get up.  "My sister can fix you up!  Come on, I'll take you back to our house and she can get your leg fixed."

Against his better judgment, he let pull him to his feet, and soon found himself walking after her, letting her drag him back to her sisters house, and God only knew if her sister wouldn't call the cops on him and have him arrested as a Nazi.  Still though, it was either that or rot on the side of the street, and her sister might know someplace that he could get some work, maybe in return for a room and something to eat.  "So, where do your parents work?" he asked, trying to find out more about what he could expect from her family.

Suddenly though, her spirits seemed to dampen a little, and she slowed down to just walking beside him instead of leading him down the sidewalk.  "They both died when our town was attacked," she said sadly, "it's just me and my sister now."

He couldn't think of anything else that she could have said that would have frozen his blood in his veins any better than that did.  Scheiße, so her parents were killed by the people I used to work for, and now she's taking me back to her sister's place?  She may not be able to tell what I am, but 20 Marks says I'm going to be arrested as soon as her sister takes one look at me.  I'm so dead.

"We're here," she said, breaking him out of his thoughts as she stopped in front of a white shingled house.  "I'll go find her."

Last edited by wolvendeer (2009-06-22 02:42:00)

Yeah, this character is probably one of the most fun to write because of how outspoken he is.  I love how he's not afraid to look up to the sky and shout something like "you have it out for me, don't you?"

I really like the second "installment". Believe it or not, I think you're hitting your stride. The first part was a little rushed, but now the character is really starting to develop and I like it a lot! Ha, I also like how you always end on somewhat of a cliffhanger. Keep it up!

It's been a while since my last post, but I've waded out the worst of my sickness (hopefully) and the rest should be manageable.  Hope you guys like the next chapter as much you did the last one, but IMO it's a little rushed.
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The young piolet waited for what seemed like two eternities as the little girl disappeared into the house, searching for her bigger sister, and multiple times he entertained the thought of running off while no one was watching, that way he would avoid the inevitably awkward situation with the girl's sister as well as avoid a potentially dangerous situation for himself, but he had asked for help and he had immediately met this little girl, so he wasn't about to run now.  If God really had taken pity on him and decided to help him, he wasn't about to turn that help down.  If God had decided to continue the joke on him though, well, he would just have to deal with that as it came.  He sighed.

Suddenly, the door was pulled further open, and a lady that looked to be in her younger twenties could be seen standing in the doorway.  She looked nervous, he noted, unsure of him.  That was to be expected, given that her kid sister just brought some man off of the street to her front door, but she didn't seem to be onto the fact that he had worked for the German military, yet, at least.  She was very pretty, dark blonde hair fell to her shoulders an her faded clothing covered a skinny body, one that probably hadn't seen much food in the past few years, especially since her parents had died, leaving her to take care of her little sister by herself.

"Hello," the young lady greeted in a tired voice, "you're the one that my little sister invited back to my house, are you?  I'm sorry if she caused you any inconvenience when she dragged you across town."

He smiled wearily at her and shook his head, "no, she didn't cause any problems with me, it's fine really.  It isn't like I have anywhere else to be today anyways.  I must appologize as well for showing up on your doorstep unannounced when I don't even know you.  I really wouldn't have except for that your sister came up to me and I didn't figure it would be good to let her go back to wherever she lived by herself, especially since she had asked me to come see you anyway."

As he unconsciously shifted his weight onto his bad leg, causing him to grimmice and lean heavily on his walking stick, she seemed to remember the reason her sister had brought him home in the first place.  "Oh, your leg is hurt, let me take a look at that, after all, it is the reason my sister brought you all this way."  Without waiting for his approval, she took the tree branch that he had been leaning on and placed his arm over her shoulder, leading him into the house.  The furnature inside was all old and worn, sporting the occasional stain or rip, but other than that the house was kept very clean, what he assumed to be the mark of someone that didn't have much but took care of what they did have.  A few pictures lined the wall, above cases full of books that he had recognized from his own childhood, which all together made him feel like he was walking into a house that had been abandoned ten years ago.

"Thank you," he said greatfully as she sat him down onto a couch, "I don't want to impose, but your little sister said that you were a nurse, and I think that I fractured my leg.  I doubt there's anything you can do for it, but maybe you could just look at it to make sure that everything's okay with it, and maybe I can make a splint for it or something."

"I'd be happy to take a look at it for you," she replied, still in her tired voice, but with a hint of cheerfulness in it.  "Where on you leg does it hurt?"

"I think it's here," he said, lightly touching the middle of his upper right leg, "the whole leg hurts, but here's where it hurts the worst."

Slowly, she slid the leg of his pants up as far as it would go and inspected his leg.  The area that he had pointed to had started to turn a light shade of purple and was a bit swollen, but the rest of his leg looked fine.  She grabbed his leg in a few different places, checking to see where it hurt an where it felt okay, and then she pulled his pants leg back down like it had been.  "Your leg is definitely fractured," she confirmed, "but other than that how do you feel?  Usually when you break your leg you're going to be hurt other places also."

"To tell you the truth, my whole body hurts," he replied, "but it isn't anything that I can't take.  I was in an accident not too long ago, so it's probably just normal.  Thank you for taking a look at it for me though.  I appreciate it.  By the way, do you know of any hostels around the area, or perhaps anywhere that I could get a job in return for housing and a bit to eat?  Thanks to this god forsaken war I've been left with nothing more than the clothes on my back, and I need to find somewhere to work if I'm ever going to get back off of the streets.  I know that the country's been hit by the war as much as any other has, but do you know of anyone that would be willing to offer me work?"

The woman looked at him for a moment, staring hard at him, but finally shook her head.  "That's a shame," she answered.  "I don't know off the top of my head anyone who is looking for work, but I'm sure that someone is.  Our city hasn't lost too many people to the war, but we have lost people, and I'm sure that someone needs a hand around their shop.  Until then, if you don't have anywhere to stay, I guess you could stay with us."

Out of all the things he had expected to hear, this was most definitely not one of them.  He had been expected to be immediately called out, identified as a Nazi and crucified for the crimes of his country, but it seemed that she didn't even recognize him as a pilot, much less a member of the German military.  To further add to things, she was offering him a place to sleep until he could get back on his feet.  He was sure that she was going to have him arrested, and so it amazed him that not only did she not even question him, in spite of the things that had happened to her during the war, but she had offered a perfect stranger a place to sleep while he was getting back on his feet.  Perhaps she just knew how bad it was to lose stuff you were close to during the war, and because of that was more willing to help others that had lost because of the war.

"Well," he replied hesitantly, "it would definitely help me a lot, since I don't have anywhere to go at the moment, and I was just a traveler here when I was stranded by the Germans in one of their recent attacks.  I wouldn't want to impose though, after all, you don't even know me, and I shouldn't just be walking into your house."

"Nonsense," the woman replied, "we're both victims of the war.  I've lost my family, and you've lost your home.  We should look out for each other where we can, war victims I mean.  When someone like Germany attacks everybody loses something, not just the soldiers fighting in the battles.  Besides, it's been hard to take care of everything around here by myself, and it would be really helpful to have someone else around to help out."

"Alright then," he conceded, I guess I'll stay with you then, for the time being.  I'd be happy to help out however I can.  I'm Lucas, by the way."

"Oh, where are my manners," the woman replied, "my name is Elise, and my sister's name is Sanne.  You should rest your leg for now, but we'll be having dinner soon if you want to join us."

"I'd love to," Lucas said, laying back on the couch and closing his eyes.  This entire situation was completely surreal.  He had crashed his plane into a clump of trees and survived, then he had wandered all the way into a nearby town with a broken leg, still having not been stopped by anyone, and now he was laying on the couch of a woman who had invited him into her home.  None of this should have been happening, he should have completed his mission and be back in his home by now, praying for the families of those he killed and awaiting his next assignment, the next group of people that he was going to murder.  He shouldn't have crashed, and definitely shouldn't have survived, but above all, he should have been arrested when he entered the town.  He was a nazi, and this was a country that was under allied control.  Perhaps none of this was happening, and the cops were going to break down the door and drag him off to some horrible war camp, or maybe he'd wake up in his bed.  He sighed again, and said a quick prayer for the families of the people he had killed as he fell asleep.