Warsaw is dying in slow motion.
The truck drops us three kilometers from the front lines—if you can call them lines.
There's no organized defense anymore.
Just pockets of resistance scattered across the city like broken glass.
Buildings that were landmarks yesterday are craters today.
Streets I'm told had names are just rubble corridors now.
Thompson navigates using a map that's already outdated.
"Command wants us linking with Polish forces in the Wola district. Resistance fighters holding a section near the old market."
"How do we find them?" asks one of the soldiers, a Brit named Harris.
"Follow the gunfire."
Not hard.
The entire city sounds like the world's ending in installments—artillery, small arms fire, aircraft engines, buildings collapsing.
A symphony of destruction that never stops.
We move through streets that feel like open graves.
Bodies lie where they fell, covered with whatever was handy—sheets, newspapers, nothing.
Civilians huddle in basements, faces grey with dust and terror.
A woman stands in a doorway holding a child who isn't crying anymore, just staring with eyes that have seen too much for someone so small.
Thompson doesn't slow down.
Can't afford to.
The dead stay dead, and the living need us more.
My rifle stays ready.
Eyes scan constantly—windows, rooftops, side streets.
Muscle memory from lives I don't remember keeping me alive in a city I've never seen before.
We're two blocks from the rendezvous when the sniper fires.
---
Harris drops.
One second he's walking, next second he's on the ground with a hole in his chest, blood spreading across his uniform like spilled ink.
"SNIPER!" Thompson hits the deck.
We scatter to cover—doorways, rubble piles, a burned-out car.
The second shot hits brick near my head, sending chips flying.
Close.
Too close.
"Anyone see the shooter?" Thompson calls.
"North side! Second floor, three buildings up!"
I spot the window.
Broken glass, curtain moving slightly.
The barrel of a rifle just visible in shadow.
My body moves before my brain catches up.
I'm on my feet, sprinting across the street in a zigzag pattern I don't remember learning, rifle up, firing at the window.
Not trying to hit the sniper—just suppressing, making them duck.
"CASTELLANOS, WHAT THE HELL—"
I reach the building.
Door hanging off hinges.
Inside is chaos—furniture overturned, family photographs broken on the floor, someone's life destroyed and abandoned.
The stairs are intact.
I take them two at a time, rifle ready.
Second floor.
Three doors, all open.
I clear the first room. Empty.
Second room. Empty.
Third room—
The sniper spins as I enter, trying to bring their rifle around.
I fire first.
The shot takes them in the shoulder, spinning them back against the wall.
The rifle clatters to the floor.
I kick it away, rifle aimed at their head.
Then I see the uniform.
Polish.
Not German.
"Kurwa," the sniper gasps.
Blood spreading from the shoulder wound.
"Amerykanin?"
I don't speak Polish but the tone translates fine: American? You shot me, you American bastard?
"You shot my friend," I say, not lowering the rifle.
"Your friend was in uniform. I shoot uniforms."
The sniper's voice is rough, pain-edged, but defiant.
Male, maybe early thirties, scarred face suggesting this isn't his first war.
"Germans wear uniforms. British wear uniforms. How do I know you're not Germans?"
"We're here to help."
"Help us die slower?"
He laughs, wincing at the pain it causes.
"Poland is finished, Amerykanin. Your help comes too late."
Thompson appears in the doorway, weapon ready, takes in the scene.
"Polish?"
"Yeah."
"Well shit." Thompson lowers his rifle. "This is the resistance we're supposed to link with?"
The sniper's eyes narrow.
"You're looking for resistance? Why didn't you say so?"
"Hard to say anything when you're shooting at us," I point out.
"Fair."
He nods toward his shoulder.
"You going to finish it or help me stop bleeding?"
I lower my rifle.
"Help, probably."
---
His name is Jakub Kowalski.
We patch his shoulder in what used to be someone's kitchen—the medical supplies are basic, but Thompson knows field medicine better than I'd expect.
Jakub takes the pain without much complaint, just sharp breaths and occasional Polish curses I don't need translation for.
"Why were you alone?" Thompson asks, tying off the bandage.
"Was with six others this morning. Germans hit our position with armor. I'm all that made it out."
Jakub tests his shoulder, winces.
"Fell back to this building, thought I'd slow them down before they reached the market district."
"By shooting everyone who moves?"
"By shooting everyone in uniform. Worked until you showed up."
He looks at me.
"You move fast, Amerykanin. Where'd you learn that?"
"I didn't."
"Bullshit."
It's the same thing Thompson said.
The same thing Davies said.
Everyone knows I shouldn't move like this, shouldn't know what I know.
"I'm serious," I say. "I just... do it. Can't explain better than that."
Jakub studies me with eyes that have seen too much death to be surprised by strangeness.
"Old soul," he says finally, in English. "You have old soul. I see it."
"What's that mean?"
"Means you've done this before. Maybe not this war. But wars. You move like veteran but you have young face. Old soul in young body."
He shrugs with his good shoulder.
"My babcia—grandmother—used to say some people remember things they shouldn't. Lives they didn't live but somehow did."
The fragments pulse in my memory.
Sword weight.
Horse screams.
Blood taste.
"Maybe," I admit.
Thompson looks between us like we're both crazy.
"Can we focus on not dying in this war before we discuss past ones?"
"Fair point," Jakub concedes. "What's the plan?"
"Link up with resistance forces. Help hold the sector."
"There are no resistance forces. Not organized ones. Just people like me, shooting from windows until Germans shoot back."
Jakub stands, testing his shoulder again.
"But there's a group holed up in a basement two blocks from here. Maybe thirty fighters. If you want to help someone, help them."
"Can you get us there?"
"Can I walk through a city I've lived in my whole life while it burns?"
Jakub grabs his rifle—one-handed, the shoulder making two-handed carry impossible.
"Yes, Amerykanin. I can get you there."