//-------------------------------------------------------// Unexpected Afterlife -by Rhodry- //-------------------------------------------------------// //-------------------------------------------------------// Chapter 1 //-------------------------------------------------------// Chapter 1 April 30, 1945. Gunfire was all that could be heard through the city of Berlin as the Red Army pushed towards the Reichstag. Having battled since mid April, the Soviets had shown great strength with their attack on Berlin, with the main cause of this being that the German defenses were very poor. They were badly equipped, disorganized and had many soldiers which had little or poor training, though this didn't mean there were no Soviet casualties. The Germans had to defend their capital from a mighty attack, and, although loosing more of their own soldiers than the Soviets were, kept fighting. The Red Army was so close to the Reichstag. All they had to do was raise the Soviet flag on the top of the building. They all knew the objective, and fought with all their heart and soul. One Soviet soldier, was pouring a lot more effort into his fight, and this soldier was Dimitri Kolenskov. After the Germans had invaded his homeland and killed over 25 million Soviet civilians, Dimitri was one of the many Soviet soldiers which was determined to avenge those civilians that had died and work towards making sure that they were avenged. Dimitri looked through his iron sights on his M91/30 scanning for a good target through the current mayhem in front of the hotel. He scanned left and right, and found at target peeping round the corner of a wall. Dimitri waited for his new found target to come out from his cover, and after about 10 seconds the German jumped out and started firing, but not towards Dimitri, instead he was firing towards several other Soviet soldiers, which were held back but the mass amount of rounds fired at them. Dimitri saw his chance, and fired a round towards his enemy. The round went straight through the Germans leg, throwing him to the ground quickly and painfully. He was still alive, but one quick shot in the head from one of Dimitri's  comrades put and end to his pain. "DIMITRI! GET OVER TO THE LEFT FLANK!" Shouted a Colonel over the mass amount of gunfire. As commanded Dimitri made his way towards the left flank. He stopped halfway and hid behind cover, peeking his head out to find a target to kill, and sure enough, there was one... and many more. As last time Dimitri was sure that no one could see him. He popped out of cover and took a quick shot at his target. Sadly, he missed, but not by much as his target had cover himself and used it to his advantage. Dimitri had to quickly get back behind his cover, which was just a German Kubelwagen full of scratches from where bullets had bounced off and holes from where the bullets had actually pierced and gone through the body work and into the into the interior of the vehicle. Dimitri popped his head out from his cover to check up on his target. He instantly saw the German aiming his gun towards him, and quickly pulled his head back in before the inevitable... *BANG* Dimitri heard the gunshot and the sound the round made as it bounced off the car he was behind. He heard a couple more shots and the same sound of ricocheting bullets... then it stopped, and as quick as he could, Dimirti pulled a grenade, pulled the pin and threw it in the direction of his target. 4 or 5 seconds later, a loud bang could be heard as well as the shouts from nearby German soldiers. Dimitri decided to stick his head out into the open once more. He had clearly hit his target as well as another two which he didn't know about until now. The result from the grenade was limbs on the floor, not attached to their body, with blood splattered around them. ____________________ Dimitri slowly opened his eyes. Then blinked twice to try to wake up a bit. He took a look around him, the land around seemed to be more colourful and not as blown up, with holes all around, walls missing from buildings and burnt wrecks of vehicles lying dead everywhere. It was strangely peaceful where Dimitri had woken up, and was frighteningly quiet. He had a thought that some Germans were hiding somewhere ready to attack, but although his surrounding were suspicious to him, it felt safe to him, despite not knowing where he was or how he got there. He was lying next to a fence, which had apple trees in long rows on the other side of it. It was an apple orchard of some kind, and a very large one at that. He had seen big orchards before, but none were nearly as big as the one before his eyes. He started pondering why he was in the middle of nowhere next to an apple orchard instead of helping his comrades in the battle for Berlin. He was needed, though he somehow felt that he wasn't needed, but right now he needed to figure out where he was. It defiantly wasn't anywhere he had been before, it was too... clean. He couldn't think of an appropriate word for the land, as it was so unusual, so... He decided that thinking of things to call the land around him was not important at this current stage. Wondering where he was was a much more important thing to be doing. "Have I been moved?" He said quietly, in his deep Russian accent. "No, no, I can't have been moved, unless they did, and I'm back in Russia, but if I am then why would they leave my on the ground in the middle of nowhere?". He said to himself quietly. But the more he thought about it, the more confused he got. He took one more look around, finding that he was the only person around. He slowly stood up, and looked himself over to make sure he wasn't hurt, and found that there was no trace of wounds or anything at all wrong with him. He looked around once more. "The sky is rather clear". He said under his breath. He looked left, then right. "Apple orchard left, town right. Shall have to check that place out" He said, with discomfort. This time, he decided to look down around himself. "My GUN!" He said, deciding to raise his tone on the last word. He looked at the ground where the weapon was, and found a stack of weapons off to the side. He took a look at the pile, and found all the weapons he had from before he woke up. He found his 2 RG-42 hand grenades, NR-40 combat knife, Tokarev TT-30/33 and his cherished Mosin Nagant M91/30. All these weapons still had all their ammo, due to it all being on Dimitri, he also had a scope for his Nagant, but never remembered having one. He put all his equipment back where they belonged. His pistol in its holster, the grenades on his belt, the knife in a little holster on his right boot, and then he held his rifle in front of him, just in case. he started walking along side the fence towards the town he saw. He had been walking for about two minutes. The town was further away than he had thought, and was puzzled as to why there were so many apple trees though he deemed it irrelevant as he had to find out where he was, and if this place was hostile. He had no plan if it was, but he would do what would be necessary in that sort of situation. He saw a gap in the fence ahead of him, which he assumed was the entrance to the orchard, but when he was close enough, he saw a barn. So it wasn't just an orchard, but it was a farm. He saw nobody around, which he found very strange, but then he remembered the war he was in, and decided to think they were in the town just ahead of him. He decided he should check the farm, just in case he found anything useful. So he cautiously walked through the farms entrance. As he walked, he looked around, just to be sure that no one was on the farm. He looked at the trees, fresh apples suspended from them. He wanted to get a couple, they would be useful if he got hungry, but he kept advancing, in a slow, cautious pace. Upon reaching the barn, as always he checked around for the odd German soldier, waiting to strike. Confident that the coast was clear, he slowly pushed the door inwards... quietly walking in, with his side arm in his left hand, finger on the trigger, waiting for the enemy to jump out at him. None of that was to happen. What greeted him on the other side of the surprisingly small barn door was what appeared to him as a horse which some lunatic had painted orange and put what looked like a Stetson on it's head. What followed was what Dimitri could only describe as a staring competition that was creating a lot of questions.