Masquerade : Karl the Potato

Berlin had become a hunting ground. The Reich's capital - now just another killing field where predators stalked their prey through broken streets.

THUMP THUMP
Old Karl's heart hammered against his ribs. His legs wouldn't move. He just stood there, trapped in this waking nightmare, watching it all unfold.

The thing that emerged from the shadows wasn't human anymore. The Aurochs of Doom - that's what survivors whispered about in the dead of night. A ghost story made flesh.

Sleek dark uniform hugged his frame like a second skin. The way he moved... Karl had seen a saber-toothed tiger in Darklands before—this was different. This was wrong. Blond hair caught the flickering neon light, and that scar—that terrible scar splitting his face in two. A seven-foot-tall Aryan war-beast, forged in whatever hell the Reich had dreamed up.

The air exploded with gunfire. Didn't matter. The Wehrmacht exoskeleton merged with his neural network, letting him dance between bullets like they were raindrops. Some found their mark—shoulder, thigh, arm. But his body, pumped full of pervisil and meth, just wouldn't quit.

"RAAAAAHHH!!!"
His roar echoed off brick walls while steam rose from the blood dripping down his exoskeleton. With bare hands—he crashed into Karl's squad like a wrecking ball, snapping limbs with wet cracks, crushing skulls until brain matter spattered the pavement, tearing bodies apart with augmented strength.

Karl watched through stinging eyes, his joints aching from fear. Mangled corpses slumped across the cracked asphalt, friends he'd known for years—now cooling meat.

How does the fucking Auroch of doom keep finding our hideouts?

The old fighter's boots seemed melted to the ground. He couldn't move. Didn't dare breathe. Just stood there waiting for death, his old soldier's instincts frozen by pure terror. Then it happened—a geyser of arterial spray hit his face, the still-warm blood flooding his mouth and nostrils. The shock of it, that coppery taste, that bodily warmth still fresh from someone's dying heart...

Something primitive stirred in his core.

Get moving Karl, while you still can…

He breathed in hard through his nose, sweat dripping down his back as anger and fear mixed inside. A steel dagger appeared in his sweaty hand. Without thinking, he stabbed it into his thigh, jolting his scared muscles awake. Sharp pain rushed up his leg but he ignored it.

His trembling fingers fumbled with some drugs and he gulped them down, fighting off his heavy eyelids. A nasty taste coated his dry tongue.

His hand closed around the cold metal of his brand-new gun, its scope glowing on top.

I have to take this guy down if I want to surpass the Black Eagle… Here and now !

The drugs made his head clear and sharp. One hand in his jacket pocket, other gripping the warm gun, he stood steady as a rock.

His right eye squinted through the scope, following the massive guy's quick movements. Red lines showed where he could go, but Karl needed the perfect shot.

Maybe left... No, right. Too sudden... wait for it.

The predator got sloppy in his wild attacks and left an opening. Just one instant. Karl was watching.

BAM.
The trigger clicked back.

The shot cracked through the air. His bullet ripped across that hellscape of the battlefield, hungry for the giant's jaw.

But the grim warrior sensed it and tilted his scarred head slightly, his muscled body going straight up. Chunks of bloody shoulder flesh sprayed everywhere.

His face didn't even flinch. Worse : his cracked lips pulled into a grin. His white teeth showed through his bloody face.

"Almost good as Black Eagle," he growled.

Before Karl could move his gun, his enemy lunged forward at inhuman speed, like a starving wolf, muscles rippling under his skin.

Karl's brain didn't register what happened. His vision went black.

✽✽✽

༺༻ Back to the present day ༺༻

I can't take this anymore... Been five years and I still wake up sweating from that beating... Should've killed me when he had the chance.

Karl chomped on his sweet potato, his crooked fingers trembling against the steaming orange flesh. In the freezing cell, his breath came out in little white puffs while water dripped steadily down the moldy walls.

Dark wrapped everything up like a burial sheet so you couldn't tell time no more. Who knew if it was day or night? His eyes were damaged, punishment they gave to Insurgents.

Just as he was gonna enjoy being alone, some weird noise messed up how quiet the prison usually was.

27... no wait 38... hang on 42... [raspy voice counting, followed by a dry cough]

Karl's potato slipped from his grasp, rolling through rat droppings and grime before stopping. His stomach growled - first food he'd seen since yesterday morning.

"Damn bootleg Hitler! Now there's crap all over my potatoes !"

But deep down, he welcomed the distraction—after nothing but guard footsteps for years, a human voice hit his ears like music.

His joints cracking, he scrambled upright with unexpected energy. Usually took forever just to drag himself from one corner to another.

Clutching his gravoch cap with dirt-caked fingers, he chewed his cracked bottom lip. Then he called out, voice wobbly but carrying :

"Hey over there! Want to be buddies?"

The silence stretched like cold syrup before a weak voice filtered through the stones:

"Buddies? You're crazy... We got nothing in common," he whispered, words scratchy from disuse.

The dripping water filled another long pause until Karl's rusty laugh bounced off the walls:

"Hahaha ! When you're stuck in the dark this long, anyone becomes a friend. Even those stars way up there bunch together sometimes. If your cell stinks like mine, we're already sharing something."

"Sun's actually up," came the sharp reply. "And I don't trust nobody anymore."

"Daylight? Man, I haven't seen that in forever. Hey kid, are those eyes of yours not messed up too?... What terrible thing did you do to end up next to a stinking Insurgent like me?"

A piercing scream suddenly cut through the cell's quiet, pain bouncing off walls:

"Nothing!... I'm no criminal !" His voice crackled and died in a sob - seemed like he'd done this before.

Karl leaned his head on the wall, quiet for a bit, letting the man next door get it all out. Every sob hit home - he knew that kind of hurt too well.

"I believe you," Karl whispered soft as flower petals. "Don't need eyes to spot when someone's innocent and hurting."

The young man stopped crying, thrown off by such simple trust. Nobody usually believed him that easily.

"I... never meant harm. Wrong place, wrong time is all."

"Bad luck, huh!" Karl slid down the wall, wearing a tired smile. "Same here - one hot-headed moment and look at me, chatting with a stranger in this dump."

A small laugh escaped from the next cell.

"Save your breath, old Insurgent. I hunt your kind day and night, till Earth can't birth more of you..."

"Reich, eh?... Don't be so hard on an old timer... Been through worse than talking to monsters... I'll chat with the devil himself if he's up for it," Karl chuckled darkly.

Touching his old cap, he added: "If I'd known this chat would be so special, I'd have traded my potato for some schnapps. Oh well..." He picked up his dirty potato, amused. "This spud you made me drop on rat shit with your princess voice will have to do."

The young man couldn't help smiling, lost in thought.

How weird—an Insurgent and a Reich soldier having a friendly chat.

"Well then, Reich boy, since I'm gonna put this trash in my mouth..." Karl choked on his stinking potato, then continued disgustedly: "you better tell me your story."

Awkward silence filled the air, broken only by Karl's gross chewing and swallowing.

The young man couldn't hold back a laugh.

"So that's how you make friends among insurgents? Eating potatoes covered in rat shit?"

"Haha... you've no idea the shit we gotta swallow to survive in the Darklands," Karl cackled. "But someone willing to eat crap just so you can spit out what's in your heart - those are real friends. Friends for life."

"Well," Lukas smirked, dark humor dancing in his eyes. "Now I get why insurgent numbers keep dropping. Most just die of cholera." He paused, something shifting in his face.

"Lukas..." he turned to Karl, voice dropping softer. "They call me Lukas Adler..."

Karl stopped chewing and opened his ruined eyelids wide, like he could suddenly see, knowing he'd met an elite Wehrmacht warrior.

"By Himmler's holy underwear! Lukas Adler—the Schwarzer Adler ! (*Black Eagle)" His laugh boomed, deep and victorious. "This nasty potato was worth it after all!"

So Lukas shared his tale with old Karl. This simple act would touch the old vet's heart deeply.

"Oh yeah, I'm Karl... Karl the potato, they call me."