Chapter 1: New World

‎January 1945 in Germany had ceased to be a mere season and had instead become an oppressive, choking entity of ash, soot, and bone-chilling frost. 

By the opening weeks of 1945, the thousand-year Reich was suffocating under the weight of its own impending collapse, caught in a brutal, closing vise between the relentless, vengeful advance of the Red Army from the east and the steady, crushing hammer of the Western Allies.

The skies above the battered Fatherland were rarely silent, filled either with the heavy, gray blanket of midwinter storms or the— terrifying, rhythmic drone of Allied bomber formations that transformed historic cities into roaring furnaces and left the horizons glowing a permanent, ghostly amber. Across the fractured landscape, from the hollowed-out ruins of major industrial hubs to the silent, snow-choked pine forests of the borderlands, a profound and terrifying sense of finality hung thick in the air. 

The grand promises of a glorious regime had dissolved into the grim, daily reality of desperation, where old men and young boys were handed rifles to defend a broken dream, and the civilian population huddled in frozen basements, listening to the distant, rhythmic thud of approaching artillery. It was a world bleeding out on a canvas of pure white, a nation suspended in the agonizing final gasps of its twilight hour, entirely unaware that on the very periphery of this cataclysm, amidst the smoke and the wreckage of a dying epoch, five men we're about to vanish from history entirely.

And that's where our story begins.

"Werner, ammo status. How much have they given us?"

Vladimir’s voice traveled across the cramped interior of the Tiger tank. His aloof expression unreadable and unchangeable.

"Sixty high-explosive and thirty-two armor-piercing rounds," Werner’s voice rang through the hull, sharp and steady. "Full MG ammo as well."

Dieter, their radio operator and hull machine-gunner, voiced his concern, unable to hide the underlying dread in his tone.

"K-Kommandant... are we really going to be able to come back alive?"

Vladimir stayed silent for a moment, carefully choosing his words. He couldn't afford to let panic take root in the steel hull. "Yes. I will take us back alive and home. You have my word, Dieter."

Hearing the commander's steady promise provided a desperate boost to Dieter's morale—and right now, they needed every ounce of morale they could get. The objective they had been given was nothing short of a suicide mission. Vladimir could still hear his superior's voice echoing in his mind—a voice he had come to loathe: 'Protect the town at this location at all costs.' That was the sole reason they had been blessed with maximum main gun ammunition, thousands of machine-gun rounds, and a completely full fuel tank.

"Hans, maintain our current speed," Vladimir ordered.Hans, their unusually quiet driver, simply nodded in response. Vladimir then turned his attention to their gunner. "Karl. Everything in order?"

Karl nodded, his voice slightly shaky but determined. "Yes, Kommandant. Gun is clean and ready."

But as they rolled forward, Hans was the first to call out. "Kommandant. Problem.""Report. What is it, Hans?"Hans peered through his driver's vision port. "The way ahead is getting foggier. The weather reports confirmed there shouldn't be any unusual weather at this time."

Dieter looked through his small monocular sight, his hands tightening on the hull MG. "Same here, Kommandant!"Karl checked his gunner's scope, finding the exact same blinding white wall. 

Finally, Vladimir raised his eyes to his low-profile cupola, looking through the seven vision periscopes and his integrated S.F.14.Z scissor scope, only to find the same thing."Scheiße... What the hell?" Vladimir muttered.

The heavy tank rumbled onward, plunging deeper into a fog that grew so thick, the rest of the world simply vanished around them.

Vladimir reached up, gripping the handle of the cupola's hatch to throw it open and get a direct look at what was happening outside. He threw his weight into it, but the heavy steel hatch felt completely seized. He tried again, straining against the metal, but no matter how hard he pulled, it refused to budge even a millimeter.

Before he could try a third time, the blinding white wall outside began to shift. The fog was finally settling, slowly dissipating and vanishing from around the tank.

"Vision is becoming clearer and clearer, Kommandant," Hans’s voice rang through the steel hull. Then, a collective, stunned gasp echoed from Hans, Dieter, and Karl all at once. The sudden, synchronized silence that followed immediately caught Vladimir and Werner’s attention.

"What is it?" Vladimir asked, quickly pressing his eyes back against the commander's scope.
The view that met him made his breath catch. The gray, war-torn, and utterly destroyed landscape of Germany was entirely gone. In its place was a vibrant, lush, and breathtakingly green scenery, untouched by the scars of artillery or fire.

"Hey, let me see what all of you are looking at!" Werner blurted out, unable to contain his curiosity. Driven by instinct, he lunged over into Karl's spot to peer straight through the gunner's scope.

"Oi, Werner, what the hell?!" Karl barked, elbowing his space back as the sudden intrusion threw him off.
As the fog fully dissipated and the crew was given a full view, Vladimir hesitantly grabbed his hatch again before slowly opening it. This time, the hatch was not stuck and opened smoothly.

He slowly revealed his torso outside, greeted by a fresh, cold gust of wind as his eyes took in the surrounding area. His head turned and twisted, trying to map out a landscape that made absolutely no sense.

"What the... Where the hell are we?.."

Vladimir could only mutter, still trying to process what was happening. The air was clean—entirely free of the choking stench of burning diesel, cordite, and decaying rubble that had defined Germany for years. Beneath the tracks of the Tiger, a carpet of pristine green grass rolled out into the distance, completely unmarred by trench lines or bomb craters.

Down in the hull, Hans let the tank idle, the low rumble of the engine the only familiar sound left in their world. "Kommandant," Hans called out, his voice dropping its usual stoic mask. "The compass. it's spinning blindly. We have no bearings."

"Forget the compass," Werner's voice drifted up from the turret basket, tense and sharp. "Look at the air. Look at the trees. Karl, tell me I'm losing my mind."

"You're not," Karl whispered, his eyes still glued to his optics. "There's no smoke on the horizon. No artillery fire. Nothing."

Dieter clutched his headphones, his face pale as he looked up toward the open hatch. "Kommandant? Are we... did a shell hit us? Is this...?" He couldn't bring himself to say the word heaven.

Vladimir didn't answer right away. He gripped the edge of the cupola, the cold metal grounding him as he stared out at a world that looked like a painting, utterly untouched by the war they had been fighting just moments ago.