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The Chosen	By : FenixFyre Category: X-men Comics > Het - Male/Female Views: 1065 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men comics, or any of the characters from it. I make no money from from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
The Chosen

Chapter Six

Limbo

It
never seemed to dull, the edge of the horror. The day to day drudgery, the
starvation, the overall discomfort became nothing more than a drone of
existence. He didn�t live for eating bug filled soup, stale bread, or foul
water. He didn�t live for the hours of endless, meaningless work. He didn�t
even live for the few moments of silence here and there. He had tried not to
get too attached to anyone. It was harder if you cared. However, it was those
people who he found he was living for. More than half of the people that had
been there when he had first gotten there were now dead. That wasn�t just the
people in his barracks; it was all over the camp. Jozef Krysikowki had died the
first week the Lensherrs had been there. Salomon Perel had been killed only
last week. He had offended the man who ran the camp, Rudolf Hoss, in some
unknown way. Nicolai Rostanov had died over a month ago. The only people who
were still there were himself, his father, and Rabbi Rabeinowitz.

It was the
cruelty that bothered him the most. It wasn�t enough that they die. It always
seemed as if they wanted the condemned to suffer as much as they possibly could
before they died. There were so many new people arriving everyday that they had
added yet another crematoria and a spur that went directly to it. People walked
off of the trains directly to their deaths. There weren�t always enough spaces
in the crematoria for the number of people so they would just burn the extras
in the open air. Sometimes they would kill them first. Sometimes they just
burned them alive. Hoss didn�t like that though, it was much harder to get the
bodies to burn efficiently when they struggled and shifted. Erik had long since
decided that if they were going to send him to the crematoria then he would
fight. He would much rather receive a bullet in the brain than be burned alive.

Rabbi
Rabienowitz had told Erik that if he came through all of this alive than he
would write a book, �You know, not everyone agrees with what they are doing.
Everyone is fighting them, the Russians, the English, everyone. I heard from
one of the new people that the Americans will be in the war soon. I know that
one day this will end and we will all go on with our lives. I know it is hard
to imagine but what do you think you would like to be when you grow up Erik?�

Erik was thoughtful
for a long moment. �I don�t know. I think I would like to maybe a doctor or an
engineer. Maybe I could be an inventor. I used to like to make things before we
came here.�

�You will
become the greatest physician of our time or perhaps the greatest invention.
Maybe you will come up with a way to keep everyone safe. Maybe you will come up
with the cure for cancer. Once you are out of here you will have the world
before you to do anything in the world you like. Don�t ever let your past
interfere with that. If you do, you will have let the Nazis win, even if they
aren�t around anymore. You are a smart boy. I know you will go very far with
God behind you. Come now, let us pray.�

Erik
settled down into bed and prayed with his father and Rabbi Rabienowitz. The
next day began as every single one before it since they had come to Auschwitz.
Erik got up, relieved himself, ate and went to work. He had begun to look
forward even to the meals they had there. He was starving to death and when he
didn�t have a chance to eat it, he felt lightheaded and sick. The last thing he
needed was to pass out, that would be a sure ticket to crematoria. Work was actually
a fairly good day. No one was killed at all. That was actually the first time
since he had been there that no one had died at work.
He headed to eat, stopping to use the facilities.

There was a
sound that startled him as he left on his way to eat. He turned just in time to
see his father standing at the fence. The guards hadn�t noticed him there yet.
It took a moment before Erik realized what it was that his father was doing. He
noticed a small blonde girl wiggling under the fence. The hole in the fence
wasn�t very big, even a German Shepard wouldn�t have been able to squeeze
through it but his almost three year old sister could. He noticed her run and
duck down in the high grass at the tree line. It was the first time he had seen
a single member of his lost family. Then he heard the gunshot. He knew who it
was for even before he saw it hit. He knew it was his father who had been shot.
It was slow motion; his body pulled away from the fence and began to crumple
downwards, towards the ground. He saw his eyes for just a moment. His father
smiled and mouthed, �I am a Jew.�

A second
shot rang out and this time caught him in his head. It was a clean shot it
killed him instantaneously. One of the guards called him over to take the body
away and he did. He tried ever so hard not to look over towards the tree line
but he couldn�t help but spare a single glance to see his sister scampering
away. He didn�t know if she would find her way or not. The guards didn�t seem
to notice that anyone had escaped at all. Would she live? He found it hard to
even dare to hope but he felt the tiniest spark of hope in his heart.
Beautiful, sweet, quiet Elena would live.

He looked
down at his father and tears fell over his cheeks. Erik�s steps were sure and
quick, he didn�t falter even as his hands wet with the blood coursing from the wound
in Erik Joseph Lensherr�s forehead. He put his father�s body into the waiting
wheel barrow and stepped back, running off to get lunch before there was no
more time. There would be time to grieve for his father later. Now, he was
about the business of living. To live, he had to work. To work he had to eat.

He returned
to work, having barely had time to swallow his soup in one huge gulp. As he
stood operating the press he thought about that look on his father�s face. He
was happy to be out of all of this misery. Erik couldn�t say that he didn�t
want to join him. He would keep living though, living like his father had
wanted. He would never forget his father�s bliss at breathing his faith as he
died. It was as important to who his father had been as to who he was and would
ever be. He made a point to never ever forget that.

He returned
to the barracks that night and someone new was already in his father�s bunk.
One more person had gone. This time it was one of his own family members who
had been killed. He had gained the smallest glimpse of his brother getting off
one of the trucks returning. At least Joseph was still alive. The barracks
seemed empty despite there being around 700 people in it. Rabbi Rabienowitz was
stationed over him and he spoke to him quietly, �I believe God will bring you
through this Erik. I believe that God has a purpose for you. There is a reason
you are here and that you are alive still. I think you will live beyond my time
here to do something great. You are chosen by God Erik, you will live.�

More and
more people came, there were many more Russians this time than anytime before.
The very next train load was all Jews. The entire group was sent directly to
the crematoria. They never even sat foot in the camp proper, all the better for
them some would say. More and more trains arrived at the camp everyday. They expanded
it into Auschwitz II and III. Birkneau was now part of the camp as well. Yet
another crematoria was opened up and the deaths seemed to be more and more. One
of the new Jews said that the Nazis had decided on a �Final Solution� to the
Jewish problem. �I heard it before I got picked up. They are planning on
killing all the Jews, every last one of us.�

Another
commented, �They need us, we are their work force. How could they possibly win
the war without us?�

The man who
had spoken in the first place continued, �I hear they have killed millions of
Jews. They are going to kill us all. There is no way to be safe anymore.�

Erik was
chilled through to his bones. No matter how hard they worked they would die
anyway?

The next
day Erik was walking through the yard and the soldiers just began taking aim at
people walking in the yard. They killed one woman who was carrying a bundle.
Another man who was pushing a wheel barrow went down. One of the soldiers
handed the other money. They had made a bet on who could get a better shot off.
He hadn�t exactly realized the import of what had been said about the Final
Solution, now he did.

Then one
day it was his turn. He walked with his head down, his hands wrapped around his
body tightly. Steam puffed out from his lips in a fog. His eyes were watering
from the cold. He heard the gun go off. He looked around and saw a bullet hole
in the building beside him. When he looked up he saw the Hoss himself firing at
him. What could he do? He bowed his head and walked on, each step left his
heart pounding in his head. Another gun shot. It hit at his feet, not touching
his body. He could hear his breath, shaking and raw. Another shot, then another
and another, they all went wide. Erik cleared the side of a building and ducked
into the factory. Apparently he was just trying to scare him, it worked.

Erik didn�t
know how long he had been there at this time. It seemed like there had never
been anything else. It seemed like there would never be anything else again.
The number of people was shrinking, there were less than ten thousand now he
was guessing. The Nazi manner had changed as well. They seemed much more
harried. He couldn�t begin to know why. They would just round up ground of prisoners;
take them away from their work to die. They didn�t even seem to have or need a
reason at all. They also took down one of the crematoria, dismantling it. Nearly
everyone was on body detail. There were so many bodies; if everyone didn�t work
on them they would never be buried.

In the
bunkhouse he shared, there were two men who were trying to count the days they
had been there. One came up with almost three years. The other had well over
four. There wasn't anyway to know. He didn't know how long he had been there.
He was sure it had been a long time though. The seasons had come and gone.
Lives had faded away like the seasons. He was getting tired. His muscles were
losing strength. He had a run in with the butt of a rifle yesterday for simply
walking along; his head still rang from it. The Rabbi told him God was
preparing him for great work and testing him. He had displeased one of the
guards with the speed of his walking on his broken leg. His head had been
crushed in with a shovel because it was better than wasting good bullets, of
which they needed, a stinking old Jew. They didn't care he was a good man who
had made the unbearable existence here, bearable for at least a little while.
To show a little boy that God had not forsaken him.

Things
suddenly broke out in chaos. The guards all began opening fire randomly. What
was going on? It was as if they didn't care anymore. It seemed more like they
were just trying to kill as many as they could. A sudden realization hit him.
That was exactly what they were trying to do. Someone was coming and they were
trying to finish the job of genocide. Like all of the others he ran. But unlike
some of the others, he knew places to hide. He wedged himself into the floor
boards beneath his bunkhouse. Other children were hiding as well or being shot
down. There was no cowardice in fleeing from sure death. He saw another small
boy through the knothole in the board over his face ripped through with
bullets. The body fell over the board and his blood dripped down through the
cracks to the boy hiding beneath.

The screams went on throughout the night. The sounds of
gunfire were getting closer. Then there were no more screams. There was the occasional
groan of the dying and wounded but there was nothing else. He was tempted to
open the board to have a look around but not yet. It was too dark, too quiet.
You learned strange things here. Sleeping whenever you could was one of them.
Sometime during the night, Erik managed to fall asleep.

It was the
strangeness of his surroundings that awakened him. He had not awakened to
sunlight since he had come here. There was light pricking his eyes through the
knothole. There were voices from outside. They weren't speaking German. They
weren't speaking Polish either. He heard someone speaking something else, it
was Russian. He knew what it sounded like, though he didn�t speak it. He pushed
up the board over him. What were Russians doing here? He ran out of the
bunkhouse. His body was painfully thin, eyes sunken, cheeks protruding sharply.
His skin was dull and gray. He looked like a shadowy wraith, a ghost, his white
hair wispy and thin. He looked ... like a Jew.

There were
soldiers everywhere in the compound. He knew most of them were Soviets from
their uniforms. There were also a few American soldiers as well. When he looked
up he saw the most beautiful sight he had ever seen in his life. The Nazi
soldiers who had not fled were all tied up. The gates were thrown open and
doctors were wandering around tending to the wounded. An American soldier
stopped and looked at him and asked him in almost perfect Polish if he was
alright. He couldn't answer. He just fell to his knees and began to pray. The
Rabbi had been right. He had been saved. He also knew the Rabbi's purpose. He
had been there to help them all through it. He had done his task from God well.
He had been a good Rabbi, and a good Jew.

The
soldiers brought clean clothes and good hot food. They cautioned him to not eat
too much or else he would be sick. He ate and drank good food and clean water
as much as he could as slowly as he could. He could see the looks of abject
horror on the Americans faces. They did not know there was anything like this
going on. The Soviets had freed two other camps on the way west. They were
estimating more than one million Jews dead. They were so far off, Erik knew it
was more. He had heard soldiers talking, guessing at three million. With his
stomach tended and his body clothed, they were free. One man asked where they
should go. They were informed several towns not to go to because the Jews were
hated there. The Americans were much more sympathetic than the Soviets but they
had freed them. They were going about the task of hanging the German soldiers
when that day finally came.

Erik Joseph Lensherr, only 12 years old had lived through
hell and come out the other side a man. He picked up the things that the soldiers
had given him and with as much food as he could carry. He didn't look to the
crude gallows to see the German soldiers die. He had seen enough death for now.
He had been chosen by God. He took his first step towards the gate with the new
shoes on his feet. They were uncomfortable and didn't fit well but they didn't
have holes in them. His legs were shaking but he took that first step on his
own, his head held high, and walked towards freedom.
- 5
- 6
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The Chosen