Peaceful night at Bendlerblock. Haeften slowly sits up from sleeping on the table.
He rubbed his eyes, thought he was just taking a nap while writing that damn history paper. And suddenly his pupils widened:
What caught the eye was not his "fragrant and soft" bedroom, but a heavy and chilly office with beige wallpaper, like a tomb. A deep red wooden table was placed in the center - of course, not the one he was sitting on, it was a bit smaller than that. There is a pile of vintage paper on the table, like the kind soaked in coffee.
Haeften looked closely, and his heart was about to jump out of fear: all the documents were stamped with Swastika red seals.
There are three Kraft paper folders next to it, which should be used to classify these files. The dim desk lamp made a sizzling sound, and the air was filled with the smell of inferior cigarettes and leather boots.
A huge surprise. He thought he had been playing "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" too much lately， therefore he dreamed one of the scenes, but the graphics quality of that game is not perfect. Why did it become so clear in his dream?
The poor young lad still didn't realize what was going on.
Haeften lowered his head and looked to see why his body felt tight with the cloth he was wearing. There is no sports hoodie. His shoulders were propped up by the stiff woolen military uniform, and his collar was tightly locked, almost suffocating him. He touched his chest in horror, his fingers holding the cold and heavy medal--it was the First Class Iron Cross. The edge of the medal was slightly shiny. The texture of this spoil is so real that it makes him feel a gross sensation in his stomach.
"Haeften?"
A low, hoarse sound, like rusty metal rubbing against a grinding stone, came from the shadows across the desk.
Haeften was so scared that he almost fell off the chair. He suddenly lifted his head.
Behind that spacious and somewhat oppressive desk sat a man. The light only illuminated the lower half of his face, revealing a cold and sharp jawline like a knife. He was wearing a sharp officer's jacket, with his right sleeve swaying aimlessly, the only three fingers left on his left hand were supporting his face, his sapphire-like eyes staring at Haeften.
"What the **??First these scenes are just like in a movie, now NPC start to talk to me???" He murmured to himself.
"You slept for fifteen minutes," the man spoke slowly, his voice bounced without any warmth but filled with a chilling exhaustion.
"Did the shrapnel from the Eastern Front damage your brain? At this moment, you were actually sleeping in my office.
"Ich...ich..." Haeften opened his mouth and found himself speaking, but his mind was blank.
"What's that look in your eyes?" The man's tone sank, and the pressure of the superior made Haeften's spine shiver.
"You look at me like you're looking at a stranger or a monster you've never met before. Entschuldigung, Werner, are you planning to start re-examining your superior like those traitors?"
Haeften's cold sweat instantly soaked his shirt. Although he didn't know this man, he could feel that if he showed any tricks now, the outcome would definitely not be as good as if he had committed suicide by crashing into a wall.
The one-eyed man in front of him is a man who has truly killed people and is preparing to kill more, that's what Haeften thought.
"Es tut mir leid(Sorry), sir..." Haeften instinctively uttered the word. He learned from the documentary, stood stiffly straight, and made a popping sound with his legs together.
"What did you call me? Sir?" The man finally burst out in his first laughter in such a long time in their conversation.
" You usually prefer to call me 'Oberst von Stauffenberg'. It seems like you're really scared out of your wits.
The man stood up, despite his physical disability, his sense of authority instantly filled the entire space. He walked up to Haeften and grabbed his shoulder with only three fingers he had left. The force was astonishingly strong, almost squeezing the fingers into the flesh.
"Listen, Werner von Haeften."
The man stared into his eyes, the one-eyed light burning like ashes.
"Whatever you dreamed of, wake up now. We only have eight days left. If you can't stay awake, I will personally escort you to the execution ground before those damn Gestapos take action. You hear me?"
If Haeften had drunk water, he might have been scared to urinate. He looked at Stauffenberg, who was within reach, with only one thought in his mind:
Who is this nutcase?
And how did I come to this hellish 1944？？
He didn't do something special before; he was just a regular high school senior in 2008. By all accounts of logic, he shouldn't have even stood a chance to cross a 64-year time travel.
Yet he remembered the dream. Just an annoying history essay had forced him to search through a vast sea of information the night before. He remembered looking at black-and-white pictures of this very room, this very building.
The Bendlerblock.
It seems so different when looking at the screen and now actually standing here. More suffocate.
"Haeften," the man’s voice sliced through his panic again.
This must be Stauffenberg.
"For God's sake, pick up this file," Stauffenberg commanded, gesturing with his chin toward a thick manila folder resting on the edge of the desk.
"We don't have the luxury of time, Werner. Fromm is already growing suspicious of our constant revisions to Operation Valkyrie. If the General Office finds out we are shifting the reserve troops without his direct signature, we won't even make it to July."
July, a wonderful summer season, is usually vacation season for Haeften. But here, it turns into: the briefcase, the bomb, the failed coup, the executions.
Haeften reached out a trembling hand and picked up the folder. The paper felt real. The faded ink of the typewritten German words felt real.
"Open it," Stauffenberg said quietly, his lone eye never leaving Haeften's face. "Read the deployment list for the Berlin guard battalion. I need to know if Major Remer's loyalty has been properly vetted by your contacts."
His eyes scanned the pages rapidly. As a top student, and a Deutsche, language wasn't his barrier. The Fraktur script and archaic military formatting were familiar in his mind. But reading a sanitized, summarized paragraph in a 21st-century textbook was nothing like holding the raw, breathing blueprint of a treasonous coup in his bare hands.
The text before him was dense with real names, military rank and identity numbers that in school never been taught.
"I can't... I think the shell shock from the Eastern Front... it's making it hard to read, Oberst von Stauffenberg." Haeften's voice cracked.
"Shell shock?" Stauffenberg repeated,
"You survived the winter in Russia, Werner. You took a bullet to the hip and walked back to the lines. You didn't break then. Why are you breaking now, right when I need you the most?"
"I...I'm with you, Oberst von Stauffenberg," Haeften managed to choke out,
"But the pressure... the weight of what we are planning, it caught up to me for a moment. Please, permission to excuse myself to the bathroom. I need to clear my head."
Stauffenberg searched his face for a long, grueling second.
The Oberst let out a low, weary breath and stepped back, gesturing toward the door.
"Go. Five minutes, Werner. We have a empire to topple, and I need my colleague sharp."
"Zu Befehl, Oberst von Stauffenberg." Haeften nod, and fled out of the room.
The moment the heavy oak door of the office clicked shut behind him, the raw reality of the Bendlerblock hit him like a physical blow. He steps on the long corridor.
Officers and couriers in crisp, field-gray uniforms bustled past him, their faces entirely devoid of emotion, like cogs in a massive, terrifying machine.
As he hurried down the corridor, his eyes caught the massive Nazi banner draped heavily against the far wall. Seeing that symbol printed in a textbook was a stark contrast to standing beneath its massive, physical weight. The harsh contrast of the black, white, and blood-red silk felt violently oppressive, a constant reminder that he was trapped inside the beating heart of the monster itself.
He jumped into the bathroom, and look up to the mirror.
"It is me, truly Werner von Haeften." he console himself.
He turned on the faucet and made a piercing rusting sound as he moved, despite the careful polishing of the surface. He picked up ice water with both hands and poured it directly onto his face, which hopefully made his brain alert again.
"I know how this system works. I know the timeline. I just have to survive within the micro-details. "
He wiped his face with a rough, scratchy linen towel that felt like sandpaper against his skin, took a deep, steadying breath of the foul air, and forced his shoulders back into a rigid posture. He had to go back in there. Stauffenberg held his life in his hands.
Stauffenberg was already back at his desk.
"Sit, Werner," Stauffenberg said.
"We have wasted enough minutes."
Haeften slid into the chair opposite to Stauffenberg. On the desk lay a fresh stack of orders. Well, German, as a language, is, of course easily to Haeften, who is a German. Nevertheless, as he stared down at the documents, he bet he gonna be screwed.
Holy crap on a cracker.
The pages were a labyrinth of dense, military jargon and cryptic abbreviations--Ch(Chief), AHA(General army office), Bfh(Commander) i.Wkr(Military District 1)..
This was like trying to decode an alien cipher.
The nib scratched uselessly against the rough paper, leaving an erratic trail of ink blots.
"This **ing crazy man must kill me." He screamed in his mind.
Stauffenberg's eye locked onto the pen, and tracked up to Haeften's face. The face since he wake from the short nap, like lose his spirit and turns to a ghost.
"You cannot write? You cannot read basic codes? You know what? I could rather hiring a school boy doing this organize file task would be better than you do!" Stauffenberg really in anger. He doesn't know what Haeften suddenly changing to a dumb, and how a boy transferred from 2008 could get in Haeften's body.
"Es tut mir leid, Oberst von Stauffenberg." Haeften can't find some other words to say out of mouth.
"It won't happen again, Oberst von Stauffenberg. I will...correct it."
"See that you do," Stauffenberg muttered, leaning back, still block his sight on Haeften.
The grueling work dragged on for another hour. Stauffenberg called him again.
"Werner, the coller." his voice filled with a rare frustration. His left hand fumbled uselessly with the stiff, dark-green fabric of his uniform neckpiece.
"The brass stud is loose. Secure it bitte."
Haeften stood up, stepped around the massive desk to close the distance between them.
Strange. Just like the dream he just had. This is like entering a wolf's own territory, but you are not an enemy to him, cauz he's a good wolf not eating you type. Actually, wolfs are not always bad. Some surely bad indeed, like our lovely Nazi ambitionist, who truly believe they could live thousand years eternal. In their eyes , the wolf's who want to end the meaningless battle, been called schemer.
With trembling fingers, Haeften reached out to secure the loose collar button. His knuckles accidentally brushed against the warm, rough skin of Stauffenberg’s neck, right over the pulsing jugular vein.
Stauffenberg tilted his chin up slightly to give him access, his eye staring straight up into Haeften’s face from mere inches away. The proximity was devastatingly intense. Haeften could see the fine lines of strain etched around the older man's mouth, the rugged texture of his skin, and the absolute, unwavering determination burning in his singular eye.
"Steady, Werner," Stauffenberg whispered, his breath warm against Haeften’s wrists. "A steady hand wins the day."
Haeften managed to whisper in his mind, finally forcing the stubborn button into its slot. He immediately stepped back two paces, his chest heaving as if he had just run a marathon.
Duties on him, his life on him, and the whole world was silently waiting for their action.