[the struggle]

Book One of the Atomkrieg saga

Chapter One: TYX=77

Viktre walked into his grey home, cluttered with post-war paintings from a few years ago. His Gamma-Easy Radiation Meter calmed down as he entered the steel walls of his room. Viktre's sister was away in her room, drawing and painting. She was big on art. Viktre powered up his iPod Nano he acquired in 2010. It was a tattered old thing, and it had a short battery life. They rarely got electricity where he lived, so it was a special occasion whenever he was able to charge it to 100% again.

He remembered the war. How he was drafted into it at 13, and how his entire group except him was brutally disfigured or killed in many nuclear attacks around Germany. Viktre lived in what used to be East Berlin, then just the eastern part of Berlin, but was now TYX=77. The 77th city established in the five years after Atomkrieg-4 happened in the now-called TYX region in Eastern Germany. Everything was so separated..

Viktre's sister called. "Viktre! Help with these dishes before I smash them over your head!" Viktre didn't want anything to be smashed, so he reluctantly walked over to the river where they cleaned their home-made glass plates. It was a disgusting little place, never cleaned. It would have to do before things were re-established, which probably would not be in his lifetime. The radiation had been getting to him. Viktre lived in the slumps of the city, which meant nuclear waste dump.

Viktre rasped to his sister, "Ich komme!" before carefully walking over the bridge to where his sister was at. "Okay, what should I clean?"

Viktre's sister looked back and replied, "Waschen Sie diese Schalen und Platten. Wir essen Schweinefleisch heute Abend."

Viktre was shocked. They hadn't had a warm entree like that for quite a while, and he didn't know anywhere that they served it or delivered. "Where did you obtain meat?! You didn't steal it, did you? If so, you are confined to your room for one month. At ze very least."

His sister, Adala, scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Ich erhielt es nicht illegal, Sie Idiot. Es ist von unserem Schwein, Adelheit." Viktre looked at her with sadness. He liked Adelheit. She was a good pig.

Viktre sighed and squatted down near the greenish-yellow river with a basket of cups and plates and began to wash. They were filthy, infested with maggots and mold. "Ekelhafte Maden," he muttered to himself. He hated bugs. Viktre dunked the cup into the water, stinging his hand through his gloves. Nuclear waste had been poured in the river for many years. Radioactive water sure wasn't going to cool him. It was saddening his young sister had not received a good education because of the war. Basic grammar and speaking clung to her like a leech.

Viktre looked up. "Why do you still speak in the German language? Englishmen have conquered. If a Guard of TYX=77 heard you speak this, you would be flogged in public!"

Adala sighed, "Komfort. Er erinnert mich an vor den Krieg." She looked away when she spoke this. Viktre was quite confused by what she said. It brings her comfort, the idea of her language being forbidden and her speaking it?

"Adala... You cannot speak the native tongue anymore. It is strictly forbidden by law, and you are putting the Herrmann family in serious danger! You must learn the New Language, English."

Adala whipped her head around to glare at him. "… Ich lehne ab." Adala cursed him under her breath and looked away, furiously scrubbing the serving dish. Viktre stared at her in shock. Did she want to die?

"ADALA! Stop speaking the German language! You will be KILLED! You dare to speak that in PUBLIC? You will STOP speaking this language right now or you will not be leaving your room except for releasing waste! Maybe not then! You have a window!"

What happened next shocked Viktre to the point of almost crying. Adala pulled out a modified handgun and aimed it right between his eyes. She rasped at him with fire in her eyes before she pulled the trigger, "Ich spreche meine Sprache."