Friedrich's P.O.V.

I forced a fake smile onto my lips as I watched Anna bouncing around like the ground was a trampoline. I didn't want her here. Not near the wall. I had begged for my next day off to be moved to today but that was impossible to do apparently and since no one could look after her, she had to come with me. Don't get me wrong, I love her; that's the reason I didn't want her here. There were guns here and it was dangerous. Just the other day, Caesar had shot a small boy and now all I could imagine was Anna's body in that position on the ground, her eyes resembling the boy's. It kept playing in my head and I couldn't bare it but the worst nightmare was when I was looking down to her twitching body, blood staining her cream floral dress, the soul in her eyes dying, confusion and fear showing through her face as the pain leaked through her body, coating all her muscles and limbs with liquid agony. I would fall down to my knees and I would duck my head, beginning to cry before seeing the gun in my hand and her blood on my hands. I would normally wake up at that point and turn the light on to stare at my hands for the next hour, calming my heart down.

Anna ran over to me, waving a small daisy she had found in the pocket of her peach coloured cardigan, a huge grin showing the couple of gaps in her row of teeth and adding a sparkle to her blue eyes. She jumped up and down, holding the daisy out for me to take which I loyally did, thanking her as I tucked it carefully into one of the pockets on my shirt. She grinned once again, happy that I liked the gift before running a short way down the wall to look in the grass growing next to the wall, trying to find more flowers which I'm pretty sure were non-existent.

My thoughts then drifted off towards Kirsten and our picnic a couple of days ago; mostly towards the few seconds we had been looking at each other before she had decided to turn away. What had been going through her mind? I had no clue what had been going through mine. Everything just knotted together so I couldn't think anything.

"Hello Mr Man!" Anna called out, bringing me back to the reality and away from my thinking. I glanced down to her, smiling towards her. She brought her hand up in a wave and then I noticed she wasn't looking at me, she was looking at someone behind me. Spinning around, I caught sight of the panicked stare of a man, around his 30s, trying to climb up and over the wall. His arms were stretched up, his hands gripping furiously at a couple of cracks in the wall whilst his toes from one foot were pressing against the wall, ready to push himself up to grab hold of the next crack above his head. A growl caught in his throat as he glared down to Anna, his gaze then darting to me, his face turning pale as he studied the gun in my belt that was slowly working it's way into my hands. His body was frozen, his eyes keeping contact with the gun.

Adrenaline started racing through my blood and I automatically knew and remembered the feeling, dreading and hating the familiarity of it. The cold metal of my gun rested on my skin, sending a cold shiver through my body but I couldn't drop it, the metal was glued to my skin like my eyes that I knew had narrowed into a fierce glare were glued to him. He darted his eyes up the wall, as if wondering if he could beat a bullet and climb over the wall which made my mouth curl in a smile. I knew what he was thinking. Risk it and have almost no chance at meeting his family on the other side again or staying here and living. He kept his position on the wall and I knew he wanted to do the first but some part of his brain was shrieking at him to run home. He wasn't listening. The gun slowly raised up in my hands, crawling up to get in position and moving to aim at his body, the easiest target.

A scream then erupted and as quickly as I could, I snapped my eyes to see Anna running off down the street and then back to the man who hadn't dared move. Keeping the gun pointed at him, muscles clenched in my jaw and my hands curled around the gun tightly, the skin on my knuckles turning white and then I paused. I knew it was my imagination. I knew it wasn't real. The blood that was dripping down from my hands. It wasn't mine. I had no wounds. It was the blood of the man I was about to shoot. But it wasn't just his blood. It was the blood of-

Kirsten's POV

"Kirsten!" I lifted my head up, frowning as I glanced around, trying to find out who had called my name. Deciding it was just my imagination, I went back into my head to back to what I had been thinking about. "Kirsten! Kirsten! Kirsten!" A young girl's voice screamed and I jerked my head up again just in time to see a small blond child rushing into me, wrapping her arms around me, her head digging into my stomach as her body jerked with a sob that caught in her throat and her tears streamed out and dampened my shirt. Kneeling down, I took hold of her shoulders and pushed her back gently, wiping away her tears with my thumb and then gently lifting up her chin.

"What's wrong Anna?" I said, pushing a couple of stray locks of hair behind her ears, waiting patiently for her to stop crying. She hiccuped a couple of times as she stopped and pulled her sleeve down to wipe her eyes. Sniffing, she looked up to me, her eyes turning a shade of pink and her cheeks rosy.

"Friedrich...Scaring me..." She stuttered quietly, pulling both sleeves to hold them in her hands and chewing on the ends of them as she looked around, her body trembling slightly.

"What do you mean?" I frowned, watching her with concern. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, looking around nervously before grabbing my wrist and attempted to drag me along the path. "Anna, what's wrong?" She let out a crying baby like sound when she realised she couldn't drag me and I sighed before following after her as she began running down the street and then disappeared around a corner. Pushing my hands in my pockets, I walked down the path, following her around the corner and up to the wall.

Pausing next to where Anna had stopped, she ran around to hide behind me, her arms curled around my waist and I held onto her linked hands for her comfort before looking up. My blood ran cold and drained out of my body to spill onto the ground beneath me as tears of fear...hatred...anger...and betrayal ran down my cheeks. Holding onto Anna's hands, I untied her arms from around me and dropped her hands.

"Stay here." I muttered to her before striding further down the street up to the wall. Stopping a couple of metres away, I watched the man pressed up against the wall tremble with fear as Friedrich stood frozen solid, his gun pointing towards the man's chest. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, wishing this was just a dream. Opening my eyes, seeing it wasn't, I opened my mouth and screamed at Friedrich.

"Friedrich Eisenberg!" His head snapped around slightly as he saw me, and a million emotions swept across his face as he tried to keep eye contact with both me and the man. "Put that god damn gun down now!"

"He was trying to cross the wall!" He cried out, his voice shaking slightly like he was about to burst out crying. "The orders given were to shoot anyone trying to cross the wall!"

"And what will that achieve? Do you want to see this man's blood on your hands for the rest of your life?" Friedrich winced and twitched and I knew I had struck a nerve. I had no clue why he reacted but he did and that was all that I needed. Carefully and slowly, I started moving forwards, trying not to attract his attention to my movements.

"Just leave Kirsten. I need to do this. We were told to." His voice turned cold and robotic as if I had hit a nerve and some form of hypnotism sprang out to control him to make sure he did what he was told to do. His body stiffened and he kept his gaze on the man who was trying not to move at all, though his ragged breathing and panicking really weren't helping.

"No. I'm not leaving until you let the man go. Alive." I warned him as I got closer, almost there.

"No. There's no way I'm letting him go unpunished." His gun that had been slowly lowering came back up to aim at the man and I ran in front, pressing my forehead against the barrel of the gun.

"Go on. I'm sure watching an innocent girl die instead of him will be punishment enough." I watched Friedrich's gaze shift to me and I narrowed my eyes as if saying "come on, I dare you". He let out a breath I hadn't noticed he'd been holding and lowered the gun before dropping it to the ground, his body following as he fell to his knees limply. Turning my head, I mouthed "go" towards the man and he watched in alarm before nodding and mouthing "thank you" before running off in the other direction. Pushing the gun away and towards the wall with my foot, I knelt down in front of Friedrich and pulled him into my arms, hearing a small sob escape his throat. "It's okay now," I whispered in his ears. "Everything's okay. No one is hurt."

Anna came running over and threw her arms around her brothers, crying into his shoulder. Keeping one arm around Friedrich, I reached out the other to put around Anna.

"I-I n-nearly shot someo-o-one..." Friedrich stuttered in between sobs and I stroked his hair soothingly like he was a small child who had just tripped over.

"Shh.. I told you, it's okay. No one is hurt. No one needs to know what happened so no one will get in trouble OK?" He nodded and I sighed before putting my arm around his back and helping him to his feet. "Come on, you need a drink and a lie down."

"I'm fine... I need to be here..."

"No, come on. Nothing will happen whilst you're gone."

**************************************************************

"There you go." I said, handing him a hot mug of coffee as I sat down in the armchair, cradling my own mug between my hands, smiling towards the heat that radiated through the mug and into my hands and body. Friedrich sat on the sofa, looking awkwardly around as he held his mug, his sister sitting next to him, her gaze sweeping the living room, eyeing the TV, the pictures on the mantelpiece, the small coffee table in front of her with a newspaper on it and a couple of mug mats. She sat with her back to the back of the sofa making her legs barely fall over the end of the sofa.

"Thank you." He muttered as he gently mixed the coffee with the teaspoon, a tiny hurricane forming in the middle of the dark liquid. Sitting on the edge of the sofa, he put the spoon on one of the mats and pressed the rim of the mug to his lips, testing the temperature of the drink before taking a sip. Lowering his drink, he propped it on his lap as he looked to the newspaper on the table, tilting his head slightly to read it better whilst he sister stood up, beginning to move around the room, her eyes looking at everything like she was on a quest and was searching for something in a mysterious land far away from home. I watched her for a moment, smiling lightly before looking back to my coffee.

Simultaneously, a crash of a china mug smashing against the floor and a scream sounded, almost merging into one ear-piercing noise that ricocheted around the small room, bouncing off the walls and damaging our ears. Jumping, I held onto my mug for dear life so to not drop it and span my head around to see my mother standing in the doorway. Her hands looking like she was holding an invisible mug, her real mug in a million pieces scattered over the floor whilst her drink sank silently into the carpet, staining the threads. I looked up to her face, a mask of horror and fear and shock mixed into one. Her mouth wide open, no breath left to scream further. Following her gaze, I turned to look to Friedrich. His eyes on his mug sitting on his lap. His expression blank.

A small cry began in the corner of the room and the world that I had started to understand blew up in a riot of shouts and screams.