stalingrad sniper

Anon felt the cold of the snow seeping through his coat. He was relying on willpower alone to keep himself conscious. Being a sniper wasn't easy, being in russia wasn't easy, being in stalingrad wasn't easy. But he managed, and besides, he had someone he wanted to see again. They had met in places all over the city. In abandoned factories, in the wide open courtyard ruins, even across the frozen river. They'd never said a word to each other, but that was part and parcel of a sniper duel. They'd been on the hunt for each other for a month now, and Anon had come to immensely enjoy it. He wasn't sure if that was because the sniper herself was cute, or that she was bent on killing him. He reasoned it was a bit of both, there's no fun where there's no danger.
Today was a special day, it was the one month anniversary of their first exchanged shots.
Anon wanted to get closer to his opponent, but even as he lay in the snow, he didn't quite know how. He stared out into the grey and white landscape, watching for even the slightest movement in the rubble. This place was one of her usual haunts, and he was sure she'd turn up. He had set up a dummy fifty metres away in cover he had used previously. She always made sure to check old firing positions, which was a shame because it meant anon could never set up a nice comfy spot. Eventually he spotted movement near the dummy. A grey cloaked figure inched along the rubble. It was her. He watched her through his scope, tapping the trigger with his finger as she went. She rounded the corner and found the dummy. She froze and silently scrambled to bring her rifle up. She breathed for a second, then pulled the trigger. The crack of the rifle seemed to echo across the city. The impact of the bullet caused the dummy to slump forward. She stared at the dummy for further movement. When it didn't move, she smiled and did a little victory dance.
Anon smiled, she was absolutely adorable. He was tempted to actually let her kill him, but then he wouldn't see the smile.
She moved to the dummy and rolled it over, revealing the dummy to be a dummy, and a small piece of paper.
She immediately dived into cover, without even picking up the paper. Anon gave a frustrated snort, he had spent the better part of a night beating up a prisoner to find out how Russians write "I love you". That didn't matter much, the game was on.

He scanned the field of battle. She was currently behind a low wall a few metres closer to him than the dummy. He looked around the wall for escape routes or firing positions he would take or use. He wanted her to try to escape, he wanted to see how she reacted to this killbox he had stuffed her into. She raised a small shard of glass above the wall, trying to spot him in the reflection. He steadied his aim and fired, shattering the glass in her fingertips. After that, it was a while before her next move. Anon laid there, watching, waiting. Suddenly, a bullet pinged off a concrete block beside him, and hit a window in the building behind him. He frantically looked over the wall over again, where was she shooting from? He saw the muzzle flash from the second shot erupt from a dark spot in the wall. The second shot hit closer, but still off. She must not be able to see well out of the hole in the wall she found. Still, he retreated from his firing position. As he did, he spotted a wisp of smoke from behind the wall. Was she smoking? The wisp grew stronger until thick smoke was billowing out from behind the wall, she threw the smoke grenade upwind, letting the cloud drift across anon’s line of sight. The wall, and everything behind it, was completely obscured.

Anon sighed and stood up. She was probably already gone. Dejected, he wandered back to the nearest wehrmacht outpost. It was beginning to get dark, so soup was being served. He got a bowlful and sat next to the door to the ramshackle bunker. He liked to be a little cold. He stared at the soup for a while. He wasn't all that hungry really. While he made a sad look at the soup, He was approached by the unit Chaplain.
Heinrich wasn't really qualified in any way to be a Chaplain. There was a debate as to whether he'd even been baptised or previously had any belief in God. One day he'd been struck square in the head with a
Stray piece of russian shrapnel. His helmet took most of the deadly impact, but he began bleeding all down his face. He then jumped up and began screaming about seeing the light. Since then, he'd wandered around, giving religious and moral counsel to his fellow soldiers. Mostly in the form of misquoted or outright false bible verses. It was generally doubted that Jesus ever said that Pervitin was a gift from God, and he certainly didn't take it before driving the merchants from the temple.
"You look sad Brother, what troubles you?" Heinrich asked
"Well, there's this girl, and I like her, but I don't know how to tell her, '' Anon sighed, taunted by the swirling soup.
"Hmm, ah, as the Lord once said 'be yourself, and the path to romance shall reveal itself"
Anon nodded, and Heinrich wandered off
"What a weirdo" Heinrich thought "where'd he find a woman in this hellhole anyway?"

Anon ate his soup and went to sleep. The next morning, while everyone else was trying to summon the willpower to get up, Anon leapt from his bundle of ratty blankets. Today was the day. He told himself that every day, but he was particularly sure today. After yesterday, he was sure she was warming up to him. She only shot at him twice, and used a smoke grenade to distract him instead of a frag.
He could practically hear the wedding bells. Not the literal ones, they were currently being used as air raid sirens because the regular sirens had broken.
Despite the obnoxious dinging, and the whistling of falling ordinance, Anon was certain that it'd be a good day.

After a while of snooping around, He came to a plaza, with a large, multi storey building on either side, one just behind the Russian line, and the other behind the German. They'd met here before and he'd made sure to leave a few clues as to where he'd be in the position he'd used yesterday. Now he just had to wait. And he waited. And waited. He was halfway through coming up with a dystopian horror novel, a future in which people thought that remaking the same motion picture every ten years was creative and cool, when he spotted dark shapes moving in the building across the plaza. He recognised one of them, it was Her, and she'd brought friends. Kind of rude, bringing other guys to a date. Anon sighed, he guessed everyone made mistakes, and not just tactical ones.
"By the Fuhrer, woman, get into cover." He muttered under his breath.
Her companions were not better, in fact they were far worse. At least she was only a quarter or so exposed, these buffoons were in full view of their windows. Utter amateurs, but they'll learn.
And he will teach them.
Anon steadied his breath, braced his rifle and calmly squeezed the trigger. His target collapsed, missing a good chunk of his head. The others all sprang into the closest cover. He nodded, very good.
He crawled three windows down and produced a small pocket mirror. He raised it up to the windowsill and looked out at the other building. The snipers were all at ready positions. He counted four including the Girl. They were all scanning the building, but none were looking at him. Moving slowly, he shouldered his rifle and rose up to the bottom of the window.
Acquire target.
steady aim.
Pull trigger.
Get into cover.
Three targets remaining.
He shook his head, two targets and one threat. Don't shoot the girl. He took a deep breath and resumed.
This time, he crawled to the stairwell, they had almost certainly figured out which floor he was on.
He waited for a few minutes before he even checked their locations again. He repeated the procedure, and another man fell. The concrete next to Anon's head exploded. He fell over, back into cover. That was close. One more to go.
When he checked through his mirror again, only the girl was left. The last man must have retreated. She was using her cover pretty well now. She looked like she was shaking a bit. She must be in awe of his skills. Three shots, three kills was a pretty good day. Imagine how much deer he could get when they married and moved to the black forest. Or maybe France. He heard Finland was a very nice place. Wait no, taking a russian to Finland? That'd never work. He put that ridiculous notion out of his head as he noticed her peeking out of her window. He smiled and waved.
She grabbed her rifle and screamed as she shot as fast as she possibly could at him. Anon ducked into cover as bullets whizzed by.
What had he done wrong? Oh, that's right, he still had his sniper veil on, she couldn't see him smiling. He made a note of that for next time. But where would they go? He couldn't stand the heat, so maybe Denmark? Sweden were a bunch of fence-sitters, he didn't want to be associated with that. They also had funny names. Canada? It's a little out of the way, but once Britain fell, it wasn't out of the question. Maybe she'd be more comfortable in the Urals. He'd have to ask around once she ran out of ammo and he could escape.

Later, in the outpost, Anon had sketched a map of the world onto the wall with a piece of charcoal. He stared it down, occasionally labelling a place based on its suitability for living. He gained a little attention, especially after he labelled Switzerland “Gold storage facility… Mountain jews?”
A great debate arose as to whether the swiss could be trusted
Eventually anon gave up, nothing productive would come of this, especially after it escalated into a fistfight.