The white flash spat Reever into the gutted heart of Bergstein. Cobblestones lay buried under bricks and shattered roof tiles, slick with mud and oil. Ruins clawed at the sky, smoke weaving through skeletal houses like funeral veils. A church bell tolled once, cracked and mournful, then fell silent.
Mission: Search and Destroy Target: Two bridges over the Bergstein Canal.
His Lee-Enfield gripped tight, scope still a touch off from Hurtgen's chaos. Allies blurred past in khaki, boots pounding debris. No time for breath. The first bridge was a mangled corpse, twisted girders plunged into black water, smoke churning from its heart.
Then the ground shook. A diesel growl clawed through the haze. Panzer IV lumbered from a side street, turret sweeping slow and hungry. Its 75mm barked; a storefront fifty yards up exploded into red brick rain. Reever hit the dirt behind a charred Opel as shrapnel pinged off the hull.
An ally PIAT team rushed it. The rocket lanced out, slammed the glacis, and fizzled in a weak puff. The Panzer's coaxial MG hosed them down, turning khaki to rags against the wall. Bodies twitched, steam rising from fresh blood.
Reever's pulse thundered. Turret traversing his way. He rolled, bolted through a blasted doorway, up splintered stairs that groaned under his boots. Second floor. Shuttered window overlooking the beast below. The commander popped from the cupola, binoculars scanning. Reever steadied, breath out, cracked the shot. The man jerked like a puppet cut loose, vanished inside.
Turret kept grinding. Smoke wisped from the hatch. Reever yanked his last grenade, cooked it two beats, dropped it down. Clang. The Panzer lurched. Muffled boom. Flames licked every slit and hatch. It rolled blind, shedding track links, crushing its own dead before halting in a pyre.
No reprieve. Across the canal, a deeper rumble. Tiger I nosed into view, that slab-sided monster with its 88mm maw. It spotted the burning Panzer, roared approval. The 88 spat fire. Shell punched the Opel into a rolling inferno. Heat seared Reever's face; he vaulted backward through the window, hit the alley in a shoulder roll as the building's corner vaporized. Stones hammered down like fists.
Ears ringing, he scrambled into the cellar gloom. Fingers closed on a Teller mine from a crumpled sapper's grip. Rebar pole in hand, magnetic side hot and ready. Alley mouth framed the Tiger prowling closer, turret questing. Infantry swarmed its flanks, gray coats probing ruins.
Reever waited. Heartbeat. The beast filled the gap. He lunged out, sprinted three strides, leaped onto the rear deck. Vents glowed hell-red. Thud, mine stuck. Driver braked hard; tracks chewed air. Too slow. Detonation ripped the engine with a flat thunderclap. Black oil smoke belched skyward. The Tiger slewed, turret whipping wild, but its guts were slag. It ground to a halt, crew bailing into bullet hell from allies.
Infantry pressed harder now, using the wrecks for cover. Bullets chipped walls around Reever as he reloaded on the move. A sharp crack sang past his ear. Then another, closer, tugging his sleeve. Sniper.
He froze, scanned rooftops. There, church bell tower, half-crumbled but tall. Glint of scope. The German spotter beside him, calling shots. Reever dropped prone behind rubble, Lee-Enfield up. Distance: two hundred yards. Wind whispering ash. Crosshair danced over the tower edge.
Crack. Their shot splintered stone inches left. Reever exhaled, squeezed. His round punched the spotter's helmet; he flopped backward. The sniper ducked, repositioned. Crack. Reever's helmet rim pinged; health flickered yellow. He rolled right, acquired again. The German leaned out, desperate. Reever's bolt cycled smooth. Crack. The sniper toppled, rifle cartwheeling into the street.
Tower clear. But Germans boiled from houses, MG nests chattering from upper windows. Allies fell screaming. Reever needed the bridge open. He snatched a radio from the sapper corpse, thumbed the call: air support, now.
Seconds later, a whistle pierced the din. Typhoon rockets streaked low, trailing fire. They hammered the far bank: bunkers erupted, infantry shredded in blasts of earth and limbs. Not a full storm, just enough punch to crack the line. Smoke pillars rose; screams cut short.
Reever surged forward. Canal reeked of rot and fuel. Bridge ahead: iron skeleton scarred by fire. Dead sapper against the rail, detonator in stiff fingers. Snatch, slap charge on the main girder, timer: twenty-five seconds.
Gray coats swarmed the approach, rifles blazing. Reever braced on the rail, bolt-action poetry. Throat shot drops one. Knee buckles another. Nose bridge pulps a third. Empty. He slung the rifle, bolted back. Legs burned; bullets snapped at heels.
Timer screamed. Blast hit like God's hammer: girders shrieked, twisted, collapsed in a foaming cascade. Canal surged, dousing flames. Objective Complete flickered, gone.
Bergstein smoldered on, but the path was clear, broken wide by Reever's actions.
A rush of adrenaline still pulsed through him. He had survived. Two score streaks, no deaths, and the old thrill surged through his veins—the same thrill that had driven him through countless missions back in the early 2000s. Even a pro like him had fallen many times in later updates, when the game had grown faster, flashier, more chaotic. But here, in this stripped-down world of pure survival, every life counted, every shot mattered.
Time had lost all meaning. Two months? Two days? Perhaps only hours. The endless loop of battles blurred together, and yet, in the quiet moments between firefights, Reever could feel it: the slow, creeping weight of isolation. Allies moved around him in scripted loops, enemies appeared and vanished, yet it was him—alone, facing the line of fire, making the choices that decided life and death. Even the hardest player could feel it: the loneliness of the battlefield, the stark reality that there was no one to cheer, no scoreboard to measure his true struggle.
For a moment, he sank onto the rubble, letting the debris of the destroyed city settle around him. He wasn't tired, not really, but this was a habit, a rhythm ingrained by endless hours of grinding for cammos, mastering maps, and chasing high scores. The silence pressed in, punctuated only by distant collapses and the faint hiss of lingering smoke. Reever allowed himself a smirk, wry and small.
"Countless hours of grinding," he muttered aloud, shaking his head. "Old days, future days… pick your poison. At least I'm still good at it."
He chuckled softly at his own joke, a small spark of levity in a world built from ash and lead. Even here, in the midst of destruction, there was room for humor, tiny, human, stubborn. Survival was serious, but it didn't have to be joyless.
The world shimmered. The edges of Bergstein blurred, pixels folding over themselves, as new terrain began to take shape. Distant artillery rumbled somewhere beyond the ruins. Somewhere else, new objectives waited. Reever's pulse quickened. The familiar rhythm of mission preparation, of sights to check and dangers to anticipate, filled him with anticipation.
He rose from the rubble, brushing ash and grit from his uniform. The quiet moments were over. Weapons checked, mind focused, senses sharpened—Reever stepped forward into the unknown. The battlefield would demand more from him, but he had survived before. He would survive again.
And maybe, just maybe, he'd get a laugh or two along the way.