29 August 1914 East Prussian Campaign

The morning mist hung low over the forest like a suffocating veil, muffling the distant cracks of rifle fire. The sun had yet to rise fully, but already the earth trembled beneath the thunder of artillery to the south. In a ravaged, nameless East Prussian village now reduced to skeletal homes and mud-choked streets, Ilse Stahlhelm crouched in the ruins of what had once been a bakery now only a blackened stone frame. The dough had long since rotted away, but the scent of death clung to the burnt wood like perfume.

Her uniform was stiff with dried blood not all of it her own. The MG 08/15 by her side steamed in the cold morning air, the barrel still hot from its recent work. Brass casings lay in drifts at her feet like autumn leaves, coated in soot and gun oil. Smoke curled up from the edges of buildings where yesterday's fire still lingered, like ghosts reluctant to leave.

Only nine men remained when the ambush began. Nine from the original 130 that had marched into this hellhole two weeks prior. The 9th Company had arrived as part of a defense force to defend the province of East Prussia against the invasion of two Russian armies and to protect the villages of east prussia. It had been easy at first. Too easy. The village appeared abandoned, wind whispering through its narrow lanes, frost crusting over wagon wheels left mid-roll, as if the villagers had vanished into smoke.

Then the first shots rang out one after another precise, patient, merciless.

The first of her men died screaming.

He had been a young Bavarian named Lindner, with bright blue eyes and a stammer when excited. He staggered back from the edge of the trench, his tunic drenched in arterial red. He called out not once, but twice a hoarse, choked "Help... help me!" before collapsing forward into the snow. His blood pooled like ink on the parchment of his fallen notebook.

The second was missing half a leg, the femur exposed like white stone. He cried once, sharply, then whimpered as he bled out, pale hands gripping the jagged stump until they went still. No one had time to reach him. No one could.

Ilse could still hear the snap of the bullet that tore through Private Hesse's head.

One moment, she had turned to warn him her voice caught halfway through a whisper of "Get down!" and in the next instant, his skull snapped back and he crumpled like a sack of grain. The shot was surgically clean, and the blood sprayed onto the wall of the trench behind him. He fell into a heap, knees tucked under his chest, face slack, his helmet tumbling into the mud with a hollow clang. The sound echoed in her ears for minutes afterward.

The trench was quiet after that. The silence was not peace it was dread, like a tightening cord around the lungs.

She counted the bodies. Eight men. Eight friends. Eight stories ended in less than ten minutes.

Only she remained.

And the Russians were still watching.

Ilse didn't cry. She didn't scream. She didn't pray.

Instead, she dragged each of their bodies some whole, some not into the corner of the trench and covered them with dirt and debris, as best she could with trembling hands and a shovel that snapped halfway through the task. She whispered each of their names under her breath as she buried them

That night, she remained in the trench. She set up her MG 08/15 in the shadows of a burnt schoolhouse and waited. The enemy came. They crept through the night, rifles slung low, bayonets catching moonlight like the teeth of wolves. Ilse did not fire immediately. She waited. Counted them. Timed their footsteps in the dark. Then without a sound she pulled the bolt, adjusted her sight, and opened fire. The first burst cut through three men. The second sent the rest scattering into the woods.

October 1914

For over a month, she lived there alone. The snows came early that year, blanketing the village and its corpses in white robes. Ilse fortified the buildings, rigged traps with grenades and tripwires, used the bodies of enemy scouts as bait. She killed sparingly, with precision, and always left their weapons untouched inviting others to come reclaim them. None did.

By the third week, her eyes had changed. Not visibly, but fundamentally. The woman who had entered the war with youthful resolve and stern determination had been carved hollow and refilled with something colder. Not hatred. Not madness.

Clarity.

In the waning days of October 1914, the East Prussian landscape bore the scars of relentless warfare. Amidst the skeletal remains of a once-thriving village, a young German recruit found himself separated from his unit. The village, now a ghost town, was shrouded in an eerie silence, broken only by the distant echoes of artillery. from the shadows of a partially collapsed building, a figure emerged. Clad in a German uniform, her face smeared with soot and grime, stood Ilse Stahlhelm.

Suddenly, she said to him slowly, her voice steady, expression unreadable.

"I'm truly enjoying the war now. This constant game with life as the wager it has its own lure. You live, you experience, you rise to glory and honor... all in exchange for one pathetic life"