The Bunker in the Server Room
3 chapters for 1 character · about 10 minutes · told 1 time. The highlighted parts are filled in with your own characters when you make this story yours.
Chapter 1: The Wrong Firewall
⟨Character 1⟩ is alone in the cold server room, running a patch on his company’s new history website, a 3D walkthrough of Wolfsschanze. The rack LEDs stutter, and he smells burnt wiring. He reaches for the backup switch, and the room folds. He lands on damp carpet in a half-lit German bunker corridor at 12:15 AM.
⟨Character 1⟩: This isn’t the data centre. The carpet is wet, and the walls are concrete, not server racks, and there’s a war map pinned to the wall where my patch notes should be. My servers are gone, and the air smells of old smoke and boot polish, which means I am somewhere I absolutely do not want to be. I should be asleep in my apartment in Bengaluru, not standing in a concrete tomb.
Guard: Halt! Identify yourself! Hands where I can see you, now! This area is sealed after the attempt on the Führer.
⟨Character 1⟩: Not a soldier, just a software engineer from Bengaluru who builds websites and doesn’t fight wars, and I really don’t want to die in a dark closet next to a mop. Please don’t find me. I just want to go home and eat leftover biryani while the backup finishes. The Luger is cold and useless in my hand.
Announcer: Colonel Stauffenberg’s bomb has failed, and the Führer lives and is only lightly wounded. He is in his private room, asking for tea and shouting about traitors. Security is doubled across the Wolf’s Lair, so stay at your posts, report anything suspicious immediately, and do not hesitate to shoot.
Guard: The Jewish prisoners in the truck are to be shot at dawn. We have orders, the trucks stay locked, and we use the eastern ditch by the birch trees. This is not a rumour, it came from the adjutant himself, so do not open the rear door for anyone.
⟨Character 1⟩: The only way home is to finish what the bomb didn’t: kill Hitler, because my phone shows the portal only opens if the timeline shifts. And there’s a truck outside full of Jews, so I have to save every Jew in it. I don’t want this, but nobody else is coming, and I built this map, so I know every door and hatch. I have to kill Hitler, then free the Jews.
Chapter 2: The Paper Knife
⟨Character 1⟩ moves by memory through the bunker, avoiding patrols. A young guard stops him. Inside Hitler’s private room, Hitler is awake, bandaged, drinking tea. ⟨Character 1⟩ picks up the paper knife from the desk and kills Hitler with two quick pushes under the jaw. He takes the cap and keys, locks the door, and goes to the truck yard. He unlocks the rear door; the Jews inside flinch from the light.
Guard: Halt! Your uniform is wrong, your face is not on the duty roster, and you are walking toward the Führer’s private rooms with a torch. I have orders to shoot anyone suspicious after the bomb attempt, so you have five seconds to explain why I should not put a bullet in your chest.
⟨Character 1⟩: I’m a visiting engineer from Siemens in Breslau, sent to repair the telephone exchange after the explosion. See this circuit board? It’s a replacement part for the switchboard, and I’ve been in the cable tunnel since midnight. Put down the rifle, check my orders with Captain Weiss if you like, but don’t make me late because the Führer is waiting for a working telephone.
Hitler: You are not my adjutant, and you smell of diesel, not of a telephone exchange. Who let you in? The traitors are everywhere, and I am tired of officers who cannot follow a simple order: no one enters without my approval. Speak quickly, or I will have you shot against the wall.
Ruth: Are you another guard? Have you come to take more of us away? We heard shooting earlier, and then silence, and now the door opens and you stand there with a gun. We are Jews, and we know what that means in this place.
Prisoner: The tower! They’re aiming at the truck! We’re trapped, they will kill us all in this light!
⟨Character 1⟩: I’m not a guard, I’m here to save you, all of you. The tower is opening fire, two of your people are hit, so listen: we run to the wire cutters near the east fence. Stay low, follow me, and do not stop for anything, because if you stop you die.
Chapter 3: The Wet Grass
⟨Character 1⟩: The portal only takes one person, I saw the small light on the console flicker in the server room and I never thought about a limit. Now I know, so you take the others and go to the rail line, the route is already on my phone. I pulled up the map before I gave it to you, and it shows a gap in the fence by the birch trees. Go now, and do not argue with me.
Ruth: You are bleeding through the cloth, the bullet is still inside you, and you cannot go back to face them. They will kill you, and we will not leave you behind because you saved us from the truck. You said you were not a soldier, you said you built websites and wanted to sleep and eat in Bengaluru. So why are you doing this, why are you dying for strangers?
⟨Character 1⟩: I built websites, not wars, but I killed Hitler, and I saved Jews, and I will not let those people die at dawn. The portal only takes one, so it is not a choice, it is arithmetic, and I was always good at arithmetic. The phone has enough battery for two hours, and the rail line is two kilometres north, so go now, and do not look back. I will keep the guards busy.
Ruth: Give me the phone, I will lead them to the rail line, and we will say your name when we are free. I will tell the children that a man from India killed Hitler and saved Jews with a paper knife and a phone map. Go then, ⟨Character 1⟩, and may God watch you, because we cannot.
Guard: They are at the wire! Open fire! The Führer is dead and the Jews are escaping! Shoot them all before they reach the trees!
⟨Character 1⟩: That is right, follow me, you bastards. I killed Hitler with a paper knife, and I will kill every one of you before you touch those people. The portal is closing behind me, but you will not pass, and I am not afraid of your bullets. I have one gun and nothing left to lose.
He had done what he had to: kill Hitler, save Jews. The portal flickers and closes. At dawn the guards find him by the wire, dead. The survivors reach the trees, and a distant train whistle sounds from the north.
Rest now, ⟨Character 1⟩. You saved Ruth and the prisoner, and they are safe beyond the trees.
A question for tonight
⟨Character 1⟩ always said he was not brave, just tired. What would you do if the only door home opened for one person and not the others?