The Lieutenant squinted into the harsh sunlight, the heat prickling his sweat-soaked skin. Antonia. The pre-war picture in the Charleston Gazette, full of Charleston charm, was a ghost haunting these ravaged streets. Now, rubble choked the avenues, and bullet holes were grotesque beauty marks on the facades that once held Italian arrogance. Exotic? Maybe, but the Lieutenant pushed the thought away. He scanned the vacant windows, each a yawning maw ready to swallow him whole. Intel said the Germans were gone, but Intel lied more often than it spoke the truth. Snipers. The word hung heavy, a promise of sudden, silent death.

He wasn’t naive.  Even without snipers, the war god reveled in these warrens of shattered buildings. Booby traps, hidden mines, and worse lurked beneath the surface, waiting to snatch body parts or worse. Every step felt like a gamble.

Gravel crunched under his boots as he skirted a caved-in storefront. A ragged curtain whipped in the wind, its skeletal dance sending a jolt of fear down his spine. He yanked it down, revealing a nest of shattered glass, winking lethally in the sun. A flash of red caught his eye – Corporal Vinton’s axe patch, now stained crimson, reflected in one shard. He glanced back at the nervous faces of his squad, all too young, all targets in this concrete jungle.  Maybe numbers offered comfort, but a dark thought snaked through his mind – more targets meant more opportunities for the enemy.

Ahead, Hotel Antonia loomed, a monument to a bygone era. Intel suspected artillery observers perched on its upper floors, picking off American ants crawling through the ruins. He knew intel wasn’t gospel, but the sheer size of the building made it a priority. The Germans knew it, too, lacing the approaches with danger. Daylight was suicidal for a frontal assault, and the broad avenues were snipers’ playgrounds.

He had to reach the next corner. Just one more block. Just past that shadowed doorway, another potential death trap. He edged closer, carbine held high, his finger hovering over the trigger. A glint from within. A soldier? Not a civilian, they were long gone. A grenade felt heavy in his hand, a solution begging for use. But civilians did hide, sometimes. He couldn’t just throw death unthinkingly.

Sweat beaded on his forehead. He raised a hand, halting his squad. Fear tightened his throat, but he lunged around the corner. A dark figure materialized, a weapon leveled at his chest. The world dissolved into a deafening roar. His carbine echoed in the narrow space, the muzzle flash blinding him. The air screamed with the reply, a chaotic ballet of gunfire and shattering glass.