The facility was buried in the Bavarian Alps, disguised beneath the crags and ice like a wound stitched shut with steel. Officially, it didn't exist. Even those within the Third Reich who suspected its purpose dared not speak its name aloud. It was called simply: Schloss Morgenstern—Castle Morningstar.
Inside, silence was enforced with the weight of doctrine. The walls hummed with the hidden breath of machinery, and beneath it all, the sound of movement—measured, perfect, and relentless.
In the centre of the underground arena, Eric stood shirtless beneath a canopy of lights. His body gleamed with sweat, though the air was glacial. Dozens of blades, both mechanical and manned, spun around him—projectiles fired, dummies launched, traps triggered. He dodged each with inch-perfect timing, faster than the eye, stronger than reason.
A buzzer sounded. The assault ceased. He stood at attention.
From the observation deck above, three figures watched.
Karl Eisen, the architect of the Third Reich's super soldier program, jotted clinical notes. His face bore no hint of pride—only calculation. Every reaction time, every muscle twitch, was a variable to be measured and manipulated.
Dr. Leena Strauss, once a renowned physiologist in Vienna, now a ghost of her former self behind state-mandated obedience, observed the monitors. Her notes were layered in neurological jargon, but her eyes often lingered on Eric's face longer than necessary.
And beside them, in a fur-lined black coat, lips curled in something between amusement and envy, stood Greta Weiss.
She didn't need notes. Her expertise wasn't in science.
It was in control.
After the drill, Eric was escorted to the sterilization chamber. Hot vapor hissed from the walls as scrubbers passed across his skin. Not one word of praise. Not one nod of approval.
When he exited, Greta was waiting.
"Your left foot drifted two centimetres during the rotating blade sequence," she said, tone sharp as a scalpel.
Eric blinked. "I neutralized all targets."
Greta stepped closer, chin raised, eyes locking onto his with an intensity only she could wield.
"You're not here to meet expectations. You're here to erase them."
He didn't flinch, but something behind his steel-grey eyes trembled.
Greta's voice lowered. "You are not a man, Eric. You are an idea. The purest expression of Aryan excellence. Perfection. You can't afford mistakes."
Eric nodded once. It was the only gesture he was permitted. No backtalk. No doubt.
Later, in the archive chamber, Karl spoke to Leena in hushed tones as they reviewed Eric's biometrics.
"His cortisol levels are increasing. Sleep cycles are degrading. The neural inhibitors aren't stabilizing his empathy response as they should."
Leena tapped the screen. "He was six when we began the accelerants. We bypassed natural development. The trauma patterns are overlapping."
Karl frowned. "He cannot falter. The Führer has seen visions of him leading our world into a new age. The boy must become that man."
"He's not a man," Leena muttered. "He's something we've twisted out of childhood."
Karl looked at her. "Good."
At 2100 hours, Eric sat in his private quarters—if they could be called that. The room was a minimal cube: concrete, one cot, one desk, no mirrors. He was never permitted to see himself too long. Identity was dangerous. Pride was permitted. Ego was not.
He opened a worn copy of Die Heldenschule—The School of Heroes—a propaganda myth book he'd been given as a child. The pages told of gods reborn through discipline, boys raised through pain to become immortal saviours of the Reich.
He remembered reading it under the harsh light of the conditioning chamber. Greasy fingers clinging to pages as needles entered his arm.
Eric was born in 1930. By 1940, his blood had been replaced four times. By 1942, he could lift a tank. By 1944, he had never spoken to another child. Only instructors. Only tests.
He had broken every punching machine. Torn every metal plate they gave him.
And yet he had never been hugged.
He stared at the page of the book now, where a boy faced a dragon with only a dagger. His eyes stayed locked on the boy's face—not his courage, not his muscles, but the tears in his eyes.
Greta entered without knocking. She always did.
"You missed your injection," she said coldly.
Eric stood. "I did not forget. I delayed."
"Why?"
"I was reading."
Greta stepped forward. "Reading is a luxury. You exist to inspire fear and devotion, not literature."
"I wanted to understand why they cry," he said.
Her brows furrowed.
"Who?"
"The people we fight. The ones we conquer. They cry, always. But it's not always fear. Sometimes… it's something else."
Greta paused.
"Do you feel sorry for them?"
"No," Eric answered too quickly. "But I don't understand them."
Greta moved closer until they were inches apart. "That's because you are above them. You don't cry, Eric. You don't feel their weakness. You're not one of them. You never were."
He didn't answer. She leaned in.
"Do you want to know what I saw when I first met you? Not a boy. A weapon still being sharpened. You've been forged, Eric. And soon… you will be unsheathed."
She pressed the injector into his neck. The serum hissed into his veins.
"Pain is the last human thing you'll ever feel," she whispered.
Later that night, Leena found Greta on the outer balcony, cigarette in hand, staring into the alpine abyss.
"You're pushing him too far," Leena said.
Greta exhaled a trail of smoke. "There's no 'too far' where gods are concerned."
"He's unravelling."
"He's shedding."
Leena turned to leave but hesitated.
"Do you ever wonder what he dreams about?"
Greta's smile was thin. "Dreams are for the weak."
Down in his room, Eric didn't sleep.
He sat on his cot, staring at the page of the boy with the dagger.
He traced the tear on the boy's cheek with his finger.
And for the first time in years, something foreign stirred in his chest. Not rage. Not pride.
Something dangerously close to sorrow.
But the injector worked fast.
By morning, it would be gone.