The Missing Soul

What a start to our vacation. If we got lost before we even arrived, I wonder how it'll all end?! On top of that, there were snowdrifts and a blizzard everywhere. I've had enough!

"Kacper, why did you listen to that old man? You shouldn't be driving on some dodgy roads in this weather."

My husband, however, didn't say anything. He knew as well as I did that it wasn't anyone's fault. We should have taken Zakopianka straight away, not listened to the questionable advice. We would have been stuck in traffic for a while, but at least we'd be sure we'd get there.

At times, I doubted Kacper could even see the road. It was already after dark, and the snow was falling heavily. When we turned onto another barely passable road, I lost hope that we'd ever make it to Zakopane.

"Look!" he shouted, pointing to the side of the road.

I saw nothing but the thick white flakes falling.

"There are some houses over there. Let's stop here. Maybe it'll clear up by morning, and then we'll find our way."

We left the car with some difficulty. The snow was knee-deep. However, near the houses, the snow was much lighter, allowing us to walk freely.

I looked around. In a rather large clearing stood six wooden huts. Lit by flashlights and car headlights, they didn't look very inviting. No one had lived in them for a long time. The windows were partially broken, and two had caved-in roofs. The sight was quite horrific. I felt goosebumps all over my body. I definitely wasn't staying here overnight!

Kacper, however, was kind enough to explain that we had no other choice. I would have preferred to find the right route on foot, but I knew he was right.

We grabbed a carry-on backpack from the trunk and headed for the hut that seemed least damaged. Kacper kicked the door, which almost fell off its rusty hinges.

The interior of the hut didn't look inviting. By the flashlight's beam, we managed to spot a battered tiled stove, remnants of wooden furniture, and a mass of cobwebs, dust, and debris.

We gathered up everything that could be burned and lit the stove. We barricaded the front door with a bench. When the weather warmed up a bit, I pulled out sandwiches, chocolate, and a thermos of tea.

If it weren't for the flashlight, the cottage would have been completely dark. I was glad Kacper was there, that I could snuggle up to him. I wasn't afraid of the howling wind outside, nor of this eerie, long-forgotten place.

I thought maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to spend the night here. The walls of the cottage protected us from the snow and cold. All that remained was to hope that the entire ancient wooden structure wouldn't collapse on us while we slept. The gale was quite strong at times, and I was worried about the cottage's ability to hold. I

could barely see through the windows. Using my sweatshirt sleeve, I managed to wipe one of the panes. It didn't take a hawk's eye to see that the weather hadn't changed at all. For a moment, I thought I saw the silhouette of a man in the darkness. I called out to Kacper, but he just shrugged and said I was imagining things. I didn't argue with him.

We fell asleep cuddled up together. I'd never slept in such spartan conditions before.

The sound of footsteps woke me. Many pairs of feet in heavy army boots. Yes, that's what I was hearing. Kacper, of course, said I must have dreamed it. Irritated, I went to the window. It was already covered with frost. I wiped it and was delighted to see that the snowstorm had ended. The sky was thickly strewn with stars, and the round moon illuminated the clearing.

Suddenly, I saw a girl. I saw her very clearly. She had long, blond hair blowing in the wind, and she was dressed in a sheepskin coat that reached below her knees. There was something unreal about her. Before I could call out to Kacper, she was gone. He almost had to force me to stop looking for her. I was ready to run through the forest in the dark. I had no idea what had gotten into me.

We managed to fall asleep again. This time, the morning sun woke us. Every bone ached. Our clothes were covered in dust. We didn't look our best either. But that's what happens when you're away from electricity.

I looked out the window. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. The snow sparkled in the sun and hurt my eyes.

We gathered our things and walked out to the front of the cabin. Surprised, we looked around. In the clearing stood not six, but a dozen wooden cottages. I was sure there had been significantly fewer during the night. This time, even Kacper didn't know what to say. We'd counted them.

Besides, they didn't look old or abandoned at all. There was no trace of the crumbling ruins we'd seen last night. I heard voices and footsteps. A shot rang out in the distance. Kacper thought they might be hunters, but surely no one hunts in the middle of winter!

All the cottages were set around a small square. We headed toward it. When we could see all the houses, I froze in horror. I saw red stains in the snow. They were everywhere. It wasn't hard to guess what they were.

But that wasn't the worst of it. The soaring roofs of the cottages were covered with a thin layer of snow. The dripping blood inscriptions were clearly visible against the white background. I felt dizzy. I looked around. "You stay here!" "This is your place!" "You'll die!" They were everywhere!

I glanced at Kacper. He stood open-mouthed, staring wildly at the bloodstains.

"Nobody's going to play such stupid jokes. You saw some shadows last night. Some rascals probably brought some paint...

" "Stop it! It's blood! If you don't believe me, check it out yourself. I kept telling you something was going on here, but you kept saying I was imagining it!"

Suddenly, we heard a blood-curdling scream. It came from one of the houses. We abandoned our argument and headed toward it. The silence was broken only by moans and cries.

We peered through the window. We saw a woman lying on the floor. She was naked. She had a round face, large, full lips, and short, dark hair. She was no longer young, but her body was firm and round.

A powerfully built, golden-haired soldier sat on her, rhythmically moving his hips. His hands played brutally with her large breasts. I could have recognized that uniform even blindly. I squeezed my eyes shut, but the image lingered. The man was ruthlessly treating a terrified woman paralyzed with pain.

A small boy stood against the wall, watching it all. A trickle of blood ran from his nose, leaving a stain on his light T-shirt. His lips quivered, but he made no sound. In his tiny hands, he clutched a handmade teddy bear with buttons for eyes.

When the soldier finished, he looked at the woman with a bestial smile, then drew his gun. He shot the boy in the head. A terrifying scream filled the house. I watched the entire scene, mesmerized.

When the soldier had put his uniform together, he looked at the woman. She knelt beside a dead child. With a wave of his hand, he ordered her out of the hut. She was sobbing, clutching the body of her son in her arms. The small, brown teddy bear lay in a pool of blood.

At the last moment, Kacper pulled me around the corner of the house. A shot rang out, and the woman's limp body fell to the snow. We heard inhuman laughter.

I was shaking. I couldn't believe everything I was seeing. An old hatred resurfaced within me. A feeling so carefully hidden for years. I remembered that night when my mother told me everything. Since then…

"We can't leave this like this," I whispered. "Kacper, can you hear me?

" "We have to run. Come on, maybe we can make it to the car."

I broke free and entered one of the houses. A teenage girl lay on the floor. Dead. Her long, blond hair was matted with blood in slowly drying tendrils. Her entire face was covered in scars, and one of her eye sockets was empty… They must have hit her in the face with a rifle. There was a pool of blood between her legs. Looking at that tiny body, I felt a growing sense of disgust. I was sure that before all this happened, she had been a virgin. This was her first time. How ironic that statement was. I smiled bitterly and left.

In the next house, I saw a woman. She was still alive, but leaving her alive was more inhumane than killing her. She was bleeding out. She was nine months pregnant. Her abdomen had been deeply slashed. Her body was convulsing, and a rasping moan escaped her lips.

A newborn lay nearby, its head crushed… It was blue and covered in blood. His tiny fingers were clenched into fists.

Kacper forced me out. He hugged me tightly and whispered soothing words until I stopped shaking. We heard voices. Someone was walking towards us. We hid.

I understood every word they said. They were looking for someone. They were looking for another person. Bloody graffiti flashed before my eyes. Then I understood. That person was me.

Why!? What a nightmare!? Is this really happening!?

"They've passed. We have to escape," Kacper whispered.

But the soldiers were everywhere. There were so many of them. We couldn't see our car. Where could it be? I was growing increasingly nervous. I tried to keep my cool. The situation was overwhelming me. I pinched myself, but it was no use. This wasn't a dream. These things were really happening. Those corpses… They existed. It wasn't my imagination, nor was it some kind of vision. Kacper had seen the same thing.

I tried to find some explanation for what was happening here, but I couldn't. There was blood on my hands. Real blood. It couldn't be explained. Another war? Are they filming a movie here? Or was it some kind of cult? Each idea seemed more improbable than the last.

Kacper led me between houses. I didn't know what he was looking for. A hiding place or a car? My feet simply took one step after another. One, two, one, two… Without my mind. He was occupied with entirely different thoughts.

In the square stood a family and several soldiers. The father begged them not to kill his little daughter. He kept repeating like a man possessed that she was a good girl, that she sang and danced beautifully, and recited poems. From a distance, all I could see was her dark, curly hair.

Then they gave him a gun and told him to kill her himself. He cried, screamed, knelt before them, and they passed it from hand to hand and laughed loudly. They were having a wonderful time. Then the girl's mother took a gun and shot her several times.

The child's body fell to the snow, staining it with blood.

I stood paralyzed, watching the scene. All I could think was that this woman had done the right thing. There was no telling what kind of death her child would face at the hands of the soldiers.

"Marta, please, we have to escape..." Kacper pleaded.

But I stood there, rooted to the spot. I was terrified, but also furious. I wanted revenge.

"I found a hiding place. Come on. You stay there, and I'll find the car."

In the pantry of one of the houses, behind the shelves, was a small, low alcove. I squeezed in. My hands were shaking, my heart was beating loudly, and I felt hot. I closed my eyes. I wanted to imagine that I was now with Kacper in a rented room, about to hit the slopes or stroll along Krupówki Street. We had spent so many wonderful moments together. All those glances, smiles, kisses...

I heard footsteps. A soldier entered the pantry. He walked straight to where I was hiding. He stood still for a long moment, then stepped behind a shelf and looked at me with gleaming eyes beneath raised eyebrows. His calm, impassive face betrayed no emotion.

"Did you try to escape your destiny again?" he asked.

I jumped to my feet and pushed him away. He fell to the floor, making a loud noise. I knew I had to escape. I ran out of the hut. What I saw momentarily left me speechless with terror. Before me lay a whole horde of living dead. They wore the remnants of their clothes. Their bodies were partially decomposed. They bared their yellow teeth in an animalistic grin.

I smelled death. Dozens of black, dead eyes stared back at me. These were the people who had lived and dwelt here. All murdered.

I started to run, but I fell into a snowdrift. One of the soldiers stood over me. His face contorted into a terrifying grimace. It was a smile. A cold smile, devoid of all emotion. The smile of a man utterly depraved, ruthless, utterly devoid of conscience.

"Did you really think you could escape? This is your place. You will die here. This is the only way. This is your destiny." He cocked his gun and aimed it at me.

Then Kacper arrived. He trampled them. A shot was fired, but it missed. I got into the car. We drove away.

Around the next bend, we saw a sign for Zakopane. No one was chasing us. When we reached the town and saw normal people, I felt safe. Dozens of tourists strolled the streets. Lazy snowflakes fell from the trees.

The nightmare was over. But my hands were covered in blood, as was my clothes. I shuddered. Will I ever be able to wash this blood away? All those horrific scenes I'd witnessed would never fade from my memory.

It was so hard to forget everything I'd heard from my mother. It's easy to harbor anger and hatred, but harder to get rid of them. Now that the memories had returned with such force, everything would start all over again.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"What do you mean? To the police. If this is real, maybe they'll know what's going on there."

I thought a psychiatrist would know better than a policeman, but I refrained from commenting. I didn't care anymore. I'd escaped from there. Whatever it meant, it was over. I was left in that clearing. My life, here and now, was no longer in danger.

A young officer listened to what we had to say. He pretended to be nice and trying to understand, but I could bet he really thought he was dealing with two stoned people terrified by another vision.

Then another officer appeared. An older one. He asked us to recount what had happened.

"I'm sorry, but I don't think we should bother you gentlemen," I said.

"Tomek, come out. I'm Commissioner Turski. Perhaps I can explain what happened to you."

Resigned, I started the story from the beginning. The Commissioner didn't comment. In fact, he didn't say a word. He took us from the police station to a private house and led us to a stooped, wrinkled old man.

"On August 14, 1943, a small detachment of Germans came to a village near Zakopane." The old man's voice was soft and not very clear, so everyone remained silent and listened intently. "They murdered dozens of people. They buried the bodies in a hole in the square in the middle of the village. One girl survived. She went out in the morning to get firewood, and when she heard gunfire as she approached the village, she ran away. She was hiding here. Her name was Celina Porębska.

The old man fell silent. Everyone looked at me. I must have looked as if I'd seen a ghost. In an instant, I understood. The last two words explained everything. Celina Porębska.

One night, my mother came to me and told me that my grandmother was dead. Then she told me the story of her life. She said, "You see, your grandfather is not Stanisław, but Karl Grupenn. One of the most brutal Germans to appear on our soil during the war. He raped your grandmother..."

I received my grandmother's diaries, in which I could read about what had happened to her. After the war, she changed her name to erase that period from her life. But that wasn't enough. My mother was still there. Aryan blood flowed in her veins. She was blonde, with blue eyes and a fair complexion. She inherited her looks from her father.

My grandmother told everyone that her husband had died at the front. She even showed them letters she had written and sent herself. But no one believed them.

They both had had a very difficult life. From then on, I harbored hatred in my heart for those who had caused my loved ones to suffer.

However, I only knew my grandmother's postwar fate. I knew that before the war, her name was Celina Porębska, and later Małgorzata Kułak. I didn't know that she had miraculously escaped death...

Now everything was clear. My grandmother was the girl I'd seen that night. She had survived. Both she and my mother were dead. That's why, whenever I appeared in that cursed place, I experienced everything that had happened decades ago. My grandmother had survived, so I must die. This is my destiny.

I remembered the old man we'd asked for directions. He was the one who'd said the Zakopianka road was blocked and had shown us another, passable route. I asked if it was safe. "It depends on who it's for," he said, smiling mysteriously.

"Kacper, we're going home. I want to be as far away from here as possible.

" "But since you have German, even Aryan, blood in your veins, you have nothing to fear. We'll go there and you'll see that nothing is threatening you. Those houses fell apart a long time ago. There's nothing there now. I have a gun, just in case," the commissioner said.

I was persuaded. If I faced all this now, I'd be able to continue living normally.

I stood at the edge of the clearing, staring at the vast expanse of land covered in a thick, even layer of snow. There were no houses, no blood, no corpses.

I turned to Kacper, but neither he nor the commissioner was there. Instead, I saw two German officers with guns aimed at me. Two shots were fired.