Chapter Text
April 23, 1945.
She should have expected this, it was the same in the outskirts of Moscow, in the shell-ridden streets of Warsaw, and in the bloody skirmishes of Stalingrad. Maybe it was just the first time up close and personal with the enemy; regardless, Natasha Pavlichenko found herself cowering out of fear from the initial onslaught of bullets and explosions behind the T-34 barely providing enough cover from the enemy machine gun nest. Her legs moved before her mind and she raced towards the closest building, and took cover behind a brick wall. No amount of deep breathing exercises slowed down the chaos around her, but the temporary barrier provided a moment to compose herself. Her sniper rifle would be outmatched in these circumstances, and her sidearm would fare no better. Looking to her right, Natasha saw a dead enemy soldier with something that would fare better than the Mosin Nagant she currently held. Slinging her sniper rifle over her shoulder, she looted the battle rifle along with eight spare magazines, and finally motivated herself to face the onslaught.
Fate however, would have other plans for the young soldier, in this case taking the form of a Flak 88 at the end of the street. The T-34 was hit by a flak cannon shell and Natasha was forced to retreat further into the crumbling building. Explosions rocked the walls like tinfoil, but Natasha had four bigger problems right in front of her. She pulled the trigger and emptied the magazine into four surprised Germans before any could even reach for their weapon, one of the bullets hit an inert shell and set off an explosion. Natasha was sent flying backwards into a small, crumbling closet. Cracks spread across the ceiling and she began panicking, scrambling for anything that might save her: a broom, glass bottles, a music box, nothing would save her from the concrete slab that broke loose above, or the floor crumbling away beneath her. She didn't even have time to process her seemingly inevitable death, much less the blinding white light that suddenly surrounded her.