Watch as I try and fail miserably at writing for the first time in a long time! And it's a Realism!

    The weather was unseasonably cold, averaging at about -2° C, about 6 degrees below what it should be in Heinz. It still managed to rain though, and rain it did. It was down pouring over most of southern Germany, reaching from Stuttgart down into Tegernsee. Even Innsbruk, Austria, was getting light showers, or at least solid cloud coverage. And it was coming down hard, right over Penzeurg and Munich. The war was coming to an end, and everyone knew it. The Party couldn't hide it any longer, there were rumors with backing sweeping through the ranks. The front lines had been pushed drastically throughout February, right back onto German soil. There was no hiding a retreat of that scale. So, when the two man sniper team has been asked to try and pick US tank drivers out of their hatches as Patton's army invaded Heinz, they had chosen desertion over certain death. They took off on their merry way towards Penzberg, but had "dropped" their radio and didn't know where the assault was taking place. Which, of course, was complete bullshit, as the two hailed from Penzberg and often visited Heinz on vacations. Hell, they signed up for the army together. They had known each other for years, since grammar school, and when the Second World War came a'knocking, they answered. They were going to stay out in the woods until the War was over, or until they were found by enemy troops and taken in. There were an infinite number of flaws in their plan, but they didn't care. They were young, as were most of the conscripts and non-officer sign ups. Hell, although not illegal, it was immoral for the two to even be in the war as of yet. At only 18 and 19, they were on the younger side of the bracket when it came to sign-ups. They were still just kids. Kids with intense military training and a set of skills to take on the world. But, they were not prepared. They had all the food, water, matches, and ammunition they could need for a three months' fighting, sure. But they could never had been prepared for what the game of War had pitched them.

    The mud was kept from freezing by the body heat of the two soldiers, sat side by side in a make-shift cave they called home. On one of the taller, sturdier cliffs of the river bank they called home, they had dug out a half-cylinder hole into the rock and mud, about three and a half to four feet deep, and about the same height. It only fit them because of it's length, around 9 feet, most of it covered by overhanging roots and foliage from the ground above and the bushes below. They had made the thing livable though, their rucksacks in the center, in these shallow holes they dug so they could use the bags as pillows. They also had a small fireplace of sorts, a hole in the back wall with one of those small travel-sized food heater things stuck in the bottom of it. It wasn't comfortable, clean, or entertaining, but it beat a Nazi prison by a long-shot. Man, did it make him miss home. The patter of the rain on the leaves was aided by the explosions and cannon-fire from the nearby assault in keeping the soldiers awake. They were freezing, the lack of movement and the general cold weather of the early morning making their arms and legs very stiff. The eldest of the two had been awake prior to the thunderous booms and explosions, disassembling and cleaning his two military-issued weapons; a small pistol, the Walther P38, and the older variant FG42, for which he had traded away his brand new MP-44 for (Sorry lol). He was picking the dirt out of the cracks and crevices with his knife, and wiping down and greasing the moving bits with a rag and a small canister of oil. The only weapon the youngest had though, was the bulky and awkward Karabiner 98k. The large scope atop the beast of a weapon was interchangeable with an even larger one within his rucksack. which was just being used for a pair of binoculars since it was already detached. It has a long, camouflaged potato-sack of sorts around it to protect it from the elements, although it was only the scope that truly needed the protection. There was an even larger explosion than the rest, jolting the two half asleep deserters to full attention. A fireball arose from the skyline of the city, smoke following in suite.

    The younger of the two was quick to rustle through his make-shift pillow, digging through the blankets and Scho-Ka-Kola tins that the two had stolen from their bunker before deserting. Finding the rough cloth cylinder under a blanket, he tugged it out, the blanket-case unfurling and falling to reveal the bulky 6x zoom scope. propping himself up on an elbow, he peered through the scope, adjusting himself accordingly when the wind pushed some of the vines or branches over his view. From the slightly higher position that the walls of the small city, he could see the Sherman and Pershing class tanks and the countless infantrymen that followed, crowded around the steel behemoths. The tanks rumbled along in the downpour, some brave commanders' heads peeking from the opened hatches, no doubt their crews' ungrateful comments at their heels. The scene was grey all 'round, the downpour adding to the blur from an extra nearly quarter kilometer's distance a 6x power scope should be used for. The men around the hulking machines were seemingly petrified, practically hugging the things for cover from possible enemy fire. There was smoke pouring from the pipes of the vehicles as they lumbered along through the crumbling roads and intersections. Buildings were collapsing as he looked around, the bricks pelting the tanks as if it were nothing. There was rubble and broken down cars and trucks along most of the intersections and sides of the roads, giving the tanks a narrow route of passage through the city. The guns on the tanks were alternating between about 45° to the left of right of forwards along the column, not that any tank commanders or even Volksgrenadier or Festung leaders would let their men get gunned down by the overwhelming force of the American assault on Penzburg. Even on direct orders from Führer himself, they would have a rebuttal, or at least have gone with reluctance. In fact, he could just barely make out the shape of a friendly sniper upon a rooftop, laying against the shingles, his gun at his side. At least, he thought that was what he saw, before a new blanket of downpour, harder than the last, jumbled the grey-on-grey outline of the man on the roof.
"Well? What's going on over there!" The eldest soldier hissed at the youngest.
"I can see..." He mumbled off hurried German numbers until he came to a reasonable conclusion, "About 35 tanks, and too many men to count. Thank the gods we aren't down there." He kept catching his scope drifting to the center of town, a blueish grey apartment building. He remembered it to be a vibrant blue, practically cyan. The bright white exterior shutters, the lively bushes out front. But everything was grey now. The war, the depression. There was no escaping the lifelessness of age. He forced himself to look away. Not again. He couldn't let himself keep thinking like this. It made him weak, which was not what he needed. Not now. Not in the midst of a war that he couldn't win. He continued scanning what he could of the buildings below, until his eye drifted back to city-center. And, before his eyes. A fireball erupted from the front of the building. The smoke billowed from the sudden flame a high-explosive tank shell brought, even in the downpour.

Quote :

for which he had traded away his brand new MP-44 for

I had to knock it down to 'milk truck off a cliff' just for the unnecessary number of fours in there, but otherwise, I like it.