Ultimatum

"Bring her," a rough voice called in the darkness.

Daniela looked around to see who the voice belonged to, but only saw two young SS soldiers flanking the gate of her cell. One of them had the large key ring that contained the keys to every cell; the other one had a pair of irons in his hand and a coil of rope draped around his shoulder.

Daniela was sitting on a wooden bench with her knees brought to her chest, hugging herself for comfort and warmth. Tears were streaking in waves down her reddened cheeks.

Panic spread through her chest as the soldiers entered her cell, she wrapped her arms tightly around her legs and squeezed her eyes shut, hoping to wish herself away from this awful place.

She gasped when the first solider roughly moved her into a standing position.

"Give me your hands," the other demanded.

She didn't have the chance to hold out her hands before the solider ripped them behind her and tightly clasped the irons around both of her wrists.

The soldiers wrapped their cold, calloused hands around her biceps and marched her out of the holding cells to the commons of the German military base, located miles away from the center of Munich.

Through her bleary eyes she saw hundreds of people gathered: office workers, soldiers, elite officers of Hitler's army, and even a group of boys that were part of the Hitler youth.

The procession stopped when they came to the large wooden pole cemented right in the middle of the commons, rightly entitled the whipping post.

Daniela had seen many men fall to the power of Landa's whip, Hugo Stiglitz had been the latest. She would be the first woman.

As she was getting tied to the post, she realized that she was being made an example of; Hans Landa was going to show the German people that even the daughter of his best friend deserved no special treatment.

Daniela felt the cool blade of a knife graze her skin as one of the soldiers cut the shirt off her back, exposing her bare upper body to the crowd. They then wrapped her arms around the post and fastened her wrists together with coarse rope that rubbed and scratched the soft skin.

The loud whispers that had been traveling through the crowd had come to an end when Landa stepped out of the administration building, located in front of the post and directly in Daniela's line of sight.

As soon as she saw him tears began to stream from her burning eyes and her breathing increased as fear spread throughout her entire body.

She noticed that Landa was keeping his expression neutral, it didn't have that pleasant smile that he constantly wore around her father and it didn't hold the twisted smirk that he would wear when he spoke of his latest kill.

Landa took his time in approaching his newest victim, slowly pulling his brown suede gloves onto his hands, fastening them around his wrist delicately.

"Hello, my friends," he greeted the crowd, his audience, when he was only a few meters away from Daniela. He was speaking to them lovingly, as if he was having them over to dinner.

"We are here today to witness the punishment of a traitor," he spoke again, clenching his square jaw tightly when he finished.

"Just kill her like the rest of her lot!" a man yelled harshly from the depths of the crowd; murmurs of agreement followed his outburst.

Landa clicked his tongue. "Now, now, eager beavers. I will let you all know that this is only her preliminary punishment; there will be others to follow."

Cheers followed this announcement while Daniela decided she couldn't tell if Landa was bluffing just to appease his fellow Nazis.

Daniela's eyes widened, fear tightening in her chest as Landa unraveled his whip. The same whip that tore at Stiglitz's back and dozens of others; the same whip that was stained with their blood and soon...hers.

She watched as Landa moved to her side, the whip slithering behind him like a snake.

There was no sound from the crowd as they waited in intense anticipation for the first blow. Daniela held her breath and tensed every muscle in her body, waiting too.

She heard Landa's boots scrap against the gravel as he tossed the whip behind him and then she heard his loud grunt as he thrust his entire body into the blow.

A disturbing sound came as the braided leather crashed against her back. Another sound, equally horrible, came from the depths of her throat.

She gritted her teeth and buried her head into the rough, cool wood of the post as the lashes came in rapid succession. She could feel exactly where the whip was cutting into her back.

Daniela hadn't been counting the number of lashes but soon she felt her skin soften and it began to feel as if her entire back was on fire.

And when she thought she couldn't take another blow, it ended.

She hunched over, panting heavily. Her back throbbed and she could feel the blood seeping into the material of her thin cotton pants. She closed her eyes, erratic breaths rattled out of her mouth as if she had just ran a marathon.

Daniela's hearing tuned in on the soft cries of women and she looked into the crowd to see three women huddled together with their hankerchiefs dabbing their eyes; she recognized two of the women from the office she worked at on the base and the other was a friend of her mother's.

She aloud herself to scan the peoples' faces: much of the audience had dispersed while others stayed rooted to the ground mesmerized by her mangled body. Many faces were just faces with darkened areas in place of their eyes--their features blurred by her tears.

However, she was able to hone in on one face in particular. It was a face that almost matched hers identically. Her brother, Derrick, took one fleeting look at Daniela's back and turned to find his way through the remaining onlookers.

Defeated, Daniela rested her head against the weathered post and pleaded for death to take her.