WARNINGS for this chapter: Slightly graphic depictions of the Holocaust and torture of children. I felt kind of evil writing it...

Erik missed his home when the cruel and menacing Nazis ushered him outside of the cramped and overcrowded cart that he had been traveling in for what seemed like days and that stenched of dead bodies. As the rusty doors slid open, several bodies dropped to the ground about a foot below the wheels. The sudden shift of weight caused him and the others to stumble forward, which made his legs ache because he had been standing still for all that time and his muscles weren't used to doing much else other than that anymore. He missed his home as they dragged him unwillingly towards one gate, and his mother was yanked towards another. He screamed as bodies piled between them, and soldiers grabbed him and pulled him farther and farther away from her. The gate between him and her screeched shut, and he screamed louder, and suddenly remembered the time he celebrated Chanukah with her-the only time he could remember being truly happy since he was about five years younger.

It was so hard to be happy when he spent his days hiding in the cellar of a book store for almost two years. He and his mother had been hiding in a book store that doubled as the home of a nice blue-eyed, blonde-haired family ever since his father, a good business man from Dusseldorf, had been arrested by the Nazis on his way home from work. He had done nothing wrong.

He and his mother were forced to flee their own home after that, and nowhere had ever been quite the same. As hard as his mother tried to make him feel at home in the small, one-room cellar that had a single, weak light dangling from the ceiling that would constantly sway and create ominous shadows on the walls and in the corners whenever there was movement in the slightest upstairs, he just could not being himself to feel comfortable. Home was waiting for him back in Dusseldorf, everything exactly the way they had left it before they fled. That one Chanukah he spent in the old cellar underneath the book store was the only time he truly thought everything was going to be alright. "Alles ist gut," his mother said to him. That was just a month before they were caught.

He remembered the day they burst into the attic; his mother was reading a book in the rocking chair in the corner. She loved to read. He was lying on the ground not too far away, drawing a picture. He was endlessly bored, and that was about the only thing he could do in that place. All of a sudden the door burst open and shouting voices rushed down the stairs. He jumped up and backed into the corner. His mother jumped in front of him. The voices shouted at them but Erik couldn't hear what they were saying over his loud thoughts of, Oh god oh god those are Nazis aren't they I haven't seen other people besides my mother and the nice family upstairs for years I forgot they existed what is going to happen to me?

His mother screamed at them as they grabbed him and dragged them both upstairs-his mother was kicking and screaming and he was too shocked to struggle as he stared at the dead bodies of a blonde-haired woman and blonde-haired man staring sightlessly at the ceiling of the bookstore, blood smeared all over the floor, and their children were nowhere in sight.

He never even figured out how they found them.

Now, as he screamed for his mother at the concentration camp that they took them to (he vaguely remembered it being called Auschwitz), rage burned within him, and he felt that familiar tingle in his fingers that he always felt when something bad was about to happen. Sometimes, when he got really sad or scared, it would happen, and he wouldn't even be able to control it. It scared his mother sometimes, when the pipes would burst when he didn't get his way, or the silverware would rattle in the cabinet, but he was even more frightened of it than she was, and she would hold him and tell him to hush and that it was okay.

This time, there was no pipes or silverware. There was a high-pitched screeching noise that would hurt his ears if he wasn't already screaming too loud to hear it and the top of the gate started curling into itself and being pulled towards him. The gate groaned against the chains that were holding it shut but as Erik clenched his fingers slightly, they snapped open with ease. He heard shouting from the Nazis holding him and he suddenly pulled them all forward. This kept up for a few moments before Erik felt something cold and hard slam against the back of his head and suddenly he was on the ground. He heard his mother screaming his name as he slowly faded away…

Erik still didn't feel at home even as the strange man who called himself Schmidt offered him kindness and chocolate. He had woken up lying on the floor with a sore head. He rubbed it sourly when the man had greeted him and introduced himself. The office was so intimidating and cold, and Erik didn't like it at all. He remembered where he was and he grew even more scared. But Schmidt was very disarming and Erik found himself smiling shyly at him as he approached the desk and Schmidt sat down, saying something about evolution and other things Erik wasn't really interested in. Still, he stood stiffly because he was afraid one wrong move would send him right back outside into the rain and the scary-looking people who stared at him with hollow eyes and reached for him with bony hands.

When he couldn't move the coin Schmidt placed on the desk, he found himself thinking about his home for the millionth time. Maybe if he was good then Schmidt would take him back there. He would tell the Nazis, "This is a good boy. He doesn't belong in a prison. Get his mother and send them both back home. And search high and low until you find his father so they can finally be a family again."

But he couldn't move the coin.

When his mother came in, it felt a little more like home but that notion was torn to shreds as they were ripped from each other, and he turned to face Schmidt. His stomach turned to ice when he saw the gun pointed towards him. He was once again instructed to move the coin, and the gun shifted from him to his mother. Erik turned to look at her desperately; she always had answers. But his mother's face was worn and tired and just as scared as he was-it wasn't right. He was always scared, and she was always brave. It just wasn't right.

"Alles ist gut," she promised him.

He turned around and brought both his hands up to the coin. He never felt so terrified in his life when it just sat there and didn't move at all.

"Eins."

His heart beat rapidly to home, home, home, I want to go home, let's go home, Mater, home.

"Zwei."

His mother's voice was like a mantra behind him and his fingers twisted around the coin in desperation but nothing happened. The adrenaline coursing through his body was too much and he was ready to explode. He wanted to scream, to cry, but he was focusing too hard on the coin to manage it.

"Drei."

He heard the gun shot and he heard the thump. It caused him to stop in his tracks. Slowly, painfully, he turned around to glance at the ground behind him.

What is that?

A crumpled body laid on the ground. It was still, and it was face down, and it almost looked fake.

That is not my mother.

He wanted to laugh at it, ask it to stand up and take his hand and walk home with him. Because this was surely not home and that isn't a funny thing to do, to play dead.

That can't be my mother.

He stared at it in disgust with only a passing glance, not really registering what had happened, before he turned back to Schmidt. He stared at him with confusion and pain, and the man just looked back at him pointedly. He looked amused.

And Erik felt that tingling at his fingertips again.

This time, it was stronger than ever as rage bubble inside of him, from the pit of his stomach and spread through his veins in a white hot liquid. And he continued staring at Schmidt with that look of utter loathing, still trying to process what happened.

Stop looking at me like that, greis.

The bell on his desk, the very bell that had summoned his mother to her death, crushed itself like it was nothing more than a tin can.

"Wunderbar!" Schmidt exclaimed, throwing his arms in the air.

My mother is dead!

Full realization hit Erik and he screamed, and suddenly, for the first time ever, he felt every single piece of metal in the entire room, down to the tiny belt buckles on his suspenders. His eyes redirected themselves from Schmidt to a file cabinet behind him. It creaked, and suddenly the whole thing was collapsing in on itself. Schmidt turned to face it, smiling, and Erik looked back at him in rage. His gaze kept switching back and forth between them. He felt the metal hats behind him, and he crunched those, too. He vaguely heard screaming from behind him, but he couldn't tell if that was other people or himself anymore. Or both.

He turned to the terrifying room that was behind the glass next to him. There was so much metal in there. Almost everything was made out of it. Without making a move, he was tearing the whole room apart. Tables were being tipped over, drawers were flying across the room, sending papers fluttering everywhere, the lights were whipping around on their cords dangerously, desks were being torn apart, everything was being swirled around in a big mess.

"Nein!"

His scream died down at the same moment that the metal in the room fell into a heap on the floor. He felt Schmidt put his arm around him as he opened the door to the room, and he was speaking, but Erik barely understood him. All he could do was cry silently and think about his mother, who was right behind him, and about how much he wanted to go home.

He hardly even registered that a cold, round object had been placed into the palm of his left hand. It wasn't until Schmidt left him to his own sorrows that he turned his wrist around and realized that it was the silver coin…

Erik screamed. He cried, he begged, he pleaded, he sobbed and vomited and lost consciousness and went into shock, but no matter what he did, nothing was as effective as simply following orders and using his powers.

"Now, little Erik Lehnsherr, all you have to do is move this tiny, little piece of metal and I'll stop my procedure right away," Schmidt promised, smiling that disarming smile of his.

Erik watched tentatively as he moved the thin and flat metal rod towards his strapped down hand, which was bonded down to the fingers, so his hand was rendered completely immobile. The rest of his body was strapped down the table as well.

Schmidt gently placed the rod underneath his middle fingernail. He squeezed his eyes shut and squirmed a bit as the man began applying pressure. He tried to focus on moving it away from him, but it became progressively harder to do that when it started to hurt. He gasped and winced at the pain, which was promoted to shouting when he felt it pierce his skin and blood leaked from underneath the nail. Schmidt kept on digging through the nail bed, and Erik screamed. It hurt so badly, he couldn't even focus on the metal anymore.

"Bitte, bitte, bitte aufhoren! Du tust mir weh! Ich kann es nicht!" he screamed desperately, but to no avail.

Tears streamed down his face, and the cramped cellar didn't seem like such a bad place anymore. He would much prefer to be back there than here, where there was nothing but pain and fear. He thought of home, and his mother, and he faded into darkness when both his hands were bleeding pitilessly and Schmidt had called it a day.

German translations:

Alles ist gut - Everything is good
Eins, zwei, drei - One, two, three
Mater - Mother
Greis - Old man
Wunderbar - Wonderful
Nein - no
Bitte, bitte, bitte aufhoren! Du tust mir weh! Ich kann es nicht! - Please, please, please stop! You're hurting me! I can't do it!

I got these translations either from the movie or from Google translate, so if there are any mistakes feel free to correct.