Inmate number 55670 #1 (Patreon)

My name is Vera Koeche. I am almost 110 years old. But I look like a woman in her mid-thirties. Yes, you read that right. If you think that’s crazy, what’s coming may even sound crazier. This account is a detailed description of my life and the events that led me to my present condition. You may not believe what I will tell you, but I know my truth. It’s my life, my reality that I have been living for the last 70 years, and I am destined to live it for more years to come, if not forever. It’s been so long, I hardly remember the life I was born with or the regrets I may have had in the beginning. I am writing this because I think my story needs to be heard. I have been living like a ghost for decades. My friends and loved ones are all dead, and even though I am still alive, I am no better. I consider myself lucky to have witnessed an era of interconnectivity that still blows my mind. If I am going to share my story, this is the time.

This may actually sound crazy, but I was an Indian man born in the current state of Maharashtra. I had a family, definitely a wife and two children, but I don’t remember anything in detail. It was 1940, and I was thirty-four years old when I was drafted for the second world war under the British empire. We reached Britain in thousands via ships, and then we were sent to the outskirts of Germany. Our regiment was split into three groups of five hundred soldiers each. The Brits boasted of their allied forces of Gurkhas, being confident about their victory. They didn’t fathom the consequences of internal conflict due to arrogant and racist generals who refused to act according to the Gurkhas. In short, Germany won the battle. Almost eight hundred soldiers were killed, and the rest turned into prisoners of war. I was one of them.

The next five years were the worst part of my life, given my long one. I saw the stuff of nightmares, but I also witnessed humanity’s will to survive. Blood, sweat, shit, death. We were living in hell. I saw the Jews being gassed to death in huge numbers in concentration camps. I somehow persevered. The Nazis were confused about me. Hitler considered Indians an inferior race though he didn’t hate us as he did to the Jews. His perception of my country changed when the legendary Subhas Chandra Bose convinced him to join India in his freedom struggle against the British. They signed a pact, and I was released to join the INA – Indian National Army. Under the leadership of Bose, we merged with the Japanese PoWs and fought against the British Indian Army. We freed many northeastern states of India, but our freedom was short-lived. The harsh monsoon climate, dense swampy jungles, and war injuries reduced our troops by almost half. Many of us succumbed to diseases like malaria and dengue. We never stopped, not until we heard the news of a plane crash in Taihoku, killing Subhash Bose. The news broke the spirit of INA. British troops overpowered us, and we became prisoners in our own country. There was no backup or support from the axis powers as the war soon ended with their defeat. Hitler killed himself, and Japan was nuclear bombed to ashes. This was the end.

The British planned to brutally slaughter every soldier in the Kaalapaani Prisons located over the remote island of Nicobar. About a year later, on the night of a new moon, I managed to escape. I stole the local tribe’s fishing boat near the shore and ventured into the sea. I was doomed on the island, so I never thought about my trip back to India. Without a tool or a sense of direction, I was lost in the vast Indian Ocean! Any human is destined to die in such a predicament, but I had already faced so much worse. I survived on fish and anything else that swam in the ocean. The small space of the boat reminded me of the bunkers of the concentration camps. I remembered my number – 55670, the friends I lost along the way. I couldn’t keep track of the days after about three months. My body was giving up, and it had every right to do so. I had been cruel to myself for my country, and now it was taking its toll. I was convinced that I was about to die, but the Nazis showed up. The next thing I know, I am in a submarine heading towards Antarctica.

I couldn’t believe they had escaped their karma. They may have done a lot of evil things, but nevertheless, they saved me. At least that’s what I thought. I had learned German a bit during my time at the camps. From what I heard, they were headed to an underground base in Antarctica. They said there was a chance to bring the Fuhrer back to life again! Soon, I realized that the rumors were true. That crazy son of a bitch had it all planned out. He had his scientists working for him, hiding in plain sight. They were a team of different fields working together to find the solutions to immortality and genetic enhancement. Of course, his obsession with racial purity translated into their work at the lab. They found a way to segregate and modify strands of DNA that identified as foreign into that of the so-called “superior” race.

When I reached Antarctica, it was a sight to behold. All I saw was endless white snow touching the twilight sky, separated by a fine glowing line. The only reason I didn’t consider it heaven was because of the bone-shattering cold tearing through my face and my woolen coverings. I didn’t particularly enjoy spending thirty-four days with sixteen men in a pressurized vessel, but this was much worse. And there he was, lying in a sealed casket with a gunshot to his head. We had to walk in sub-zero temperature in deep snow for about two miles until we finally reached the base.

As soon as we were inside the base, the Nazis showed their true colors. I was knocked out and imprisoned. Apparently, they needed a test subject, and the person whom they were bringing killed himself. Now, I was the sacrificial lamb before the main event. There was no way out this time. I knew that even if I escaped, I wouldn’t survive out there. While they fixed his head with synthetic tissue, I waited for the inevitable. After three days, I was pulled out of the hole and taken to a big room full of men in white coats and technology beyond my comprehension. They spoke something about making Hitler all-powerful, immortal. They had done enough experiments on rats. It was time to test it on a human. They further added that they could not risk damaging his body, so they needed mine instead. And then a man wrapped plastic over my head and suffocated me to death.