437 Year 1949

In 1949, in the town of Darmstadt, 12-year-old Jürgen had gotten up for school, and walked downstairs, where he'd found his mother buttering some toast for him.

"Nein Mutti, ich habe kein Hunger! (No mum, I'm not hungry!)" he protested.

"Ohne zu frühstücken hat man keine Stärke für den Tag, (Without breakfast you won't have enough strength for the day,)" she replied, forcing the plate into his hand. Jürgen's father had been killed 9 years prior in the war, and his mother had struggled to cope without him. She was pretty protective of him, even more so than she would naturally be.

Jürgen reluctantly ate the toast, and even more reluctantly accepted a goodbye kiss on the cheek from his mother, before he took his bag, and left for school. He went next door, to knock on his friend Lars' front door.

"Oh, Jürgen," said Lars' mother as she opened the door.

"Guten Morgen, Frau Schneider, (Good morning, Mrs Schneider,)" Jürgen said. "Ist der Lars bereit für die Schule? (Is Lars ready for school?)"

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"Ich komme jetzt! (I'm coming now!)" Lars shouted as he ran down the stairs. "Komm, wir gehen. (Come on, let's go.)"

The two boys walked to school, discussing the sorts of things young boys do.

"Hast du die Hausaufgaben gemacht? (Have you done the homework?)" Lars asked his friend.

"Ja natürlich, Dummkopf, (Of course I have, you moron)," Jürgen replied. "Meine Mutter würde nichts Anderes erlauben. (My mother wouldn't allow me not to.)"

"Darf ich-(Can I-)"

"Ja. Aber nach der Schule kaufst du mir etwas Süßes. (Yes. But after school you're buying me something sweet.)"

The boys' school day went as normal, and they walked back home together, Lars buying Jürgen a little bit of chocolate on the way home. They didn't even take notice of the fire engine that sped by as they walked through the town. They didn't take any notice until they got to their street, and saw that both of their houses, as well as several of the others around them, had been burned to the ground. Jürgen looked around, and he saw no trace of his mother.

"Mutti...Mutti!? (Mum...Mum!?)" he shouted. No response. "Mutti!?" He ran towards the rubble of his house, desperate to find his mother.

"Jung, warte! (Kid, wait!)" Someone shouted. "Ist da noch zu heiß! (It's still too hot over there!)"

Jürgen didn't care. He ran onto the rubble, which felt warm, but not unbearably so. He started looking around for any trace of his mother.

"Mutti! Mutti! Ich bin's! (Mum! Mum! It's me!)" He moved things around as best he could, desperate to find some sign that his mother was alive. He didn't like what he found. Moving one piece of rubble, he found, sticking out from under something else, an arm and a hand, both badly singed.

"Mutti...nein..." Jürgen started crying.

Through his tears, he saw something glistening under another piece of rubble, like metal. It was then that memories came flooding back to him. He'd lived this before. Last time this had happened, he'd found, under the rubble, a magic lamp, with a genie called Marcio inside it. Jürgen reached to the piece of rubble that was covering the metal object. He pulled it off, and found...a cooking pot.