The teenage girl walked through the empty streets, past the shattered windows, her long coat fluttering around her bare legs. Much of the glass was still lying on the pavement. Expensive, shop window glass. She looked at the signs above the hollow gaps, searching for that one...
As she approached the shop, she saw it lying on the ground, in front of the smashed door, dirty with footprints and broken, but as she looked at it, she saw it was his.
Once the old man had repaired her doll. He had restored her broken face and apart from a thin line, no scars remained from that operation. Now little Heidi had her home at the neighbour's daughter's, who cared for her like a real mother. The teenage girl had visited her often and made clothes for the toy, but the face always reminded her of the skillful toymaker. He had inspired her, with his skill, but more so with his stories, for he seemed to know every fairy tale by heart and the children loved to come to his shop, just to listen to what he had to tell.

She pushed against the remains of the door and looked inside. Dolls were scattered over the floor. Wooden arms, legs and heads, splinters of porcelain, torn tiny clothes.
Carefully she stept inside, afraid to step on one of the liveless limbs. She walked towards the counter and looked to the place were he had lain. Brown smears marked the place where his head had hit the furniture.
She felt how her throat was grabbed by an invisible hand, how her heart turned into ice and saw how her fingers trembled as she touched the bloody marks. Tears reached the corners of her mouth and she wept them away with her sleeve.
Here he had always been, standing behind this counter, when he told them about Snow White and the dwarfs, the little mermaid, the sleeping beauty...

She opened the drawer where she knew he kept his secret, but it was empty. It couldn't be. Even if they would commit such blasphemy, surely she would find some pieces, some torn pages or crumbled paper. She looked around, but where could he have hidden it inside this mess? Where was his book, his manuscript? Or would they have stolen it? To read it to their own children? How wicked would that be after all they had done? Would such people even have children? She shivered at the idea that one of those people could be someone's father.

She heard the footsteps in the street. The glass crackled under them, and they seemed to approach fastly and with force.
Then they halted, and as she looked at the pale light in the opening, she could see the silhouette of a young man.
" Raus!", he yelled, and he pointed to the street.
She bit her lip. Perhaps he had done it. Perhaps this very same stormtrooper had been here tonight and... She hardly dared to think about it... And killed him...
He stept inside and his blue gaze was fixed on her, his cruel lips but a thin line. He rose his arm again, slowly, his index-finger stretched. Then he pointed at the door. His voice was soft, but clear, and just the quietness with which he repeated the order scared her.
" Raus, maedchen..."

She felt as if he sucked her soul out, right through her eyes and stumbling over the broken dolls she reached for the exit. She gasped for breath, but gathered the courage to look back. Then she saw it through the gap, lying in the fireplace was the scorched cover of the notebook she knew so well...