We ran, just as we ran from a cruel fate. I wanted to live, to live a normal life without war, without the smell of gunpowder. But it seemed I wasn't the only one; everyone shared that dream. War is truly terrifying. It changes people so much you can't even recognize them. Killing has never been this easy. You don't have to worry about being brought to trial or facing the death penalty.
The sound of jet engines came like a thunderstorm from the void, piercing through the heart of the earth. Flashes of light burst, blinding like the arrows of the gods of light. And they tossed the mindless bodies into the sky. Tens of thousands of shining bullets zipped through the pale blue air.
The Kuznetskozhyan soldiers were truly zombies.
They were far more terrifying than in the movies. They were different in both appearance and character. They weren't physically transformed, only their minds were. They were still bright, kind, and gentle soldiers. Yet, that beautiful, brilliant nature had to be stained with thick red blood. The enemy soldiers, they were afraid of war, too.
Their pale and sallow faces, their pitifully twisted hands, the pathetic courage of political puppets who were tormented yet still charged forward and attacked regardless of everything. Oh, those poor, brave, transformed puppets, so threatened by gunfire they didn't dare to scream. Even when their limbs had been shot to a foul, mangled mess, they only whimpered pitifully before immediately falling silent and charging blindly forward.
Halfway through, the tunnel suddenly shook violently. An earth-shattering explosion echoed, reverberating through ten layers of earth and knocking us to the ground. The shockwave was so strong that the tunnel couldn't hold and collapsed. Darkness invaded the sky and the ground, swallowing the air and flooding into our very breaths. The path to the exit ahead suddenly became a bottomless abyss, as if the gaping throat of a demon was about to swallow us whole. The air in the tunnel grew suffocating and tense. Everyone was at a loss and in a state of extreme panic. Time seemed to stop, making way for eternal night.
Finally, after much effort, our group escaped. As soon as we got out of the tunnel, a terrifying scene gradually appeared behind the deep green forest.
An Athena bomb was detonating a few hundred kilometers away from our group. The characteristic mushroom cloud appeared. We continued to move in a few abandoned cars by the side of the road. Despite the horrible situation, everyone and I felt like a weight had been lifted from our hearts. Still, everyone who stayed behind had to share the same fate of being brutally murdered and dismembered. I was so lucky I made the right choice.
"Everyone, put on your masks and let's get out of here."
On the way, we came across a few Kuznetskozhyan transport convoys racing to retreat from Altirustzkan. However, before they could start their engines, they were wiped out by Warthog attack planes. All day, the sky was full of Raptor aircraft dropping bombs on the occupied territory.
When we got back to the nearest outpost, we were met with good news.
The Kuznetskozhyan army had begun to withdraw from the occupied plains due to a manpower shortage. The advanced T-72-90SA tanks, Sukhoi Flanker aircraft, and documents on biological weapons all fell into our hands. Too much secret intelligence was also leaked. Thanks to that, we were able to easily send planes to bomb their retreat routes. The chaotic situation had caused not a few Kuznetskozhyan soldiers to lose hope and commit mass suicide or desert.
Everything was like a joke. The Altirustzkan army directly liberated a large area more easily than imagined. Everyone was confused, not understanding what the enemy was planning.
But only we knew what they were planning.
It was nothing less than turning Kritchenburg into a place of complete ruin.
The silence and tranquility were what caused the images of the past to stir more sadness in us than longing... an immense, stunning sorrow. The images in our memories had once been real... but they would never return. They were gone; they were another world, a world that, for us, belonged to the past. The memories had once created a fierce and rebellious longing in the military camps. Back then, they were still tied to us; we still belonged to them, and they still belonged to us, even though we had been separated.
Back then, the memories still surfaced in the soldiers' songs we sang in the dawn and twilight in the forest on the way to the practice grounds. They were a powerful memory that was hidden within us and burst out of us through our songs. But here, in these trenches, the memories have left us.
They no longer rise within us... We are dead, and they stand far away on the horizon. They are a phenomenon, a mysterious reflection that haunts us. We both fear and love them in desperation. Our memories are strong, and our longing is strong... but memories are unattainable, and we know that. It is as illusory as a lowly soldier's dream of becoming a general.
And suppose someone were to give us back that childhood scene. In that case, we would hardly know where to begin with it. The gentle and secret powers it had imparted to us can no longer be revived. We will live in memory; we will wander in it. We will recall it at will, cherish it, and be moved by the image of the memory.
But that feeling would be identical to when we become pensive before a picture of a dead comrade. These are his lines, this is his face, and the days we were with him will come alive artificially in our memories; but he himself will not come alive. We will no longer be attached to that place as we once were.
It is not that we have lost our perception of the beauty and atmosphere of that scene that once captivated us, but rather the shared ground, the empathy, the camaraderie, and the events and circumstances of life that have separated our generation and made the world of our parents always a little difficult to understand... Because somehow, we were always lost in that world of childhood, devoted to it, and every single thing, no matter how small, was always a step that led us on an endless path.
Perhaps that was just the privilege of our youth... we had not yet seen the ends of the earth, and we did not admit an end anywhere; we had the anticipation of our blood, the anticipation that united us in the flow of life. Today, we would probably wander in our childhood countryside like tourists. We have been burned by brutal truths; we distinguish everything like merchants and understand the essential needs.
We are no longer innocent and carefree... we are terribly indifferent. We will exist, but will we truly live? We are abandoned like orphaned children, bewildered, melancholic, and superficial, looking at life with half an eye... I think we're broken.
After resting from many days of torment in that godforsaken place, we were assigned a new mission by our superiors while the fighting was subsiding. It was nothing less than recording the identities of our fallen comrades on the battlefield. Walking into the morgue, we quickly turned to look at the bloody dog tags piled neatly on a workbench, and we were shocked. Mikhail could only grit his teeth, muttering something.
"What the f-ck is this... Are you kidding me? Why are there so many...?"
Petrov just laughed coldly.
"It turns out it's pretty relaxing here. This place is probably nothing compared to a day on the Kuznetskozhyan side. Well, let's get to work."
I stepped forward, picked up a dog tag, and read his name aloud for Ilaina to write down the information on a death report form.
"Park Lewisker, born April 11, 2002. Fell in April 2021, on the Rusymark front. That's terrible. It was just when he was old enough for university. Poor guy."
One after another, we listed every son of Altirustzkan who had fallen for their homeland. But who knew? It was all fate. People born and dying in peacetime at least have friends, relatives, wives, and children by their side when they leave this world. But in this place, with just one sound, people die instantly, without even getting to send the letters stained with mud, blood, and sweat back to the rear.
We suddenly felt some kind of emotion welling up. The corners of everyone's eyes were wet with tears, even Petrov, who was tougher than former Captain Kastov and Victor.
Why are there so many young people here...? Both men and women.
Of the 500 casualties, more than half were under twenty or were students.
Why did young people our age have to get involved here instead of in fancy schools, with stacks of new books that smelled of fresh ink? Was it because of the selfishness and cruelty of the Altirustzkan rulers who went too far, causing Kuznetskozhyan to get angry and start this war? Or was it just fate?
When we were done, the group realized we had been here until late at night. We returned to our barracks, exhausted, like soulless bodies. Right next to our barracks was a large Kuznetskozhyan prisoner of war camp. Although a barbed wire fence separated us, the prisoners still found a way to come to us to ask for a little food. They were very timid and shy because most of them were rookies.
They were all quite weak, as they only received just enough food not to starve. Even we hadn't eaten our fill in a long time. I thought they would be fat. They were severely malnourished, with shifty eyes, secretly sticking out the blood-stained hems of their clothes. With their backs and necks bent, their knees bent, their heads crooked to the side, looking up, the Kuznetskozhyan prisoners of war extended their hands and stammered a few words they knew to beg for food... They begged in low, hoarse, soft voices, voices that reminded them of warm stoves and rooms back home.
"Sister, please, can I have some food...? My loved one, she's about to faint..." a young prisoner suddenly reached out and grabbed Ilaina's hand.
Ilaina seemed quite flustered and scared by this situation. I quickly went to the young boy and gave him a little water, bread, and my can of smoked meat, saying kindly.
"Take good care of her."
The young prisoner took the food, thanked me profusely, and ran back to the girl of his life, frantically giving her water and a few pieces of bread to get through the hunger. They looked exactly like Ilaina and I used to, sharing and living with each other even in this place of nothing but pain. So, in a place of only bombs and bullets, there was still some love left in those small people.
Ilaina took my hand and said worriedly:
"Those two kids just now looked a lot like we used to, didn't they, honey?"
"Yeah. I just hope those kids can be discharged soon and go back to school."
My love for Ilaina is a very special love. We were passionately in love with each other since childhood. But back then, we were still so young. We didn't know what love was. Was it terrible or as dreamy as in novels? We still just considered each other friends but were unusually close. When I got older, I understood what that feeling was.
But because of unfortunate circumstances, Ilaina and I were separated, only to be reunited at the darkest moment in human history. The love I have for her, even though it's tragic and painful, is also full of warmth. I want to be by her side more, to have more contact and conversation. The more I matured, the more I realized how important Ilaina was...
The next morning, we continued the same work, still having to sort through and wash the dog tags of the fallen. But there were surprisingly few today. Since we started, we had only sorted 200 people, half the number from yesterday. The death report forms were continuously sent out, almost nonstop. Some went to replace the relatives of the fallen, but not a few of those forms were discarded, simply because no one in the family was alive anymore.
At 11 a.m., we went to the canteen for lunch. Mikhail, Augusta, and Petrov decided to eat outside and would come back in the afternoon, while Ilaina and I remained loyal to the military's canned goods. That was a mistake.
After that, the two of us went out to the grass behind the barracks to have lunch and rest to escape the noisy and crowded atmosphere that was a bit uncomfortable.
"Awesome. It's even saltier than before. Are these government guys trying to kill us with salt?"
"I don't know either. I'd rather starve than eat this."
Ilaina lay stretched out on the ground and said excitedly:
"The fighting has calmed down a lot lately, hasn't it? We don't have to go to the front often anymore. That's great, isn't it?"
I gently lay down next to Ilaina and said:
"Yeah, if only the war ended soon, we wouldn't have to be involved in this anymore. That would be great. Maybe after everything is over, we'll buy a house in the suburbs and live a normal life. That's a luxurious wish, especially right now. But I think the Kuznetskozhyan guys must be planning something. They can't be this peaceful. It's weird."
"What if they're just tired of the war, or ran out of soldiers?"
"No way, you're too naive, Ilaina. Those guys could recruit ten times more child soldiers than we have. I think they're just trying to remobilize their troops. It's not that easy for them to surrender."
The two of us talked for a long time, so much that we almost forgot about our mission. I understood what her love for me was like. From the moment we first met, we didn't recognize each other, so we were still a little hesitant, afraid the other person would find us annoying.
But now it was different. I cherished every moment with that girl. I remembered the days when we used to play together on the green fields, ignoring the melancholy of the real world, not caring about the ethnic conflict between Kuznetskozhyan and Altirustzkan.