We moved from the destroyed home Sveta had been hiding in to the outskirts where I was given a full view of the destruction again. We were on the opposite side from which I entered the village and I could finally see what was glinting in the sky over it.
“What. Is that?” I asked in bewilderment as I pointed toward an enormous misty bluish-green coloured translucent crystal that climbed into the sky.
Its height was easily as tall or even more so than the university in Moscow and its diameter, I could tell from here, was more than a hundred metres. In the corner of my periphery the small pale girl turned her plum red eyes skyward tilting her head as she answered a moment later.
“Sky Tears.” She said as though it were the most normal thing.
My mind boggled as I turned my attention to the girl using the oversized military jacket as a cloak-
This is some kind of joke?
Sky tears? What did the sky have to cry about?
Mothers had something to cry about, so many had I seen belting hellish agony as they picked through the remains brought back of their sons on Ural trucks. Many times we were forced to listen to the pain of distraught Mothers, of our own men and those of our enemies who hoped to find theirs.
“Sveta. Do you know of any other villages or towns close by?” I asked changing the subject to something I had meant to find out when I first asked her about having other family.
It wasn’t until after I asked it that I realised I’d repeated myself in a way, but I’m doubtful she cared.
The girl shook her head, the rustle of the jacket the only other sound in the air after the crackling of embers and shifting of burning buildings behind us. With the sound of a crash, a collapsing home, we set off along a patchy dirt road that led into the village- opposite the direction of the enormous crystal.
Much like I had seen along the rolling plains where I had arrived, the path we walked was lined with patchy woodlands of wondrous colour, bright greens, reds and such. I could hear the sounds of birds singing and small rodents scuttering about as we passed through, they weren’t disturbed by our presence which meant if anything tried to attack us we’d likely have their silence as warning.
My time in the war was mostly spent in the valleys beneath the mountains, in the stone jungles of cities and along the muddy blown out villages and the plains, but even there, I learned from the older soldiers how to tell if nature had been disturbed by outside hands.
It wasn’t long we spent walking, only an hour or two, before the girl grew tired, swaying, slowing and then finally collapsing.
She’s just a child Illya, we should take a break, find a safe place to rest- she isn’t a soldier.
I had to remind myself, I had spent far too long in Hell marching when there was nothing left to march on, feet blistered and raw. I could remember Sergey and his ruined feet, he like many others whose feet had bone bare to the world- I did not want for Sveta to suffer as we did.
No child deserved to see or feel such things, no man either, but we do not all understand the implications of our choices.
“Sveta, I am feeling tired, we should rest.” I suggest to the girl, placing Ivanovich’s pack down I offer her a hand- she takes it and I pull her to her feet.
Her head bobs in agreement a moment later, her red eyes look up at me for a moment before her small delicate hands, covered in grime with dirt under her nails, grab ahold of the thin fabric of my pants.
She needs food
It was only now I realised how gaunt she was, sunken cheeks hidden under the hood of the jacket telling the story of a child starved long before what happened to her home.
Ducking into the side of the road some few metres I set my things down and began making a fire, pulling aside my pack and Ivanovichs so my travel companion could use them to rest on. She happily settled in the shadows of the tree we were under tucking into the jacket on my pack while I put my gun aside.
My shoulders loosened no longer hung by the weight of the weapon, it was going to be too unwieldy to use going forward should I need to. So a thought came to mind-
His gun was fine when I strapped it to the pack, and he had enough magazines and ammunition for it to be useful. Ivanovich- you may just have been useful for once in your death.
After preparing a fire with twigs, sticks and leaves surrounded by stones I could find to confine the fire to a small hole I dug to light it in. I unloaded the PKM and removed my comrades rifle from his pack affixing mine to the top as I spent several minutes loading magazines before putting them into the pouches over my body armour- as well I switched the ammo boxes in his pack for those in mine.
Checking the safety on the side of the wood furnished AKM I set it to my right before using the small fire to light a cigarette as I looked to my companion.
Her red eyes glimmered as she watched me with interest, the fire reflected in her eyes.
She really did appear a ghost, like a wistful spirit I had happened upon amongst tragedy almost as though she was born from the ashes of destruction.
I satiated her interest with food, retrieving more of that which I stole from my friend before deployment. This time they were stuffed cabbage rolls, with a fire this time at least I could reheat them and so I did before offering them to the girl who by that point was drooling over the jacket nearly launching herself at me to get ahold of the food.
I felt my own stomach grumble as I bit into mine and smiled, the taste was wonderful.
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Listening quietly to the soft sound of rhythmic breathing, a gentle breeze rustling the forest and crackle of the fire, I watched the world around as Sveta slept easily with her body bound up in the jacket and some of my clothes.
Feeling a yawn come on I removed the cigarette from my mouth as I watched the path nearby with a lidded expression, the skies were darkening as the sun began to set and I started to feel weary and want for sleep.
I barely suppressed a chorus of yawns trying to take me to the land of rest.
Upholding my vigilance despite this, my attention was brought back to the towering crystal, with the sky darkening it was revealed to have a soft ambient glow to it like a large dulling oil lantern in the night sky.
Sky Tears?
Repeating the name Sveta had called them in my mind I wondered what caused them to form? Were there mountains for such things or was it something unnatural?
My mind failed to draw any true conclusions that I felt safe in holding onto over the course of the next two hours as the world finally became enveloped in darkness, when the moon rose I was once again given a mind boggling sight completely transfixing my gaze.
A large dull reddish-purple moon, twice the size of the normal moon hung with a more familiar sized bluish-grey moon some distance from it. Both were in a full state, covering the starry sky making for a painting like view.
Unable to take my eyes off the celestials I found myself finally succumbing to the weight of my fatigue and for what felt like only a moment my eyes lay closed before-
“Illya!” A chipper young voice belted out excitedly.
“What is it!?!” I responded, bolting upright and to my feet before I knew it, my right hand raised in salute to an officer who wasn’t there.
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Instead there was a young snow white skinned and haired girl with red eyes staring at me, she’d removed Maksym’s jacket and was still wearing that grime and blood covered white dress. She didn’t look as gaunt and out right seemed to have an explosive amount of energy bulbing from her like an active volcano ready to erupt or some other analogy that would be more appropriate.
Her wide cheerful eyes bore into mine before I finally asked what she needed.
“Why did you wake me? Is something wrong?” My question received a shake of her head.
“I want to play! The suns gone! My body doesn’t hurt!” Her eyes were no longer dull, but almost glowing bright like a reflection of the larger moon.
Just about bouncing in her spot the girl was wildly different to the small husk I had found hiding under a ruin with a corpse, if I’d not seen it so many times at war already I might have thought it unnatural. But children were always of the purest nature, their souls, minds and bodies could easily forget the grisly disgust of only hours ago so long as their new accommodation was only a fraction better- it was more than enough to make them return to who they were.
Breathing a sigh, the sluggish pangs of an exhausted mind told me sleeping was all that I was good for right now, but my instincts told me I should stay up and keep the girl entertained lest she wander off.
So I asked what she wished to play-
“Guardians’ plate!” She called happily, her features spread into a bright smile that warmed my heart for a moment.
When I asked how to play it she explained something very similar to hopscotch, I wasn’t one to care what we were doing and I used my survival knife to mark out the grid for the game, as I did she found a suitable stone for it.
We managed to play for nearly an hour before the girl grew tired of it and wished to play something else, something more active and fun. This was how she convinced me to play Hide and Seek with her, something I wasn’t thrilled about but didn’t mind once I was reminded of a flashlight in my pack- it wasn’t an item I ever got the chance to use because we would normally rather walk in the pitch black than give the Chechens a lighthouse signal as to where we were and get shot because of it.
Flashlight in her hand I took to hiding poorly nearby, having set the rule that we could not go further than we could see the fire which was roughly fifty metres with the foliage around. She didn’t actually know what a flashlight was though so I had to teach her to use it before she began counting, it felt a sight silly and laughably dissonant with who I was and what I’d been doing for the past years of my life when I hid behind a tree a ten metres from the fire with half my body sticking out so she could catch me easily.
Perhaps in that moment it was what made it so much fun?
Barely two minutes passed before the ghostly girl found my position with a cheer into the night happily announcing her skill in such things.
When it was my turn I aimlessly took my time despite seeing signs of where she had headed the moment I started. My wandering ended after nearly ten minutes of searching when a yell to my right made me jump and was followed by a cackle of laughter as a white ball tackled me. I let the force of the girl take me to the ground, she was far too small and weak to take me down as I was.
My back bounced on the ground an ‘Oomph!’ blowing out of my mouth as Sveta sat on my stomach, eyes far brighter than before, the flashlight was by my side pointed out into the dark of the woods making the brightness of her eyes more concerning. For a moment as I retrieved the light and accidentally flashed her face with it I thought I saw large fangs in her mouth as I rolled forcing her off me so I could stand.
“You found me instead.” I said and the girl bubbled a response with that same large smile on her face again.
“I’m a great Hunter! Stalking my prey and my predator!” Shaking my head a dry laugh left me.
Without thinking my hand landed on her head and ruffled her hair for a moment before stopping suddenly when I realised what I’d done, though the girl seemed to be enjoying it- her bright red glowing eyes pierced me as she waited for my hand to continue.
So I did.
She let out giggles that made a smile rise on my own face as I was reminded of how my sister and brother enjoyed such things as well.
Lifting my hand again, done with patting her head, I felt a wave of tired attempt to pull my eyelids closed.
“Sveta, it's time to sleep. I will need rest if we are to continue travelling tomorrow.” My words caused the girl to deflate.
Wordlessly I motioned for us to continue back to the fire where we quickly fell to the land of slumber.
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My second day in this new land started early, far earlier than I would have liked.
It was barely dawn, half an hour before, the ghostly girl I was with decided she had had enough time waiting and had decided to wake me by shaking my shoulders. Her red eyes returned to being dull and her face was becoming sunken again. I wasn’t sure of the cause- it was as though she grew stronger at night and weakened during the day.
Wearily rising to the mostly dark morning I wasted little time pulling food from my pack and I fed us the dwindling supplies I held wondering when I’d have the opportunity to resupply. As we filled our bellies the sun rose properly and Sveta returned to wearing my friend's jacket pulling the hood over her head, keeping her face and body free from the touch of sunlight.
By the time I finished clearing out campsite it was somewhere near six in the morning, holding Ivanovich’s pack in my left hand with my own on my back, the AKM slung over my front with a hand on the pistol grip and the safety already free and the gun primed for firing should the moment arise.
Setting off along the road we walked for nearly two hours before the girl needed to stop and break, we would travel for almost an hour, take a break and then continue again.
This went on for some time until the afternoon sun settled.
By this time Sveta couldn’t walk on her own and I offered to piggyback her- to which she happily climbed my back and clung to the straps of my armour and rigging.
We talked shortly as we walked, her voice was hoarse and crude the same as it was when we met.
“Are you a soldier?” She asked as a line of pestering questions started.
“I am”
“Who do you fight?”
“Who I am told to”
“Why?”
“Because the state ordered me.”
“What are you carrying all this stuff for?”
“It is useful and will help our journey.”
“What kind of weapon is that?”
“A service rifle.”
This went on for another half hour before I noticed the path opening and the forest widened and finally breaking out into a wide plain of rolling hills and a large river running by a village of wood, thatch and farmland being tilled with cows dragging ploughs through the earth in the marked paddocks.
Many people moved about happily performing their duties and was in complete contrast to my past few days, I pulled free a Prima and began smoking as we approached the village.