Karshkovia
01-02-2008, 08:21
((ooc: It's long, and not very good but I had an idea for a story after watching the movie 'One flew over the cuckoo's nest" and just wanted to get it down. It's not very good and needs a lot of polish but I had a general idea to run with. PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS))
This is an open letter from a young staff member of a Karshkovian mental health care facility to the international community about one of the patients he cares for. He has dug up diaries and information about this soldier and pieced together his story which he wanted to tell to the world, if only so a few people remember this man and to cause awareness to the countless soldiers affected by war and left forgotten by the people they served to protect and the government they worked for.
His name was Mikhail Grigorovich though his friends called him Misha. They told him everything in training, or so they said.
What he knew at first was that Mikhail Gorbachev was the first Russian president and he got a letter, like most Karshkovian men, telling him to report for induction into the Soviet Army. He knew from the news that Charka was not a war but a conflict, and some Karshkovian men were being 'selected' to serve in the military.
Mikhail was 25 when he was 'selected' and sent to "102-я Российская военная база" or Russian 102nd Military Base, the main training base for the Soviet Red Army. It was there that he was told he was being given a great honor to serve "Mother Russia", that his training would be the best a soldier could receive, and that the AK-47 was the finest rifle ever made. He learned not only was it more reliable and accurate than anything the Charka's were using, but it was also going to become his best friend as it would save his life. Being a fisherman's son and never handling any other firearm, Misha could not disagree or question their judgment nor did he. He also didn't have friends as he and his father were the only crew aboard their fishing trawler.
Misha had always been very calm and 'easy-going' as a child though reserved. Because he was this was this way, and he was born into a fisherman family he was teased by the other children relentlessly. Because of this berating all his young life and then into his young adulthood, Misha never was able to make friends or attract a wife. His dog, Sasha, had been his only playmate and friend as he grew up. On his fifth birthday, his father had give him Sasha when she was just a puppy. A husky/wolf halfbreed, she had a beautiful silver and white coat with sharp blue eyes and a big heart for Misha. On the morning of his 17th birthday he rose early in the morning before the sun rose and started his daily chores. Sasha didn't wake with him as she usually had done, though for months she had often just raised her head in the morning to watch him walk out of the room. She tired easily and preferred to lay at his feet or whined to be petted quite often. The day before she had laid on his lap for hours after he returned from schooling and chuffed as he petted her.
On that birthday morning when he returned from the shower, Sasha had not moved, which was odd. When he tried to wake her by petting her, he found her body was cold and she was not breathing. It was the only time he could ever remember crying through his life. She had been the only friend that he ever had in his life and she was gone, leaving a large hole. That being the case he took them at their word when he was told the rifle was his new best friend.
Misha was quite a large man for his age, not only in height as he was just over 2.5 meters tall but also in his build as he was very muscular from his years of hard work as a fisherman. Some young men from his village also were 'selected' for service with him and led the group in teasing him while he was in training, however after one had ripped one of the only photos that Misha had of Sasha, he did something he had never done before. He lashed out and hit the man. Hard. Hard enough that the man's feet left the ground and he landed over a meter an a half away with a shattered jaw.
No one teased him after that, but they also did not befriend him, which was ok in his book as he didn't feel like befriending anyone. There was training and much learning to do. The training wasn't hard for him as he was used to harder work than they expected out of him. Running 10 kilometers a day with calisthenics thrown in to build muscle in the other men. For him, he drew the envy of not just the other soldiers, but some of the instructors. He usually was the only one not breathing heavily after a run and he could perform most of the tasks assigned to him quickly and efficiently. The sea was unforgiving and he had learned at a young age to do things right, the first time.
When they started training with their rifles, Misha showed a natural talent that impressed his instructors. Targets were easy for him to hit whether it be 90 meters or 900 meters away and the instructors said where Misha looked, the rounds landed. In other aspects of training, Misha was average or below average, however this was overlooked due to his talent.
They told him that they were giving him extra pay for his talent and wanted to train him with other weapons as well. Misha agreed but mainly because the extra pay would greatly help his father, the person that Misha was sending all his paychecks to.
While the rest of his training class was transfered to their units and sent to Charka, Misha was sent to his special training. There he learned how to use his new weapon of choice, the Ручной пулемёт Калашникова or "Kalashnikov hand-held machine gun". RPK for short. He became so perficient with it that he could control the recoil well enough to turn it from a suppression to an offensive weapon, grouping shots as if he were using a regular rifle.
When he finished training, they assigned him as a replacement to a forward combat unit and flew him to Charka. When he arrived it was just turning to winter and none of the winter clothes they gave him fit. He had to sew extensions on his issued jacket just for it to it him and trade three packs of cigarettes for winter boots that fit. It wasn't long after that he was put onto a truck with other men in his unit. They were somber and did not talk with him. When he had tried to start conversation they cursed or ignored him. They ate cold food from small tins and luke warm coffee that had mainly been heated by placing water and instant coffee mix into their canteens, then placing the canteens inside their coats and under their shirts. Their body heat warmed the coffee until it was drinkable.
Finally their truck stopped on a road in the middle of open country and they were told to get out. They were separated into smaller groups and told to help each other dig foxholes and fill sandbags as quickly as they could, one foxhole for every two men. From what he was told, they were to stop an advancing enemy unit traveling along the road which should arrive in just under fifteen hours. Misha and a man called Ivan finished their foxhole before any of the other soldiers had, so they helped where it was needed. Soon everyone had a deep foxhole covered with plywood, sandbags and dirt. The work kept them warm, though the biting cold made digging very hard. The commander handed out extra ammunition for each man and extra rations, though no fires were allowed.
The day wore on into night and Ivan rested while Misha watched the road for signs of the advancing enemy. Misha didn't really believe in training that he was going to kill anyone. It seemed so strange of an idea, he couldn't truly comprehend the act of killing anyone else.
Near midnight, he was snapped out of his introspective thought when flares were fired into the air by the commander in his foxhole. Small dark figures in gray uniforms were walking along side of a truck filled with men headed towards Misha's unit. When they spotted the flare, the truck stopped and soldiers lept out of the back and started running towards the foxholes, firing assault rifles towards them in cracking bursts.
Ivan was single-firing his AK-47, taking time to aim and fire at the approaching soldiers, yelling at Misha to open up with is RPK, however Misha could not pull the trigger to shoot the oncoming men. Somehow he just froze. It wasn't moral to kill another human, his father had taught him. They were someone's brother, father, uncle, boyfriend, grandchild or cousin. His stomach turned and he was very afraid what killing another man would mean.
Ivan was screaming at him while he fired more quickly now at the approaching figures and Misha still could not fire until a soldier knelt down and sprayed many rounds at their foxhole. Misha finally brought up his RPK and shot the man with a small burst. The man went down silently, legs splayed out. It was that instant that Misha understood that even if he didn't harm the enemy soldiers, they were going to harm him.
With that in mind, Misha brought his training back to his mind and he let the RPK do his talking. Small bursts or single round shots were dropping the approaching men like flies, and cheering went up from some of the closer foxholes. Some of the enemy soldiers went down noisily, while others were quiet. Some kicked their feet while others lay still.
The battle was over quickly yet a few of the enemy were not dead and lay screaming in pain, the cold earth sucking the warmth and life out of them. When Misha realized what he had done and heard the screaming men, he tried to go help them but Ivan held him back forcefully, reminding him he couldn't go out there. Misha could not sleep that night as he kept hearing the screams of the men he hurt or killed earlier.
The next morning, Misha told his superior officer that he couldn't kill these men anymore and he wished to go home. They had laughed at first, thinking he was joking but then became very serious, but then the realized he wasn't and their personality changed. He could be arrested and sent to Siberia for refusing to fight or shot immediately for insubordination . His father would lose the family business and be exiled as well.
When he returned to the foxhole the following night, Misha did his duty again by warding off the attacking enemy. This went on for weeks, each night becoming a little easier for him to shoot at the men in gray uniforms. He started to be accepted by the men of his unit, who would now talk with him and even joke with him. Ivan became his first human friend and they talked about what they were going to do when they returned to Karshkovia after this fighting was over. Ivan had a beautiful wife at home waiting for him, which he often said had a single sister that was equally as beautiful that Misha should meet. This friendly teasing often had Misha red-faced with shyness though he didn't mind as he did look forward to meeting this woman.
One night, the enemy sent many more soldiers backed by tanks and a helicopter to break through the defensive line that Misha's unit created. Wave after wave of enemy soldiers ran under the artificial light of the white and red flares, the cracking fire of their assault rifles, the pang of rounds off of the tanks' armor, the dull 'whoop' of the helicopter blades cutting the air, and the dull 'whoomp' of hand grenades. Misha's unit had little defense against the onslaught. The forward most foxholes were overrun by the enemy and Misha watched in horror as the enemy ran up to the foxholes and unloading full clips into them, killing the men that had treated Misha like a friend.
Before they reached Misha's foxhole, Ivan grabbed his collar and yelled for him to run. They jumped out of their foxhole together just as the current flare died and before the new one replaced it. As they ran a dull 'WHOOMP' hit them from behind and nearly tossed Misha from his feet. He didn't need to look back to know a grenade had exploded in his old foxhole.
They ran crouched down along the side of the road as fast as they could, until a round caught Ivan and sent him tumbling to the ground crying out. Misha slung his rifle and picked Ivan up quickly placing him over his shoulder and continued to run. He ran until his lungs burned, his back ached and his legs felt weak, then he paused for a few moments, then he continued his run.
Dawn broke over the eastern skyline and Misha hid himself and Ivan in a culvert under the roadway. He tended to Ivan's wound in his back the best he knew how. His friend was unconscious and sweeting despite the cold. During the day, Misha heard trucks and soldier passing overhead on the roadway, headed in the exact direction Misha wanted to go.
That night, Misha slung Ivan over his shoulder again and set out towards a distant line of trees that ran parallel to the road. It took most of the night to reach them but when he did, he found a stream that had clean clear water. He was able to wash Ivan's wound and give them both a drink before moving on following the stream.
Just as dawn broke, Misha ran into a Russian patrol which stopped him. When they understood which unit he was from, they quickly called for a helicopter extraction. While they waited, a medic tended to Ivan and the soldiers shared their rations with Misha. It had been a few days since he last ate and the food tasted wonderful, even if it was cold. When the helicopter arrived, Misha learned only he and Ivan were left out of their entire unit.. Misha had some minor frostbite and Ivan had to get to the army hospital right away. The helicopter took them into a nearby town where Misha and Ivan were transfered to a train for the final jaunt to the coast. The train was filled with wounded soldiers and some with a vacant look in their eyes. Medics walked in-between the wounded soldiers, applying a new bandage here or a compress there. Misha slept though the trip.
As the train turned a bend in a small group of hills, it came upon burnt out automobiles placed across the tracks as a blockade. The engineer slowed and stopped the train to keep from hitting the cars as he was afraid the enemy may have planted an bomb in the cars that would explode if he were to ram the cars. A train similar to his had met their fate in the same way.
All the able bodied men ran to clear the tracks as the artillery started to fall all around the train. It was indirect and though the explosions were loud, they fell too far out to even spread dirt on the train. Little by little, the artillery started working it's way towards the train while the men frantically tried to clear the tracks. Some men that were conscious but unable to help move the car due to their injuries looked all over for the spotter. They finally found a tiny figure hundreds of meters away raising it's arm high in the air or lowered to its side to direct the artillery. It was a child. Just a child. A child helping to bring steel death on wounded men that no longer posed a thread to the Charka people. The child was an enemy soldier which was working to kill -indirectly- Russian soldiers. It was decided that the child must be stopped from helping the artillery from zeroing in on the train, but no one believed they would be able to kill the child from the train, until someone who had been with Misha's training class mentioned Misha's special skill.
Misha refused at first. He could not kill a child as that was different to him than men shooting their rifles at him. It was not the same but when compared to the hundreds of lives he could save, Misha finally agreed. He lost his RPK during the run from the enemy soldiers but one soldier gave him his SVD, which Misha was familiar with using. He hesitated in working the action, but a very close artillery shell explosion shocked him into action. Crouched down, aimed, calmed his breathing and pulled the trigger.
The young child whirled around, arms spread wide and dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes.. Misha didn't comprehend what he had just done, and was able to realize the child could be no more than five or six years of age which bothered him greatly.
Another child climbed up to the top of the small hill to replace the first. Misha reluctantly killed that child as well . He hated himself for it, but he knew if he didn't kill the children, he and all the other men would die. He knew that there were two things he could not do. One was he could not let the children direct the fire onto the train and he could not shoot children over and over - but if he didn't, everyone would die.
The rifle cracked again and another small body fell. Again. and Again. and Again. and Again. The debate in Misha's head didn't matter anymore though as the man shooting these tainted-innocents was no longer Misha and he would never be Misha ever again. Misha's sanity had broken somewhere between the third and fourth child. It had died along with those children on the hill and when the tracks were cleared and the train pulled away from that area, the threat of artillery attack was over.
Misha's skill had saved nearly one thousand men and women from certain death, yet he didn't register this. A cry went up from the nearby men when he stuck the barrel of his service revolver under his chin and tried to pull the trigger, ending the life of a broken man once named Misha, yet the men nearby that had been congratulating and thanking him earlier wrestled the pistol away from him. His attempt on his life was fold because he had forgotten to slip the safety off.
For the rest of the trip, he sat next to the body of his only human friend Ivan who had died of his wound. Died for nothing, Died alone but not alone because the man who was Misha also died that day. His shell sat next to the body of Ivan and thought and said nothing until the medics moved him from the train. For the next thirty years, he said nothing and stares off into the distance his eyes unfocused.
He now lives in a Karshkovian mental health and care home where he watches TV from time to time but does not seem to care what is on. He often sits by himself, staring out a window or at his hands day after day. The staff feed him as he can not feed himself, and he gives no appearance that he understands what is going on around him. He does not seem to hear, and does not respond to most stimuli. No one visits him anymore though for a while a few soldiers would out of respect, but they have long since forgotten about him, by choice or not. His father past away many years ago, and Ivan's wife never stopped to thank the man that brought her husband's body back home to her.
The only time he gives any indication of his thoughts are when he is eating, he will begin to cry, tears running down his scraggly bearded cheeks into the corners of his mouth where they mix with his food as he chews and swallows automatically, like a machine.
This is an open letter from a young staff member of a Karshkovian mental health care facility to the international community about one of the patients he cares for. He has dug up diaries and information about this soldier and pieced together his story which he wanted to tell to the world, if only so a few people remember this man and to cause awareness to the countless soldiers affected by war and left forgotten by the people they served to protect and the government they worked for.
His name was Mikhail Grigorovich though his friends called him Misha. They told him everything in training, or so they said.
What he knew at first was that Mikhail Gorbachev was the first Russian president and he got a letter, like most Karshkovian men, telling him to report for induction into the Soviet Army. He knew from the news that Charka was not a war but a conflict, and some Karshkovian men were being 'selected' to serve in the military.
Mikhail was 25 when he was 'selected' and sent to "102-я Российская военная база" or Russian 102nd Military Base, the main training base for the Soviet Red Army. It was there that he was told he was being given a great honor to serve "Mother Russia", that his training would be the best a soldier could receive, and that the AK-47 was the finest rifle ever made. He learned not only was it more reliable and accurate than anything the Charka's were using, but it was also going to become his best friend as it would save his life. Being a fisherman's son and never handling any other firearm, Misha could not disagree or question their judgment nor did he. He also didn't have friends as he and his father were the only crew aboard their fishing trawler.
Misha had always been very calm and 'easy-going' as a child though reserved. Because he was this was this way, and he was born into a fisherman family he was teased by the other children relentlessly. Because of this berating all his young life and then into his young adulthood, Misha never was able to make friends or attract a wife. His dog, Sasha, had been his only playmate and friend as he grew up. On his fifth birthday, his father had give him Sasha when she was just a puppy. A husky/wolf halfbreed, she had a beautiful silver and white coat with sharp blue eyes and a big heart for Misha. On the morning of his 17th birthday he rose early in the morning before the sun rose and started his daily chores. Sasha didn't wake with him as she usually had done, though for months she had often just raised her head in the morning to watch him walk out of the room. She tired easily and preferred to lay at his feet or whined to be petted quite often. The day before she had laid on his lap for hours after he returned from schooling and chuffed as he petted her.
On that birthday morning when he returned from the shower, Sasha had not moved, which was odd. When he tried to wake her by petting her, he found her body was cold and she was not breathing. It was the only time he could ever remember crying through his life. She had been the only friend that he ever had in his life and she was gone, leaving a large hole. That being the case he took them at their word when he was told the rifle was his new best friend.
Misha was quite a large man for his age, not only in height as he was just over 2.5 meters tall but also in his build as he was very muscular from his years of hard work as a fisherman. Some young men from his village also were 'selected' for service with him and led the group in teasing him while he was in training, however after one had ripped one of the only photos that Misha had of Sasha, he did something he had never done before. He lashed out and hit the man. Hard. Hard enough that the man's feet left the ground and he landed over a meter an a half away with a shattered jaw.
No one teased him after that, but they also did not befriend him, which was ok in his book as he didn't feel like befriending anyone. There was training and much learning to do. The training wasn't hard for him as he was used to harder work than they expected out of him. Running 10 kilometers a day with calisthenics thrown in to build muscle in the other men. For him, he drew the envy of not just the other soldiers, but some of the instructors. He usually was the only one not breathing heavily after a run and he could perform most of the tasks assigned to him quickly and efficiently. The sea was unforgiving and he had learned at a young age to do things right, the first time.
When they started training with their rifles, Misha showed a natural talent that impressed his instructors. Targets were easy for him to hit whether it be 90 meters or 900 meters away and the instructors said where Misha looked, the rounds landed. In other aspects of training, Misha was average or below average, however this was overlooked due to his talent.
They told him that they were giving him extra pay for his talent and wanted to train him with other weapons as well. Misha agreed but mainly because the extra pay would greatly help his father, the person that Misha was sending all his paychecks to.
While the rest of his training class was transfered to their units and sent to Charka, Misha was sent to his special training. There he learned how to use his new weapon of choice, the Ручной пулемёт Калашникова or "Kalashnikov hand-held machine gun". RPK for short. He became so perficient with it that he could control the recoil well enough to turn it from a suppression to an offensive weapon, grouping shots as if he were using a regular rifle.
When he finished training, they assigned him as a replacement to a forward combat unit and flew him to Charka. When he arrived it was just turning to winter and none of the winter clothes they gave him fit. He had to sew extensions on his issued jacket just for it to it him and trade three packs of cigarettes for winter boots that fit. It wasn't long after that he was put onto a truck with other men in his unit. They were somber and did not talk with him. When he had tried to start conversation they cursed or ignored him. They ate cold food from small tins and luke warm coffee that had mainly been heated by placing water and instant coffee mix into their canteens, then placing the canteens inside their coats and under their shirts. Their body heat warmed the coffee until it was drinkable.
Finally their truck stopped on a road in the middle of open country and they were told to get out. They were separated into smaller groups and told to help each other dig foxholes and fill sandbags as quickly as they could, one foxhole for every two men. From what he was told, they were to stop an advancing enemy unit traveling along the road which should arrive in just under fifteen hours. Misha and a man called Ivan finished their foxhole before any of the other soldiers had, so they helped where it was needed. Soon everyone had a deep foxhole covered with plywood, sandbags and dirt. The work kept them warm, though the biting cold made digging very hard. The commander handed out extra ammunition for each man and extra rations, though no fires were allowed.
The day wore on into night and Ivan rested while Misha watched the road for signs of the advancing enemy. Misha didn't really believe in training that he was going to kill anyone. It seemed so strange of an idea, he couldn't truly comprehend the act of killing anyone else.
Near midnight, he was snapped out of his introspective thought when flares were fired into the air by the commander in his foxhole. Small dark figures in gray uniforms were walking along side of a truck filled with men headed towards Misha's unit. When they spotted the flare, the truck stopped and soldiers lept out of the back and started running towards the foxholes, firing assault rifles towards them in cracking bursts.
Ivan was single-firing his AK-47, taking time to aim and fire at the approaching soldiers, yelling at Misha to open up with is RPK, however Misha could not pull the trigger to shoot the oncoming men. Somehow he just froze. It wasn't moral to kill another human, his father had taught him. They were someone's brother, father, uncle, boyfriend, grandchild or cousin. His stomach turned and he was very afraid what killing another man would mean.
Ivan was screaming at him while he fired more quickly now at the approaching figures and Misha still could not fire until a soldier knelt down and sprayed many rounds at their foxhole. Misha finally brought up his RPK and shot the man with a small burst. The man went down silently, legs splayed out. It was that instant that Misha understood that even if he didn't harm the enemy soldiers, they were going to harm him.
With that in mind, Misha brought his training back to his mind and he let the RPK do his talking. Small bursts or single round shots were dropping the approaching men like flies, and cheering went up from some of the closer foxholes. Some of the enemy soldiers went down noisily, while others were quiet. Some kicked their feet while others lay still.
The battle was over quickly yet a few of the enemy were not dead and lay screaming in pain, the cold earth sucking the warmth and life out of them. When Misha realized what he had done and heard the screaming men, he tried to go help them but Ivan held him back forcefully, reminding him he couldn't go out there. Misha could not sleep that night as he kept hearing the screams of the men he hurt or killed earlier.
The next morning, Misha told his superior officer that he couldn't kill these men anymore and he wished to go home. They had laughed at first, thinking he was joking but then became very serious, but then the realized he wasn't and their personality changed. He could be arrested and sent to Siberia for refusing to fight or shot immediately for insubordination . His father would lose the family business and be exiled as well.
When he returned to the foxhole the following night, Misha did his duty again by warding off the attacking enemy. This went on for weeks, each night becoming a little easier for him to shoot at the men in gray uniforms. He started to be accepted by the men of his unit, who would now talk with him and even joke with him. Ivan became his first human friend and they talked about what they were going to do when they returned to Karshkovia after this fighting was over. Ivan had a beautiful wife at home waiting for him, which he often said had a single sister that was equally as beautiful that Misha should meet. This friendly teasing often had Misha red-faced with shyness though he didn't mind as he did look forward to meeting this woman.
One night, the enemy sent many more soldiers backed by tanks and a helicopter to break through the defensive line that Misha's unit created. Wave after wave of enemy soldiers ran under the artificial light of the white and red flares, the cracking fire of their assault rifles, the pang of rounds off of the tanks' armor, the dull 'whoop' of the helicopter blades cutting the air, and the dull 'whoomp' of hand grenades. Misha's unit had little defense against the onslaught. The forward most foxholes were overrun by the enemy and Misha watched in horror as the enemy ran up to the foxholes and unloading full clips into them, killing the men that had treated Misha like a friend.
Before they reached Misha's foxhole, Ivan grabbed his collar and yelled for him to run. They jumped out of their foxhole together just as the current flare died and before the new one replaced it. As they ran a dull 'WHOOMP' hit them from behind and nearly tossed Misha from his feet. He didn't need to look back to know a grenade had exploded in his old foxhole.
They ran crouched down along the side of the road as fast as they could, until a round caught Ivan and sent him tumbling to the ground crying out. Misha slung his rifle and picked Ivan up quickly placing him over his shoulder and continued to run. He ran until his lungs burned, his back ached and his legs felt weak, then he paused for a few moments, then he continued his run.
Dawn broke over the eastern skyline and Misha hid himself and Ivan in a culvert under the roadway. He tended to Ivan's wound in his back the best he knew how. His friend was unconscious and sweeting despite the cold. During the day, Misha heard trucks and soldier passing overhead on the roadway, headed in the exact direction Misha wanted to go.
That night, Misha slung Ivan over his shoulder again and set out towards a distant line of trees that ran parallel to the road. It took most of the night to reach them but when he did, he found a stream that had clean clear water. He was able to wash Ivan's wound and give them both a drink before moving on following the stream.
Just as dawn broke, Misha ran into a Russian patrol which stopped him. When they understood which unit he was from, they quickly called for a helicopter extraction. While they waited, a medic tended to Ivan and the soldiers shared their rations with Misha. It had been a few days since he last ate and the food tasted wonderful, even if it was cold. When the helicopter arrived, Misha learned only he and Ivan were left out of their entire unit.. Misha had some minor frostbite and Ivan had to get to the army hospital right away. The helicopter took them into a nearby town where Misha and Ivan were transfered to a train for the final jaunt to the coast. The train was filled with wounded soldiers and some with a vacant look in their eyes. Medics walked in-between the wounded soldiers, applying a new bandage here or a compress there. Misha slept though the trip.
As the train turned a bend in a small group of hills, it came upon burnt out automobiles placed across the tracks as a blockade. The engineer slowed and stopped the train to keep from hitting the cars as he was afraid the enemy may have planted an bomb in the cars that would explode if he were to ram the cars. A train similar to his had met their fate in the same way.
All the able bodied men ran to clear the tracks as the artillery started to fall all around the train. It was indirect and though the explosions were loud, they fell too far out to even spread dirt on the train. Little by little, the artillery started working it's way towards the train while the men frantically tried to clear the tracks. Some men that were conscious but unable to help move the car due to their injuries looked all over for the spotter. They finally found a tiny figure hundreds of meters away raising it's arm high in the air or lowered to its side to direct the artillery. It was a child. Just a child. A child helping to bring steel death on wounded men that no longer posed a thread to the Charka people. The child was an enemy soldier which was working to kill -indirectly- Russian soldiers. It was decided that the child must be stopped from helping the artillery from zeroing in on the train, but no one believed they would be able to kill the child from the train, until someone who had been with Misha's training class mentioned Misha's special skill.
Misha refused at first. He could not kill a child as that was different to him than men shooting their rifles at him. It was not the same but when compared to the hundreds of lives he could save, Misha finally agreed. He lost his RPK during the run from the enemy soldiers but one soldier gave him his SVD, which Misha was familiar with using. He hesitated in working the action, but a very close artillery shell explosion shocked him into action. Crouched down, aimed, calmed his breathing and pulled the trigger.
The young child whirled around, arms spread wide and dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes.. Misha didn't comprehend what he had just done, and was able to realize the child could be no more than five or six years of age which bothered him greatly.
Another child climbed up to the top of the small hill to replace the first. Misha reluctantly killed that child as well . He hated himself for it, but he knew if he didn't kill the children, he and all the other men would die. He knew that there were two things he could not do. One was he could not let the children direct the fire onto the train and he could not shoot children over and over - but if he didn't, everyone would die.
The rifle cracked again and another small body fell. Again. and Again. and Again. and Again. The debate in Misha's head didn't matter anymore though as the man shooting these tainted-innocents was no longer Misha and he would never be Misha ever again. Misha's sanity had broken somewhere between the third and fourth child. It had died along with those children on the hill and when the tracks were cleared and the train pulled away from that area, the threat of artillery attack was over.
Misha's skill had saved nearly one thousand men and women from certain death, yet he didn't register this. A cry went up from the nearby men when he stuck the barrel of his service revolver under his chin and tried to pull the trigger, ending the life of a broken man once named Misha, yet the men nearby that had been congratulating and thanking him earlier wrestled the pistol away from him. His attempt on his life was fold because he had forgotten to slip the safety off.
For the rest of the trip, he sat next to the body of his only human friend Ivan who had died of his wound. Died for nothing, Died alone but not alone because the man who was Misha also died that day. His shell sat next to the body of Ivan and thought and said nothing until the medics moved him from the train. For the next thirty years, he said nothing and stares off into the distance his eyes unfocused.
He now lives in a Karshkovian mental health and care home where he watches TV from time to time but does not seem to care what is on. He often sits by himself, staring out a window or at his hands day after day. The staff feed him as he can not feed himself, and he gives no appearance that he understands what is going on around him. He does not seem to hear, and does not respond to most stimuli. No one visits him anymore though for a while a few soldiers would out of respect, but they have long since forgotten about him, by choice or not. His father past away many years ago, and Ivan's wife never stopped to thank the man that brought her husband's body back home to her.
The only time he gives any indication of his thoughts are when he is eating, he will begin to cry, tears running down his scraggly bearded cheeks into the corners of his mouth where they mix with his food as he chews and swallows automatically, like a machine.