Maksim | alpha soldier

A sharp slap, not too strong, but quite palpable—and, most importantly, from a living, warm hand—touched the back of your head and was gone just as quickly. At the quiet hiss that escaped your lips, Kamil raised his hand again, but this time decided to set violence aside.

Or rather, not violence, but what he called "teaching with an iron fist." Kamil wasn't cruel; he took no pleasure in striking his students. But everyone had to understand that military affairs were a serious business, one that brooked not a single mistake. The softer Kamil was, the less the other omegas would remember, and consequently, the more soldiers would die by their hands.

Human lives are not bargaining chips; they must be preserved by any means necessary, by hook or by crook, if only to keep alive those who defended the country without rest or respite.

The infirmary under his auspices ran like clockwork. The doctors did everything possible to bring back even the most seemingly hopeless patients from the brink of death. Some soldiers could return to battle and go on the attack after just a couple of days; others needed more time for rehabilitation, and some were waiting for their discharge to return home.

Max. Maksim. Maksimilian. The variations of his name were unimportant; he didn't respond to any of them. For a time, Kamil had taken on his case and concluded that his eardrums were undamaged, and the problem of his detachment lay not in a physical wound, but a psychological one.

A mine. An anti-personnel mine. One of the most insidious and inhumane types of weapons, often equipped not only with destructive force but also with additional projectiles like nails or ball bearings. Soldiers who encountered such a weapon on their path didn't always make it to the infirmary: because medical help for such a man was like a poultice to a dead man.

And yet, Maksim was here. He breathed with great difficulty, saw with only one eye, but he was here, alive. Although, outwardly, he bore little resemblance to a living man—at least, one who was joyful about surviving, about receiving medical care. If anyone had ever asked him, he would have answered without hesitation that he would have preferred his soul to have left his body the moment the deafening explosion sounded, when the world around him suddenly turned white and was stripped of color, smell, and sound.

The white bandages on his body were constantly being stained: here by crimson blooms, there by a yellowish tint from pus. It was impossible to describe his joy when he learned that, although he had lost his leg up to the thigh, although he had barely survived massive blood loss, he had kept both of his arms.

And it was just as impossible to describe the emotions that flickered with a weak light in his remaining eye when Kamil informed him of the need for another operation. Yes, the hand of his right arm was more or less intact; it could have been saved. But the dirt and grime, the shreds of something else vile and slimy, had led to one problem: gangrene. And that led to one solution: amputation.

Even with constant treatment, under the observation of the best doctors in the military hospital, it seemed Max was not getting better. While the hardworking omegas worked to bring his physical condition back to normal, no one else could help him with his psychological state.

His psyche was groaning, shattering, and trying to rise from the ashes again, but it couldn't find the strength. Obsessive memories made Maksim clench his jaw until it creaked; nightmares exhausted his dying mind. A warning had been issued to all doctors: enter his room carefully, avoid sudden movements at all costs, don't slam the door, don't bring up the war or his injuries. And most importantly—don't let him see that anything is wrong with him, don't coddle him, and don't look at him with pity.

Doctors were catastrophically short-staffed, so you were assigned to monitor his condition, bring him pills and change his bandages, and report anything to Kamil immediately. To your questions and words, Maksim did not respond; he simply didn't react to your presence. And if his gaze did shift from the grimy window, then in his solitary eye you saw all the horrors of this world, engulfed in the grey flame of destructive war.

He complained about nothing. He ate nothing. He only occasionally answered in a hoarse voice, "It's fine," or complained of a drilling, burning, and unbearable pain in his left leg. The left leg that wasn't there. He said everything was fine, but his body was constantly tense, he was constantly on edge, as if ready to run at any moment.

Run where?

"You must understand... You're a doctor, you know how to dilute medical spirits."

The forbidden request sounded strange; you knew where this was leading. You knew that if he didn't get some alcohol in the hospital, he would still get discharged, return to the city, and never again free himself from the shackles of the glass bottle. He would never be able to look in the mirror again, he would never walk without crutches, he would never be able to write with his right hand.

The only thing he would be able to do was drown the pain in addiction, to lose and dissolve himself in alcohol, if only to forget about that day, about that mine, about that war.

About the war.