chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

In the morning, I was walking with Boris after we had finished our morning exercises. This time, Boris was quieter than usual. We always strolled around the camp, which had a line of trees on one side, as I mentioned earlier, since the camp was set up on an old rural farm.

As a smoker, you could tell from the way he stared at the ground that something was definitely on his mind, and from the number of cigarettes he lit, one after another. He looked up at the blue sky, dotted with a few cotton-like clouds, and said, "The sky is beautiful... how I long to see it filled with dark clouds."

"Does that mean you want winter to come?"

"I don't know, but I know I hate the sun in this country."

We were silent for a while, and then I remembered what Nikolai had told me the day before, so I decided to ask him, "Nikolai told me about what happened between you two yesterday."

He stopped, looked at me, and said, "So?"

I stared at him, unsure of what to say, but I asked, "How can our presence here be pointless?"

"And what would you gain from knowing my opinion?" He resumed walking.

"I don't care about your opinion." He stopped again, turned to me with a furrowed brow, tilting his head in confusion.

I continued, "In fact, I don't care about anyone's opinion. Not yours, not Nikolai's. I only care about knowing the truth."

"That's the problem… everyone thinks their opinion is the truth."

"Then I want to know the truth from your perspective."

He stared at me, exhaled a cloud of smoke, then looked down for a moment before gazing at me again. He stepped closer and said, "I don't know if it's an absolute truth. I'm just a guy who took the opinions of a strange man."

"And I believed many things from people I didn't know. But I'm sure that some of what they said is true. And I want to know the truth about this."

He sighed, looked around, and resumed walking, so I followed him.

"When I first came here, I was even more zealous than Nikolai. But after I made a few friends—of course, they shared some of my views—I probably befriended them for that reason. However, I quickly lost them all during our first mission. Imagine, thirty rookie volunteers wiped out within minutes by a few shepherds hiding behind a rock.

The boys kept dying without knowing what to do. The wounded crawled in a desperate attempt to save their lives, but the bastards kept shooting at them and at the corpses until they were all dead. And then, simply, every month, a new batch of eager teenagers arrives, ready to pick up a gun and experience the thrill of being a soldier, earning money from senseless killing. But time after time, the new recruits kept dying.

It kept happening for several months until the Union intervened with airstrikes that crippled the rebels in the hills of Kiftar. We thought, of course, that those planes belonged to Sukania… until I met that man."

"Razil?"

"Yes... he confided in me, trusted me, after saving my life before. And my gratitude to him made me believe what he told me."

"Why don't you tell me?"

"I don't know, my friend... I'm hesitant."

"Trust me, I won't tell anyone. A man's word."

He laughed and ruffled my hair. I must've looked like his little brother because he was taller than me. Then he said, "My friend, all I know is that we're here just to support the Union."

We stopped at that moment, and I stood there with my mouth agape.

"Yes, it sounds unbelievable to you, and Razil didn't want to tell anyone about it, but I realized that what he told me back then… was his way of trying to save me again."

"If what he says is true… we could save everyone."

"And that's how you'd risk getting your head blown off."

"How?"

"Those who came here are like your friend—either ignorant religious fanatics or unemployed opportunists. Some even believe in the wild conspiracy theories spread by Sukania. And that's not all—the leaders are even worse. If they hear you contradict what we were taught in training, you'll be executed."

"I don't understand anything about politics and its nonsense, but all I want is to get out of here."

"That's what I want too."

He turned to me, smiling, and extended his hand for a handshake.

I shook his hand in return.