Phagocytosis

Tallinn, European federation, August 2034

Aaro Lind and I have been acquaintances for years, though "acquaintances" might be generous, depending on the day. Our relationship was forged with online video games, where we spent countless hours two or three nights a week trading insults with the opposing team, barking strategies, and occasionally managing to win a match or two. Add to that a week of degenerate partying, gambling and drinking last summer in Antalya, we know each other pretty well. But beneath the banter, we shared an unspoken malaise: we'd both served during the Crab Wars, each in our respective armed forces, but it rarely came up. Like many veterans, we carried those years quietly.

That changed recently. When I mentioned my interview with Alessio. And my wish to write a novel about the war. Aaro's usual sarcasm paused. There was a flicker in his expression, a moment of silence that felt heavier than usual. Then, almost cautiously, he began to talk. It wasn't just offhand commentary; it was personal. Stories, details, names I hadn't expected to hear. It was the most he'd ever shared about his time in uniform.

Below is an excerpt from our video call that night, one that started like any other but drifted somewhere much deeper.

"It was Rasmus that woke me up. We were in the same platoon—same squad most of the time. We shared that tiny barracks room: just a bunk bed, a wardrobe, and a mini-fridge and a sofa we somehow managed to squeeze in by some miracle. He just shook me as he kept looking outside.

I was already awake. I'd felt him climb down from the top bunk, the whole bed shaking. I just lay there, staring at him in the dark. Though 'dark' isn't quite right. There was the dim light from the fire exit sign above our door. My phone, on silent, kept lighting up every ten seconds as it was being bombed by notifications. And Rasmus's face—it lit up from the outside. A natural light, far off and distant, somehow bright enough to catch that dumb look on his face."

"Aaro, get up," I finally heard him say.

By the time I sat up, the noise of the barracks was already coming alive—doors slamming shut throughout the building, the sound of boots pounding in the hallways.

I stood and looked outside.

Couldn't blame him for standing there, frozen for a minute, just staring at the explosions lighting up the sky far, far away. Far on the horizon, the night sky fucking bloomed with fire. At first, they looked like stars falling too, too slowly, but then came the light as they seemed to disintegrate into smaller pieces. Those asteroids tore through the upper atmosphere like glowing fists, trailing long, jagged tails of flames and gas that made it look like they had aurora borealis following them. You couldn't hear them, not yet, but you could feel it. Like something was wrong with the air itself. Like a low hum in your teetht.

As we looked outside, the noises in the hallway of boots and men running grew louder, then the automated lights in the rooms turned on along with that deafening alarm.

That was our cue.

I had my combat uniform and boots on in under a minute, followed by my plate carrier, helmet, and rifle out of its locker. Aaro and I rushed outside, dodging men and women sprinting to their posts. The loudspeakers barked the order—not that anyone could've slept through all of this.

You've gotta give us some credit: twenty minutes later, we were out there loading up the vehicles—last of the munitions, water, radios. Waiting for Russian cruise missiles to come landing between our parked vehicles. And for the lieutenants to finish getting their orders. That's when I spotted Ruuben on top of the command vehicle.

He was that nerdy conscript nobody trusted with a machine gun or behind a wheel, but somehow he had enough brainpower to be posted there in the command vehicles to man the radios. Knew radio protocols by heart. I watched him, frustrated as hell, reinstalling the antennas again and again. Like that was going to fix whatever was eating at him.

"What's up?" I asked, ducking as another conscript rushed past with four crates of ammunition.

"Radio's fried. Nothing's coming through in long range distances. High frequency especially since I suppose it has something to do with the sky opening up out there. SANDER, TRY THAT RADIO CHECK AGAIN!" he yelled, straining to twist the antenna into place one more time.

"You know what this is?" I asked. I'd carried his bag, covered for him, saved his ass more than once back in basic—but now, I was the one looking at him for answers.

He lifted his glasses, looked me dead in the eyes.

"It's not the Russians. That's all I know. LT's assembling your platoon at your six," he said, then turned and sprinted toward the group.

"Plans changed. We're not going to Narva," the lieutenant called out. For months, years even Narva was our bread and butter. Border town with the Russians. We learned that city and the neighbouring region by heart in case we were ever called to slow down Russian tanks long enough for EU and NATO to get their stick out of their asses. You can imagine our disappointment. "Command came through on landlines. Apparently, we don't need to worry about the Russian tonights. Our AO is the Valga region, near the Latvian border. Squad leaders, on me. Everyone else—mount up."

Phone died while I was sitting in that SISU. I'd been thinking of sending my parents a text before we rolled out.

Sixteen of us crammed into that steel box, the corporal fiddling with the radio over and over, trying to get it to work. Short-range, line-of-sight comms still held up—barely. One vehicle talking to another parked a few meters away. That was it.

Now we know it was because the atmosphere was ionized to hell from the meteors. But back then? None of us were astronomers or physicists or anything like that. We just knew the radios were sketchy as hell and our phones weren't doing any better.

No signal.

Which honestly made it worse. Because I had just enough signal, right before it died, to get some context. A few messages asking if I knew what was going on. Posts blowing up on social media—footage of the meteor strikes. Southern Estonia, western Russia, all of Latvia and Lithuania. Gone or burning.

It stank. We didn't say it, but we all felt it.

At the time, we thought we were heading south to dig bodies out of the rubble.

And I kept wondering why they still made me bring my R20 assault rifle for that.

"Yeah, LT's as clueless as usual!" Tiidrik, our squad leader, announced as he climbed in and slammed the armored door shut.

It made us laugh. Eased the tension a bit.

Not me, though.

Rasmus was sitting across from me. He must've noticed how off I looked—just reached over, squeezed my knee, and gave me that sideways thumbs-up he always did. Silly as hell. Whether we were on a dynamic firing range or stumbling back from town after I'd puked my guts out, he never changed that.

He lifted his Monster can and handed it over, letting me finish the other half.

"Just know the meteors weren't direct impacts, and we're heading out to help with evacuations. Since no one there seems to give a damn about picking up a phone, those Latvian farmers can sleep through anything!" Tiidrik kept talking as we rolled out of base, part of that endless convoy of vehicles.

He connected the Bluetooth speaker, and almost all of us started stomping our feet to the beat as we headed south. Nearly an hour of driving, and the whole way there, cars packed the opposite lane. It was like some messed-up American NASCAR event—just endless rows of cars, all speeding in the same direction.

We got to Valga alright, right as the radio started working just ever so slightly again.

…Heavy losses… spilling—north of border… unknown number—hostiles… repeat—unknown assailants… combat… north—spilling… NATO falling back… north… —south—Poland… Suwalki Gap—line's up… heavy… unknown hostiles—can't get numbers… no contact… Russian, Bela units—suffering losses… lost signal—local police… no contact—repeat—no contact…

Became clear we weren't going to help some old lady pack her things. . Damn near right under that meteor shower, it had slowed down but the few strikes still shook my spine as I got out of the vehicle.

"Not humanitarian anymore—get your guys to cover their sector!" the lieutenant shouted as he sprinted past.

There were no more people moving north. We were at some intersection just north of that cursed city—only a gas station on the outskirts and a neighborhood behind it that looked like every other in this part of the world.

I'd barely put a knee to the ground next to Rasmus before the orders came again. Orders and orders—mount up, dismount, cover this sector, watch that road, check that ditch, follow the lieutenant. Like there was ever a plan.

Our squad finally got moving, trailing the LT to a lone police car just sitting there. Front doors open. Traffic lights still working, casting us in flickering blue. A few 9mm casings on the ground. But what really caught our attention was the gas station's service building behind it—a massive black crater blown into the side, half the wall gone like it had taken a direct grenade hit.

The LT bent over the car, pretending to know what he was looking for. Radio was dead, of course.

"Get your men…" he mumbled, fumbling with his map. Sergeant Tiidrik just stared.

"Recon that neighborhood. Try to find any civilians. If you do, bring them back here."

Tiidrik gave a nod. "You heard the boss. Aaro, Rasmus—you're on point. Toomas, with me."

And just like that, we were off.

That dusty road looked exactly like the one back home. I half expected our dog to come bolting down the street like it was trying to get hit by a car again.

Cars were scattered around—some half-packed, others with luggages beside them.

We got our wish for more light as the sun came up, cutting through the condensation on the grass. A low, heavy mist blanketed everything—just thick enough to blur the edges of the world. Like everything else in life.

Fuck me if I was going to die here. I could feel it—some Russian Spetsnaz or VDV probably had me dead-center in his scope. I was on edge. So was Rasmus. Tiidrik was too, but he hid it better than we did.

Everyone had their rifles up like we knew what we were looking for. I damn near jumped out of my skin when Toomas racked the bolt on his NEGEV. Any other day, I'd have cursed him for not loading it earlier. But right now? I didn't say a word. Didn't even breathe.

Then I saw them. A pair of feet on the ground behind a car—like someone was lying there.

This wasn't a patrol anymore. I knew it before I even saw the blood. Before I saw what was left of her—half her upper torso and head just gone.

"Got one dead. Civilian," Tiidrik said into his radio.

No response.

Of course not. Just that thick mist pressing in around us, and now the distant sound of gunfire and explosions rolling up from somewhere deeper in Latvia.

Then something moved. I don't know if it was the wind or my nerves, but the second me and the rest of the squad snapped our rifles toward the rooftop across the street—at the exact same time—I knew it wasn't nothing. That kind of instinct? You don't fake that.

I nearly squeezed the trigger when a meteor hit—way too close. Must've landed ten kilometers out, maybe less, but it felt like the sky cracked open. My ears rang like someone had stuck needles into them. Everyone flinched, half-dropping to the ground.

"You guys good?!" Tiidrik shouted.

Only one who answered was a dog—barking like hell behind the house we'd just had our sights on. Barking like it knew something we didn't.

Rasmus let out that silent whistle he always used during recon patrols in training—the one he'd use when he needed to get our attention without alerting the overweight corporals playing dress-up as Russians for the week.

Tiidrik gave a hand signal. Advance. Toward the house. Toward the side where the dog was still barking its lungs out.

Of course I had to be on point. Never had luck in life—why would it change now?

I heard the dog take off, claws skittering against some marble or whatever as it sprinted behind the side of the house I was approaching. It leapt around the corner and faced me, barking again—this time not in anger. Not like before. Now it felt like it wanted me to follow. It barked once, twice, then turned the corner into the garden, disappearing again.

I stood there for a second, just behind the wall. Frozen—not from fear, not exactly. Just… waiting. Thinking.

Then I felt Rasmus' hand on my shoulder.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

He gave me a squeeze. Gentle. Reassuring. A way of saying, everyone's watching, you're up. A way of saying, whatever's around that corner, I'll be right behind you. Always.

Had that gardn shed in my sight, the dog sat in front of its half open door, barking like there was no tomorrow.

That ragtag squad of ours took position, facing the barn. Toomas slapped his machine gun atop a closed barbecue right infront of the shed, couldn't see inside thanks to the door yet but his bullets would make mince meat of the wood, using the barbecue as makeshift support, resolute , like he hadn't been beaten to a pulp just yesterday—by someone he'd for a reason he didn't want to tell us about. Tiidrik kept an eye on the back and on us, trying to figure out what to do next. His wife had moved back to Latvia to stay with her parents "for space and personal time to think" a few months back. Even then, it felt like the first time that night I saw him genuinely look… worried.

Rasmus was the only one who seemed like he knew what he was doing. I could tell he was probably wondering why I looked so worried, considering I'd tried to take my own life just a few months ago.

"Come out!" Tiidrik called, not too loud, but loud enough for whoever was inside to hear. The dog stopped barking, probably relieved that someone had finally come to handle whatever—whoever—was inside, so its owners could come home.

"Come out!" Rasmus shouted, this time in fluent Russian.

I saw something move behind the door. It wasn't cinematic—not like in the movies—but for a second, I thought I could hear drum rolls in my head. The "claw" reached out, pushing the door open just enough. At first, it didn't register. For a moment, I thought whoever was inside had used a thick tree branch to crack the door, just enough to get a look.

Tiidrik, his attention still locked on the barn, fumbled with his rifle before flicking the flashlight on the end of it.

I saw it then—just for a second or two. It was nearly the same color as the shed's wood. Like a scream in the dark. Tall, built like a rugby player—legs and arms thick as tree branches. It held something in its hand. I don't know if it acted at the same time Tiidrik turned on his light, but that red tracer shot out of the shed, tearing through the air, slamming into the barbecue.

The world went black fast.

Rasmus opened fire the moment he saw it, but his shots were drowned out by the explosion of the barbecue and Toomas. That poor bastard exploded like a goddamn water balloon.

When the darkness cleared, I saw it stumble out of the shed. Rasmus' bullets had hit it, but not enough to stop it. The thing was trying to make something work in its hand—blaster, or weapon, or whatever the hell it was.

I was still on my ass, but I managed to push myself up and emptied my rifle into it. Tiidrik joined me. We both let loose, nearly emptying our magazines.

"Stay back!" Tiidrik yelled. I don't know why. Maybe it was the adrenaline. But as it collapsed, I was already on my feet, rushing toward it, firing round after round into its carapace.

"It's down!" I yelled, sounding like a dumbass. As if I knew what the hell I was doing, but the adrenaline was making me believe I did. I guess getting shot at was the slap in the face I needed.

"CONTACT WAIT OUT!" Tiidrik yelled out on the radio.

I turned around to see him getting closer, his rifle aimed at the beast. I looked behind me, the barbecue was gone, along with Toomas. The poor guy had been vaporized. Just like that.

Rasmus was struggling to get up. I saw it and rushed toward him.

"I'm okay!" He yelled, grabbed him by the shoulder straps of his vest and he stood up.

We had no way of knowing if that thing was really down. It had stopped twitching, but only once it was truly dead did I get a propr look at it.

It stood about six or seven feet tall. At first glance, it looked like it was wearing armor, but the plating, like crustacean shells, seemed welded or glued on, as if pieced together.

It had a snout, but not like a dog's or horse's, jutting forward. This one angled down toward its chest. Its eyes were the real thing, though. Even in the pale light of early morning, you could barely make them out, black as gems. When Tiidrik hit the body with his flashlight, the beams seemed to ricochet endlessly inside those black stones.

Aside from the long, moustache-like antennae, like the cords you see trailing from shrimp, it had something unnatural on its shoulder. Clearly welded on. Looked like a mounted light, and later we learned they used those to aim their blasters.

That blaster. We didn't know what the hell to make of it. Rasmus and I tried to find a way to shut it down. Last thing we needed was another shrimp wandering in and picking it up. Sounds ridiculous, I know, but it was the same logic we'd use if we'd just taken out a Russian.

We fumbled around with it until we realized the thing could literally blow a man in two. That's what it had done to Toomas. There was no saving him. He was too far gone.

Toomas's body was sprawled behind what was left of the barbecue we'd been using the night before. That blaster must've hit him center mass. The heat had twisted the metal of the grill into something unrecognizable, like melted bones.

Toomas was in two pieces. His upper half had landed face-up, arms limp at his sides like he'd just flopped down to rest. His face was still there, somehow untouched. Eyes wide open, like he'd seen it coming right before the blast. The rest of him... his lower half was gone. What remained had sprayed the grass and dirt in a thirty-foot arc, meat, gear, bits of uniform flung like shrapnel.

Smoke curled off what was left of his jacket, and you could smell it, burnt nylon, cooked blood, something else oily and wrong, like scorched circuitry.

Nobody said anything. Rasmus just stood there, lips thin, jaw locked. Tiidrik quietly pulled a tarp from a table. Not that it would help much. You can't cover something like that. Not really.

As Tiidrik pulled up his radio to call it in, in case the guys back at the vehicles were sleeping through all of this, we heard the first cracks in the air. Our machine guns, before we started hearing their blasters. Hell broke lose just a few km's away. We turned towards it and saw the tracer rounds in the air of our .50cals ricocheting off their targets and into the air. One explosion, followed by a second and yelling on the radio. Our lieutenant.

"....SUROUNDED."

By the time we got to where we had left them, we could already see the vehicles burning in the distance. The gunfire had gone silent before we arrived, and all that remained was the smell of fire and gunpowder being blown towards us by the wind. Bodies were scattered left and right, as if an entire platoon hadn't lasted five minutes against whatever they had encountered.

I took a knee about two hundred meters away. My AR was strapped to my pack, and I was humping Toomas's machine gun and its ammo. It took everything in my legs not to collapse, but adrenaline was working overtime. The Patrias and the one 4x4 we had were already charred. We saw holes the size of tires on their sides. They had been hit by blasters.

The bodies were torn apart, barely recognizable. Then I saw something. Between two destroyed Patrias, a large shape moved. I didn't need to call it out. Tiidrik spotted it the second I raised the machine gun. Rasmus, covering behind us, was itching to turn around. We were crouched in a ditch just out of sight, or at least we thought so. It was early morning, and we were still deep in the shade. Tiidrik was just to my left, scanning for survivors.

That's when I saw it. About a hundred meters ahead, right between us and the remains of our platoon. It was tall, and I hadn't noticed it before because it blended into a tree behind it. It had the same bark-like texture. I recognized the snout from earlier as it turned toward us. We stayed still. I didn't have time to warn Tiidrik before he moved, crouching toward Rasmus. The bastard had seen the motion and nothing before that.

It raised something.

I didn't hesitate. That was my cue. I fired a burst just as it fired its blaster. It missed Tiidrik by a meter and hit a house behind us, showering me with broken glass and splinters as I adjusted my aim.

The second burst dropped it. It collapsed. I followed up with another volley just to be sure.

Then the forest near the vehicles lit up.

They had sight on us the whole time. The three of us dove deeper into the ditch, desperately trying to cover ourselves as blaster fire slammed behind and in front of us.

"GET THAT FUCKING GUN WORKING!" Tiidrik shouted. It snapped me out of it.

I lifted the Negev just enough to fire back. I saw the crabs advancing, following a parallel ditch about 150 meters out. I let out a long burst. I wasn't sure if I hit anything, but it was enough to slow them down. Tiidrik and Rasmus took off through the ditch, low and fast, heading back toward the neighborhood we had just left. I didn't panic. It was part of the cursed plan. I just kept firing.

"How about that," I thought, reminding myself to keep the bursts long enough to land shots.

I heard Rasmus and Tiidrik firing. Their fire wasn't as violent as the Negev, but they kept pressure on the enemy. Just as I was about to sprint after them, one of those crabs crawled out of the ditch on all fours like a dog, sprinting across the road. All three of us opened up on it, and it went down hard.

I ran. Rasmus was behind the corner of a house, only his foot, rifle, and head visible. I smacked his shoulder as I passed, just in case he forgot we were the only three left out of twenty-five men and women.

We sprinted down the same street as earlier. I cursed every PT session as we stopped every fifty meters, took a knee, and watched the road behind us. Just as I passed Tiidrik, who was kneeling by an old Land Rover, his muzzle flashed. The car behind us exploded.

I didn't care about the burns on my face from the shrapnel or the ringing in my ears barely muting the sound of the car alarms. All I wanted was to get rounds down the street toward the bastard. Someone yelled. It was Tiidrik. I recognized the voice and the hole in his back. He was on the ground a few steps away. The flames on his back were the only thing keeping him from bleeding out immediately.

I struggled with the bipod as I dropped. I barely saw them. They were just shadows peeking and firing. One of their blaster shots hit the road ten meters ahead of me. If I hadn't been wearing glasses, I would have lost an eye right there.

I didn't think about how only three of us were left. I didn't think about how Tiidrik was beyond saving or how Rasmus was nowhere to be seen. I only worried about what would happen when the 200-round drum ran dry. I stopped firing when they stopped showing their heads.

The barrel was smoldering. I could have lit a cigarette on it.

Tiidrik had stopped shouting. A few minutes earlier, he had been screaming, then sobbing through clenched teeth. Now there was nothing. Just the dry crackle of fire and the occasional thud of distant movement in the smoke.

His body lay twisted on its side, face down on the pavement. The blast had hit him hard, and what was left of his back was scorched black. The fire on his back had finally died out, leaving behind a warped mess of melted gear, shredded fabric, and cooked flesh. His hand had curled up like he was reaching for something in his last moment. I'd like to say he didn't suffer, but I still remember the screaming.

I flinched as something flew over my head. Small and round. Landed an odd 10 meters away. A smoke grenade, followed by another.

"You good brother?" Rasmus asked me. His voice was coarse, saw his face full of blood. Probably from one of the countless high explosives blaster fired at us earlier.

He was just a few meters back. His left hand was nearly gone. Not blown off clean, but hanging by what looked like a few tendons, scraps of fiber-muscle, and a sliver of skin stretched tight like string. A makeshift tourniquet was wrapped above the elbow. Gone wouldn't be the right word, it was hanging by some fiber muscle and skin. He used that arm with a tourniquet as support on the side of a car with his rifle on it. I still have no idea how he hadn't passed out from the shock.

"You shouldn't be the one asking that question," I told him. The words didn't come out clearly, more like a rasp through cracked lips, but he understood. He just smiled. Some of his teeth were missing, and the rest were stained red. His face was covered in blood—caked into the corners of his mouth, matted into his beard, dripping steadily from his brow.

The smoke thickened, swallowing the street, then Tiidrik's body, until I couldn't see it anymore. I felt a strange guilt settle in. It was like the smoke wasn't just hiding the dead—it was trying to erase them, to sweep the last few minutes into some foggy corner of memory. But I could still smell it. The blood. The scorched gear. The burnt meat. And something else.

Something that wasn't human.

Past the stench of death and metal, there was a faint, oily scent that made my skin crawl. It was sharp, electric, like ozone and rot, and I knew it didn't belong to this earth. I started laughing. Couldn't help it. Had to bite my tongue to stop myself from going too far.

Rasmus was cracking too. One moment he doubled over, clutching his knee with the only hand he had left, and vomited into the dirt. The next he was wheezing, laughing like a drunk at a funeral. It was madness, and we knew it. We weren't supposed to find anything funny. But whatever was left inside us had come loose.

We laughed hysterically, nearly crawling, as we staggered deeper into the city.

You could hear us coming—before you ever saw us. Two shadows stumbling through the smoke and rubble, laughing like lunatics. Even when two Eurofighter Typhoons screamed overhead, splitting the air with their engines and hammering our eardrums into mush, we kept going.

Rasmus collapsed, still laughing. Dropped like a marionette with its strings cut.

At first, I thought he'd just tripped. We were both running on fumes, nerves shredded, bodies wrecked. But then I saw him on the ground, curled halfway onto his side. The laughter had calmed down.

"Rasmus?" I called, voice hoarse.

He didn't answer. His chest was heaving, rising unevenly like an old engine misfiring. His good hand twitched in the dirt, fingers curling and uncurling. The stump of his other arm was soaked through. The tourniquet must've loosened. Or maybe it was just too late. Too much had gone.

I knelt beside him. His eyes were wide open, unfocused. He wasn't looking at me. He was looking past me, through me. Sweat and blood ran in rivulets down his face. He was shaking, not violently, but the kind of tremor that comes when your body's trying to keep the lights on after the power's already gone out.

"Hey," I said. "You're alright. You're still here." A laugh escaping my mouth.

He blinked once. His lips moved, barely. Maybe trying to form words. Or maybe it was just the nerves firing their last rounds.

I pressed down on his chest. His breath hitched, then stuttered out like the last burst of pressure from a bleeding valve. No scream. No last words. Just a low, rattling sound from deep in his throat.

His eyes didn't close.

He didn't die from the wound. Not directly. He died from the crash—shock hitting all at once, body giving up after fighting too long on adrenaline and willpower. The pain, the blood loss, the overload… it caught up to him like a freight train. One second laughing. The next, gone.

The entire air might of nato seemed to be flying overhead, as if the sunrise was the green light for the air force to fly out and cover our retreat.

I sat there for a moment, hand still on his chest, waiting for something, anything. Even as the jets buzzed over to drop their ordonance. The entire air might of nato seemed to be flying overhead, as if the sunrise was the green light for the air force to fly out and cover our retreat.

But there was nothing left. Just the sound of the city groaning in the distance and the smell of war still clinging to the air.

I stood up and kept moving. Not because I wanted to. Because I was the only one left.

I walked. Just walked. No direction, no plan—only the weight of my rifle and what was left of my mind. When the crab biomatter finally flushed from my system, I started crying. Not a few tears. I broke down. Ugly, gasping sobs, all the way to my knees. I'm not ashamed to say it. I wept like a child. For Rasmus. For Tiidrik. For the others who didn't even get a proper goodbye.

At some point, I stopped hoping to make it out. I just wanted it all to end.

I was heading north. Not because I believed there was anything there. But because my brain had made a deal with itself. You'll blow your brains out at the top of that next hill. Once you reach that next village, if it's empty, you do it. I kept putting it off, one delay at a time, like a coward begging his executioner for five more minutes.

Then I heard it.

At first, one engine. Then another. Then too many to count.

I turned, expecting more death.

But what I saw… looked like the entire Latvian garrison rolling in behind me.

Latvians, Americans, Belgians, Dutch. They rolled past one by one in their vehicles. An endless column of armor and exhaustion. They were a sore sight—but they were alive.

The armored vehicles were packed full, men crammed inside and clinging to the outside like it was the last chopper out of a lost warzone. Some of them looked barely conscious, swaying with the motion, eyes glazed over. Others clutched rifles like lifelines. I saw one vehicle—looked like a Stryker—with wounded laid out on top. A guy was holding up an IV bag, squatting in the wind as a medic worked on someone whose uniform was more blood than fabric.

They didn't stop. Not yet. Just kept rolling. I stood at the side of the road, watching them go, unsure if I was a survivor or a ghost.

Some of the soldiers looked down at me as they passed. Most didn't. Their eyes were hollow, faces slack, caked with grime, sweat, and soot. A few looked like they had crawled out of hell itself, mud-smeared, bloodstained, equipment dangling off them in pieces, mouths hanging half-open like they'd forgotten how to speak. None of them were talking. Just staring forward. Empty.

A jeep finally stopped.

Two Americans got out, moving toward me with caution like I was something fragile, about to break again at any second. I was still bawling. Couldn't stop. Couldn't get a full sentence out, not even a word that made sense. Just sobs and choked breath.

One of them carefully reached for my rifle, not yanking it away, just easing it out of my hands like he was disarming a scared child. Then he took my pack. I didn't resist. I couldn't.

The other one didn't say much at first. He tried, asked something, maybe my name, maybe where I came from—but I couldn't answer. So he just stopped talking and pulled me into a hug. Tight. Like he knew what it meant. Like he'd done it before. He called me "brother," maybe twice. His voice was low, steady.

And then they led me into the Humvee.

It was quiet inside. Not peaceful, just hollow. I sat there between them, still trembling, watching the blur of ruined countryside roll by through the dust-caked window. I don't remember if I thanked them. I don't remember much of anything, just that warmth of someone holding me upright when I couldn't stand on my own.