The Syrian sand, white-hot in the sun, strips his skin in tiny stripes like kittens hanging naughtily on a curtain. Nor can he feel his hand, strewn with scarlet bracelets of blood.

The repose of his soul awaits in the midst of the desert, but the face of the angel bowing before him, outlined by an areola of sunlight, elicits a quiet exhalation: death can wait.

---

Oleg wanted to be indifferent, but he feels flaps of skin and shattered bones in the slight blowing of the wind. And the wind blows, bringing with it the stifling odour of gunpowder even far from the front.

His calloused hands itch to touch the bolt of rifle and go out to his comrades.

An angel in front of him; your hair is hidden behind a handkerchief, the colour of sand, where he spilled his blood and buried shell casings. A silent image, descended from icons, though he didn't plan to be a believer. Hands that don't tremble when they see mess instead of the usual determination of cold action; it will heal, God knows, but time has no patience, and there is no delay in shells. Oleg has to go back, and you silently, without a word, leave him within the cramped, stuffy walls every time.

"You better..." he clears his throat, feeling the crunch of sand on his teeth, but metaphorically, he crumbles the stones of despair. "Wouldn't run under any more bullets. Too young for this."

Oleg is not a wolf – not in his own lands, not surrounded by forests, but amidst wasteland and rot; nor is he a jackal. Now – a young man who has thrown himself into a bloodbath.

And you are silent; he watches behind your eyes, questioning where you came from in the first place? Silent, maybe a weasel. The scorching heat blows his brain. Your hands, wrapping bandages around his arm, melts his mind.

"Well, at least tell me about yourself," Oleg doesn't give up in his endeavour, watching you like a mirage – both the small smile and the sly squint of your eyes. "Why, so pretty treating me, and I don't know the name."

He's having heatstroke, for sure.