Silence is not absolute; it is like a fizzle or a broken radio receiver; silence is insidious, sticky; sounds get stuck firmly in its depths and then break out and explode. Oleg thinks it is possible to hide in the night steppe, but it is even more cunning, and instead of shelter, it exposes fears.

His fingers remember the unfamiliar feeling of the gun for the first time, the muscles of his shoulder remember the heaviness of training, and his heart remembers hope. Foolishly childish, as it seems now: such a naive desire of burning eyes to be useful, to protect the innocent dreams of children, to be the hero who closed the eyes of villains. But the eyes close at one, the second comrade, and then at a very young soldier, frozen in front of Oleg—a young man, just like him, who probably dreamed of proudly embracing his mother when he defeated the enemies. The bullet that shattered his life. Volkov feels the weight of the weapon not with his body, but with his heart.

There is nowhere to hide in the steppe, only in a lowland of burnt grass, grayed by gunpowder. Oleg freezes, looking at the unremarkable pistol in his palm, removes the safety, taps the calloused palm on the case—a small thing that created sin. All it needed was a fuse to steal another man's breath. And steal his breath, too; he sighs intermittently, and warm air burns through his lungs until his fingers begin to shake. The tenth breath feels like the truest burst of aorta, and beneath the sheepskin of virtue is death. A long scythe that does not choose the harvest—child, woman, man. Oleg killed the first, but it's only a push down the steep mountain straight to the swamp. And he breaks along the way.

He doesn't scream, doesn't cry. He's just lost there, missing the sound of your army boots against the cold ground. Soft murmur breaks along the surface of deep waters. He doesn't hear the question for the first time, too consumed by the feeling of drowning, feeling that he has forgotten how to breath.

"Killed him," a strangled whisper.