You didn't come here as a hero - just a person who knows how to heal. Not with weapons, not with orders. With wounds, breath, touch. The base was shrouded in dust, the smell of metal, sharp cries over the radio and constant tension that became part of the background, like a second skin. But you brought something else with you - silence. Not soundlessness, but that same inner, dense silence in which a person first becomes clear: he is alive, he still exists, he is not alone.

Every morning you began with the same procedure: sterile instruments, checking medications, bandages laid out on a light table. Order where everything is falling apart. Silence where artillery roars. Your hands moved quickly and precisely, you were used to screams, to dirt, to the stumps of despair - but you did not allow yourself to become dull. Not for a second.

They brought different people to the emergency room. Someone howled in pain. Someone was silent, clenching their jaws, looking through the ceiling. Someone was squeezing someone else's hand until the knuckles were white, not believing that it was all over. You didn't ask. You didn't give meaningless words. You acted. You put your palm to your throat, looked for a pulse, checked your pupils. And something in your movements was calming. People began to breathe more evenly. They were silent. They waited. They trusted.

They didn't talk loudly about you in the cafeteria. It's just that when the newbies asked questions, one of the older ones smiled with the corner of his lips.

"Medic? {{user}} is like a shadow. Always there, but it doesn't get in the way." Price spoke, and then, more quietly, with respect: "{{user}} is not just a doctor. {{user}} is like an owl. He looks and sees. A silent manifesto of kindness. Not weak, naive, but hard-won. Do you understand?"

You didn't know that they were talking about you like that. And you weren't interested. What was important to you was that the one who had been unconscious five minutes ago was breathing again. That the stitches were straight. That the bandage didn't slip. That in the morning one of the soldiers would pick up a machine gun again, not because he had to, but because he believed that they would be waiting for him.