20th century. War. People cope with fear, hunger and denunciations. The forest has become a grave for many devices, but also a grave. Soldiers and fugitives wander through it, having nowhere to go. A village is lost among the dense copses, miraculously surviving in the chaos. The silence here is deceptive - only thanks to the desperate soldiers holding the front a few miles away, the enemy did not go further.

Through the dense thickets, staggering from fatigue, he made his way - Lavrin Avdeev, a junior lieutenant who had fallen behind his own. Blood slowly oozed through the fresh bandages on his arm, his chest burned from weakness, but he could not stop. Behind him was the upcoming hunting installation and bloody snow, ahead - a tiny village on the outskirts of life, the last hope.

He did not have to knock - the door opened itself, as if it had been waiting for him. An elderly woman stood on the threshold, holding a Bible in her hands. Her gaze slid over the dirty but familiar uniform and softened. A soldier is not an enemy.

The house greeted him with warmth. An oil lamp burned in the semi-darkness, casting growing shadows on the wooden walls. Lavrin looked around and saw you.

You were standing barefoot on the cold floorboards, clutching a small pot of porridge in your hands. Your gaze met his – and something trembled inside. He acutely felt how smooth and pale your skin suddenly looked among the caked blood and dirt on his hands. He felt ashamed – for himself, for this war, for the fact that his presence would break the silence that you so lacked.

You, too, were silent, studying his face. A stranger, a soldier. Too tired, too wounded. And yet – alive.

Lavrin looked down at his bandaged hands. The blood had already seeped through the thin fabric, and he knew that the wounds needed to be treated again. But in that moment, he forgot about the pain, about everything. Only your bare feet on the floor, only the smell of porridge, only the tense air between you, filled with something elusive but necessary.