The light has long retreated from the ventilation hole above our heads, and the constant popping of distant gunfire has finally halted. The woman is fast asleep on a sofa made of leather that was buried for months under piles of carton boxes and dusty broken machinery equipment. I’ve never bothered to drag the sofa out of the mountain of junk, and I’ve never thought it would ever have any particular use. But there I was, shaking the dust off the damn thing, making an effort at polishing it, heck, even double-checking if any spring had burst out.

Of course, it’s not for me. A man never complains about how he doesn’t have a proper place to sleep. Night in, night out, we soldiers sleep inside those disgusting pits full of mud or animal feces, and no, those two aren’t mutually exclusive. But those muddy pits are still luxuries, as long as our good comrades—Private Frog and Sergeant Termite—don’t live there, too.

Whatever. I don’t trust a person who can’t turn on a heater to sleep soundly on the floor. So she’s on the sofa, sound asleep now, while I sit here thinking about what I’m going to do.

I shouldn’t trust my initial judgments too much, though. I still remember the time when my old friend Vasiliy Kovalenko found an enemy barracks, and I was hesitant to attack because I thought they would have a hundred soldiers inside. They had five. I also remember the time I told Vasiliy that we could jump a train across Ural without anyone noticing. We got kicked in the head by the conductor. I also remember the time I mistook a woman’s breast for a grenade— Wait, that was an hour ago.

With that out of the way, I have a clearer mind to think about the bigger problem at hand.

I have six days left before I fail this mission.

I only need to get this done and I’ll be free forever. No more slaughtering. No more fighting meaningless war. I just have to fucking figure out what I have to do. I can’t believe they sent me on a mission without telling me the specifics. It’s almost like they want me to fail.

And they’ll come for me if I fail.

Too many things are happening at once, and I need a safe place to run away from all this trouble for a while. I met this woman only hours ago, assuming she really is one, but I want her around. I need her around. I need something, or someone, to replace Roman. To be my buddy. Anyone would do! It’s just convenient she popped up.

“So women do exist after all, Roman,” I mutter to myself.

Roman and I had had this discussion once. That day, we sat with our backs against the watchtower wall on one of the rare sunny days in the land of Izhevsk. Roman’s pistol rested on his hand, and he used to always unload and reload it for no other reason than his own amusement. The day shifts Ushakov assigned us with weren’t as dreadful as night shifts, but they were as dull. To save myself from dying from boredom, I usually snuck out a book and read until another duo of soldiers come and relieve us.

Reading on duty was risky business. They even stationed political commissars to keep an eye on the watchtower guards so that nobody would slack off. Even though Pavlyuchenko’s troop had given us some breathing room that day, that didn’t mean we could start fucking around. Commander Dzyuba hated slackers. People had to look busy in his presence to avoid punishment. Sometimes we would try to hold our piss in until the guards had left, although it was completely reasonable to piss in the cans with which we’d brought.

I’d placed enough trust in Roman that he wouldn’t snitch me, because Dzyuba would certainly raise his eyebrows knowing a lowly-ranked officer had access to not one, but a library of books. Roman wasn’t a man of reason, but he knows better than getting us into trouble.

Roman asked about the Mythical Creatures of the Distant World book in my hands. He’d always asked that question whenever I brought one with me. Oftentimes, I just ignored the inquiries altogether. On that day, however, he had been extra thick-headed to the point I couldn’t pretend he was mute.

He said, “Yo, what’s written in that book? Hey, don’t ya look down on me! If I woulda known how to read, I woulda known as much as you do!” I couldn’t remember what I replied, but I recalled his reply to mine as he mimicked a salute. “I’m all ears. I’m interested in everything, ya see. Roman Yatsky at your service!”

I told him about the mythical time when men weren’t created inside glass cage—or asexually-produced in vitro to be technical. They had sex, akin to those of mammals. When I described the women our ancestors supposedly reproduced with, Roman lost his shit. He was so intrigued by the idea that he insisted it must’ve been true. I told him he was a lunatic, and that if women were real, we would’ve found information on them in official records, not mythical texts.

“Wait; wait; wait.” He clasped his hands together. “I think I’m onto something here. You know, like bears and dogs and horses and all other animals breed that way. Some men do that too. It seems natural in the wild. Why aren’t we bred the same way?”

Until today, I’ve thought that the idea of a woman is far-fetched; a ridiculous fantasy. Why are women needed in the sustenance of humankind? I’m no scientist, but from what I’ve read, it’s already hard enough to sift through the different genomes and pick the best ones to reproduce, otherwise inefficient soldiers like Roman wouldn’t have existed. Why randomize the process? Why willingly produce humans with no resistance to diseases, no mental resilience, and tons of time wasted to conceive? At least when asexually-produced, favorable traits can be imbued, albeit on a probability basis.

Maybe I’m missing something. Common sense alone is enough for nine dudes out of ten to think men copulating is fucked up. However, the common sense we have right now might not’ve been common sense a generation back. I’ve heard of the book Moskva: Confidential by a guy named Bronnikov that talks about how the Republic of Moskva has covertly standardized changing clone genomes to suppress their bestial desires, and that there was an entire propaganda campaign against human copulation for a long time. But that’s just a theory; a conspiracy theory. Nonetheless, I’ve been in this game long enough to know it might as well be true. The book’s never been released to the public, but one can find it in black markets. What’s interesting is that Bronnikov went MIA mere days after Moskva: Confidential was released. Either he went into hiding, or he’s been offed. Neither sounds particularly pleasant. People have been killed for less, but a dude wouldn’t just drop from the surface of the Earth if the only book he’s ever released doesn’t have a grain of truth to it.

“What the fuck is going on?” I clutch my head. “Why did this woman appear? Why now?”

She must be related to my mission somehow, right? There’s no way this is a coincidence. My contractor must’ve known this would happen. The timeline matches too.

But what am I supposed to do with her?

I just want things to end. Why are they doing this to me?

I pick up my pocket knife and carve a straight line on the wall quietly enough to not wake the woman. No calendars are around, and I don’t know if any of us still bothers counting days. We have been entrenched for months— every effort to retaliate has been futile. Being a point man like I am is particularly tiresome and lonesome. Whenever Commander Dzyuba saw a potential breakthrough or wanted to find the strongest of their infantry units, he would herd us out to scout. As soon as anyone dared let the top of their helmet show above the snow, they got shot by the snipers. I guess the commander doesn’t seem to get that sending people out to die is simply asking them to commit suicide.

I used to be a sniper on watchtowers, but I asked to change positions for various reasons. No, it was not because I’m a bad sniper.

Various scars of various sizes are etched on my body like eternal carvings on hoary oak trunks. If I were any other man, I would have died tens, no, hundreds of times. But I just simply don’t die.

Why can’t I die? Maybe it’s been because of luck all along. It must’ve been my luck to have been under the snipers’ radar for so long. Sometimes, I think the commander will keep sending me out again until those emotionless bastards eventually take my damn life.

Sometimes, I wish I was Roman. At least he got his closure.

No. That’s not what I wish for. I wish I could forget Roman.

The memory of him keeps flowing back at me again and again. His weird country accent, his brimming smile, and his crunchy laughter . . . they’re everywhere. I can’t sleep. I don’t even want to think of tomorrow, when I will have to go out there all alone. He had been alongside me ever since we met. Whenever I was about to run out of ammo, I would shout at him to cover me, and he would shout back something along the lines of,“Gotcha, mah boy.” Will I shout the same thing tomorrow, calling out for him, only to realize he isn’t there anymore?

What a bad time for him to die.

I wonder if the woman next to me ever laughs. If she does, will it sound like Roman’s? Fragmented memories of Roman run through my head as I observe her sleeping figure: her face in repose as she sinks into the cushions, hands hugging her chest.

You’re not supposed to sleep as if this place is a presidential palace. You’re not supposed to believe I’m not going to capture you just because I said so. And you’re not supposed to take my jacket either, you rotten bastard.

Suddenly, the woman turns around and almost falls off the sofa. I push her back to her place in time, but she still unconsciously grimaces as if she’s strained her ankle. I notice my jacket (her blanket, by the way) falling from the sofa. I put it over her again, then find a clean corner to sleep.