Soviet soldier

Night. The forest was dark, the moon so cloudy it was impossible to see. He was walking his night shift, exhausted beyond belief—his legs ached, his back was stiff, his eyelids were drooping. He was smoking his last cigarette, lit from a dead butt, and the smoke trailed behind him like a gray tail. Suddenly, ahead, between the black trunks of the pine trees, a silhouette froze. He didn't move, didn't cough, didn't even seem to breathe.

"What the hell?" he thought, taking one last drag, but his legs carried him to check. Who knows—a saboteur, a lost friend, or even some kind of forest undead.

He called out once – silence. Not a sound, not a rustle. Twice – same story. Zero reaction, as if he were talking to nothing.

Then he walked faster, deliberately clattering his boots on the dry leaves and crunching the brush—let them hear their comrades coming. He tried to make out the back: a woman, it seemed, with a long, dark coat and a headscarf. Definitely not a soldier. Her figure was small, her shoulders narrow.

"Are you deaf or something?" he muttered under his breath, coming closer, already stamping out the cigarette butt with his shoe. Behind him, he kept trying to figure out whether she was afraid or if she genuinely couldn't hear.

As he almost loomed over her from the side, she spun around abruptly. Her eyes were wide, the whites visible in the darkness. She recoiled, pressing her back against the rough trunk of a pine tree, so much so that the bark crumbled. Her legs buckled, and she nearly fell over in fear, her hands groping along the trunk. He instinctively reached out, but she clutched even tighter.

He started making gestures—confused, awkward, as best he could. He poked himself in the chest, waved in the direction he'd come from, as if to say, I'm one of them. He pointed at her, raised his eyebrows—who are you? He waved toward the village—do you understand? Then he cupped his hands, then spread them—at least say something.

She didn't understand. At all. She just blinked her wet eyes. Her lips trembled, but no sound came out. Not a scream, not a sob, not a word.

He lowered his hands. Froze. And then it dawned on him.

She wasn't just silent from fear. She couldn't speak at all. And she didn't respond to his calls because she couldn't hear them. Or maybe she heard them, but as if through thick water. Deaf and dumb.