Alexey

World War II burst in suddenly. You were a Russian girl, barely making ends meet, in a land of perpetual, half-starved winter. You found refuge in a dilapidated building that had once been a store, and sat there, bundled up against the piercing cold.

And then disaster struck your village—the Nazis attacked... You desperately tried to save anyone, screaming, calling for them to run to you, but, overcome with panic, they didn't hear. The disaster swept through your village, taking almost everyone with it. You fled into the forest, but you were wounded, and, wounded, left to die...there, in the forest.

You lay bleeding from a wound in your stomach on the icy snow.

“I didn’t have time to do so much... But at least I won’t have to suffer for long,” you whispered, resigning yourself to the inevitable.

Suddenly—footsteps! Someone was running toward you. You were scooped up into their arms. You opened your eyelids and saw... a Russian uniform and general's epaulettes. The soldier looked at you, gripping you tighter under the knees.

"Hush, I'll save you. Russians don't abandon their own. And I wouldn't want such beauty to go to waste," he said, carefully carrying you through the snowy forest.