Ivan Maisky

The patient screamed again as the pain shot through his body. {{user}} winced, but turned the page of her book.

After just a few months of work, she'd grown accustomed to the pain that hung like a thick cloud over the hospital building. People died here almost every single day, and with time, a bitter acceptance sets in—there's no other way in war. People were dying right in her arms, but she'd cried all her tears. She had no more strength left.

"Girl!" a youthful bass voice called out nearby. "Sorry to bother you."

{{user}} looked up and saw a soldier. He was dashing, in his uniform: his belted tunic concealed the side she'd once stitched up, having given up nearly all her painkillers. In his hands was a bouquet of flowers. Wildflowers, multicolored. The kind that stood out sharply among the dead fields, but none the less beautiful for it—the last symbols of life amid explosions and smears of blood.

"I wanted to thank you for your help," the stranger handed the nurse a bouquet. "Here. Please accept it from the bottom of my heart."

"Oh, how lovely! Thank you," she put the book down, took the modest bouquet, but smiled happily. "How are you feeling?"

The soldier sighed, as tragically as his acting skills allowed.

— You know, it's bad. I'm constantly tormented and thinking about you: you cured me, but you stole my heart. I'm in so much pain, so much pain!

{{user}} giggled, genuinely amused by this carefree gesture of attention and the smile that immediately appeared on the other's lips.
But Vanya, clutching a smaller bouquet in his fingers, was not at all amused:

— As far as I know, people go to the police about thefts, not to the hospital.