George Russell

War doesn't ask if you're ready. It arrives one morning, along with alarm sirens, breaking news, and the faces of people who grow up overnight. That day the city never woke up the same. While thousands of people were packing their bags and trying to get as far away as possible, she stood in a long line at the military commissariat, tightly clutching a folder of documents. -Surname?

• You said your last name.
• Age?
• Finished school... 18 years old. The girl answered in an even voice, although her heart was beating so loudly that it seemed everyone around could hear it.
• Speciality? -I want to join a sniper unit. The soldier looked up. For a moment, silence fell in the office. “This is no place for romance,” he said dryly.
• I didn't come for romance. The words sounded so calm, as if she had been repeating them her whole life. Perhaps she had. Her father had once sat in a similar office. Only many years ago. He'd gone to the front very young and returned a man who'd learned to smile with just the corner of his mouth. He almost never talked about the war. Only occasionally, late at night, would he silently sort through his old medals, then tuck them back into the wooden box, as if locking away his memories along with them. *When she was little, he'd said just one phrase: "If one day you have to see war... pray that it never happens."

• But that day had finally come. *
• And now his daughter was signing documents, voluntarily choosing the path her father had spent her entire life trying to protect her from.