The entire portion of yesterday after I was shot was spent with discontentment and the slightest amount of pain once the informal operation, which included a larger amount of pain, was done on my arm. The night cured my agony significantly, and in the morning my soul feels a lot lighter, especially since I am with Alexei after three months of absence from him. I now carry the prospect of our new life that we discussed last night, too, and I can't wait to leave and start it.

The plan is to return to Saint Petersburg for the rest of the summer but stop in Moscow on the way to check in with civilization again and to hop on a train towards our desired destination, where my parents and Lourdes will still be. I don't know how far the army is behind us, but I am guessing that Borodino is still going on about an hour away from the small cottage in the middle of the woods where we are currently hiding out, so we should make it to Moscow in time to catch the train before the French army advances to take it over. The city will be panicked, but the trains will probably still work.

Because of our unignorable excitement and the fact that time is of the essence with the French army on our tails, we have decided to depart from the cottage today and immediately commence our travel. We have asked the woman for a map to take with us so that we don't get lost in the vast country that is Russia. I thought at first that she wouldn't have any need of one and therefore wouldn't have one at all, but apparently not. She is very well stocked with useful items, it appears. We take a few minutes to survey the map, and realize that we are north of Borodino, and that we need to make a diagonal line towards Moscow from where we are at the current moment. Then we are prepared to walk.

We thank the woman for all that she has done for us, and after all of our goodbyes have been voiced, we exit the cottage and begin our journey back home. We walk at a steady pace without looking at the map until Alexei suggests that we do so in order to refresh our memory of which route we are supposed to follow. We stop walking for a few minutes to discuss where we should go, and that is where the recent past catches up with us. That is where our plan falls to pieces.

https://youtu.be/5fwFTdVhqx4

"Is that you, Renaud?" a voice calls from a distance as it slowly advances towards us, a voice that I know isn't Alexei's.

I spin on my heel only to see none other than Gauthier, the person I used to advise and who thought of me as a friend, staring at me bitterly as a group of army men stand behind him, waiting for further orders. "What are you doing here, Gauthier?" I ask cautiously. My vision darts quickly to Alexei, who understands nothing of what is being said but is starting to tremble with fear anyway. He is the odd man out here. Even if Gauthier is angry with me, my life is not definitely on the line, while Alexei's is.

"I'm leading a hunt for food before we advance to Moscow. Our soldiers are starving, especially after a long day of fighting, which you obviously missed." His voice reeks of contempt, not even disappointment. Eyes then turning away from me and towards my companion, Gauthier takes a thoughtful survey of Alexei's Russian army clothes, a dead giveaway, with disgust as the background expression. "You left the fighting at Borodino -- fighting that is crucial to your home country, might I add -- to instead have a little vacation with this Russian scum?" When I don't answer, my vision adhered to the ground, he continues anyway. "If so, I'm here to tell you that your vacation with him is up." Gauthier approaches towards Alexei and shoves him to the earth. When Alexei scrambles to rise to his feet again, Gauthier pushes him down once more, and this time his hands skid farther into the rough floor of the wilderness.

"Olivier, what's going on?" Alexei asks as he looks up at me, now worried about Gauthier's intentions.

"Alexei, my love, for your safety please don't move."

I hate to leave him on the ground while he has no idea what's happening around him, but there is no time for me to translate. This is the heat of the moment, and I can't miss one thing. If I speak Russian, a language that Gauthier can't understand, for too long, he will suspect that I am conniving with Alexei and forming a plan. For the security of the both of us, I cannot answer any further questions from Alexei.

"Shoot him," Gauthier orders.

And this is where the entire situation becomes a lot more real. Gauthier is a man who jokes around a lot, but he is dead serious right now. All of those other times could be solemn if only he could spare this one occasion where it is imperative that he is not actually going to make me shoot my beloved Alexei.

We both just escaped war, the place where death is the most prevalent, and we assumed that we were safe because of what we did. Surely the chances of our dying should be higher in a situation where it is typically higher, not in a situation where there should be no peril, and if there is any peril, then it should only be due to the environment, not to due to other humans forcing people to shoot the one they love. I promised Alexei that we would start a new life together, one of inexhaustible splendor where we wouldn't have to concern ourselves with the atrocities we have witnessed on the battlefield. I kept my last promise despite the odds, so why can't I keep this one? Why is it that when Alexei finally has a chance to be happy, that chance is stolen away from him as quickly as it came?

I don't know how I will resist Gauthier, but it is crucial that I do. Alexei's life is on the line here.

"And what if I don't shoot him? What happens then?"

"What happens then is that I'll shoot you both and ensure that it's the most agonizing experience of both of your lives."

So this is where I make the pivotal decision.

The group of soldiers behind Gauthier just watches silently in anticipation. I cannot tell where their loyalties lie -- whether they are sympathetic for Alexei or if they are rooting for Gauthier. Either way, none of them intervene. None of them care enough. To them, this is just free entertainment that they themselves would rather not get involved in.

"Olivier, please! Tell me what he's about to do!"

"I don't have a gun," I protest, stalling for time in order to avoid actually shooting the person I love.

"Then allow me to assist you," Gauthier offers, retrieving a gun from one of his soldiers who still watch in silence, then giving it to me with a sneer. "It's no problem, really."

"You know I don't speak French, Olivier!"Alexei screams from the background, his voice jagged with physical irritation. "You said you would translate for me! Why aren't you fucking translating?"

I have to ignore him. I have to pretend like I cannot speak Russian or whatever the excuse, even though Gauthier has heard me do it from just now and from the times when I've translated documents for the army. Anything to keep Gauthier unsuspicious. Anything to keep Alexei awake and breathing.

I look Gauthier straight in the eyes, while mine produce bountiful tears. "I'm your advisor, Gauthier. Why are you making me do this?"

I thought he considered me a friend. Even though I kept my distance, he never noticed it, and he was always favorable of me before now. Why would you put a friend in this position? Why should he care this much if Alexei is an enemy of France if he can see how much distress it is causing me to kill him?

"Fight back, Olivier!" Alexei commands me, but I can do nothing for him or else risk more than I could gain. From his perspective, it must seem that I'm being complacent with my circumstances, but this is not complacence. This is accepting the fact that there is nowhere else to run.

"This man is an enemy of France." Upon realizing that enemies of France do not count as my own enemies, Gauthier forms a gesture of disapproval with his head. "Sometimes I think you're too smart, and that's an issue for us. You've started to form your own opinions, and with opinions comes defiance. That's not the kind of soldier we trained you to be, Renaud. You need to be taught a lesson for stepping out of line."

"Please, Gauthier," I beg, searching for a bargain to make. I'm frantic and will take anything at this point. "I'll continue to help you with your letters to that woman you love, or, or..."

"You have already proven yourself to be worthless to the nation of France. I am in no need of your services now." Gauthier taps the gun that I've allowed to fall limp in my hands to remind me of he wants me to do. "Now shoot him, Renaud." I do not comply, and Gauthier's next option is to shout, "I said shoot him!"

"No," I state plainly. This is as far as I go with my defiance, but it does not hold up for longer than it takes for me to say the two letter word.

Gauthier takes ahold of me physically, thrusting the gun into an upright stance with the aim required to fire a bullet directly into Alexei's brain and possibly whiz out the other side. He stands behind me, steadying my shuddering hands so that he can get a clear shot.

With tear-riddled cheeks and sorrowful eyes, Alexei shakes his head slowly back and forth in disbelief. He now knows what is coming, for the language of war is universal. And through every fear of death that he previously kept, he only has one request. "Don't let me die like this, Olivier."

But this is a request that I cannot fulfill.

Since I myself will not do it, Gauthier performs his last check of the gun's stability, ushers my finger to the trigger, places his own finger on top of mine, and fires a bullet from its tip. And within a matter of milliseconds, the boy who used to be so full of life has now been robbed of that life.

Alexei, formerly on his knees as if praying to me to help him, falls back onto the carpet of the forest. A deposits of the crimson river flowing out of the center of his forehead stain the leaves around him a vibrant hue, and from now on they will forever be marked by the blood of an innocent boy who was far too young to die. Alexei's pulse arrests itself into stillness. The oxygen in his lungs freezes in place as the accordion of his body plays its final melancholy note. It echoes solemnly in the hollow woods, but I am the only one who can hear it. It moves me to tears.

But I don't even say one word. All I can manage to do is stand there in shock, my feet deeply rooted into the ground as I stare -- just stare -- at the corpse lying there motionless in front of me. I don't even think, either. My mind does a strange thing where nothing filters in or out, where everything is frozen. The only thing that could tell other humans whether I'm dead or alive is my breathing, somehow steady among the chaos, and my heartbeat pulsating languidly in my chest, phenomena that I myself am not even aware of as well.

"That took longer than it should have." Gauthier seizes his gun from me to return it to the soldier from whom he took it originally, and signals for the army to continue its march through the woods. "Consider yourself discharged from the military," he says to me. "That's what you wanted anyway."

His army marches past me nonchalantly as if Alexei was just another piece of business they had to take care of, while the majority of them give me dirty looks as they do so. Soldiers who I have never seen before in my life suddenly feel as though they have the right to judge me. I wish I could tell them off for being such hypocritical fools, but I cannot open my mouth to say any words, only to generate sobbing sounds to accompany my tears. After a while, I become fed up and elect to say something to them to get them to fuck off with their hypocrisy. "Et quoi? Vous êtes saints, vous?" A few of them look away, pretending like they weren't looking in the first place, just now becoming ashamed of their condemnation. Soon the entire army slips past me, and I am the only living soul in this part of the woods.

I don't know what to do now that I am all alone here. Do I weep over Alexei's dead body like any normal person would? Do I immediately begin to repress my emotions? Do I blame myself for it? Where do I go from this point in terms of dealing with Alexei's death? The truth is, I don't have a goddamn clue, yet the thing I want to know the most does not have to do with myself.

Life has never been very kind to Alexei Kozlov. And I am just wondering why. Alexei has never done anything to deserve the kind of treatment that the universe provided him with. He is a benevolent soul, and his mind is an endless library of intellect growing by the day. He understands what no one else that I have ever met understands. He steals bread yet berates himself for it because of the ethics upon which he is so fixated, which means that he values being an honest person as long as he is living enough to be that way. He is brave in a manner in which I have never seen it displayed before. Each day, he wakes up ready to do something great, not wallow in his self pity like some other people in his situation might do. He has made me feel like I don't have to be confined to the singular life set out for me before I was even born. He has made me feel alive as he is not.

I am a very fortunate man to have known him, but he left too early for my liking. We were planning on spending the rest of our lives with each other, and for him he accomplished his desire, but I let down my end of the deal.

It pains me immensely to behold the cadaver of the man that I killed, of the man that I love, of the man who no longer can love me back, but I need to say something to him before I leave. It is released as a tearful whisper, but I mean it with the same strength as if I shouted it from a mountaintop. "Forgive me, my love."

I resume my walk to Moscow.

~~~~~

A/N: get fucked!!!!!

this took me too long to write bc I kept getting distracted but it's here now (although I'm guessing y'all wish it weren't)

~Dakotevil