Red light through closed eyelids gave the order: get up!
Squinting and scratching myself, I stood, looked around. Nothing of interest.
Morning, same scenery as before: moraines, boulder fields, cubic meters of rock. Explosions rumbled in the distance, machine guns rattled, light artillery yapped and heavy artillery barked. A war had genuinely started up.
Nothing to do over there.
I turned my back on the rocks, faced the sands.
What had Anton said? Nobody ever came back? I had no desire to die of thirst, hunger, and hallucinations in the white silence. Sounds romantic in a song, disgusting in real life. Proven fact, by the pink sands. No urge to drag myself into the desert.
No choice either, though.
Fate was pushing me in only one direction: toward the path between the sands and the rocks, snaking across the ground and then suddenly freezing in place. I stuck my hand in my pants pocket and found a grenade.
Where from?
Ah, right. Who knows, it just turned up. Fine, let it be. Not the type to go out with a bang, but I had to get moving. Humming, «Who the hell needs this war, to hell with it!» I headed for the path.
