Everyone Dies in the End #31
Anatol
Captain Anatol Vorishnov was dead. His senior sergeant and leader of the Sagger team, Nikoli Berliavskii, still knew that and so did Anatol.
But if I am dead, why am I here? That was the question. The question that Anatol had asked himself since he felt the shotgun blast, the shotgun blast fired by this girl now in front of him, rip through his face but a short 24-hours earlier. Anatol was no closer to the answer now than he had been then, but the answer didn’t matter. His men mattered, his men had always mattered.
And now those men were being slaughtered. Anger welled within Anatol, an anger that could only be matched by his grief. Since his death, or at least the end of his corporal existence—Anatol didn’t know what to call his obvious obliteration, yet equally obvious existence, however ethereal—Anatol had followed his soldiers, cared for them as he had in his other life, yet been unable to convey his presence. He spoke, but no one heard, he yelled, but no one stirred, he touched, but no one felt. But now he knew he must do something, must save Nikoli Berliavskii, his friend.
He had seen the girl come. Unlike in his other life, he could see her body shift from corporal to ethereal, move through the nothingness in which he now existed, and then reform beside to Nikoli, her shotgun pointed at his head, as it had once pointed at his.
A white-hot anger filled him, brilliant and pure. He would not allow her to kill his friend as she had killed him. Anatol focused the anger, pulled it from within, sent it through his arms, to his hands, and then with the anger in his hands, he pushed.
And it worked.
Part of Anatol rejoiced, part of him stared in disbelief. It worked, the girl stumbled as if pushed from behind, which she had been. Horror replaced his joy when Anatol realized Nikoli’s intent, realized too late to interfere. He saw the finger on the trigger of the AK74, saw it squeeze, could have sworn he saw the bullet’s exit, the 7.62mm spear of lead fly to the ManPot, tear through the thin canvas cover, through the Kevlar never meant to stand an impact at such close range, and then into the portable nuclear device. The world went white.
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