CITY OF THE DEAD ✓

IX. ENGINEERS

"What's left in a dead city?"

"Nothing. There wasn't anything to sew your wound up and look, you're bleeding again."

Blood soaked through his left arm, and red blotches collected in the fabric of his sleeves when he peeled off his coat. Alexey muttered a curse and caught the pieces of red fabric I threw at him. The sharpness of the dried cloth made it coarse to the touch and prone to making the skin beneath it chaffed.

"How was sentry last night?" Alexey didn't dare look at the hole in his flesh and spoke to me in an attempt to distract himself. He gritted his teeth and layered the strips of undershirt over his skin. "I planned to wake you when the warmth of the blood spilled from my arm and instead; I saw you asleep. Maybe I should stick to sentry?"

"No, you needed rest last night, and I did too. With all you've done, consider it a piece of my thank you."

I smiled and took the improvised bandages from him. Twisting them caused red dots to fall on the ground before I tucked them into my pocket. Alexey pulled his coat back on and pushed off the ground with his rifle in his right hand.

He threw himself into the daylight and walked amongst the rubble, glancing over his shoulder. I looked to both the building remnants in the narrow alleyway of bricks and stone. Alexey kept his head low as a precaution in the silence.

I had adopted his habit of glancing behind every few minutes. The ruins didn't shift but smoldered and crumbled, causing both of us to raise our rifles at the eerie sounds. Alexey had me lead and told me what course to take. He slung his rifle and held his arm instead, trying to fight off the remaining pain of the wound.

I stepped sideways over a collapsed wall amid our path, climbing through the pile of slippery, ice-coated bricks it had left. One loose one caused a huge slide to tumble towards him. I paused a second and when I heard nothing from him I turned.

"Thanks," he muttered. "I'll be sure to bleed out this time."

He's was getting back on his feet after taking his own fall in the slick rubble. Alexey checked his palm and cursed as a new stream of blood came trickling from the open wound. I unraveled the wad of sharp cloth from my pocket, watching the towers on either side of us.

"Come on, we aren't doing this out in the open."

Alexey cursed while we crept into the shadow of a wall. He leaned against it before drawing back the sleeve and getting his first look at the wound when he wasn't in shock.

The bullet wound had a diameter of an only a few millimeters, but it was a void of blood that penetrated and subsequently destroyed his muscle. The darkest blood ran onto his skin and into the dirt and dust of the city. The air was thicker than ever, causing my eyes to water. Alexey bit the inner corner of his cheek to not make a sound.

"Fuck it, Vaska."

"You think I'm going to have you come this far to die in the ruins?"

"Go to the Volga, save yourself because my time is out!" He snatched the cloth from me and wrapped it tighter than before. "You're a fool if you think we can make it now. If another German patrol comes to ambush us, we're done. The platoon back there saved us like the gunner crew."