Rebirth

Yuri couldn’t quite be sure what had brought him here.

Then again, why should he need a reason to walk down this hallway?

After all, it was home.

He recognized the heavy door that slammed if you didn’t guide it back into the frame. The many scratches from furniture carried just a bit carelessly. Even the crooked angle it rested at that allowed him to stand on his toes and peer through the gap above the top-most hinge.

So she never got that fixed.

That had been on his to-do list, of course.

One of many items that went uncrossed, boxes unchecked.

Work was grueling and his family had some history with vodka. What more could she have asked from him with a deck so stacked? It was a miracle he get out of bed every morning to drive back to that godforsaken plant.

Still, he could have tried harder to keep things in order. To give their space the care it needed. To build a home worthy of them.

He recognized that now.

After all, he had achieved things once thought unimaginable. Pushed himself to new levels.

It had been a deep, dark hole he found himself in. Robbed of purpose, no clear way out, and simply burning away precious months of his life while everything remained static around him.

When a glimmer of light was offered, he scrambled toward it on all fours.

Sure, it had been a dim flicker instead of a great sunrise. The road was long, arduous, and no small part treacherous.

But in that march, he found new purpose. New enthusiasm for life. And a burning desire to see it through to the end.

So that he might find himself here, standing outside the front door of his flat.

Here at last.

The fighting had been brutal, and the powers that be needed more men. Volunteers had dried up. Conscription only staunched the bleeding. Somewhere in the chain of command, someone had an inspired idea:

Offer a second chance to the ones everyone else has turned their backs on.

Yuri went from that dark place to, a year later, being discharged with a Medal For Courage. His commanding officer had personally signed the commendation.

He could not wait for Svetlana to greet the newly remade man at her door.

Still, he did not want to be caught short and make a mess of the reunion. So, hearing the TV in the living room, he took a glance through the opening at the top of the door.

And caught sight of Josef on the couch.

Then it all came flooding back. Past the drone blasts, earth-rattling artillery strikes, deafening gunshots, and constant teetering between the dueling forces of adrenaline and exhaustion that had almost scoured his mind clean of the times before the war.

Clarity of purpose returned to him.

He was no longer Yuri the technician or Yuri the convict.

He was now Yuri the soldier.

The hero.

Now the knife on his belt made sense.

They hadn’t let him keep his rifle or this all might be a lot quicker.

But that was okay. Yuri was no stranger to knives.

It was no secret that the police took a lenient view to domestic “disagreements,” as they called them. Most judges as well, if it even made it to a courtroom.

Yet, when the cops walked into the flat to find Yuri holding a knife to his wife’s throat, that had changed things.

The judge seemed sympathetic, but the two People’s Assessors were women, and that’s when Yuri knew he was screwed.

In the minutiae of the proceedings, Yuri recalled learning that it was Josef who had overheard the shouting and breaking glass. He had been the one to summon the police.

At the time, Yuri had written it off as Josef fulfilling what he thought of as his neighborly duties.

But now, watching that man with his arm across Svetlana’s shoulders, Yuri realized he still had one last mission to fulfill.

His Sergeant in the Russian Ground Forces had always counseled that caution and cunning were what separated the soldiers from the fodder. Deception was more important than ever when the Ukrainians would blast them to pieces with cheap drones whenever they made it too obvious where their troops would mass for an attack.

So, instead of kicking in the door or pounding on it, Yuri stepped back.

He recalled always scolding Svetlana for forgetting to lock the door after carrying in groceries or otherwise having her hands full. Perhaps that had been the subject of the final confrontation that had set him on this path of rebirth. He could not recall.

And it didn’t matter.

What mattered was his ex-wife had never heeded his words as he applied the slightest pressure and found the knob turned easily. Just enough to remove it from the catch in the doorframe.

Slightly more pressure to the front revealed the deadbolt had not been turned, either.

Again, Yuri resisted the obvious path. The one that would have ended in death at the call of tiny propellers only a few short weeks ago.

Trained as he was in close quarters, it would be nearly impossible to subdue two full-grown adults. Someone would shout. One might escape.

His gaze flicked to Josef’s door on the wall perpendicular to theirs.

And how the wall bent at a ninety-degree angle just past it.

He walked up to it, banged on the door to the flat he already knew was empty, and barked out, “Mr. Sokolov, you have a package you need to sign for.”

Loud enough that he was sure it would be heard over the TV next door.

After all, he recalled that he could hear everything that happened in the hallway with that damned crack in the door.

Then Yuri withdrew around the corner, fast as a snow leopard, quiet as a mouse.

And waited.

***

It hadn’t all gone to plan. But Yuri hadn’t won that medal for cowardice.

Once the mission began, he did not back down.

Josef had surprised him with his resilience. Leaving Yuri with the unfortunate dilemma of taking the time for proper concealment at the risk of Svetlana having time to react.

So Yuri had chosen the primary objective at the risk of losing the secondary objective.

Besides, it wasn’t like he hadn’t survived this once already.

Sure, the price might be higher this time around. But he knew the way.

The secondary objective was confirmed lost as two policemen burst through the door, handguns raised.

Yuri tossed away the knife, its purpose now fulfilled, before placing his hands on the back of his head.

He started to rise when one of them shouted, “Stay on the ground, you fucking animal.”

Even as he obeyed, Yuri shook his head.

“No. A hero,” he muttered.

Then he realized it wasn’t their fault for not realizing; he had left his Medal For Courage in the car.

As one crossed the room while the other kept his gun on Yuri, he remembered something else. The police hadn’t kicked in the door. He had left it unlocked in his haste during the infill.

He smiled as his eyes met Svetlana’s empty pupils. “Let he who is without sin…”

“I don’t know what you’re smiling about,” the policeman behind him growled as he yanked Yuri’s hands to his waist. “You’re going away for a long time”

“So you say,” Yuri said as the cold metal loops closed around each wrist.

“But I’ll be back.”

***

Author’s Note

Like some of the most chilling dark fiction out there, this one is rooted in a real-life phenomenon. Russia is seeing a surge of crimes committed by veterans returning from the War in Ukraine. Some are no strangers to crime to start with, as the Russian Ministry of Defense, in its desperation for men, has offered prisoners the chance to serve on the battlefield in exchange for a pardon and freedom at the conclusion of their tour.

While exact details are hard to come by for obvious reasons, this story stuck out to me and first alerted me to the phenomena:

Now, it should be said, a Ukrainian publication has every reason to play up a particularly brutal story like this, but it is far from the only account. The overall trend is clear:

And it begs the question: when this war ends, just how much more extreme will this phenomenon get?