Page 5 of Eternal

DAMIR

“Яд” by Erika Lundmoen

A single breath. A single blink. A single shot.

That’s all it takes to erase a man from this stupid world. It’s too easy, too normal, it probably shouldn’t be. The art isn’t in the aim, it’s in deciding if his life matters less than my bullet.

And judging by the certainty in his death, I guess it never did.

My eyes follow my target of the day, calmly, as I lie flat on the roof of a building across.

The cold bites through my gloves, and I steady the sniper rifle against the edge of this roof.

We're entering the coldest season in Moscow, snowflakes drift lazily around me, and I know I need to act fast before a clear shot is lost in the snowstorm.

The streets below are almost empty, muffled under the thick blanket of snow covering every inch of this city. It's always so pretty here at this time of the year.

I missed this view when I was in prison, so I took it all in a few seconds, trying to memorize how calm it looks. How different it is from real life.

My breath fogs up the mask covering my face, but I welcome the warmth, brief as it is because it’s so fucking cold.

I inhale deeply and exhale slowly. It's warm enough to help me focus on the task at hand.

Last mission of the week.

I adjust the scope of my rifle with gloved fingers, watching the man shiver under the yellow glow of the police floodlights.

He fidgets, glancing around nervously as if he senses that these seconds could be his last.

Even from here, I can see his breath come out in anxious white clouds. He doesn’t know his life is measured in seconds, that his secrets about our existence will die with him.

No room for mistakes, some might call my decisions selfish, and they are, I’m well aware of it.

It’s not morally correct to kill people.

I don’t care, our team has thrived for years because we’ve known how to stay in the shadows.

With death, with violence.

I press the comms earpiece embedded under my wool hat, catching the faint sounds of my men stationed around me.

“Still alive?” Roman’s voice crackles with slight irritation. “Or are you just going to let him freeze out there, Viper ?”

I smile beneath the mask. “Impatience is a bad habit. He's freezing to death. Let’s make him sweat a little before we take him out.”

“Shit, your sadism is driving me crazy, boss. My fingers are freezing,” Roman huffs again.

“You really think I give a fuck about your fingers, Roman?” I reply quickly, enjoying the dead silence on his end. A smile spreads wider beneath my mask.

Through the scope, I lock onto the target. He's muttering to himself, dodging questions from the police. He looks lost, clumsy. Weak.

He shivers in the cold, but none of that matters now. He’s an obstacle, and an obstacle must be eliminated.

That’s what they taught me. That’s what I taught myself to believe.

I’d warned Roman not to order pizza near our base, but he did, and now this idiot saw everything. His eyes caught every detail, and a few days later, the cops arrested him for drug possession.

I tipped them off, because no one knew us, and it should stay that way.

“Let's go,” I murmur, pulling the trigger.

One shot.

The rifle jerks against my shoulder, and the man’s head lurches back, a red splash spreads into the pristine white snow behind him as he tries to enter the police station again.

The officers scramble around, shouting into their radios as if they could somehow spot me, though I’m so far away, I could have missed the shot.

The sound is swallowed by the streets, and the silence settles in as if Moscow itself approves of my actions.

“Target down.”

Yuri’s voice crackles in my earpiece. “Shit, you got him from that far?”

I chuckle softly, wiping the condensation from my mask as I begin to pack up. “Imagine what I could do to you when you’re close enough then.”

“No need, boss. I’m already fucking tired, you’d push me with a finger and I’d die today.” Yuri complains as I hear the sound of the van coming down the road.

“Everything that happened today is Roman's fault, just so we’re clear,” I say, taking my rifle apart and double-checking the scope. “No more pizza deliveries. I wasted a bullet because of your stupidity.”

“It wasn’t even that good,” Vlad chimes in. “We could’ve used that delivery for something better. What a fucking waste.”

I love hearing them complain, it reminds me why I keep them around. But these idiots, I put up with them. They’re all I have left and all I ever had.

I sling the rifle over my shoulder, adjusting my black combat jacket.

“Roman, you're awfully quiet,” I say, my voice cold. “If you're feeling bad, you can confess your sins. Father Sacha always has his confessionals open.”

Roman laughs nervously. “I’m freezing, boss. Talking hurts my throat. Damn, what’s with the cold this year?”

I smile, though they can't see it. “That’s your American side showing. But I’m not kidding, it’s the last time you drag us out of camp because of your screw-ups.”

He laughs again, but it's tight. They all know I mean it, whether I’m a commander or not, respect must be earned, and I’m not here to coddle them. They respect the authority that keeps them alive, not always the man behind it, and that suits me just fine.

“Back to base,” I say, cutting the line and stepping down from the roof. The snow crunches beneath my boots as I descend the metal stairs. The frozen streets of the city stretch before me.

I’m a shadow among many, and no one knows who I am, or what I do. My balaclava hides my face, while my sniper rifle rests against my back as if I didn’t use it to take the life out of someone.

The van awaits me and the team is already inside.

Vlad smiles at me with a thumbs-up, Oleg is still texting his girl, and Roman and Yuri are arguing about something stupid again.

In a few minutes, we’re back at the camp.

Inside, I hang my gear on the rack and unclip my vest, letting it fall onto the chair.

I sit at the table, the flames in the fireplace lighting up the room, but I’m still only in a t-shirt.

I don’t like the heat much, I prefer the cold.

Maybe it’s because I’m used to it, Vlad is the same. He’s the only one who doesn’t complain, probably because he’s used to it too. We slept outside so many times when we were younger, the rain, the wind, it wasn’t easy, but we got through it.

My hands move through the familiar motions, dismantling my sniper rifle with precision. The clicks fall into a rhythm as I go through the same routine, double-checking everything.

Strip, wipe, oil, reassemble.

I never knew why I was so strict about it, maybe it’s because no one ever taught me how to live, only taught me how to survive. Out there, nothing stays clean for long, but here, at least, I can make one thing right.

One thing mine .

I see Roman standing in the corner, his eyes still red from the cold, he’s trying to hide it, but I can tell he’s pissed. It’s not often we end up in a mess like that, and his mistake nearly cost us, and it did cost a man’s life. He should’ve listened.

Vlad and Yuri are busy in the kitchen, preparing dinner, and Oleg is on his phone. But their eyes flick toward me every now and then as I stare hard at Roman.

Roman looks up, but he doesn’t meet my gaze, he knows I’m pissed, but not nearly as much as he should be. He should’ve been more careful.

“Roman,” I call out, my voice low. “Get your shit together. I know it’s hard, this mission’s a long fucking one, but with the money, you won’t have to work for a few months and you could eat as many pizzas as you’d want.”

He flinches at the sound of my voice. “I know, boss. I fucked up,” he mutters, rubbing the back of his neck. “It won’t happen again.”

I stay silent for a moment and look at him. He’s younger than us, too young, and I hate that he has to live like this, killing, destroying lives, walking through violence like it’s normal.

He never gets anything soft, nothing kind.

He’s still a child, no matter how steady his aim is.

And I hate that I see it, that I see the child in him while he kills to survive.

He shouldn’t be here, but I guess life doesn’t care what we should be.

After a few drinks and when the food arrives, the mood starts to lift. Roman leans back, he laughs more, and it’s probably because of Yuri's exaggerated story from the field, making even Oleg laugh so hard he almost spits out his vodka.

But Vlad? He’s sitting across from me, holding a beer but barely drinking, his usual spark is… gone, and it’s replaced by something distant.

Roman notices too, throwing him a mock-scolding look. “What’s wrong with you, Malysh ? Missing the women? I can come to you at night if that can help relax you.”

Vlad forces a weak smile before tossing a piece of bread at his head. “Son of a bitch. Nothing, just thinking.”

Yuri rolls his eyes. “Thinking is dangerous, my friend. Stick to what you know: not thinking.”

Laughter rolls around the table, but Vlad doesn’t take his eyes off his beer, and that’s not like him.

When he stands and heads for the door, I set my drink down and follow him outside into the cold night.

The air hits us like a wall of ice, almost slapping us immediately. There’s no one out here, only us and a church not too far away.

We cook, we clean, and we’ve been living here for an entire year because the mission we did took longer than we planned. Vlad is leaning against the brick wall, the red glow of his cigarette briefly lighting up his face as he takes a drag.

I light my cigarette, standing beside him and we smoke in silence for a while.

I’ve known Vlad since I was four, he’s like my little brother.

We grew up in the same foster home, packed with kids and not a single kind soul.

When I was twelve, I took him and ran, we didn’t have a choice, he was starving and bruised, and so was I.

Living alone with no money wasn’t safe, but it was better than staying there.

So we lived under bridges, in tunnels, anywhere that kept the cops off our backs.

I had to fight to put food on the table, to keep us alive.

I was always violent, so I started using it to make money, twelve years old, scraping by any way I could.

Vlad was a kid back then, but he followed me anyway, he trusted me…

He always had these big brown eyes filled with pride and enthusiasm, and I wanted him to have something softer, but there wasn’t any. Just fists and hunger.

I fought, I earned, I kept him close, and eventually, he joined me, that’s how it started, and now here we are.

He’s my oldest friend, and I can tell something’s been weighing on him. My team isn’t a team if one of us is too troubled to talk about it.

Finally, I break the silence. “Something bothering you, malysh ?”

He looks at me, dark and sorrowful shadows under his eyes, then shrugs like it’s not that important. “You ever wondered if it’s worth it? This life, what we do, and all. Like wanting certain things made us sick, like they used to say back in the house?”

Damn fucking old house.

I take a drag, letting the deadly smoke fill my lungs before exhaling slowly. “Only one day out of two. But they were crazy there, they even said jerking off was a sin. Don’t think about it.”

A faint smile touches his lips. “Guess you’re right, Damir.”

I didn’t like this, the way he sounded was empty and confused.

“Hell no,” I reply, glancing at the empty street. “Don’t close yourself off, you’ve got the team, you’ve got me .”

He laughs, low and without joy. “Didn’t know that mattered to you.”

“Don’t make it weird, fucking idiot,” I mutter, a half-smile tugging at my lips as I snuff out my cigarette. “I would kill for you, Malysh . You know it; you can talk to me, you can always count on me.”

He was family.

He’s always been family.

There’s a shift in him after that, subtle but noticeable. When we go back inside, he picks up his beer again, a bit of his old self coming back, he even manages to smile when Roman cracks another joke at him.

The others are still sitting around the table, they laugh and scream about how tired they are, drunkenly thinking about how much they miss normality and shit like that.

Vlad grabs his beer again and takes a long sip.

Roman stands up, half-drunk, and slaps his hands together.“Alright, if we can’t hit the club, we’ll bring the club to us.”

Yuri grins, already pulling out his phone, and within seconds, the soft notes of an old Russian song begin to fill the room.

It’s a song that’s familiar, one we’ve all heard a hundred times, but tonight it feels different, more nostalgic, the kind of song that pulls memories from the depths of your chest and makes them feel like they happened yesterday.

Vlad stands, his body swaying slightly with the beat, his beer in hand. Oleg follows and even stops texting his girl for once. Yuri and Roman follow suit, their movements a little clumsy, but full of life, full of something that feels real.

I stand by the door, watching them.

The way they move, the way they laugh, the way they’ve become a family in the purest sense.

I catch a glimpse of Vlad’s face. His mouth is curved in a smile that hasn’t been there all night. He’s laughing now, his eyes light with something genuine. He finally looks like the Vlad I know.

For a second, I wish I could freeze this moment, I wish I could snap a picture of them all, this family I’ve built because I never had any, happy, carefree and unaffected.

I take out my old phone from my jacket, one of those brick models with a blurry camera and a scratched-up screen. Slowly, I raise it and frame the shot.

The room is bathed in soft, yellow light, I press the button, the fake shutter sound crackles, and for some reason, I find myself smiling. They look happy… drunk, but happy , and right now, that’s all that matters.

I lower the phone and watch them. My team, my family . The ones who’ve bled beside me, I don’t want to forget this, grainy or not, I want to keep it.

I catch Vlad’s eye as he spins around, laughing with Roman. For a moment, it feels like everything is right, like we’ve all found something worth fighting for.

And for once, I’m glad I’m here to see it.

The song fades into the background, but I can still hear the sound of their laughter.

That’s the only noise I need tonight.