“We’ve received reports; elements of the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army and the 20th Guards Motor Rifle Division are taking heavy losses. They’re burning through equipment faster than expected. Command is considering reallocating some of our supplies to support them…”

  The voice crackled over the tent’s radio, strained, clipped. Around it, intelligence teams hunched over their equipment, headphones on, whispering updates to nearby officers as more transmissions poured in. The air inside the command tent was thick with tension, crowded with officers from subordinate units of my 35th Combined Arms Army.

  Until now, our situation had been manageable. We hadn’t reached critical thresholds—at least, not yet. But the reports from our sister divisions painted a far bleaker picture: devastating losses in both manpower and materiel. Units at the front were dangerously low on ammunition, and entire vehicle columns had been reduced to blackened husks scattered across the fields.

  The tent heated up quickly—whether from the press of bodies, the tension, or both. Several of my colonels, some of them politically connected senior officers, began arguing loudly against the proposal. The idea of diverting our equipment to prop up faltering units didn’t sit well with them, and I couldn’t entirely blame them.

  The first to step forward was Lieutenant Colonel Bat-Erdene Temuulen, the only Mongolian officer I’d encountered serving with the 64th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade. He approached, irritation evident in his voice, boots still caked with mud.

  “Major General”, he said, his voice sharp,

  “I strongly urge we refrain from sending our equipment to the other divisions. If we do, we will have nothing left for the next offensive.”

  He paused to take a breath before continuing.

  “I’ve already received word from my men—more than a dozen of our Tigr armored vehicles are gone. All of them. Blown apart. Those damn dogs are using FPV drones directly on our convoys. They’re chipping away at our mobility piece by piece.”

  I didn’t have a chance to respond before another voice cut in. It was Colonel Andrey Maksim, sounding just as bitter.

  “I’m with you,” he said. “The 103rd Logistic Support Brigade lost a shitload of trucks heading south. Those fucking MLRs wiped out at least two full companies’ worth of Urals. Look, I want to support our comrades; I really do, but what sense is there in sending what little gear we have left just so they can waste it on another half-baked offensive?”

  It was a fair point. Half the idiots in those sister divisions kept throwing men and precious equipment into poorly planned assaults, wasting both lives and hardware in the eastern regions of Ukraine. Taking these remarks to heart, I gave them a nod and a calm smile, silently assuring them that not a single piece of our equipment would be handed over.

  “Bringing these concerns forward should be enough to make them understand why we can’t send out what little we have,” I said. “Given the situation, we’d be better off finding a way to end this stalemate before everything spirals even further out of control…”

  “I’ll call another meeting at 1800 hours. Everyone here is dismissed.”

  The officers around the table rose, satisfied with the outcome of the short briefing. There were no lingering objections, no quiet grumbling, only muted nods and crisp salutes as they filtered out of the tent one by one. A rare moment of agreement, even if it was born more of convenience than conviction.

  Everyone, that is, except Lieutenant Colonel Bat-Erdene Temuulen.

  As I stepped outside, the wind off the Kherson fields struck me immediately. Bitter, damp, laced with the stench of fuel, decay, and sodden soil. This place, once marked by farmland, villages, and quiet roads, had long since become a landscape soaked in fire and ruin.

  I heard the crunch of boots behind me. I didn’t need to turn to know who it was.

  “Major General”, Temuulen said, barely above a whisper, but enough to catch my ear.

  He approached slowly, deliberately. His eyes, shadowed beneath the brim of his cap, held something unspoken. The air between us felt dense with tension.

  “I know we made our decision in there,” he said, his tone more personal now, “but I don’t like it. Not because of the gear or the numbers. It’s something else.”

  He paused, watching a group of soldiers in the distance loading crates into the back of a battered URAL truck.

  “This whole operation, it doesn’t feel right,” he continued. “It’s not just the enemy wearing us down. We’re being spent, used up. Like someone’s trading men and armour for time, hoping to buy a victory that never comes.”

  Then he turned to look at me directly, and in that moment, I didn’t see defiance. I saw exhaustion. The kind etched into a man who had led too many charges and buried too many of his own.

  “I don’t know how much longer my brigade can hold, sir. And I doubt anyone in Moscow gives a damn.”

  With that, we both turned our attention to the rumbling convoy snaking across the Kherson Oblast. T-90Ms led the column, followed by a ragged trail of civilian-converted transports, URAL-4320s, and 43206s bouncing over the mud. My men were pushing forward, still fighting, still moving.

  It had been five months since the operation began, and somehow, against the odds, we were still holding on.

  Above, the deafening scream of SU-34s ripped through the air, flying low enough to rattle the ground beneath our feet. The sonic boom echoed across the sky, eliciting cheers from the grunts. Shortly thereafter, KA-52Ms flew by in the distance, their heavy cannons pounding hell into distant targets. We heard it, the staccato beat of cannon fire ringing across the fields.

  BMP-2Ms and Terminator AIFVs escorted the convoy—an iron fist, the backbone of the 35th Combined Arms Army. Seeing them roll over the soggy, war-torn fields made something stir in my chest, patriotism, perhaps. Pride. For a fleeting moment, I felt like we were making history.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  But years later, when the smoke had cleared and the silence rolled in once more, I understood the truth.

  This so-called special military operation? It was a joke.

  I lost too many good men. Their names stay with me, one by one, each death cutting a scar into my command. I had to call in Wagner units just to stay operational—then later, even the Koreans. The deeper we penetrated, the more complicated and costly these missions became. The further we pushed, the more we bled.

  Logistics collapsed.

  Morale thinned.

  And with each casualty report I signed, it became excruciatingly obvious:

  The Kremlin had no idea what kind of hell they had dragged us into.

  Sincerely, I wish we’d just fallen into a deep, dreamless slumber, none of this new world, so-called life. No hell. No heaven. Nothing.

  I couldn’t even begin to describe what I saw. I wouldn’t have the first clue how to do it, even if I wanted to. And perhaps, just perhaps, I shouldn’t.

  See, I’ve come to believe there are things in this world, things out there, that transcend words. Things the human mouth was never meant to speak of. We’re programmed to talk about what we see, to make sense of it. But the moment we truly see something? Something ancient, raw, beyond all reason?

  The real ones, the ones who’ve seen, won’t talk.

  Not because they’re afraid.

  But because they understand.

  Some things are better left unspoken.

  And those who’ve been touched by them?

  They carry that silence to the end of the world.

  The whispers of the dead, beyond the abyss... I could hear them.

  A sensation stirred, like a longing to be summoned as one of the undead. And yet, I couldn’t even summon one. It had been hours since the last time, and my past self had a moment by the campfire as we patrolled through the dark caves.

  I’d already replaced my torch twice, and the supplies I had were running short. I couldn't imagine having to listen to myself, convincing myself to find this item that would make me a proper undead summoner, to venture even deeper into these dark corridors. There was nothing but the distant sound of droplets falling into the abyss.

  “Careful...” Alexander muttered. “There’s a bridge just ahead.”

  I feel like I’m losing my mind, seeing and hearing my past self again. Same uniform, same cocky attitude. The same smirk he wore when that surprise attack caught us both off guard. He doesn’t even try to hide it. Just stares back at me, smiling as if he’s proud of screwing everything up.

  The cave gave way to a hollow emptiness, dark, spacious, and resonating with silence. As I passed through the passage, the torch I held flared into a brighter light, casting macabre shadows upon the stone walls. That’s when I noticed it.

  A bridge.

  Old. Wooden. Creaking.

  And long—too long.

  The planks were brittle, half-rotted by time. The ropes frayed like old scars. One good gust of wind and the whole damn bridge might collapse. No way in hell it would support someone of moderate weight, much less someone in full battle gear.

  I glared at my older self.

  "You believe whatever power-up you're after is on the other side of that?" I asked. "That bridge wouldn't support an infant."

  Alexander simply laughed, cold, ghostly fingers brushing my back.

  "My new self’s giving his old self doubts," he said with that insufferable smirk. "Don’t be a pussy. Just walk. If my undead ass can sense something, the least you can do is trust me."

  Big talk from the guy who killed us both.

  But okay.

  If there’s something on the other side of this damn pit, then maybe dying on a bridge held together by prayers and cobwebs is better than crawling back to the surface with nothing.

  I stepped onto the bridge.

  It creaked under my weight, as if it hated my very presence. Alexander, being undead and arrogant about it, floated along behind me, as if the rickety thing couldn’t touch him.

  Every step felt like a gamble. The boards sagged beneath me. The ropes groaned, stretched tight like nerves on edge. I wasn’t even heavy, yet each sound screamed a warning I ignored.

  And still, we walked on.

  Halfway across, I stopped. I let a torch fall over the edge, watching the flame flicker against the abyss. I didn’t see anything. Just blackness.

  The drop equalled death. No doubt.

  "Watch it," Alexander muttered over my shoulder. "Wouldn’t want to see myself mess it up and take us both down."

  "Oh, yeah?" I grumbled. "I go down, and you just float there like a smug fucker. Very brave of you, letting me go first."

  He simply smiled, his eyes glinting coldly.

  "Can’t let my new self die too young."

  I didn’t answer. Just kept walking – step by step – toward the other side.

  Then it hit me.

  That crawling sensation in my gut—the kind that tells you death is breathing down your neck.

  I froze.

  Turned around.

  Alexander stood beside me, his eyes wide.

  "FUCKING RUN."

  I didn’t question. Didn’t hesitate.

  I ran.

  The bridge groaned and creaked under my boots. Ropes snapped behind me with the sound of gunshots—twang, twang, CRACK—one after another. The planks jolted and bounced, and the ground beneath me seemed to vanish into thin air. Only the terror and the wind.

  I saw the ledge ahead. Just a few metres. A few more steps.

  And then—

  Snap.

  The bridge swung, jerking violently down as the final ropes snapped. I didn’t stay to watch it fall—I jumped.

  I sailed through the air, heart slamming into my ribs, and hit the far edge of the cliff. My landing was anything but graceful. I hit hard, rolled, and crashed into the jagged rocks with a thud that rattled my bones.

  "AH FUCK~!"

  Pain shot through my body. My shoulder took the brunt of the impact. I collapsed, gasping as if my chest had caved in, while the rest of the bridge plummeted after me, disappearing into the abyss.

  Dust swirled around me, thick and choking.

  My ears rang, blood pounding in my skull.

  And behind me, somewhere in the air, Alexander’s ethereal presence hung, arms crossed, glaring silently. He didn’t lift a finger to help as I struggled to get back on my feet, not even offering the courtesy of a word.

  I took a breath, pushing through the agony, my vision focusing on something ahead. There, across the way, I saw a statue, looming out of the darkness. Its form was faint, but the moment I caught sight of it, something within me shifted.

  I grabbed another torch from my pack and pulled it free, the flame flaring up brightly, casting harsh shadows across the stone.

  My eyes widened, never expecting it to be true. Giving myself the benefit of the doubt toward my old self, the reflection of the past began to grow stronger, and my old self, Alexander, came closer. His presence gave me a flicker of hope.

  “We shall take this and begin the first steps of becoming the true undead summoner,” he said.

  “And just now, you figured it out before me?” I replied.

  Alexander glanced back at me with that same smirk.

  “Don’t doubt yourself,” he said. “The dungeon has what we need to make ourselves far more capable. And it has something that will finally make me truly exist. Twenty years in this fucking cave, and I can finally make myself alive once we share bodies…”

  I felt a shiver run through me. “What happens when we share the bodies?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered, his voice a mix of uncertainty and resolve. “Never gotten far… but I’ll make sure you become far more capable than those bastards that killed us both. I’ll make them regret what they did. Even an old dog like me can still bite.”

  The statue behind us loomed even larger, revealing a fortress like nothing I’d ever seen before. It stood twenty metres tall, a menacing structure, with the screams of the undead echoing from within and the restless sounds of thousands of little monsters scurrying around. The sight stirred something deep inside me.

  I drew my broken steel blade, its edge dull and chipped. Alexander smiled, his eyes glinting.

  “Better than nothing,” he muttered.

  As I—or we—looked around, the world seemed to shift. The past and the present collided in a way that made everything clearer. Both my past and present had been full of shit, each moment marked by loss and pain. And I had nothing left to die with. But I did know one thing: revenge was all I had left.

  Alexander and I walked toward the fortress, our steps synchronised. We knew we might never see the light of day again, but it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was what lay ahead.

  “I’ll find my revenge,” I muttered, the words heavy with resolve.