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2024-10-29 19:42:56It was 3:09PM in the city of Petrograd, Russia and Anna was at the World War III Memorial Park sitting next to her squatting dog by one of the ultra-modern benches spread across the park. She inhaled the air and it still was not clear and as clean as she remembered.
Anna's husband was a war veteran who passed away about 7 years ago. She had not felt this much peace in a while. She smiled slowly and her wrinkled eyes smiled from the right edges, too. She had every reason to be happy in this moment. Her husband was a brave soldier who gave his all into serving his country and seeing a monumental Hologram Edifice right before her just made his efforts make sense to her.
The war might have been pointless as she'd always believed, but her husband was not a coward and this honourable place was worthy of the efforts he invested.
"Can you hear me, Vladimir?" Anna said with a warm smile clothing her much wrinkled face as she caressed the hair of her dog's head softly.
Anna stared into blank space for a while as nostalgia overwhelmed her and she basked in every bit of memory of herself and her husband that came to her.
"I love you, too. I always will, My Vladimir. Ya iyublyu tebya" She said as she kissed two fingers from her right hand as raised them up shakily and with a different happy glow beaming from her face.
Anna had found peace here and she slowly got up from the bench as her dog got up from its squatting position to follow her. She walked slowly from the park where other people, mostly women-widows and mothers who lost their children to the war were; which she had previously not noticed.
"Zzzzzzddddaaaaaaa" A crash loud enough to deafen a person crashed into the ground from the sky causing a great tremor within the ground, dozens who could still move could only tremble and shiver as words eluded them. There was a screeching frequency around the whole city with most of the people in the park either rolling helplessly on the ground, buried in ash, choking and hyperventilating or in some cases, bleeding fatally.
The 77 year old Anna had fallen to the ground, too, hitting her head on the floor with a great impact as she bled slowly from her mouth. Her dog had fallen about 30 metres away from her due to the cataclysmic impact of the nuclear bomb's explosion that had found its way to the city.
Her dog was bent over on his right side with obvious bruises and almost noticeable bone fractures. Anna traced her eyes around her environment while she winced in pain. She saw Orlov, her dog and the state of utter pity in which he was as she tried to raise her hands to reach out.
"Orlov" Anna said in a very low pitch full of pain and heavy in pity as her mouth kept forming blood as she tried to speak.
And in what felt like a telepathic connection, Orlov heard her voice despite its faintness and in the instant, with tears dripping from Orlov's eyes of its own accord, he ran towards Anna who tried so hard to smile as he neared her.
Every step of Orlov's pursuit was expressing pain in every limbs, bones and skin but Orlov continued towards Anna still. Was this what 'reckless love' meant?
Anna, slipping into unconsciousness and giving in to hallucinations smiled as Orlov advanced towards her. Her brain was making up pictures to comfort her and soothe her pains, with her Vladimir's face appearing on Orlov's face as he kept running towards her.
"Nnnn…" Orlov whimpered as he fell on his back leaning towards her arms on the ground. His tears were much more obvious to Anna from this distance as she looked at Orlov with pity borne of compassion. Orlov was more preoccupied with Anna's pain as he rubbed his side on her while mumbling what felt like words that could not be understood by the already concussed Anna.
Anna was slipping away, slowly, her breaths became shorter and her heart rate began to slow. Orlov could see it in her half-way closed eyes as she smiled at him.
"Orlov, thank you…." Anna uttered mildly as her lips paused in motion and her breath ceased to continue while her left eye lids twitched and the right eyelid shut as her smile slowly faded into what looked like a blank face. Orlov whimpered yet again as he knew within him that Anna had just died. Surrounded by bruises and aches in places seen and unseen, Orlov wailed a little quietly as he stared into Anna's face and rubbed himself more closely on Anna in an attempt to get a reaction, or anything whatsoever.
Overwhelmed by grief, Orlov whimpered one last time and his breath hung in the air as he passed away with tears rushing more from his eyes as they slowly shut.
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