The Last Fight

The Last Fight

The air reeked of blood and iron. Smoke still hung thick over the ruins of the front line, blotting out the sun in a haze of ash and burnt metal.

Two soldiers lay motionless beneath the rubble — faces caked with dust, uniforms torn and stiff with dried blood.

They didn’t move when the boots came.

The enemy’s patrol walked slowly between the bodies, rifles ready, their laughter cutting through the low hum of dying flames. The soldiers’ stomachs twisted as they heard the metallic clicks — single shots punctuating the silence each time the enemy found someone still breathing.

Then boots stopped just a few feet away.

A voice muttered something in a foreign tongue.

The muzzle of a rifle hovered in the air above them.

The soldier closest to it stopped breathing. He felt his pulse hammering against the dirt. A long moment passed, and then —

A single shot rang out.

But it wasn’t for them.

The bullet had found someone else nearby — a comrade who hadn’t stayed as still as they had.

When the last bootstep faded into the distance, Corporal Levin finally exhaled. Beside him, Sergeant Mikhail opened one eye, his face pale beneath the grime. They had fought together for three years — brothers not by blood, but by trenches and fire.

“Still alive?” Levin whispered.

“Barely,” Mikhail rasped. “We should’ve died with the others.”

Levin swallowed, staring out across the wasteland. The world they knew was gone — villages reduced to rubble, roads cratered into nothing. They’d seen the enemy’s cruelty before: civilians executed for stealing bread, children orphaned, soldiers tortured. But now they were trapped behind enemy lines — ghosts among the dead.

They crawled from the debris, using the ruins for cover.

Every few hours, they’d move a little farther — through shattered houses, through the smoke and broken glass. In one burned-out home, they found a child’s shoe. Levin picked it up and set it gently on a windowsill before they moved on.

They just wanted to see home again — to see their wives, their children.

But the war had other plans.

It was dusk when they found the diner. The sign above the door hung by a single nail, creaking in the wind. A handful of civilians hid inside — pale, trembling, and desperate. When they saw the soldiers, they let them in without a word.

“We’ll stay till morning,” Mikhail said quietly.

They hid beneath the diner’s floorboards, surrounded by whispers and prayers. Outside, the sound of trucks and boots grew closer. Then came the dogs.

The soldiers pressed their faces to the floorboards, hearts pounding.

The barking stopped.

Then — The trapdoor was yanked open.

Shouts.

Gunfire.

Screams.

Levin and Mikhail were dragged out by their collars, beaten until they couldn’t stand. The civilians — the ones who had hidden them — were lined up against the wall and executed on the spot.

Levin tried not to look.

Mikhail screamed until a rifle butt silenced him.

When the smoke cleared, they were marched away — two prisoners of war among hundreds.

The labor camp stank of death and despair. Barbed wire glistened with frost, the guard towers always manned. Prisoners disappeared every night, their bunks filled by morning with someone new.

The guards were cruel. They starved them, beat them, made them work until their hands bled raw. But worst of all were the games.

Once a week, the guards forced prisoners to fight each other for entertainment. The winner — they said — would be “set free.” No one ever saw those winners again.

Levin and Mikhail tried to stay invisible, doing their labor silently, heads down. But fate noticed them anyway.

One evening, as the sun bled red across the sky, a guard pointed at them.

“You two. Arena tomorrow.”

They didn’t speak that night. There was nothing to say.

The next day came cold and cruel.

The arena was nothing more than a fenced-off yard with a muddy floor, surrounded by jeering guards. The prisoners were forced to watch.

Levin and Mikhail stood barefoot in the mud. Their uniforms hung loose on their starved bodies. Each was handed a heavy wooden plank.

A voice crackled over the intercom — calm, bored, almost amused.

“Begin.”

The crowd roared.

Mikhail raised his plank first, blocking Levin’s swing with a dull crack of wood on wood. They circled each other like ghosts — brothers forced into a nightmare.

“Hit me,” Mikhail hissed under his breath.

“No.”

“Levin, you have to.”

“I can’t.”

They clashed again, harder this time. Splinters flew.

Levin could see Mikhail’s ribs through his torn shirt. He knew Mikhail hadn’t eaten in days — none of them had. But Mikhail’s eyes still burned with something fierce, something human.

“Do it,” Mikhail growled. “If you don’t, they’ll kill us both.”

Levin’s hands trembled. He swung again, grazing Mikhail’s arm. The guards cheered. They wanted blood.

Mikhail countered, knocking Levin down into the mud. He stood over him, breathing hard. Their eyes met.

“I have a family,” Mikhail whispered. “You’ll tell them… you’ll tell them I didn’t give up.”

“Mikhail—”

“Finish it.”

A guard’s voice thundered through the speakers.

“Finish the fight!”

Levin’s breath came in short gasps. The plank felt impossibly heavy in his hands.

“I’m sorry,” he said, tears mixing with the dirt on his face.

Mikhail smiled faintly — and nodded.

The plank came down once.

Then silence.

When it was over, Levin dropped the weapon. His knees gave out. He fell beside his friend’s still body, shaking. The guards dragged Mikhail away like discarded trash, leaving only streaks of mud and blood behind.

Something fell from Mikhail’s pocket as they hauled him off — a small, folded piece of paper. Levin saw it but didn’t move until the guards were gone.

Then he reached for it, hiding it quickly in his own pocket before anyone noticed.

The next day, they unshackled him. The guards shoved him toward the gate with cold smiles.

“Freedom,” one of them mocked. “You earned it.”

Levin stumbled through the barbed gate and out into the open wasteland. The wind howled, carrying the faint echo of the camp’s siren behind him.

He walked.

Through empty streets, past burned-out cars, through fields of ash and broken helmets. He didn’t know where he was going — only that he had to keep walking.

By the time the sun began to set, he found a large rock overlooking the ruins of a city. Once, people had lived there. Laughed there. Loved there. Now, it was nothing but ghosts.

Levin sat down, too weak to stand any longer. The sky was orange and gray, the color of dying embers.

His hands shook as he reached into his pocket. He unfolded the piece of paper.

It was a photograph.

A woman and three little girls smiled back at him — faces full of warmth, untouched by the horrors of war. Mikhail stood behind them, his arms wrapped around his family. They all looked so alive, so happy.

Levin stared at it for a long time. His vision blurred.

The paper was stained with dirt and blood — his and Mikhail’s mixed together. He pressed it to his chest, clutching it like a lifeline.

“I’ll tell them,” he whispered. His voice cracked. “I’ll tell them you didn’t give up.”

But there was no one left to hear him.

The wind carried his sobs across the wasteland. The sound was raw — the kind that tore itself out of a person who had nothing left to lose.

Night fell. The city lights were long dead, but the stars above burned faintly through the smoke.

Levin sat there until morning — the photo still in his hands, the tears dried on his face.

When dawn came, the wind shifted. It carried the faint scent of earth after rain — clean, almost peaceful.

Levin closed his eyes and imagined Mikhail walking home, imagined him opening the door to his wife and children, imagined their laughter filling the room.

He smiled weakly at the thought.

Then the wind took the photo from his hands, carrying it out into the ruined world — toward the horizon, where the sun rose over what was left of everything.