The enemy

A weary sergeant watches the dusk settle over a bleak frontline, where trucks unload the dead in silent, endless streams. The war feels both familiar and alien—there are no wounded crawling back to the trenches, only lifeless bodies that pile up like a grim harvest. In the fading light he grapples with the unsettling idea that the enemy can’t truly be killed, a thought that gnaws at his conscience as the day’s tally is recounted.

Beside him, a young lieutenant tries to steady the mood with cigarettes, yet the strange red‑tipped packs only deepen the sergeant’s unease. Their conversation drifts between grim statistics and whispered rumors of a conflict that defies ordinary rules of combat. As they share a fleeting smoke, the story explores the psychological toll of a war where killing feels like suicide, and where the line between enemy and victim blurs into a haunting uncertainty.