The soldiers had long grown used to serving in the middle of an empty, endless field where not a single living person could be found for many kilometers around. Only rare birds, wandering animals, and the wind disturbed the silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Service was steady, without incidents, but that was exactly what exhausted them. The guys were bored, homesick, longing for their families, for any human faces at all. No connection, no news, no entertainment \u2014 just tents and the eternal waiting that made their ears ring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every Sunday they were brought water, food, and letters from home, but the week between those days dragged on painfully long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everyone tried to find at least something to do: someone polished their boots until they shone, someone read the same book over and over, someone just sat by the fire in silence, staring into nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One early morning, one of the soldiers \u2014 a young, completely inexperienced guy who had recently arrived at the unit \u2014 noticed something strange near his tent. On the dry ground, a meter from his boots, a huge black snake had curled into a ring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn\u2019t hissing, wasn\u2019t attacking \u2014 it just watched him. The boy froze, then for some reason didn\u2019t get scared but instead felt pity. The snake\u2019s gaze didn\u2019t seem evil, but rather hungry and tired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He took out a piece of bread left from dinner and carefully held it out. The snake froze, then slowly stretched forward, took the bread, and disappeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When his comrades found out, they only shook their heads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014 Are you insane? \u2014 said the senior sergeant. \u2014 It\u2019s a snake, it\u2019s dangerous. You can\u2019t feed them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the boy only smiled:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014 Oh come on, it was hungry. I just helped it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That was the end of it, and after a couple of days he himself forgot about that strange morning.
But a few days later something terrible happened to that very soldier\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Continuation in the first comment\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the deep night, when the camp had sunk into silence, a quiet rustling was heard from inside the tent. At first the young soldier thought it was the wind.
But when the sound came closer, he opened his eyes \u2014 and froze in horror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Around him, as if crawling out of the shadows, dozens of snakes slithered in. All of them \u2014 the same black ones as the first. They hissed, moved in sync, and it seemed that in their cold eyes there was a flicker of recognition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He slowly sat up, trying not to make sudden movements, but the snakes had already surrounded him from all sides. He understood that they had come for food and began frantically searching for anything \u2014 a cracker, a crumb, any leftover food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But nothing was left from dinner. And at that moment, when the first snake raised its head and its tongue flicked in the air, the boy realized what was about to happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The hissing grew louder, the snakes moved all at once, and began to attack the boy, biting him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the morning, when his comrades noticed that the young soldier hadn\u2019t come out for formation, they went to check his tent. His body was lying near the entrance, his eyes open, and on his skin \u2014 dozens of small, almost neat bite marks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were no snakes nearby, only winding tracks in the dust leading toward the forest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since then, no one ever fed wild animals again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The soldiers had long grown used to serving in the middle of an empty, endless field where not a single living person could be found for many kilometers around. Only rare birds, wandering animals, and the wind disturbed the silence. Service was steady, without incidents, but that was exactly what exhausted them. The guys were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/virli.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/virli.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/virli.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/virli.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/virli.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1643"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/virli.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1645,"href":"https:\/\/virli.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643\/revisions\/1645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/virli.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/virli.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/virli.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/virli.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}