The world had turned inside out and become hell. He would never stop seeing it. The very notion of hell must have been invented by somebody who had returned from war and never managed to forget it.

The next volley ripped the tent to shreds. Scraps of flesh and body parts flew in different directions. Andrei fastened his eyes shut against the bright light, groaned hoarsely in pain, and rolled onto his back, clutching his throat. Bits of shrapnel had penetrated his neck and leg.

After a few minutes in a daze, he turned onto his stomach and zigzagged towards the woods. Explosions and screams rang out behind him. He advanced, keeping his eyes shut and his head pressed to the ground, feeling the shaking with his entire body. The shelling stopped as suddenly as it began. Only the groans persisted, and they were louder than the explosions.

Andrei sat up slightly and examined his bleeding leg. He removed a tourniquet from his first-aid kit and put it on.

After a lengthy pause, the enemy artillery spat out another volley of missiles. They landed in the woods. A pillar of fire rose from between the trees. They had hit the munitions. Whistling lead shards slashed the treetops sending heavy branches tumbling onto Andrei and lumps of earth soaring upwards. The howls would not cease. All Andrei could do was to try and melt into the earth, to descend into the roots of the trees and pray that one of the projectiles would not fall nearby.

Quiet again. Shells in the forest store that had survived the first onslaught now started exploding. The wounded trees stood silent and motionless. Andrei was expectant. Either that somebody would come to finish them off, or to save them. He wrote messages to friends on Twitter and Facebook. Nobody came. Nobody. It got cold. The wounded died slowly, bleeding out. Some tapped out cigarettes, others slid photographs from pockets. He felt the need to crawl to them to help, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t. He crawled, crawled, crawled, never once moving from the spot. Light shone through a crack in the thick curtains. His feet got tangled in the blanket. His T-shirt was wet and cold with sweat. Maria slept with her face turned to the window.

Fighting the drowsiness, he kissed his wife’s neck. He had a wife now. Now he was like everybody else: a normal person. Maria grunted with discomfort at the stubble rubbing her neck and pushed him away. He lay in bed a little longer, hoping she would turn around and embrace him, but she sunk back into a light, dream-filled morning doze. He got up, parted the curtains and let the light flood the room. He went to the bathroom singing “Get up.”

Every time the war dreams returned, he stood under streams of hot water in the shower and scrubbed himself with a hard sponge, trying to scrape away the blood and fear. His thoughts of war had an inexplicably powerful grip over his body. The loss of control was more difficult to get accustomed to than the bits of shrapnel left in his jawbone.