I have been wanting to help liberate my country from the oppression of the Russians for many years now. My opportunity finally came when a militia commander came to my home and recruited several people to their cause. I saw this as my chance to finally aid in bringing to life the dream of a free Georgia. Heh but that was years ago, now I find myself weary and scared. Of the original two hundred and thirty men that made up our group, there were now only twenty of us left. Between the air raids and the artillery strikes we’ve lost so many. It’s no longer become a war for freedom but now a battle of attrition and it seems we’re on the brink of defeat. It’s gotten to the point to where the UN has sent Peacekeepers to try to police and stabilize the region. Naturally we saw these Peacekeepers as aggressors and waged war on them as well. Not tonight though, tonight we managed to kidnap a few of their soldiers. We plan to ransom them off and use the funds to continue funding our struggle.

We decided to stay in the village of Sagabeskirio, a small village close to the mountains. In total our group managed to capture seven Peacekeepers, two Norwegians, two Danish, two Germans and an American. Our commander had left with another one of our soldiers to seek out a buyer, hopefully they would return soon as night was fast approaching. “Hey Alexi, go switch out with Misha on perimeter.” said Naedor my squad leader. I simply nodded,grabbed my AK-105 and made my way out of the church. Our position wasn’t terrible, the church had a three meter high wall made of stone with a single entry way. We expanded the perimeter out to about four meters away from the church. Misha was on the left side of the perimeter looking out towards Sakharbedio. “Misha?” I radioed. “I’m coming up behind you.” No response, that was not a good sign.

I walked into the area where Misha was supposed to be but couldn’t find him. All that was left was his rifle laying on the ground. Quickly I picked it up and ran back to the church. “Alexi? Why are you here? Where’s Misha?” Naedor asked. I shook my head out of breath and handed Naedor Misha’s rifle. “This was all that was there.” Naedor grabbed the rifle and clicked on his radio. “All troops fall back to the church immediately!” Several of the men managed to get inside the church before we started hearing shouts and cries of pain. “We’re taking fire!” someone shouted. We couldn’t tell which direction the fire was coming from but what we did hear was the sound of the commander’s truck pulling up in front of the church. Suddenly Naedor rushed out waving his hands shouting at the commander and his driver to stay away. I watched from the doorway of the church as Naedor, the commander and his driver fell to the ground simultaneously.

My breathing became heavy, the palms of my hands were sweating and I was losing grip of my weapon. Whoever was out there were not normal, they were like ghosts. We couldn’t see them, we couldn’t hear them. We had just witnessed our entire command structure destroyed in a matter of seconds. How were we supposed to fight that? I had no idea what would happen next. Slowly I peeked out the side of the doorway and saw four black shadows making their way towards us. I panicked, poked my weapon out and started firing blindly. I felt a sharp pain in my hand, I screamed as I pulled it back. God the pain was intense, I looked and noticed my lap covered in blood. Then it finally hit me, there was a large hole where my index finger used to be.

Suddenly there was a clatter in front of me and then a loud bang, my sight went white and my ears started ringing. I felt myself go numb and fall on the floor of the church, all I could hear was the ringing. Finally after what seemed like hours my visions began to clear but I wish it hadn’t. As I looked around, I saw my comrades laying around me. They laid in pools of their own blood, it seemed none of them fired a shot, they all died where they stood. More importantly the prisoners were gone, it’s almost as if they were never there in the first place. Here we were hoping to continue our struggle against the oppressors but all we found here was our end. All at the hands of those mochvenebebi, those Ghosts.