Frontline Foreigner (Patreon)

The past month has certainly been eventful, and I was caught up in some of the craziness. As I've mentioned before I don't want to be overly political with the stories I post, but I can't avoid thinking about current events and incorporating them into stories.

With the basketball star Brittney Griner arrested and facing 10 years in Russian prison it is easy to set the stage for some similar story. A young guy is arrested by the Russian police for some minor offense. We could start the story about a week later when he is already accustomed to the daily routine of the jail. There are a few other foreign nationals there, all in on pretty flimsy charges, but most people there are Russians. A lot of them for demonstrating or speaking out against the war in some way.

This particular day started a bit different than normal though. After breakfast he was ordered to the prison barber where his head was shaved. As always the guards don't answer any questions. They just shove him around, or in the best case give short orders in English. The old barber only spoke Russian, so it was pointless to protest. He did get the distinct impression that it wouldn't have mattered anyway.

Just before lunch he and a bunch of the other arrested people, all with freshly shaved heads, were loaded into the back of a prison transport truck, and chained in place. Then the truck takes off. They are six in the truck, not counting the driver. Three Russians and three foreigners. Only he and another guy knows English though. First they think this is a transport to a different jail in Moscow. Then, as they start leaving town, they are speculating about some prison complex outside of town. Time drags on and finally after hours the truck stops.

Then they just sit there in silence as the evening sun shines in through the back door windows. After half an hour the driver is back and they start moving again. They realize it was just the driver's stop for food and toilet. While on one hand they are happy they missed lunch so they wouldn't be in need of toilet break, on the other they are quite hungry. After another hour or so the truck is stopped and the doors are opened. Some sort of guard is looking at them and then shutting the doors. A few more hours pass until they reach their final destination.

As they are unshackled and exit the truck they realize they are in some sort of military installation. They are led into one of the buildings where they are told to strip. They do as they are told and then move to the next room where they are handed out basic military uniforms.

While I don't expect to put this into the story, I imagine this place to be in Belarus, so about 7-8 hours travel time.

I'm not sure about the language part here in the story, perhaps the other guy that knows English also knows some basic Russian so he can translate for our main protagonist. Some Russian officer greets them and tells them that they are to undergo some very basic training before they are returned back to jail. First aid, basic weapons training, and a lot of physical exercises. Compliance will lead to good treatment, he says. Our protagonist is confused, but at the same time finds this a preferred place to be. Less chance of getting tuberculosis if nothing else. They are walked to a different part of the building and told to enter the doctor's office individually.

When it is our protagonist's turn he walks in and meets a very young medical soldier. He takes some basic measurements and tells him to roll up his sleeve, in decent English. He preps a syringe and gives an injection.

The question here is how mysterious the shot should be in the story. It could be dismissed as a vaccine, or the medic could admit he doesn't know what it is, or he could say it is a trial of some sort.

What follows is some sort of summary of the time at the garrison. They do boring and exhausting things like anyone in basic training would do, perhaps with minimal focus on formations and that kind of discipline. What they do notice though are rapid changes of themselves. Despite eating enormous portions they are always hungry, they pack muscles like never before, but also a lot of subtle changes all over like they are becoming a different person.

Two weeks later they have almost doubled in weight, which looks to be pure muscle. While they don't look the same, they all now look related. Like as if their former selfs had been combined with another person.

This is where they are all packed into an armored vehicle and together with a bunch of similar vehicles are driven to the frontline in Ukraine. With no real leadership they are quickly separated from the rest of the soldiers they don't even know. After some confused walking they surrender to an Ukrainian patrol and spend the rest of the war in a POW camp, unable to convince anyone of their story, but also not trying very hard either.

The outline of a story I won't write properly...