The Angel named Hunch
RU, UA, EN. Short story, 2022.
Mystical and realistic fiction story based on a material of the Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Levchenko noticed his hunch at the first shelling their company had come under. Something had pushed him from inside: Fall down! He fell where he stood, in the middle of the street, as if on cue. Then he rolled back against the fence and yelled: "Get down!" And already under the fence, with his nose pressed in last year's stunted grass, his hands covering his head, he felt sick because of the ridiculous fear if the guys might laugh at him: "What are you afraid of, you fool? Nothing is flying…"
It came. Two were dead, and four wounded. Everyone who, without thinking, had fallen after Levchenko, remained unharmed.
Then there was more. "You've got a hunch," Senior Lieutenant Rednichenko had said. He looked at Levchenko with a look of respect mixed with a slight daze; he smoothed his lopsided mustache, which he had let go with the start of the war, and repeated:
"I'm telling you, telling you. Come on, take care of yourself. You're a living warning system now. So stay alive. We all need your hunch."
Ebook, written in Russian, translated to Ukrainian and English.