An accidental cut while dressing game looks different. Those wounds are usually ragged and follow a different angle. Dremov’s injury told another story.
The edges were clean. The wound track was deep. The direction was straight front to back. It was a classic intentional stabbing, delivered by another person.
Nina was, first and foremost, a conscientious physician. Her professional duty required her to document what she saw. In the patient’s chart, she entered a precise description of the wound.
She noted that the injury was inconsistent with the stated accidental circumstances and recommended an independent forensic examination. Then she signed and dated the record and locked the chart away.
At that moment, she had no idea those few lines would amount to a sentence against her. Because of that note, people would soon come after her with the full intention of ruining her life. She simply did not know what had really happened that night.
As it turned out, the powerful logging boss had been stabbed by his own wife during a drunken domestic fight. His politically connected relative had invented the hunting story to bury the scandal. Nina’s honest chart note became a live grenade in the hands of the local elite.
If that record reached the proper authorities, several careers would go up in smoke. The first to fall would be the official who had helped cover up a violent crime. All Nina had done was her job. She had no interest in helping anyone lie.
For that inconvenient truth, she would soon pay an extraordinary price. The behavior of the people in power was cynical enough to make your blood run cold. The real nightmare began later, when she had to run.
The ugliest part of the whole story was how methodically the system moved to destroy one decent person. The machinery of local power came down on a single woman over one truthful medical record.
In fights like that, an ordinary person usually loses. But the ending, in this case, was not the one those officials expected.
Two weeks after the operation, Dremov was recovering comfortably in the hospital. He spent his days complaining about the food and asking for alcohol.
Nina checked on him daily and personally supervised his dressing changes. He was polite to her and made a point of thanking her for saving his life. Nina, for her part, wisely avoided discussing the true nature of his wound.
She had made her note in the chart and believed any further investigation was the responsibility of law enforcement. If the authorities wanted the records, they could request them. If they didn’t, that was not her problem.
But she badly underestimated both the reach and the vindictiveness of the local power structure. Dremov’s influential relative soon learned about the dangerous note locked in the hospital safe. How that information leaked was never fully established…
