The prison term hanging over her felt all but certain. In a harsh northern penal colony, a slight, educated woman like Nina would have had little chance. She had treated enough inmates over the years to know what prison did to the body and mind.
She made up her mind that she would not hand herself over to a corrupt system. Instead, she would disappear into the deepest wilderness—somewhere no one would think to look. She would not run toward civilization. She would run away from it.
Nina was the daughter of a lifelong woodsman who had taught her how to survive outdoors. Since childhood she had known how to set snares, find clean water, and navigate by natural signs. Her father used to say that the wilderness may be harsh, but it doesn’t betray people who respect it.
She spent three sleepless nights preparing in secret. By day she continued seeing patients as usual so no one would suspect anything. Into an old canvas backpack she packed only what she could carry and what she absolutely needed.
She took a small medical kit, surgical thread, two scalpels, and her father’s hunting knife. She added a hatchet, rope, matches, and fishing tackle. Most precious of all were seeds from the hospital garden: potatoes, onions, and carrots.
As a doctor, she understood that without plant food she would not last long. For morale, she packed only two books: a field guide to medicinal herbs and a small volume of favorite poems. One cold morning, she left the hospital for good.
She wore an old quilted jacket, rubber boots, and a plain warm headscarf. To throw off tracking dogs, she walked for a long stretch in the icy water of a creek. Only after reaching thick spruce woods did she take out her compass and head due north.
On the first day, she covered a long distance and collapsed beside a fire. On the second, a hard rain turned the ground to slick mud. On the third, something happened that nearly killed her.
On a wet hillside, the earth suddenly gave way beneath her in a mudslide. She was thrown downhill and slammed her back against a birch tree. Pain shot through her body, and her left arm hung at a wrong angle.
After examining it, she diagnosed a dislocated shoulder. In a hospital, another doctor could have reduced it in minutes. Out there, she had to do it herself.
She braced the injured arm in the fork of a young tree and jerked her body hard. Her cry tore through the woods, but the joint snapped back into place. She wrapped the shoulder tightly, rested a while, and kept going.
After a week of punishing travel, she found the place that would become her refuge: a sheltered hollow with a clean creek and a south-facing slope suitable for a garden. Dropping her pack, she cried for the first time since leaving town—not from fear, but from relief…
