Chapter Text
Where’s Masha?
That was the question that Tolya had been asking all day. From every child around his age at the Glasshouse, at every chance he could. During the daily training? Where’s Masha. While sparring against someone? Where’s Masha. While passing by people? Where’s Masha.
And the answer was always the same. They’d open their mouth, almost respond, before responding with some variation of “I don’t know who that is” and look away without an answer.
It was slowly driving Dimitri crazy, Natalya could see. And frankly, it was driving her crazy as well. It was always strange, how it was always Tolya who was persistent on something he couldn’t get to, and yet it was always her and Dimitri getting frustrated about it.
And, well, at this point, Tolya was just being stubborn. They all knew where Masha was at this point.
She had tried to escape the previous night, after all.
It was a simple rule in the Glasshouse, one that everyone always knew to follow.
If someone was gone, they were also forgotten.
Masha didn’t exist. Never had.
And yet, that was a rule Tolya seemed so insistent on disobeying.
And that morning, when he woke up and saw Masha’s bed empty and her nowhere to be seen within the large room full of children, he had made it his mission to find out exactly what had happened. Just so he could remember her, in a way. He had started with asking all their roommates about it, none of the occupants of the room, however, gave him an actual answer. Then he started asking about it during their sparring sessions, when he was paired up against someone he didn’t know from another room, and asked his opponents the same thing. That line of action led to the same results, albeit with a few more bruises and a lot more shouting directed at him. And then, very hesitantly, with the caution of a mouse sneaking past a predator, he went up to Pietor Furan himself. That one resulted in him receiving a black eye, a broken nose and a fractured rib.
Natalya was still wondering why the boy thought asking the Furan would get him an actual answer. Maybe it was curiosity, maybe it was just an impulsive choice, she would never get the chance to ask him about it.
And then the next day, Masha’s bed was full again.
Except it wasn’t Masha sleeping in it anymore.
The boy, Alexei, of Natalya remembered correctly, lying in the bed, was much younger than the previous owner of it. Much smaller. With no idea about the things that were going to happen to him.
Tolya, Dimitri and Natalya all sat in Tolya’s bed, staring at the new little boy, hours before they were supposed to wake up normally.
Eventually, Dimitri got up from the bed and made his way over to the sleeping boy, shrugging when he caught his two friends now staring at him instead. “Someone has to greet him. Tell him what’s going on here.” He simply said, before quietly walking over to Alexei and tapping on his shoulder to wake him up.
Tolya and Natalya couldn’t hear what Dimitri was saying to the boy, since he was whispering and the bed they were sitting on was too far away from Masha’s. And Natalya wanted to hear what was going on.
Just before she could make her way towards Dimitri and the new boy, however, she felt Tolya’s hand grip her wrist tightly and stop her.
“Promise me something.” He said, as he sat on Dimitri’s bed, curled up with his right arm wrapped around his legs and his right one reaching out to keep her from leaving. “Promise you won’t forget us like everyone else would.”
The two simply stared at each other for a few moments.
Tolya had always been the more persistent one between the two of them, the one to approach people, the one to at least try to pretend everything around them was normal and fine. And yet as he looked up at her that night and asked her to promise him, he seemed to be the exact opposite.
Maybe that was why she nodded in response and sat back next to him. “I promise.”
After weeks, Raven was finally allowed back into her room with the rest of the kids. Her bed, which had been empty for the weeks that she was gone, was still empty. No one had replaced her. There were two new girls, though. She tried not to think about it too much.
Closing her eyes, Raven finally let her body calm for the first time since the last time she had left that room weeks ago. Her bones ached from all the intense training and once she felt even slightly comfortable in her place she felt she couldn’t get up aga—
Her eyes snapped open and she sat up against her will.
There was a boy standing by her bed. That, of all things, was what had startled her enough for her to get up in that manner.
Alexei stared at her. “Do you know where Dimitri is?”
Her throat suddenly felt dry. All of a sudden it felt like the entire world had their eyes on her.
Raven took a deep breath.
“I don’t know who that is.”