Chapter Text
It’s 4:46am when the first ray of light peeks out from the horizon.
Yuriy exhaled and flicked the cigarette that he held between his fingers, watching the ash scatter in the cool morning breeze. It was another sleepless night for him, it seemed.
He’d lost count at how many there'd been now.
Even after all these years, when Yuriy closed his eyes all that awaited him were monochromatic memories stained with the most violent shade of red. As if an unfamiliar film noir played in his mind over and over; except there was an audio track where terrified screams endlessly reverberated like a freight train.
Yuriy idly kicked his foot back and forth, his heel knocking against the worn concrete building. He glanced down at the city below him, silent still. The only souls scurrying about were the drunks who had yet to make the walk of shame home to their wives, and those unfortunate enough to already be on their way to work.
The peace would be lost soon, Moscow would awaken and continue on business as usual just as it had for centuries. And those who had been swallowed by it for the sake of progress wouldn’t even get to be a footnote in its history.
That place hadn’t even been demolished when the horrors it had contained had been revealed. The entire four years he’d spent in university; he’d been required to walk past a towering monument to his own subjugation, and no fucking fresh coat of paint or newly planted gardens would change that. It was an important cultural location, a heritage site.
What a sick joke.
He took one last drag of his cigarette before tossing it onto the sidewalk below him, it could be someone else’s problem. Just like how he was always someone else’s problem.
“So, you planning to jump today, or you just sulking?” Boris asked from behind him, his voice still gravelly from the sleep that didn’t evade him. He trudged towards where Yuriy sat on the ledge of the building before dropping down beside him.
“It’s dawn,” Yuriy answered simply, as he stared down at the filthy city street below.
Boris replied with a hum. He retrieved a lighter from his pocket and idly flicked it, the flame would ignite, and then disappear as quickly. Perhaps if Yuriy fancied himself a philosophical person he would see something profound in the action—instead it was just his oldest friend trying to get under his skin, like usual.
“You ought to try that shrink shit out, did wonders for Sergei,” Boris said, as he continued playing with the lighter in his hand.
“I said I’m not interested,” Yuriy sneered through clenched teeth, his fingernails digging red crescents into the palm of his hand as it formed a fist.
“I know, but I’m just saying.” He knew Boris was just saying that so if—when it all inevitably went to shit, he could take comfort in that he’d tried his best. He’d done everything he possibly could. He’d been there every single day to talk Yuriy off the literal and proverbial ledge until he couldn’t be reasoned with anymore.
He did it so that he wouldn’t have to live the rest of his life thinking this was his fault.
Yuriy carefully swung his legs up over the ledge he sat on, placing them back onto the dirty roof of their apartment complex. He rose from where he was sitting, dusted himself off and treaded towards the exit. Boris silently watched him in his periphery.
“I need a coffee,” was all Yuriy said, as he pulled the cumbersome metal door open and vanished into the poorly lit stairwell, his heavy footsteps echoing as he descended towards their apartment floor.
What Boris failed to understand was every morning he found him, sitting on that ledge after the sun had already breached the skyline, that the window of opportunity had already been lost.
Because like every other person swallowed by this city…
He would leave it concealed by darkness.