Chapter Text
Wake up. Eat. Go work. Return home. Sleep.
Life had come to this, apparently, if one didn’t count the meditation time Christel had. It was a life as simple and deplorable as it was; she couldn’t deny it. It was like being a machine, constantly working and sleeping almost nothing. Maybe she was losing in life, just watching series, barely exercising, being unhealthy as hell and all this crap. It didn’t even look like she graduated just last year. It didn’t even look like she was her age. She looked older, tired. Just some steps away from collapsing.
Even though she was a simple person, with no valuable jewelry, no interesting fashion sense, and maybe a simple personality. She never had time to think about those things lately, and maybe she never could. She knew much about how someone was built internally, but she never really batted an eye at that. She knew she would easily break down if she even looked at the mirror, oh the bad looking, with a terrible personality, person she was!
People usually also didn’t bat an eye at her. She wasn’t particularly religious, nor was she particularly idealistic. She never spoke loudly, but her voice wasn’t hushed either. She had simple interests, and a simple appearance: short black hair, an unevenly tanned skin bleached by her lack of sleep, almond brown eyes and a lean body, with no prominent muscles, fat or anything outlandish. Just plainly normal. She could be anyone on the street, and who would care?
Indeed, such a disaster for a person. No one would envy her life.
It didn’t help that she was drunk that night. Everything was fuzzy, and, oh, by the skies, she should have listened to the advice she received about coping. She was an idiot, a complete idiot. She could regret and mop around all she wanted, though, and nothing would change. All that remained, as always, was to keep going. To just accept this state and keep walking, it didn’t matter how little she had left. Life was like this.
The bar, at this hour of night, was filled with noise of drunkards, fighting and shouting, telling each other tales of their crimes and wrongdoings in the unholiest place of the world. There was no God there to forgive them or to punish them, and maybe that made them comfortable enough to just act like they were the owners of the truths. It reminded her of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and she pondered if the author had the idea in a bar, in the shameless hours of night where people abandoned any semblance of morality or of social prowess for the sake of alcohol, crime and pleasure. She hated these people just as much as she hated herself, so she just left, the hands in her pockets, and stopped outside the little pub.
Cars. There weren’t many of them. No one to take her home. She shouldn’t have done this at all. She couldn’t call Rimma again to come and get her. At the same time, she had no choice.
She kicked an empty beer can to the side with a sigh before drawing her phone from her pocket. It was 2 in the morning. Her friend was going to kick her ass, definitely. Not only that, the harsh words… yeah, they were better than hearing confessions and sins spat from mouths that smelled like alcohol and decay.
The call was quick. Curse words, apologies and sighs, such as they always were. She wondered how Rimma still kept helping her. Christel was such a bad, bad friend, yet this girl kept coming.
And she waited. The snow was pretty. The night was mostly calm, if not for the bar fights happening in the pub behind her. She gave no attention, as much as no one ever gave attention to her in this kind of place. It was better this way. Maybe she didn’t want her life to change. It was better to live without such trouble in her life, and trouble never reached average people.
Christel!
It was a familiar voice. Her friend, she had come. It was so sweet. At least someone came back, and she was happy about it. Maybe it was her drunk mind, but the thought that someone had thought about her was exhilarating.
She really was like a lost puppy, huh?
She hugged Rimma like the drunk idiot she was. She didn’t mind the scolding for being drunk. It was so lovely. It was better than being alone. The black hair of her friend seemed to almost blend in with the night, and it was so much more beautiful than what Chantal ever could be.
They walked alongside the dirt road, with Rimma holding her arm so she didn’t stumble into a car’s path. She could hear the Yenisei in its pace, running as its waters rumbled, the surface dark against the sky of the night.
It was good, the wind, the stars, the stillness of the place. It was all so simple. Life was indeed good… maybe she didn’t need to go to Moscow to get a better life.
They walked as if there was nothing to be done the next day. As if they could just be, and as if life wasn’t like life at all.
They didn’t notice the steps.
They noticed the shouts a moment later.
Stumbling people, with something glinting in their hands. People fighting.
They slurred, their speech hard to understand.
Before Christel could even react, before anything crossed her mind, she felt a sting of pain in her torso.
When had he approached?
She didn’t know.
Her eyelids were heavy.
Am I going to die? Just like this?
Darkness swallowed her like ooze. Her breath, oh, was she still breathing?
She couldn’t tell even if her body was still standing.
Just like that, she lost consciousness.
When she opened her eyes again, she was on a mattress.
She couldn’t sit.
She couldn’t move.
She saw a white ceiling, so bright.
And her body…
Oh, her body.
It was…
A baby body?