Adrift - draak-shadow

The sun struggled to make its way up the cloudy sky, trying to light the desolated outskirts of the snow-covered city. Its light filtered through the wooden rafters of the ceiling of the old train station, long abandoned. The building just stood there in the middle of nowhere, ruinous, its dirty greyish walls reflecting the cold light. But, despite its dead external appearance, it was full of life inside… if it deserved being called ‘life’.
A bunch of kids of all ages slept there, hidden under pieces of ripped cardboard or newspapers, lying among rubbish and rusty railways. As sunlight reached their faces, they stirred, and most of them woke up. Some just closed their sleepy eyes again and turned their faces to go on sleeping, but Sergei didn’t. The twelve year old boy put aside the cardboard he used as a blanket and stood up, staggering. He sank his filthy hands in a drum full of icy water and rubbed his light blue eyes. The water left dirty marks on his face as it ran through the soot and mud which covered it. Blinking, he looked around him. A group of children were gathering at what once was the main gate of the station.
‘Are you coming, Sergei?’ An older boy asked.
The younger one looked at him for a few seconds, his eyes blank. What was his name? He couldn’t remember. Radomir? Radoslav? He shrugged slightly and walked towards him without opening his mouth. His name didn’t matter, nothing did. He heard someone calling him ‘Rad’, so he’d stick to that.
Seconds later the kids left the place, all of them wrapped up in their torn and stained clothes, some of them barefoot, feeling the soft white layer of snow like knives in their feet. For hours, they wandered around the dark streets as an army of demoralized soldiers marching to a hopeless war. Some people turned to watch them as they passed, with indifferent expressions. Gradually, the group split and the children went in different directions. Sergei kept following Rad for a while until he sneaked into a house. The boy looked at the door for a moment and then kept walking. Soon he heard screams and the crash of a glass, maybe a dish, breaking. Probably the house wasn’t as empty as Rad expected…
Sergei managed to steal a piece of leathery bread from a stall without being seen and chewed it slowly, rubbing his nose constantly. At midday, when everyone was at home for lunch, he sat down on the steps of a small church and curled up into a ball, feeling cold and hungry. Both sensations had become so common he was almost used to them. He closed his eyes, the only thing he could do.
Suddenly, an uproar made him jump, wide awake. He saw some of the kids he lived with, Shura, Vlad and many others whose names he couldn’t recall running after a woman, carrying sticks and even a piece of a dark, rusty pipe. He just stared as the sound of the improvised weapons cutting the air reached his ears. Mere seconds later the boys run away with the woman’s bag and coat. Slowly, Sergei stood up, his face as expressionless as always, and walked towards her. The snow around her limp body quickly turned red with her blood. The boy knelt down by her side and, without even looking at her; he picked up a wet piece of paper from the snow. His mates hadn’t seen it. A 100 rouble note. For a brief moment, Sergei’s blue eyes lit up.
He thought about the bill he was clutching in his hand. Money. Money was useful, people used it to buy clothes, food and nice things. Maybe he should do the same. Buy a shirt which wasn’t pierced all over, or buy a glass of something hot which helped him get rid of the everlasting cold… or maybe he should keep the note and wait till he had more, enough to buy an accordion or other instrument. He had seen a group of street musicians playing some folk music on the street one day and people gave them money. Then he might be able to leave the station, also known as the Gate to Hell by the citizens, because anyone who went there didn’t last for long.
‘Leave the station…’ he thought.
If any other child had found the note, they’d had spent it straight away on food or whatever, without a second thought. It was a matter of sheer survival. But Sergei was different. Not long ago, he lived in another place, not so dark or cold, and not so full of people. He ran a hand through his dirty blondish hair, making an effort to remember.
Only two people, a man and a woman, both older than him, quite a lot older… and it seemed they had looked after him. He couldn’t really recall how he knew it, his memory was full of gaps due to the glue and all the times he had been beaten up, by the police, by other street kids… but he did remember a song, a soft tune he still used to sing to himself some nights, when the pangs of hunger were too painful to sleep. And also…
He sank his hand in his pocket and took out a tiny red plush mouse. It was dirty and it had lost an eye, but he still kept it. It made him feel better when the cold turned his lips bluish and sadness filled him, almost suffocating him. A shadow of grief crossed his eyes as he put it back in his pocket. He made up his mind as his fingers touched the plastic bag and the empty tube of glue he had there.
That night, in the quiet darkness, he put some of the glue he had bought in the bag. He noticed Rad hadn’t come back that day. Bad luck. Maybe he was better dead. No… not maybe, for sure.
Sergei’s last memories of his family and his former life melted away like the snow outside as the drug took effect. That was his purpose. He kept putting more glue in the bag all night, letting the harmful vapours wrap around his brain, tearing his conscience and life asunder.
Next morning they found him dead, the plastic bag forgotten near him. One of the kids stole the little glue he had left, but no one bothered taking away from him the little mouse he was clutching in his hands, and no one noticed his cheeks were wet with tears.