(1.7) The End Of Chapter 1

For one brief instant Dmitri’s world was filled with nothing but a falling cigarette. The pounding in his chest had grown numb. Even the droning of the wind was muted. Only when the cigarette, which wafted aimlessly towards the ground, sizzled in extinction did his senses return in an eruption.

Run.

The sting in his eyes, the burning in his lungs and throat didn’t matter. He ran as though it were for his own life. When he came upon his sister, folded over and face down in the snow, Dmitri dropped instantly to his knees.

There are breaking points for every person on this Earth. Dmitri found his when Sof’ya was lifted up in trembling arms. His face turned stark white as the snow beneath his sibling poured over in a bright red. With wide eyes he watched as the girl arched lethargically backwards to end propped against the tree.

The hand that held his sister’s arm was coated in blood eerily steaming in the freezing air. Mechanically his gaze shifted downward, though he wished it hadn’t, as bile rose in his throat. The image of his sister, gutted exactly like the fish he dressed for a living, burned deep into the recesses of his mind. Her entrails lay strewn across the soiled snow.

The Fates weren’t done with him just yet.

“Dima.”

Dmitri would never know if the nickname was spoken or imagined.

“Sof’ya! Oh my God Sof’ya,” his hands cradled her face, smearing her pale cheeks.

Tears streamed down the young man’s face as the girl’s eyes starred hollowly skyward.

“No, no, no,” in a spur of what could be called insanity, he tried to save her by, futilely, pushing her entrails back inside. This irrational and grotesque act stopped when his sister’s unborn fetus lay in his hands. His vision hazed over with salty weeping, attempts to wipe his eyes clean only worsening his sight.

A hand went back to Sof’ya’s cold cheek and caressed it gently, leaving more streaks of crimson.

“I’m so sorry Sof’ya, for everything. Why didn’t you tell me? I wouldn’t have been angry I promise.”

His eyes locked closed as another stream came washing out of them.

“Take care of yourself without me,” he said, wrapping the body up in her parka, “I’ll be with you again in just a minute, don’t go on ahead of me.”

With that said Dmitri’s blood shot eyes opened as they searched for the foot prints of whoever had done this. The torrid anger that swelled within had never been matched. The figure of the one who murdered Sof’ya ran in the distance. Every muscle in his body coiled tight until the pressure snapped. The snowflakes that had encompassed his jacket exploded in all directions with his charge.

Whether it was due to Dmitri’s youthful stamina, caustic animus, or both; the distance was closed between the two of them. The young Russian’s feet tore into the ground, kicking snow upwards. The metallic taste of blood filled his throat and mouth.

When the figure drew closer, alarmed by the youth’s flight, it swiveled around. Dmitri was ignorant to the gun leveled towards him when he saw who it belonged to. The man’s name escaped him, but he knew it was the person Sof’ya worked for.

A bright flash came before the sound of the gunshot. The bullet must have missed its target allowing Dmitri to fall upon his victim.

Nameless man’s gun arm was clinched in a steely grip skyward, causing another round to be lofted into the heavens. Dmitri felt something break when his right hook, with all the inertia of the sprint behind it, landed square with the man’s face.

With the momentum of his charge abruptly halted the pair spun into an embankment. Both men landed prone in the trench as the gun skittered out of reach.

Dmitri spun upright and jumped atop his foe who was crawling for his firearm. The feeling of his knees landing into the man’s back was jubilant. The scream even more so.

At some point the roles reversed and Dmitri found himself on the receiving end of more than a few ringers. He wasn’t sure when it had happened, but when the blinding white faded away his fingers were locked at the man’s neck. Something gave way, either in his own hand or the throat that he now claimed. Dmitri assumed the latter because the man started panicking.

In his panic the man started clawing at Dmitri’s own exposed neck. The young Russian’s beaded necklace caught, snapping off against the force the raving man. When it did, Dmitri released his victim’s throat, attempting to regain the cross he held so dear. It had been a gift long ago from his now late sister and Dmitri swore silently that this man wouldn’t take everything of Sof’ya away.

The triple-pronged cross made it’s way back into Dmitri’s hands, only for a brief moment, before it found itself buried into Sof’ya’s former boss’s eye.

Did Sof’ya scream like such a bitch when you killed her?

When the doomed soul came to his knees and looked up, tears welling up in his good eye while fear and dread coursed within him, a very collected Dmitri stood before him. The man’s lips parted, yet his last words would never be heard, drowned by the sound of the gunshot and whining cries of crows agitated by the same.

The man slumped to the ground as the gun fell from Dmitri’s hand. Had the young murderer not been in a state of shock, both from the life he took and the strange feeling of how good it felt, he might have noticed the several armed men rushing to futilely aid their late boss. Likewise, he could’ve avoided the steel pipe that spun him into unconsciousness.

The mocking cry of the crows filled his ears as the darkness took him, laughing at him as they danced in the sky.