Chapter I
After the outbreak, I continued to hide in the apartment in Novoselky for weeks. Well, maybe hiding wasn't exactly the right word; it implies there was terror and fear about what was unfolding outside. I hadn't left the studio for weeks before that already, not since the police had gone. No one had come to see me, know one even knew me here. Days had rolled by, clouds and night floating in over the harbor occasionally, making the unintelligible Russian television news brighter in the small space for a time. The people on the screen looked increasingly upset and afraid, crying and screaming in the footage. I wondered if I also should feel that way. Then came the huge fireball as the plane hit the Cherno International Hotel, it shook the buildings all the way up the black hill, and then the broadcast ended. It was enough to shake off the fog in my mind and get me out on the balcony. Only then could I tell that not all the tortured shouting and cries had come from the telly. It echoed up and around the balcony, interspersed with live gunfire. And something worse, something darker. I remember thinking numbly "the world is ending". I sat back down on the couch.
As the rhythmic passages of night into cloudy day progressed, the gunfire died down, finally settling into a pattern of just a few lone shots per day, breaking the silence and sometimes my sleep. By this time sleep was what occupied most of this time; sleep and nightmares. The dreams and reality melted together- lone gunshots and exploding planes - guttural, fluid filled growls - doorknobs rattling and turning in the hallway - nearby screams and the crunch of bone.
"CAW!" I sat bolt upright in the sofa, the scathing light of midday momentarily blinding me. I had the couch pushed back against the apartment door, and sitting up on it I was staring right out onto the balcony. The wind last night had pushed the curtains open, wrapping them back around a small bookcase on one side, letting the sun in full force. I was groggy, but felt a strange clarity. "CAW!" A large raven sitting on the railing was bleating and staring directly in. Brazenly it hopped down and stuck its beak into an empty bean can laying on the floor. I stood up, blood rushing to my head, I felt dizzy. The black bird rattled its nose out of the tin and stared directly at me. Through me? Am I even here? I stepped forward to test that theory, and the bird scuttered back out onto the balcony and took flight. "I am alive." Do I want to be? I sat back down, hands resting on my knees. But now I wasn't going back to sleep, the process had begun. This same chess game I applied to everything, ever since I could remember. Calculating potential outcomes, applying logic to calculate possibilities, selecting each cog in the plan and considering all aspects of it before replacing it an examining the next. After about an hour, I was finished, and I had my answer. I did want to survive. And did have a plan, or at least a goal. Steps in between were missing, but one thing was certain: I needed to get out of Chernarus.
The first thing I did was gather everything personal of hers and stuffed it into a large kitchen bag. Shoving the couch out of the way, exited out into the hallway, turned left, and went up the stairs. At the top, there was a dark, viscous stain. I stepped around it and opened the door to the roof. The humid scent of rain mixed with tar filled my senses. It overpowered another smell, a rancid stench, which seemed to hang faintly everywhere. With a bottle of lighter fluid I began burning all of it. A whole album full of pictures, one by one peeled out of their plastic sheeting and tossed in, then the whole book. A sundress she had worn when I first met her. The contents of her purse including an old flip phone, her American and Russsian drivers licenses, a shopping list. A datebook, page by page. The diary I threw in last, and as a whole. The sun was setting and the I walked back down to the apartment, avoiding the foul smear again on the way down. I pushed the couch back to block the door again, and went back sleep.
I woke at first light, ready to get the gears turning. I felt dizzy again, but now I knew it was hunger. I threw together what things might be useful from the apartment into the blue Emkavec internal frame pack I'd brought with me on the plane to Russia. Matches, a chef's knife, a cheap black poncho, a pack of cheap nine volt batteries. Pushing the couch aside and descending the stairs, I got to the first flight, and was about to round the corner and leave this place for good, and I paused frozen in place. Should I bring it? You considered this, and decided against it. Why? Emotion. Wrong choice. I trotted back up the stairs and a jog, mind rearranging the gears in the plan to account for this change. A butterfly flapping its wings and all that. In the apartment, I slung the pack down against the wall and began removing the wall vent with a screwdriver from the kitchen. Removing the cover, I removed the heavy black duffel and repacked it into the bottom of the hiking pack. Back down the stairs and this time into the street without hesitation or a look back. I needed to find some food.
After the outbreak, I continued to hide in the apartment in Novoselky for weeks. Well, maybe hiding wasn't exactly the right word; it implies there was terror and fear about what was unfolding outside. I hadn't left the studio for weeks before that already, not since the police had gone. No one had come to see me, know one even knew me here. Days had rolled by, clouds and night floating in over the harbor occasionally, making the unintelligible Russian television news brighter in the small space for a time. The people on the screen looked increasingly upset and afraid, crying and screaming in the footage. I wondered if I also should feel that way. Then came the huge fireball as the plane hit the Cherno International Hotel, it shook the buildings all the way up the black hill, and then the broadcast ended. It was enough to shake off the fog in my mind and get me out on the balcony. Only then could I tell that not all the tortured shouting and cries had come from the telly. It echoed up and around the balcony, interspersed with live gunfire. And something worse, something darker. I remember thinking numbly "the world is ending". I sat back down on the couch.
As the rhythmic passages of night into cloudy day progressed, the gunfire died down, finally settling into a pattern of just a few lone shots per day, breaking the silence and sometimes my sleep. By this time sleep was what occupied most of this time; sleep and nightmares. The dreams and reality melted together- lone gunshots and exploding planes - guttural, fluid filled growls - doorknobs rattling and turning in the hallway - nearby screams and the crunch of bone.
"CAW!" I sat bolt upright in the sofa, the scathing light of midday momentarily blinding me. I had the couch pushed back against the apartment door, and sitting up on it I was staring right out onto the balcony. The wind last night had pushed the curtains open, wrapping them back around a small bookcase on one side, letting the sun in full force. I was groggy, but felt a strange clarity. "CAW!" A large raven sitting on the railing was bleating and staring directly in. Brazenly it hopped down and stuck its beak into an empty bean can laying on the floor. I stood up, blood rushing to my head, I felt dizzy. The black bird rattled its nose out of the tin and stared directly at me. Through me? Am I even here? I stepped forward to test that theory, and the bird scuttered back out onto the balcony and took flight. "I am alive." Do I want to be? I sat back down, hands resting on my knees. But now I wasn't going back to sleep, the process had begun. This same chess game I applied to everything, ever since I could remember. Calculating potential outcomes, applying logic to calculate possibilities, selecting each cog in the plan and considering all aspects of it before replacing it an examining the next. After about an hour, I was finished, and I had my answer. I did want to survive. And did have a plan, or at least a goal. Steps in between were missing, but one thing was certain: I needed to get out of Chernarus.
The first thing I did was gather everything personal of hers and stuffed it into a large kitchen bag. Shoving the couch out of the way, exited out into the hallway, turned left, and went up the stairs. At the top, there was a dark, viscous stain. I stepped around it and opened the door to the roof. The humid scent of rain mixed with tar filled my senses. It overpowered another smell, a rancid stench, which seemed to hang faintly everywhere. With a bottle of lighter fluid I began burning all of it. A whole album full of pictures, one by one peeled out of their plastic sheeting and tossed in, then the whole book. A sundress she had worn when I first met her. The contents of her purse including an old flip phone, her American and Russsian drivers licenses, a shopping list. A datebook, page by page. The diary I threw in last, and as a whole. The sun was setting and the I walked back down to the apartment, avoiding the foul smear again on the way down. I pushed the couch back to block the door again, and went back sleep.
I woke at first light, ready to get the gears turning. I felt dizzy again, but now I knew it was hunger. I threw together what things might be useful from the apartment into the blue Emkavec internal frame pack I'd brought with me on the plane to Russia. Matches, a chef's knife, a cheap black poncho, a pack of cheap nine volt batteries. Pushing the couch aside and descending the stairs, I got to the first flight, and was about to round the corner and leave this place for good, and I paused frozen in place. Should I bring it? You considered this, and decided against it. Why? Emotion. Wrong choice. I trotted back up the stairs and a jog, mind rearranging the gears in the plan to account for this change. A butterfly flapping its wings and all that. In the apartment, I slung the pack down against the wall and began removing the wall vent with a screwdriver from the kitchen. Removing the cover, I removed the heavy black duffel and repacked it into the bottom of the hiking pack. Back down the stairs and this time into the street without hesitation or a look back. I needed to find some food.
Live every life like it was they day before a character wipe.