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06 * 30 * 1967 – Vasyukuvo, Russia

*Huh–Huh–Huh–*

Her lungs felt crystalline. Every desperate breath like a personal fog rolling across her face. The dead black veil of clouded midnight overhead like a worldly hammer waiting to fall. The crunch of snow beneath her unraveling leather boots; and the wind lashing her skin. She couldn’t stop. No part of her could have even conceived of this possibility. So deep into the backwater. To go any further than they had would risk encroaching upon the border crossings. This place had been the only region to make sense. In what world was this really happening? Be this some dreadful fervid nightmare. Please.

*Huh–Huh–Huh–*

She felt the top of her foot smack into a thick root; and stumbled across the snow. Planting her hand against the earth. Wincing as she both pushed and continued to run. She had to be here somewhere. She would see. She would see Annika running, and she would know. She would know to say something. Anything. They’d bolted earlier. As soon as they saw those bastards coming. They split West and East. Annushka knew. She knew the routine. She would run East for a mile, hook South for another, and then Southwest for another. Annika would do the same in the opposite directions. They always ended up meeting. It worked every time. Every. Time. Wait–is–a farm!

*Huh-Huh-Huh-*

Her pace all but doubled. The men’s coat she wore billowed behind her knees as she grasped the top of the wooden fence with both hands; and swung her legs overhead as if possessed by some Olympian spirit. She half-tumbled half-scrambled in her landing; and kept on running. Annushka has to be here. She just has to be. There’s no way she wouldn’t. It was cold. She came here because it was cold–and the animals! Little dummy loves those stupid horses. Maybe there were horses! Annika had barreled her way to the door of the barnhouse before her mind even caught onto the fact that it was there. She slammed into it with full force; her hands slapping flat against it as her face bounced from it’s surface. Still–she didn’t fall down.

Stupid wooden–she lifted the beam from the plates which held it up. Giving not a damn thought to the people in the nearby house who might awake to the sound. They could explain their way to a couple of farmers. That wasn’t an issue. So she tossed the beam onto the ground and it clattered with a loud declaration of her arrival. She pushed the doors open with one hand on each; and shoved them with the force of a young soldier.

“Annush–!”

Pale moonlight spilled into the room in concert with a symphony of clicking hammers, and snapping slides. Loose straw billowed across the cold earthen floor parsed with snow; and colored lavender by Luna’s light. Four soldiers of the Soviet Union stood with their sharp uniforms, and slightly askew red-star caps. Their machine gun barrels trained upon her person as a man in a black suit, thick-frame black glasses, and white hair stepped forward from their ranks. His hands in his pockets. His tone was gentle, and almost even serene. Or it would have been if she had heard it. But she couldn’t hear anything except..except this ringing in her ears.

A dark pool steadily grew out from it’s edges around the stilled and colourless form of a 14-year old girl. The flat cap of a newspaper boy sitting beside her head. Her narrow features locked in an expression of fear. A pocket knife sitting next to her hand. Her body riddled with the same bullet holes like the one which had entered through her right eye; and exited from the back of her skull. As the voice of the rambling man finally began to register in Annika’s mind her eyes traced every detail of the scene before her. Not because she wanted to. Not because she even intended to. Like a machine locking up while it processes a huge amount of information…she, too, was still comprehending.

“...wn fault, really. A terrible shame. Do you know..she pulled a knife on us? Pitiful little thing but..yes. Terrible shame. The only question now is…what to do with you?” Annika’s eyes didn’t move. She herself didn’t move. She didn’t answer. The man only smiled at this. Satisfied–clearly–with his accomplishments tonight. “Stalin’s little purge was all well and good but…what did he accomplish? Really! Now this Gorbachev they all keep talking about…he has ideas. A vision. He’s giving us a new agency–the KGB he calls it–and we will do…glorious work together.”

By now the man was all but standing over Annika. Above her?...Oh. She was on the ground. When did that happen? It wouldn’t have bothered to ask. She couldn’t tell. The man pulled a pistol from his belt; and cocked it in front of his men. He took a deep breath; and then placed that pistol up against Annika’s temple. “With that we arrive upon my original question. What to do with you……I could kill you. Shoot you like a sick animal here in the barn…but what good would that be to me? Sending you on to your dear little sister?” He asked as he turned around. Pulling the gun away from her head, and sliding it back into his belt. Because he knew what he was doing.

The very words ‘sending you on to your dear little sister.’ Annika’s gaze was finally pulled away. Even that desperate stupid futile crazy illogical thought.

"Kill Me.”

The words fell from her lips more like a phantom’s warning than a woman’s plea. As if she were already gone. As if she’d already moved on and this was merely the luggage asking for a lift. “And what good would that do us?” The man asked with that serene smile of his. “Boys.”

The soldiers moved on her. Annika tried to scramble back up. She really tried. But she’d been running for what felt like hours. “KILL MEEE” The soldiers winced at the deafening shout. They’d never expected to be found out here in the sticks. Everything had happened so fast…Annushka…Annushka.........The tears finally broke through; and they wouldn’t stop.

Three of the men hoisted her to her feet; and locked her arms behind her back. The pudgy little man with the glasses and suit stepped forward once again. Stepping in the pool which continued to grow around Annushka; and then into the dirt as though they were one and the same. “See we’ve got some…kooky scientists. They do some weird stuff they call science and…we need all the volunteers we can get. Better still when it’s a–” he raised his hand, and brushed a tear from Annika’s cheek. “--pretty little dissident…who rather be dead than contribute to her country.” His smile only widened; and he stepped around her as if this was a normal Tuesday for him.

“Let’s get you home, shall we?”

“AGHHH–” The soldier couldn’t take it. One of them raised his rifle, and smacked the butt of it into the back of Annika’s head. She slumped over in their arms. Her near-deafening banshee screams rendered to an unconscious quiet. Feet leaving parallel trails in the snow as the men hauled her into an indelible memory.