Let the bells toll: Ivan
Summary: Death is peaceful, if you let it be.
Character(s): Russia, mostly. Mentions of Ukraine and Belarus.
Notes: Takes place in an AU I may write sometime in the distant future. Then I might post it. Or I'll stick with the old plan and it'll be an original piece.
Cold. That is the only thing I know right now. The snow swirls around me in a frenzy; the wind is whipping her into my eyes. I shift in my parka. It provides a minimal amount of warmth, my mittens even less so. But that doesn't matter. I can live off of the snowflakes. It is enough, and I don't want anything more.
I shiver a bit, and for whatever reason, I get up from my comfortable spot in the middle of the blizzard to look around a bit. There is white. I crane my neck.
There is white.
How long has it been since I last saw a person out here in this whirlwind?
I shake my head. I sit down again, trying to get back into my comfortable spot in the snow.
I don't know. I don't know and I don't want to know. It doesn't matter.
I can live in the snow. He can nourish me, clothe me, care for me. Man and the sun have disappeared from my life for what seems like decades now. The cold surrounds me. The cold is the only thing that hasn't abandoned me yet. What use do the empty promises of humans serve? The cold does not lie. That, that is the most important. People always lie. That doesn't do, doesn't do, doesn't do, not at all.
No, not at all.
I stare at my mittens with my dimming purple eyes. These mittens don't do anything. The cold bites through them easily. I don't need them. I throw them off as a sacrifice to the wind.
She takes them and blows them far, far away.
The street is still empty. No cars have passed by. The snow relents slightly and I can see the outline of the small town in the distance. It seems like it's a million miles away.
The snow picks up again. The town is gone.
I see white. Only white. The ground is white. The sky is white. My skin is white, like everything else.
White, I think, is the most beautiful color.
No stains. No impurities. All honesty. Nothing to hide.
I'm happy that my hands are so white, white, white.
I quickly stuff them into the folds of my parka. It doesn't help much; the cold has overtaken the warmth a long time ago.
The man left me here. He told me to stay put, with that breath that always smelled of vodka. He would come back, he said. He drove back to town in his car after that, wobbling onto the wrong side of the road every now and then. Then the snow picked up.
He is still not here.
Liar. He is a liar, you see.
My head droops a bit. I still have some energy left so that I can yawn.
The cold does not lie. The cold is still here. The cold will be here forever, perhaps. I will be here forever, too, then.
There's a bit of black on the edges of my vision. I frown; that won't do. White is much better.
Perhaps I need to sleep a bit.
I yawn again.
I'm sure the cold will still be here when I wake up.
I can here sirens in the distance. They sound like they're underwater… still noisy. I am trying to sleep. Man and all his trinkets are so annoying sometimes.
I close my eyes. Soon, I say to myself, soon I will see white again.
I smile.
There are paramedics around here. They are talking to a woman to the side. No—not a woman, a girl more like it. She looks around sixteen, seventeen. I wonder, she looks familiar. I bound up to her. Yes, I definitely know her. But I frown; I can't quite place who she is.
The paramedics are still talking to her, but I am but an eleven-year-old child. I am impatient. I poke her, but she doesn't respond. I frown. I nudge her some more. Surely all that clothing she has on cannot mask the fact that there is someone trying to get her attention?
Oh. She is crying now. I didn't quite catch what the paramedics had been saying to her, but they must've made her really sad if she couldn't tell I was there. Perhaps I can bother her later. The ambulance is to the side. Maybe I know who she's crying over. That could jog my memory.
There is a small figure on the cot. It also seems familiar, but I can't discern his features from here.
I get closer. I have a lot of energy, and it doesn't take much to move around in the blizzard, which is dying out anyway. I think the sun is coming out.
I don't even feel that cold. I look down. I am wearing a heavy parka, a scarf, boots, but strangely no mittens. What did I have against mittens?
Why aren't my hands feeling cold?
Oh. I am next to the cot now. Time to see who's there.
…
When I see the face, I back away. I stumble even more in terror when I realize that I'm simply passing right through the equipment in the ambulance. I let out a small shriek when I fall out of the ambulance, even though there is a wall right where I should have bumped into it.
I sit for a few seconds. I get up.
I approach the ambulance again, and this time I climb in right through the side wall.
Huh.
Well.
That face is mine. I can now easily recognize my older sister standing to the side of the small road.
She must be crying for me.
No wonder; I am dead.
I attend my own funeral service.
It is a small affair. My mother and sisters hold it alone, my father locked up and awaiting punishment. We do not have many friends. Considering our circumstances, we thought it best.
I hate him.
I realized that a long time ago. But now I hate him more.
Is that why I'm still here? Because I want to see him get what he deserves?
I scrunch up my pale fist and… and…
No. I will not fall to his level. I am not here because of hate.
But that is all I can feel.
I punch the tree next to me. As expected, I make no contact.
I hate him.
But that is not why I am still here! I am here because I care about my mother and my older sister and my younger sister. They are alone now. I will not subsist off of hate. I will not be like him, taking his anger out on those close to him.
I am not like him.
I hate him.
I am not like him.
I can't take it anymore. I walk away from the service just as they start to toll the church bells.
The ringing echoes in my head long after it stops.