You know what I hate? Going through and proofreading a document, having a friend ALSO proofread the document, post it, then the next morning find a DIRE mistake.
Case in point? Chapter one.
WHOA Russian Civil War history discreetly coming your way WOOOSH (History will be more detailed as Dmitri becomes more educated later)
Chapter 2
Shivering back to life, Dmitri weakly pawed at the expensive carpet, dimly aware of some debris that littered his hair. Groaning pitifully, he willed his thin arms to push himself up off of the floor. Some object or another had been jabbing him in the ribs, but even though he could feel it he couldn't feel the pain that was supposed to follow. Struggling to pull his knees underneath him, he opened his eyes only to immediately shut them again as inky blackness accompanied by various shades of purples greeted him. Closing his eyes again led to a sharp white pain in his mind and he couldn't help but cry out. Pushing the heels of his palms to his eyelids, he moaned softly to send the pain away.
After a few minutes, he gingerly raked the debris from his hair, wincing as his fingers brushed the left side of his head. Carefully he felt the horrible welt on his skull, biting his tongue to help ease the pain. Pulling his hand back to examine it, he was surprised and relieved to see the absence of any blood or scabs. It still felt like his skull had been split in two, though, and that pain was no where near close to fading. Wincing and sputtering quietly to himself, he sat back on his feet and gazed around the room in the dim light.
It was night. The palace had grown cold with the vicious blizzard winds outside, and the only light in the room was from what little moonbeams outside that had managed to reflect off of the snow and into the windows. Coughing, Dmitri wearily looked out the windows, noticing that a few of them were either cracked or broken, allowing the stray snowflake to infiltrate the room. Rubbing his bony hands together, he was suddenly aware that he was very cold. Stumbling to his feet, he dragged himself to the far reaches of the room until he collapsed upon a broken couch. Grasping a blanket of cloth he later recognized as part of the curtains, he huddled against the cushions of the couch, curled up into a thin ball. Being very careful not to rest his head on his left side, he fell into a fitful sleep.
Nightmares plagued him during the last few hours of darkness. Gunshots and screams, blood pooling around bald heads and burly men surrounding him, demanding for the location of a girl. Instead of merely knocking him out with a strike to the head, however, these men aimed the long barrels of their rifles at his skinny chest. Dmitri choked on his tongue in the dream, and before he could say anything in protest or compliance the rifles all fired at once, ripping through his burlap shirt and tearing his body apart underneath.
With a scream of terror he awoke as he tumbled off the broken couch, the back of his head hitting the carpet. After a moment of struggling vainly with the curtain, he righted himself properly once he realized that the curtain was doing him no harm. Giving a disgusted sigh under his breath as he ruefully rubbed the back of his head, Dmitri stood up. Outside the world was pink and lavender, and the blizzard had subsided. Rubbing his arms, he watched as his breaths traveled upwards in a twisted, cloudy fashion. He bent down and gathered the torn curtain from the floor and wrapped himself in it, standing solemnly as he surveyed the room.
One could barely tell that it was once a child's playroom. The model of the Moscow palace had been destroyed, and any traces of anything valuable was removed. Paintings that once hung upon the wall were gone, evidenced by a ghostly outline remaining in the wallpaper. Relics and furniture that were too cumbersome to carry with were destroyed and broken, shards of ceramic and splinters of wood littering the floor. Stepping around the remnants of the once proud room, Dmitri took in every detail, aghast. He had never dreamed in his entire life that he'd ever see such destruction in a royal's home. Reaching down, he picked up the one thing that still shined in the room. It was the jewelry box that the Dowager had given to her grand-daughter. Dmitri turned it over in his hands, examining the fine custom carvings and decorations. He could find no possible way to open it save for an indent in the side, fitted for a very specific key that he didn't have access to.
He cupped the cool metal box in his hands, gazing down at it between the gaps in his fingers. He wondered, then, if the Dowager and her grand-daughter had successfully escaped the angry men. A pang in his chest wondered with him, and he pulled the jewelry box close to his body. Why did he help them in the first place? It's not that he was malignant or anything, it's just that he was wondering such a lowly kitchen boy that had no name to the nobles and the royals would go out of his way to save the lives of those royals, even if, especially if it meant death for him if those burly men had known the truth.
The blue eyes flashed in his mind again and he groaned inwardly. Really? She had never once looked at him until yesterday evening. He pushed the blue eyes from his mind and crept toward the broken windows, lightly stepping over the scattered glass shards. Taking a small gulp of preparation, he craned his neck forward and gazed out to the vast courtyard. Though there was a blizzard that lasted through the night, he could still see traces of color that splayed out like some sort of monochrome map of rivers and lakes painted with very runny ink. Dmitri felt his knees go weak as the freezing wind closed his throat.
It was blood. Royal blood that had mapped out the lakes and rivers of an unknown world over the vast courtyard of the Winter Palace.
If his throat hadn't been frozen, Dmitri would've screamed in shock. The royals were supposed to be invincible, and their blood was supposed to be sacred, yet here they were, dead, with their once sacred blood splattered all over like a child's careless painting. Cupping a hand over his mouth, he ducked away from the window, eyes wide in fear.
What was he to do now? Everything he had ever done in life was in service to the royal family of Russia. Now that they were thoroughly drained of everything that made them superior, Dmitri had no one and nowhere to turn to. He should've left with the other servants when he had the chance, at least they could've shown him a way to live afterwards.
But then, what of the Dowager and the sweet duchess Anastasia? Would their blood be among the map outside? (Or, even more, was their blood already part of the gruesome cartography and his efforts to save them fruitless?)
Dmitri coughed. He had to get out of here no matter what. There was no lingering here. If the rest of Russia was as angry as those men were yesterday, there were no means of survival for him if he stayed in the Winter Palace. Tucking the jewelry box into a pocket he had sewn into the inside of his shirt, he hugged the torn curtain around his bony frame and stumbled back through the secret wall into the servant's quarters, blindly pawing his way until he reached a back door to the outside. Using all of his might he pushed it open, stepping out into the backyard and into the windless dawn. Wrapping the curtain up to cover part of his face, he bent his head down and trudged out into the snow with socked feet, heading for a place, any place other than this.
–
Dmitri's knees were buckling by the time he found himself standing on the front porch of a rickety downtown orphanage. He had been picked up by two fishermen who had found him wandering near the piers of Petrograd at the early hours of the day. The two men kindly led him to the orphanage, one of them standing there with him to wait while the other returned to his normal duties. It took half an hour of pounding on the old door for the caretaker to finally stumble out of bed and answer. He was as rickety as the house, with a face contorted into a nasty complexion. His nose was rather large and crooked, and when Dmitri saw him step grouchily out into the light he leaned away from him, slightly frightened.
The fisherman and the caretaker exchanged words, the fisherman explaining that they had found Dmitri wandering around alone near the piers. The caretaker sniffed down at him, and asked him for his name. Dmitri responded in a voice riddled with cold, telling him his age as well. Before the caretaker could respond, the former kitchen boy added that he could help with the cooking. This earned a craggy glare from underneath old, cracked eyebrows, and Dmitri retreated back into the swaths of the curtain cloak that he had fashioned.
After another short conversation, the caretaker nodded and disappeared momentarily into the orphanage building to gather some papers for recording the new arrival. The fisherman that had stayed with him patted him softly on the shoulders with rough hands. Dmitri shivered under the cloak. Part of him wished that he could live with the fisherman instead of the orphanage. He already hated this place. Closing the cloak around him tighter, he also wished that he had found warmer clothing before he left the palace. Although he didn't look, he doubted there was any rich clothing like that left, as they were all royally lined with soft furs, and things like that were a luxury in Russia. There was no time for regret, though. He didn't want to see the Winter Palace ever again.
The caretaker returned. The fisherman signed his name on the papers handed to him, and gave Dmitri one last pat of good luck before the caretaker herded him inside. Here Dmitri received a half-hearted tour of the orphanage. It was a boys-only orphanage, well known to the piers of Petrograd. Dmitri struggled to catch a glance of the fisherman before he disappeared down the cobbled streets. Sighing heavily, he followed behind the caretaker.
Bedrooms were located upstairs, but he wasn't allowed up there during the day unless he had fallen ill or if there was an issue with overcrowding. The kitchen was down on the main floor along with the dining room, but he wasn't allowed in the kitchen either. There were one or two playrooms on the main floor, and the basement held a boiler and one extra room for miscreants. The owners of the orphanage were two old, musty people by the names of Vinogradov, supposedly husband and wife. Dmitri followed behind Master Vinogradov, sourly thinking to himself that their names well suited them, referring to grapes and all. The only way the names could better match the faces were if, instead of meaning grape, the names meant raisin. Their skin was certainly wrinkled enough to be mistaken for one.
A mischievous grin graced Dmitri's tired features as Master Vinogradov showed him the school room, where he will attend classes four times a week as a mentor will teach them for the entire day then. The other three days of the week will be spent doing chores along with the other boys, with only a few hours left for free time if that was possible. Given by the despising tone in the caretaker's voice, Dmitri guessed that free time hardly ever came, and when it did it could hardly be considered free time. He had more free time when working at the palace, even if it was spent exhausted on his bed.
Without warning the caretaker whipped around with agility that was surprising from such a crotchery old thing and Dmitri jumped.
"What are you grinning about, boy?" the man growled, colorless eyes blazing.
"N-nothing!" Dmitri sputtered in surprise. Scowling, the caretaker made as if to slap him soundly on the cheek, but a sudden glint in his eye made him think better of it and he straightened back up.
"Troublemaker, eh? You've got that look in your eye."
Dmitri stared frightfully at him. He didn't know what to do or say; the caretaker appeared to be quite psychic. He grew steadily more uncomfortable as the old man surveyed his cloak, faded eyes roving up and down.
"That's a nice blanket you've got there. What is it, a curtain?" Dmitri kept his mouth shut and simply stared at the man, searching for any clues as to what might happen next.
"I'll let you go for now if you give me that curtain. It looks absolutely drab on you, I could find a better use for it." Dmitri opened his mouth in protest, but the man simply took that as an agreement and snatched the makeshift cloak away from the boy, twirling him around until he hit the floor. The caretaker chuckled as he ran his old gangly fingers along the fine woven fabric.
"Oh, this feels almost like it should be royalty! We could get a nice profit from this, yes," Master Vinogradov turned, chuckling all the way to his quarters as he carefully folded the curtain to make it seem presentable for the black market. Dmitri sat there on the hardwood floor, mouth open in shock and anger. He stood up and glared viciously at where the old man disappeared before taking his time to wander around and see the orphanage for himself, resenting the caretaker all the way.
Troublemaker, huh? The old man hasn't seen anything yet. Dmitri wandered the narrow hallways of the orphanage, taking each bit of information in as a studious scholar, plotting already some fine schemes for petty revenge.
Finding a dusty armchair to rest in, he plopped down and uneasily nursed the welt on his head. He couldn't fall asleep, but he could wait until the sun was high enough for the orphans' day to start. Dmitri winced as he accidentally pulled a hair that was rooted in the welt. Pulling his fingers away, he patted the jewelry box in his secret pocket.
At least he still had that.
–
The rest of the orphans neither accepted him nor rejected him. He had to work through the same hardships each day and through that he was one of them, and yet no friendships or bonds were made, as one of the orphans once whispered to him while vigorously washing the floors, "Bonds were meant to be broken."
That didn't mean that if an orphan was wrongly accused (or accused at all) of something that happened that the others wouldn't stand up for him. There was a sort of unspoken brotherhood keeping the orphan boys together. Though Dmitri participated and was as much a member of the brotherhood as any other orphan new or old, he still felt like he didn't belong and that distant feeling of ridicule still lingered around his head. This time though, he knew exactly why and it was his fault.
A few weeks after he had arrived at the orphanage and once the spring storms had started to rage, the orphans' curiosity got the better of them,and his many roommates asked where he had come from and why he was here. Crowding around his wireframe bed, boys from the ages of four to fourteen all leaned in to hear Dmitri's story as thunder raged and rain poured down outside.
"Why didn't you ask me when I first came here?" He questioned before he began. One of the older orphans answered; he had been here from the start of his life and knew of all the unspoken rules.
"Some of the orphans that come here don't make it more than a few days. They get adopted or taken away or they're too old. After a few weeks, you're one of us."
"So tell us!"
"Where're you from? Why're you here?"
Dmitri frowned in thought. What should he tell them, and how much? Should he lie? No, lying wouldn't be substantial, he should tell the truth. Lying was saved for getting a fellow orphan out of trouble or for causing trouble. He waited until a particularly loud crack of thunder died down before he spoke.
Wishing to not have the same ridicule that he had endured at the palace, Dmitri did not tell them of his origins. He simply had said that he didn't know how be became an orphan, and dismissed his knowledge of being ripped from his mother's womb. Still, even from this partial lie he got many wide eyes and wise nods. Part of him felt bad and detached for not telling the whole truth, as perhaps there were others like him here that too had their mothers die in childbirth. Maybe they even carried the same guilt as him.
It was too late to change his story now, though. From there on in he'd tell them everything about his life. He told them that though he was fuzzy on the details on how he came to work in the palace, (nobody had really taken the time to tell him how he came to be there) that he had served as a kitchen boy for the late royal family for as long as he could remember. He'd peel potatoes and set together meals for the royal picnics, sorting spices and cleaning messes along the way all under the eyes of the strict head cook. He told them of how he often snuck away to catch glimpses of the royal family, something very forbidden for servants to do that he managed to get away with more than once.
"Yeah right."
Dmitri looked up in shock, pulled from his memories to finally glance at his listeners. It was then that he realized that a majority of the orphan boys had fairly skeptical faces about them as they all stared at him. He felt his stomach tighten and his face grow rosy. Only those below the age of five still looked at him in great admiring wonder.
"B-But it's true!" Dmitri protested. The boy who had originally interrupted him crossed his arms. He was around the age of twelve or so, but at that moment he looked more like an aged teenager to Dmitri.
"No it's not," the twelve year old scoffed, "You probably just worked in a kitchen somewhere near the palace. First of all the royal servants would never want a baby to take care of, and second of all everyone knows that everyone who lived in the palace died when it was taken over!"
Dmitri felt heat rush to his head in embarrassment and frustration. Before he could protest a different boy who was a few years younger than him hissed back at the twelve year old, the gaps in his mouth where his teeth should've been were exacerbated by the occasional bolt of lightning.
"Nuh-uh! The grandma survived, people saw her! She's in France now!"
"Duh," the older boy rolled his eyes, "She didn't live at the palace!"
"The Dowager is alive?" Dmitri piped in wonder, jumping into the conversation. Excitement seeped into his voice and he found it hard to keep his volume down despite the din outside. The orphans were quiet for a moment, staring at him. Then, one by one, they all began to chatter at once.
"What's a Dowager?"
"Well—,"
"The Dowager is the grandma, dummy."
"He just said that to sound smart, though."
"No, I—,"
"If he really worked at the palace, he wouldn't be alive."
"Yeah, I saw the guys shoot 'em all."
"What? No you didn't, you were here. I remember!"
"Nu-uh."
"Yeah-huh. You're a worse liar than kitchen boy here!"
"It's not a lie! I worked in the palace!" Dmitri felt pain begin to sting the corners of his eyes as his fists clenched on the low-quality sheets of his bed. Maybe he should've kept lying for his entire life story as well, if he had known the truth would once again find him in a state of ridicule. Frustration welled up inside him, stronger than he had ever known before, and he felt like screaming into their ears until they all believed him. It wasn't fair. He hadn't told the complete truth about his birth to them and they all believed him then, but when he told them the truth about his life they scoffed at him for being a cheat and a liar. Dmitri suddenly found that it was becoming harder and harder to calm down even though he knew that if any noise was heard by the Vinogradovs it would mean a great amount of trouble for him and the orphans.
But he could prove it was true. Against his chest in the pocket of his shirt at all times was the duchess's jewelry box. Although he couldn't open it he could show it off, proving at least some credibility to his story. All he had to do was show it to them and they'd all believe that he'd at least been to the palace. Dmitri's hand moved to the almost insignificant lump in his shirt, itching to take it out.
Blue eyes again.
No, he mustn't do that. If they knew of his treasure and of what importance it supposedly was to the duchess, he'd have to be on his guard at all times. He could wake up one day and find it gone. Many of the older boys were eager to look for ways to escape the orphanage, even if it was by the means of the black market. Unsteadily he removed his hand from the secret pocket. Rain assaulted the windows as he sat there, eyes blazing sharply. He could not intimidate them, however, and they just simply stared at him, glancing at each other occasionally.
"Sure, your majesty," one finally said, "Too bad you didn't serve the royals better, otherwise we still might have them today."
Many of the orphans snickered at this as they crawled away to their beds. Dmitri gave an indignant (and slightly hurt) huff. He knew that by no means he could ever win them all, but he hated losing when he was innocently going about the truth. Similar things had happened with the former head cook and severe beatings that Dmitri didn't deserve, and those were the beatings that were the sharpest in his memory. Though he was simmering, deep down inside he ultimately knew that trying to openly sway their minds would be foolish and have an appearance of lunacy.
Dmitri looked back to his frayed blanket and battered pillow and sighed inwardly. The storm had not ceased in its ferocity, though that was nothing that he was worried about.
A small tap on his knee caught his attention and he looked down. Four or five toddlers still stood around him, staring up with wide eyes.
"You used to live in the palace?" a braver one asked. Dmitri nodded slowly. The wonder in their wide eyes grew immediately, and they all huddled closer around him.
"Tell us about the royals, and the palace, and the food, and, and, what was it like?"
"Tell us everything!"
Dmitri frowned, feeling bitterly weary from all the pent up frustration.
"Maybe later, we should go to sleep."
Some of the toddlers donned vague expressions of fear on their faces, and were quiet for a while as Dmitri stared at them expectantly. The braver toddler swallowed hard before he spoke.
"But...," Dmitri raised an eyebrow, "Some...some of us don't like storms...,"
Dmitri was momentarily surprised. He had never had a fear of storms, as he always had greater things to be afraid of, such as his former master. Blinking at them, he studied their faces in the dim light.
"Alright...but just one story."
As Dmitri recounted the time the head cook was thrown into a river at one of the royal's picnics he felt his eyelids begin to droop. Soon after he finished the rather humorous tale he shooed the smaller orphans to their cots. He fell back into his bed, feeling an overwhelming sense of disappointment in everything. He tried to tell himself that it didn't matter what they thought was real or not, but it did not help.
The Dowager was alive though, and that was probably due solely to him. That should fill him with a sense of pride. It did, in a distant sense, but he somehow knew from the sound of it that it would not be wise to brag about such things. Russia, as it sounded from the outside, was in complete turmoil. Men they eavesdropped on from the windows facing the streets promised another internal war to take place soon over the fate of the Russian government. It would be best for him to keep quiet about his previous ties with the royal family, especially when such royalty wouldn't be coming back in the best of situations. The luck of his survival weighed heavily on his head, and though he was tired he found it difficult to fall asleep. Gazing out at the rain that dribbled madly down the glass, Dmitri tried to will himself into slumber.
He had saved the Dowager. Wasn't that enough? Dmitri wished it could be. No one had yet said anything about Anastasia and whether or not she had successfully escaped with her dear grandmother. Perhaps they were keeping the status of her life a secret for her protection.
He shifted. That couldn't possibly be true. With the way gossip spreads in this city the entire country would know after a fortnight of talk. If only he could chase the duchess's eyes away from his mind. He ran his fingers over the jewelry box, knowing that it would be as impossible as her survival.
Forcing his eyes shut, Dmitri fell asleep with a knot in his throat.
–
Master Vinogradov had developed a special sort of detestation for Dmitri a short time after all the winter snows had melted. The feeling was quite mutual. To Dmitri, Vinogradov was a poor, spineless substitute for his first 'father', the head cook. Though Vinogradov had beat him before, the strength in the old man's arms had long left him and his whips could not match the ferocity of the head cook. He was the only orphan who wasn't afraid to be beaten, and that was one of the many reasons Vinogradov hated Dmitri in return. Sooner rather than later, Dmitri's punishments were reduced only to a day or two in the concrete room next to the boiler with little to no food. This, to the orphans, made Dmitri the hallmark of Vinogradov's anger. And he was. Beyond the snarky comebacks, the multiple, almost untraceable pranks, and the constant proving that he was the best at cleaning more than any other orphan was Dmitri's uncanny ability to sneak out and run away, and this was the greatest reason Vinogradov resented him so.
Dmitri had become a Russian Houdini, infamous at the orphanage and to the street the rickety house belonged to. One of the residents on the street had coined that phrase, saying that he was better than the renowned Hungarian himself, and that he and Dmitri should become partners. It was needless to say that Vinogradov didn't like that neighbor much.
Many days would begin with Vinogradov starting roll call. Dmitri would be present for the assembly, but as soon as the old man or his wife got to his place in line he would inexplicably be gone, only to return later that day. The only days he didn't seem to escape were the days the school teacher would be present that day. This was because, as he had told the rest of the orphans one night, that if he didn't have to deal with Vinogradov that day, then he would stay.
The orphans preferred Dmitri to escape more often though. It's not that nobody liked him, far from it. He had, in his own way, become a small idol amongst the boys for the simplest of reasons. One, because he had literally caused Vinogradov to lose all his hair save for his wiry eyebrows (Dmitri had experience with such things after working with yeast in the kitchen, there was a reason why the head cook ended up bald!) and two, because if he had returned after the meager tasteless dinners Lady Vinogradov provided he most certainly had armfuls upon armfuls of fresh food somehow acquired at the local markets. He never told how he got it, but the gradual and continuous disappearance of Lady Vinogradov's various beauty products and tacky jewelry certainly answered the question for everyone. Nights like those all the children went to sleep with fully satisfied stomachs and smiles on their smudged faces.
Dmitri wasn't raised to the favorite of the orphans. He wasn't entirely friendly or talkative to then unless he had brought food for the night. It was as if he knew that ultimately he was on his own and that nobody could change that. It was far from the fact that he disliked them, no. He just simply never communicated with them enough to build any sort of relationship other than something that could almost be called near-worship, especially from the little toddlers that had admired him from the start.
The mischievous kitchen boy had been around royalty all his life even if he never really was around them. Part of him felt truly honored and proud to be such an object of idolization, but most of him felt uncomfortable at the idea. He wasn't supposed to be the worshiped one, the superior one, the one that people look to. All of his life he had been a member of the downtrodden, and that mentality just doesn't change over the course of a summer. Even if his fellow orphans adored him from afar, they didn't see how he was treated in the streets. His drab clothing spoke volumes about him, and many times the wealthier folk in the markets would scowl him away. ('Wealthy', actually, as it seemed everyone was poor now, but that didn't stop some people from taking every advantage to feel above others.) He got to be known as a terrible little miscreant at the fish market, and since that was the only market he could considerably reach within the range of safety with the orphanage chances to swipe food became harder and harder and harder, as Lady Vinogradov had begun to hide her treasures much more carefully and the local public had become wary of his various antics. The nights where he returned with armfuls of food were becoming fewer and farther in between, and Dmitri worried that they would soon cease all together. After all, he not only gathered the food to feed the orphans, but also to adequately feed himself. This totaled up to a lot of food that had be be bartered or stolen, and though at first he had been feasting like the Czar himself, now he was getting by just as much as the average person who lived near the piers did.
He liked the smell of sea water though. Perhaps that was one of the strongest reasons he had a constant urge to sneak out and stay out. The fresh smell of the ocean was something he began to associate with his ultimate freedom. What was it the teacher had said again? Something about Petrograd being the greatest thing Russia sought after some years past, because the port that Petrograd offered would be ideal for the growth of the country. Or something. The teacher didn't really like to clarify.
The smell of the sea was slowly degrading though as the months wore on. Winter was coming. The markets were losing their surplus of food and supplies. Dmitri snuck out less and less until he wasn't sneaking out hardly at all. Vinogradov took this as an opportunity to boast about his power that had finally put Dmitri in his place, which in turn only made Dmitri work with less quality than before from the sheer anger that flushed his cheeks red and upset the best of his cleaning. The orphans wondered what was happening and why Dmitri wasn't pulling any pranks just to pass the time away anymore. Had Vinogradov's boasts really put him in his place? Everyone doubted it, but there wasn't anything else to suggest otherwise.
The days of October ticked on by with the country growing progressively more and more uneasy. The year 1917 was coming to a close, but something in Russia was just starting. Dmitri had felt it in the air when one man who associated himself with the color 'red' rode through the market on a strong-muscled horse, shouting expletives at the commoners and demanding any information, weapons, or provisions to be handed over immediately to whatever the Red Army was. Finding this overly intimidating, Dmitri had just barely escaped without being noticed, slipping in through the unused back door of the orphanage before the red man had time to explore the area more thoroughly. Somewhere in Petrograd something bad had stirred up, causing the upheaval of civil unrest. Dmitri didn't sneak out again after that.
What seemed to be only days later November had passed, and all people associated with the Red Army had suddenly seized the ruling rights of Petrograd by the throat. These Reds, the "Bolsheviks", had claimed the capital of Russia for a new government, replacing what the Czar and his family once were. The looming promise and gossip of war had finally become a reality.
With Dmitri no longer sneaking out for the winter, Vinogradov worked him hard, causing his hands to go raw. Elbows deep in the chemicals needed to clean the floors, Dmitri soon found all of the hair on his arms gone as his skin began to turn an eternal shade of pinkish red, acidic welts spotting his hands. He was hardly allowed to rest or sleep, and soon great heavy bags made themselves a home under his dark eyes. The idolization from the orphans had transitioned to a gray pity, and soon some of them were even disappointed in him. Dmitri felt any dignity and pride he once carried shred away as he cleaned scrub by miserable scrub. The blizzards of Russia transformed the outside world to a desolate white wasteland, and Dmitri kept scrubbing the floors until his arms were transformed to useless swollen appendages.
Petrograd was buried in snow, along with the spirits and personalities of its inhabitants. Everyone was dead to the eye except one abused rebellious little kitchen boy whose birthday had come and gone and who had nothing left to lose save for the secret that he kept in his hidden shirt pocket.
Vinogradov had been working him tirelessly for weeks on end until Dmitri literally could not hold the threadbare rag in his pudgy hands anymore from all the rashes and bruises they had recently acquired. When he had stood up after he was unable to grasp the rag, Vinogradov approached him, horrible grin exposing what little rotten teeth he had left.
"I told you to wash the floor. Are you washing the floor?"
Dmitri gave him a grave look, speaking the what does it look like for him. The craggy caretaker's grin turned into a vicious scowl and he gave the boy a sound slap on the cheek with the back of his hand. He hardly flinched, just furrowed his brow into a hateful grimace.
"I wish it was winter all year!" Vinogradov cheered, unaware of the many heads of the orphans that had popped around the corner, clambering over one another to witness the unfolding drama. The caretaker began rambling on, boasting again about his power over Dmitri and all the orphans, while Dmitri just stood there, looking more and more defiant and angry by the minute.
"You can't tell me what to do." Dmitri finally said quietly, darkly. Vinogradov stopped and glared at the boy.
"Yes I can."
"No," Dmitri snarled, "You can't."
"What are you going to do?" Vinogradov laughed, "Run away?"
No orphan dared to breathe.
"Watch me."
The caretaker stared at him in shock, along with each orphan. Silence reigned.
"You'll freeze out there, boy. Dead."
"Watch. Me."
Nothing dared stir. It was a long staring contest until Vinogradov broke the silence with his wheezing laughter, bordering on maniacal.
"And to think they all thought you were smart. You're as stupid as they come! Dumb as an ass! You go, we'll all watch. You'll come crawling back here, boy. Just you wait!"
Taking the bedsheets for a sparse cloak and wrapping his useless arms in the shredded pillowcase, Dmitri stormed out of the orphanage to the eyes of the orphans, straight out into the icy snows that were almost knee-deep on the eleven year old boy. The harsh winds threatened his tender body as he trudged away into an unforgiving Russian whiteout.
He never turned back.