Purge
Knock knock knock
The shopkeeper down the block had vanished. His wife, once rosy and carefree, was pale and gaunt, deep lines drawn into her face that hadn't been there before. She still remembered all of Russia's typical purchases though, and because Russia had a guess, he couldn't quite look her in the eye when he reached the register.
Knock knock knock
The university populations were gutted—professors and students alike simply stopped showing up. There were rumours, there were always rumours, especially at first: ah, Professor So-and-so must've eloped with Professor Such-and-such, the third year Abv probably dropped out to join the Army. But there were only so many times the rumours could soothe as the numbers steadily climbed.
Knock knock knock
Russia found himself shuffled through various units in the Army as privates and lieutenants and colonels and majors and generals all were discharged or arrested for treason or simply went AWOL. No one bothered to learn anyone's name, not even within units. It was too much of a hassle, and knowing someone's name meant knowing him as a person. And it was much harder to watch a person go than merely another soldier.
There were executions. There were a number of executions.
Knock knock knock
Party members too. Suddenly the government was full of traitors. Everyday Russia read in the Pravda about yet another comrade, once proud men, heroes of the Revolution, accused and found guilty of treason. It was hard to figure out which were luckier: the ones sent east, or the ones put to death. The trials were painfully awful, and Russia didn't attend the executions if he could avoid it. Depending on Stalin's mood, sometimes he went, sometimes he didn't. And once it was done, he didn't hear about them again.
Knock knock knock
One Wednesday morning the shop down the street was closed, the wife and children gone without a trace. Russia went fifteen minutes out of his way to a different store and then caught the tram back, half full and nearly silent, save for the occasional child too young to know better who stared at his uniform and asked a loud question to her mother. The fear in the mother's voice as she hushed her daughter made Russia cringe inside.
Knock knock knock
His neighbor invited him over for tea one day, and he noticed a basket of bundled clothes by the door, tucked next to the slipper basket. He wondered about it all through tea, and finally as he was leaving he asked about it.
"Oh, it's all warm clothes. In case they come for me."
"Come for you, Pavel?"
"They came for my uncle last week. Why not me?"
Within the month, he was gone too.
Knock knock knock
There was a musician that lived on the floor above in the apartment. He played some piano, mostly violin. Russia heard him in the evenings, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich—it was a pleasant accompaniment to the evenings' tea and paperwork. And then one evening Russia heard him play Mozart's Requiem Mass in D Minor, and two nights later the music stopped.
Knock knock knock
Russia began to speak less and less. Speaking was to risk misspeaking. There was a basket of warm things by his door now too. He hoped Stalin wouldn't, that he would have more sense, but Russia could feel the ache of those fridge desolate places in his bones, the ache of his people miserably wasting away there. He worried. He worried like his people did, for that terrifying sound in the dead of night.
Knock knock knock
His eyes snapped open, pale violet rapidly adjusting to the lack of light. For a moment, he didn't move, breath held, ears sharp for the faintest sound…
Knock knock knock
.
.
.
Damn.
-o-
The Great Purge was a period of intense political repression and persecution executed by Stalin from 1936-1938. It was characterized by massive arrests in the ruling Communist Party (the First, Second, and Third Moscow Trials come to mind) and the Army, and then spread to the population as a whole, targeting pretty much everyone and anyone. The NKVD, the predecessor to the KGB, arrested people at all hours on charges of being an 'enemy of the State'- those victims were then tortured into signing pre-written confessions, after which point they were either executed or shipped to Siberia to work in the Gulags. Very few people returned from there.
In the end, over 1.5 million people were detained, and at least 681,692 were shot-but due to the possible un-trustworthiness of the NKVD archives, that number might be twice that. Total deaths overall once Gulag deaths are included range closer to 1.2 million.
Shostakovich, a famous Russian composer, wrote a stringed quartet that revolved around that knock knock knock sound which had everyone so terrified. Shostakovich himself had nightmares about it.