The Death Of Innocence

[Kid At <3]

Chapters 1-2

Moscow hadn’t changed.

It was still vibrant. Huddled masses yearning for warmth were all that made up the effervescent city. Brushing passed someone on the sidewalk was very probable, and as the other muttered a word of apology, Жаль, a hot puff of air would escape from his or her mouth. The Red Square still held its caterwauling militant parades, and the soldiers still marched in their rigid concentration.

It was still beautiful. The cathedrals, especially The Pokrovskiy, were shining in colorful brilliance. The rooftops of the buildings were as snow capped and droplet-shaped as I had remembered. Even the Kremlin, Russia’s seat of power, never lost its towering height or its astonishing beauty.

But above all, it was still cold. Snow lined everything in sight, so much that snow days were non-existent for school children. It was so cold that I’d once witnessed a suicide by streaking. The poor man probably suffered from a severe case of seasonal affective disorder.

The man’s emotional disarray could not be helped either. His symptoms were not uncommon, especially in Russia, where in some places you would experience 720 hours without sunlight. That, however, was nothing compared to 8760 hours, an entire year of darkness.

A darkness that I have endured myself.

A peculiar sort of instrument the mind is. The human memory works as a puzzle, and I did not have all of the pieces. I did not know where I was, what I was doing, or why I was in that darkness. I only remember that the talons of blackness turned my skin nearly translucent, turned my eyes to a vampiric state and turned my perception on the world to be darker than the year without sun.

That was the reason why I returned to Russia- to finally unlock a past forgotten…or pushed away.


As I walked along the Tverskoy Okrug, or district, I came across some confused American tourists. They were pointing to their map, and arguing with each other over which direction to take to get to a theatre.

“Are you sure we go this way, Travis?” asked one of two men.

“Then again, my Russian is a little rusty,” said the other sheepishly.

Spending five years in Britain had its rewards. As I spent more time in London, I gradually learned the English language, though my accent never changed. I walked over to the perplexed vacationers from New York City and asked if I could see their map.

It turns out that their destination, Bolshoi Theatre, was about five blocks in the opposite direction. However, before I told them their coordinates, something caught my eye. A mark on the map was circled, its title drawing me toward it, and somehow, frightening me.

Intrigued, I asked what the Talakov Training Facility was in the best possible British accent I could muster.

“Haven’t you heard? It’s one of the most prestigious training centers for figure skaters. Rumor has it that Evgeni Plushenko himself trains there.”

This, I knew, was a lie. I knew where Evgeni Plushenko trained, and it wasn’t at this Talakov place. Though, something about Talakov sounded vaguely familiar. I decided to memorize the directions and give the gullible American tourists their own directions.

Getting to the Talakov center wasn’t difficult. It felt like I was retracing my own steps, yet I don’t have any recollection of what was inside of its walls.

The Talakov Training Facility looked like a cathedral, an abbey. The inscriptions confirmed that this was the place. Yet it did not confirm anything about why it was so important, and why it instilled fear inside of me every time I reached for the door handle.

I brought my hand close to the accursed knocker, and then brought it back. Close, back, closer, back again…

It angered me that I would be afraid of something as pathetic as opening a door, but I could not bring myself to do it.

“Well, well,” said a voice.

The air in my lungs was stolen from me. The evil threads of that voice laced around my mind and intertwined with my consciousness. Fear wrapped around my bones, encrusting them with ice as my back burned. Cold sweat started to flow down the sides of my face, and my heart raced.

And yet, I had no idea who said those words, or how it frightened me. I forced myself to turn around and see whom the man was.

He was dressed in a peculiar sort of garb that I would have laughed at. The man wore a brown robe, with a bonnet on his head, but his eyes…his eyes were what kept me from exploding with hilarity.

He smiled a somehow familiar maniacal smile, and welcomed me.

“Greetings, my young traveler. My name is Grigori Talakov, and I am the head trainer of this facility.”

I wasn’t stupid- I could tell by the look in his eyes that he knew something I didn’t. He could smell my fear, and he was amused by it. This was quickly turning into a game of cat and mouse, and it angered me to no end that I was the rodent.

“Would you care for a hot drink, young traveler?”

The last thing I wanted was tea, but if it was the only thing that would help me find out more about this accursed place, this accursed man and why it made me so afraid, I decided to play along.

“That would be nice.” I said through gritted teeth.

Grigori Talakov smiled evilly once again. “Follow me, young traveler.”

As I walked with him, we did not enter the building. Rather, we went to the side of the abbey-like facility and I saw something with another element of familiarity.

A group of teens a couple years younger than I were skating in a man-made rink. But as I looked closer, I could see that they weren’t just skating…they were drilling.

A man in the same brown robes as Grigori Talakov was barking out orders like a dog to the exhausted but willful adolescents.

“Ten more laps! Now!” the man shouted harshly. “Faster! Faster!”

The teens didn’t stop skating, as if they knew that there were serious consequences for giving up, and somehow, so did I. Those boys weren’t testing their speed…they were testing their endurance.

“Take a good, long look, young traveler,” said Grigori Talakov. “Those boys are the next generation of the Winter Olympics in figure skating.”

I stared in silence, until I said, “How long have they been drilling today, Mr. Talakov?”

“Oh, I’d say about two hours…without stopping.”

I for some reason I wasn’t surprised, and for another, I wasn’t impressed.

“With all due respect, Mr. Talakov,” I said. “That doesn’t seem like much.”

Surprisingly, Mr. Talakov wasn’t insulted. He bent over and whispered something in my ear. Whoever he really was, Mr. Talakov had no consideration for others’ personal space.

“Perhaps a figure skating dual with one of our skaters would help change your mind.”

I took another good look at the kids who were skating. They didn’t look like they knew how to do much…maybe a double loop.

“I would be honored.” I said coolly.

*
Grigori Talakov himself handpicked my opponent.

I was surprised to see that, after Mr. Talakov announced the current situation, all of them were hesitant to challenge me, even though they’ve never seen what I am capable of. When he asked for a volunteer, no one spoke. They just stood in their lines, their backs straight, their voice boxes frozen and their fear rising silently.

“Alexander!” Mr. Talakov shouted.

The boy named Alexander was so frightened of me, or what was to come, that he stumbled upon his words.

“S-Sir!”

“You will challenge this young traveler to a figure skating dual, and you will win. Understood?”

“Yes, sir!”

My suspicions rose every time I looked at Alexander’s expression. He wasn’t just frightened- he was horrified that he alone was chosen, as if there was something to lose in this ‘friendly’ match.

Mr. Talakov didn’t even have to tell the kids to line up. They were already in two rigid lines, as if this whole ordeal were rehearsed. With the exception of Alexander, all of the youngsters lined the edges of the man-made rink, their concentration never faltering, their eyes never losing their hazy hue.

The more I looked at the children’s eyes, the more I became apprehensive. The glaze over their eyes hid what emotion they were feeling, and who they truly were underneath a steel sheet of manipulation.

“Young traveler!” Mr. Talakov exclaimed, using a softer tone with me than the children.

Snapping out of my trance, I looked to Mr. Talakov. He was standing next to Alexander, who was pointing his index finger in my direction.

“You are my enemy,” he said, as if he were reading a script. “And I shall annihilate you in battle!”

I glared in response- not at Alexander, but at whoever put that garbage in his mouth.

“Alexander will go first,” said Grigori Talakov.

As I stepped off to the side, I knew that it was not my manners that made me do so- it was my muscle memory.

Alexander continued the recited procedure by waiting for Mr. Talakov to nod his head. At that point, he took off.

As Alexander got more and more momentum, he began doing a series of bunny-hop jumps- a scene I would have laughed at if I had known that it was just his warm-up.

He then did a series of rigid turns to gain even more momentum, but as he turned his body to the inside at an alarming rate, I knew immediately what he was aiming for. What he was doing was an entry to a double Lutz jump, and I noted his deep left back outside edge.

He turned in the air twice before landing tautly.

I could feel his heart racing, and the smile that only stayed on his face for a millisecond before turning into Grigori Talakov’s little soldier once again, awaiting his score.

“Five.” Grigori Talakov said quietly, but firmly.

Alexander smiled for a short time again, before retreating amongst the children in line, signaling that it was my turn.

“Are you ready, young traveler?” Mr. Talakov asked me with a softness that he would never have used with the children.

I merely grunted and I was handed a pair of skates, a pair of skates that were exactly my size. How Mr. Talakov knew my shoe size I did not know, but there were more important things to worry about right now.

Even though I knew I was more experienced than Alexander and knew more jumps than he did, I felt obligated not just to win, but to crush him.

I began to skate in circles, switching my feet and turning every so often. I then proceeded to doing not double loops in the Lutz technique, but triple loops. I didn’t want to, but somehow I found it amusing to see Alexander’s astonishment, and mortification. Then, I did what none of the youngsters even dreamt about. I landed a perfect Salchow jump, which was when you do a triple turn in the air, and land in the opposite direction, and then proceeded to do the impossible.

I jumped in the air and performed a perfect Split Flip, whereas I did a split in the air, and landed. Perfection itself was clapping with Grigori Talakov, and as he spoke my number, Alexander’s prayers remained unanswered.

“Ten.”

Grigori Talakov clapped again and laughed with amusement. “I must say, I’m impressed, young traveler. You have proven that perfection can so be achieved. And as for you, Alexander…”

Mr. Talakov addressed the whelp with darkness in his voice, and a burning anger in his eyes. “There are consequences to be made for your failure.”

Alexander’s eyes grew with more and more fear with each step Mr. Talakov took. He was shaking and whimpering when Mr. Talakov stopped in front of him.

“I didn’t realize you of all the students were inadequate. Therefore, you are a waste of my time.”

An anvil of guilt weighed my chest down as Alexander grasped Mr. Talakov’s brown robes, and cried. Tears of fear and abandonment streamed down his face as he shook Mr. Talakov and begged for mercy, his words slurred together with the shakiness of his voice and the disorder of his emotions.

“Unhand me, boy,” Mr. Talakov commanded. “Your time has come.”

Mr. Talakov snapped his fingers, and two guards in the same brown garb came out of the building, and slowly approached Alexander in faultless unison. From the shadows they came, walking closer and closer to their tiny victim. A hat hid their eyes, and every single detail of those guards frightened me as well as Alexander. My bones froze, and every single bit of other emotion had gone from me. Only fear remained.

“Please don’t do this to me.” Alexander sobbed. “If you let me stay, I promise I’ll never lose again!”

The guards did not hear Alexander’s pleas and did as Grigori Talakov commanded. They forced Alexander’s hands off of Mr. Talakov’s robes and grabbed him by both of his arms. Alexander made his last attempts to kick, scream and twist to get out of the guards’ iron grips, but his efforts were of no avail.

In one final cry for help, he turned to me.

“Please help me!” he screamed. “You can’t let them do this to me!”

My hand tried to lift itself to reach out to him, but my legs were frozen with fear and I was trembling at the sight of the final judgment of an innocent child.

“Please help me! Please!”

I watched them take him away and shut the doors to the building.

Before I knew it, my eyes glazed over with like a tapestry of darkness, the hands of a once dominant control slowly moved my mouth to form these words, “Forget it all…pretend like it never happened…”

I said the words monotonously, and as I grew silent, Mr. Talakov grew even more amused. He whispered something as I ran from that accursed abbey-like structure. I didn’t care what it was, as long as I was far away from the place that seemed to control my every move.

[Lin]

Interesting. Daring to set a story in Moscow like that (unless you've been there and it's familiar to you)

It's quite rough and will look better after a little polishing. For instance, in the first paragraph "passed" should be "past". This is the stuff the danged spellcheckers don't help with. Best bet is let it lie for awhile, then go back and read it over.

I print out, then go through with a red pen, then a blue pen, then a red pen. (Hey, they came as a set from Office Depot)

Is "probable" the word you want at the end of that sentence?
Which gets to another, more global problem. Your language is a little obscure.
It's not easy to read a line like "he hands of a once dominant control slowly moved my mouth to form these words". Clashing images, obscure references, etc.

What it is, you're trying to hard to be "writerly". Very, very common in beginners. You don't talk that way, do you? You don't say "accursed" or "No avail" or abbey-like or tapestry....

My advice to you, and I think any professional writer or editor would echo them, is to stay as much within your natural voice as possible.

Obviously if you are narrating from the POV of a medeival scholar or something, you use their tone. But this is just a kid, and the first person makes it sound very "you" and confesional. So the tone doesn't ring right.

Try taking a couple of paragraphs and working not to make the diction more "writerly" and rarefied, but more personal and natural. As though you were telling a friend. Or writing a report. See which version you end up liking more.

Good luck