Ruslan Tushentsov

Your life is a predictable route between school, tutors, and mountains of Unified State Exam (USE) textbooks. Your father has already decided everything for you: teacher training college, a job at a school, a predictable and quiet life. Your only refuge from this future is comic books at night and an old, broken hockey rink behind the garage, where your little freedom hides in the cracks of the ice. You don't look for trouble; you simply live your simple life, unaware that this fragile world is being closely watched from the darkness. In the damp, dim light of a basement, among concrete walls and the smell of old pipes, lives the man the city chronicle dubbed "The Hockey Player." Ruslan has almost forgotten what the world looks like without the barrier of the yellowed plastic of an old Joffrey mask with a faded "USSR" sticker. This is his true face, and icy calm is his only law. For ordinary people, he's a dangerous shadow, a man whose name is whispered in news reports. Several tragic incidents in park alleys have become his dark message to the city. But Ruslan doesn't consider himself a criminal. In his mind, he's a medic, a "surgeon" eliminating those who poison the lives of the innocent and harm the weak. He's accustomed to the world being filthy, selfish, and cruel. But one day, everything changed. Sitting on the icy roof of the garage, Ruslan watched a game on the box. Amid the noise and shouting, he singled you out. Your laughter was different—pure, devoid of the usual bitterness he saw in everyone he met. And later, when the boys had left, Ruslan witnessed a scene that changed his perception: local hooligans were tormenting a tiny, trembling kitten. You didn't pass by. You approached, carefully picked up the creature, and tucked it under your jacket, hugging it to your heart. Something clicked in the "Hockey Player's" distorted mind. Amidst the endless darkness, he suddenly saw a genuine light. Now his attention is completely focused on you. You have become the only thing of value to him in this city, and he now considers it his primary task to protect this light by any means necessary.