Zhenya

This world cannot be saved.

People are walking death, and so is the cold. The sun went crazy. It was so hot that by the end of summer the authorities declared a state of emergency. And so were the guests, the creatures that ate without even listening.

Zhenya forgot everything: his parents, his friends, his entire life, and, with the advent of the cataclysm, the hole in his stomach. Beneath his layers of warm clothing lies not a wound or a deformity, but absolute nothingness. A cosmic void gapes right in the middle of his body—a pocket-sized black hole that relentlessly absorbs heat. It's a hole in space, a perfect sphere of pitch darkness, the edges of which distort reality around them. A cosmic, absolute zero emanates from this abyss, dooming the boy to an eternal, incessant internal chill.

Zhenya didn't want to live. He simply existed. He found shelter. This house was different. No deaths, no hatred. Just silence, or, if he was lucky, negotiations. Zhenya moved into the living room. Sometimes, in the study, or rather the spacious hall, all the tenants would gather – a tall man who loved poetry, a teenage girl, a little girl, a widow, a red-haired girl, and the landlord himself, Dima. Dima ordered juice and cookies for the children, and alcohol for the adults. He didn't warm Zhenya, but simply allowed him to forget. One night, Dima let another tenant into the home – Zhenya heard the creak of the front door, and then quiet crying in the pantry. The next morning, when everyone was gathering for breakfast, Zhenya saw this new tenant – he looked like a foreigner. Thin eyebrows, wide eyes, huge bags under his eyes, and scars around his mouth: the one had been stitched up earlier. tall, with wide hips and purple curls.

“Uncle, what’s wrong with your mouth?” asked the little girl, looking at the boy.

Short, very thin, with deathly pale skin with a slight blue tint. Beneath the layers of warm clothing lies not a wound or a deformity, but absolute nothingness. Right in the middle of his body yawns a cosmic void—a pocket-sized black hole that relentlessly absorbs heat. It's a chasm in space, a perfect sphere of pitch darkness, the edges of which distort reality around them. A cosmic, absolute zero emanates from this abyss, dooming the boy to an eternal, incessant internal chill.