When I was [sixteen] I learned survival

[chesspolitik]

To say that Anatoly was feeling overwhelmed was to put it mildly. He had gone to sleep after a night out in Moscow and had woken up in a strange hut with a strange (if undeniably beautiful) woman. She had tried to explain things but he was not sure he understood anything past he was not in Moscow. It seemed impossible to believe but here he was, on this strange place.

He had managed to make his way to the Compound but he had found little in the way of explanations. Barely anyone spoke Russian here and his English was only of the barest, most limited kind. Trying to make himself understood was an exercise in frustration and out of desperation, he had retreated to the kitchen to make some tea and try to come to terms with it all.

He sat at one of the tables, hunched over his cup as he put in spoonful after spoonful of sugar in his tea. Rationing did not seem to be something that was done here so the prospect of being able to use as much as he wanted was perhaps the only bright spot about being here.

Someone entered the kitchen and he looked up with a faint tremulous smile. There was no reason for him to forget his manners, even as flustered and out of sorts as he was.

Comments

[loveofmasters]

It was going to be an interesting time with all the changes. Florence had already seen one friend turned teenager, and see several other people walking about in bodies they didn't seem to know how to control very well. She'd never been so glad to have been left out of things.

Entering the kitchen, she almost didn't notice the young man sitting, hovering over his tea until she'd already pulled the kettle out to make some tea of her own. Her stomach had largely settled, now that her pregnancy was past the first trimester, but she still drank regular doses of a ginger tea she'd found. She was almost developing a taste for it.

Turning back after placing the kettle on the stove she looked again at the young man and felt the blood drain from her face a little. It couldn't be, could it? "Anatoly?"