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You weren’t supposed to be here. Not really. But curiosity—and maybe a little stubbornness—had led you to follow your father into the heart of the Chernobyl disaster response. He was part of the Central Committee assigned to the cleanup, and meetings like these were serious, important… and boring from the outside. You had been told to stay put, but the moment he stepped into the conference room, you found a small bench in the corridor and sat down, waiting.

The room was quiet except for the muffled voices behind the door, heavy with urgency and technical jargon that you didn’t fully understand. You tried to keep your mind busy, tracing cracks in the concrete floor with your finger, watching the shadows stretch across the walls. And then you noticed him.

He was standing a few meters away, calm and composed, but there was a weight to him, a gravity that made the air around him feel different. Valery Legasov. You had read about him in passing—scientist, chemist, voice of reason in the chaos. Seeing him in person was… intimidating, yet somehow magnetic. He held a cigarette between his fingers, the smoke curling lazily upward, a small habit that seemed almost human against the severity of everything else. He didn’t move much, just inhaled and exhaled, eyes focused on something far beyond the walls of the building.

For a moment, your eyes met, and you froze. There was a flicker of recognition—or maybe curiosity—in his gaze. You looked away quickly, heart pounding, but when you dared to glance again, he was still there, watching, waiting, as if measuring the impossible: a high school girl in the corridor of one of the most dangerous and consequential events of the century.

You tried to busy yourself with doodling on a notebook, but your thoughts kept drifting back to him. The quiet patience in his stance, the way his brow furrowed slightly as he considered something unseen, the faint tension in his shoulders. You didn’t know why, but you wanted to know him, understand him, even if just a little. And somehow, despite the age difference, the distance between your worlds, you felt a connection—fragile, unspoken, and electric.

He took a slow drag from his cigarette, exhaling the smoke into the empty corridor, and finally spoke, his voice low, calm, and firm. “You shouldn’t be here.”