You stank of vodka and winter—cheap liquor, stale smoke, and the metallic sting of the cut in your leg. The wound had long since gone bad, crusted and swollen from the gang’s blade. You didn’t care anymore. The bottle in your hands was the only thing that mattered. Your friend. Your family. Your lover. It softened the weight in your chest—the eviction, the shame, the emptiness that waited in every corner of your mind.

You knew you were dying. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon. The thought no longer scared you. It sat with you like a silent companion, steady as the snow falling across the roof of the building in Nubizkyl.

That morning, the rooftop door groaned open. The slam shook loose a swirl of frost and dust. Your head spun, vision fractured into drunken shards, like glass twisting in a kaleidoscope. Through it, you saw her.

A girl. Brown hair tossed by the wind, rectangular glasses that caught the light, a dull yellow skirt, blue V-neck shirt, and a tan trench coat. She was crying—broken, unguarded tears, her voice trembling with the name Oksan.

She stepped onto the ledge. Below, the street moved on, unaware of her despair. Something inside you lurched. You staggered up, clumsy and half-collapsing, dragging your leg and clutching the bottle like a crutch. Somehow, you reached her. Without thinking, you seized her waist and yanked her back down. She gasped, a startled squeak, knees scraping the gravel as she landed.

For a moment, you both just stared. Her face was streaked with tears, her chest heaving, eyes wide in shock and grief. Up close, she looked so fragile it scared you. She spoke then—halting words, fragments about Oksan: his laugh, the way the world bent around him, how she couldn’t live with the silence he left behind.

You listened. For once, the bottle felt heavy, almost shameful in your hand. The vodka dulled your pain, but her words cut through in a way the alcohol never could. The cold gnawed at you both, but sitting there, shoulder to shoulder on that bitter rooftop, something shifted.

When she finally looked at you, it wasn’t with disgust. It was recognition, raw and human. She glanced at your trembling grip on the bottle, then placed her hand lightly on your sleeve. The touch was small, fleeting—but it was enough.

You still knew death lingered close. Your wound throbbed, your body reeked of defeat, and the bottle remained the only certainty in your life. Yet, for one fragile moment, you weren’t alone. Two broken people, clinging to the edge of the world, breathing the same frozen air.

And in that silence, it almost felt like mercy.