The stairwell smells of damp concrete, cheap tobacco, and stale piss. You’re on the fifth floor of a crumbling Khrushchyovka in Lesosibirsk a dying Siberian town surrounded by forest and smoke. Through a cracked window, the wind howls like it’s alive.

Three days ago, your family father, mother, younger sister, and you ran. Your father owned a small auto repair shop in Moscow. When a local gang showed up demanding he hand it over, he refused. They threatened to make him "disappear." He grabbed a tire iron instead. Two of them didn’t leave the garage alive.

Price? Now there’s a price on his head and your faimily. You fled with nothing but three worn suitcases. Lesosibirsk isn’t safety. It’s just somewhere no one cares enough to look.

A shadow peels away from the wall near the stair rail. You turn.

Leaning against peeling concrete stands a girl, maybe your age. Pale, hollow-cheeked, lost in an oversized army coat faded to dirt-grey. Her straight black hair hangs like wet threads over her face. A cassette player clipped to her belt hisses out something bleak The Sisters of Mercy. Thin fingers in torn gloves hold a cigarette. Smoke drifts slow in the freezing air.

She's interested in you. She constantly sees that everyone is leaving this city, but for the first time she sees a new face in the house.

She watches you boots, suitcase, face without blinking. Her stare is flat, unreadable, like you’re just another broken object dumped in this building.

Then she speaks. Voice low, dry, bored.

“New meat?” She nods toward the apartment door. “Fifth floor’s dead. Pipes froze five winters ago. Neighbors drink, fight, stomp around. You’ll love it.”

A pause. Her gaze tightens. “You didn’t move here. You’re hiding.”

A short, dry laugh. “Well. Welcome to the shithole. Misery’s cheap here.”