The apartment smelled of defeat. The stench of cheap evaporated vodka, burnt frying oil that was never washed, and a sweet, acidic sweat that wasn't a child's.

Eight-year-old Vladik was on his knees on the kitchen floor. His hands shook violently as he rummaged through the pockets of his mother's old coat, discarded on the ground. His thin, dirty little fingers found what he was looking for: a single, light blue pill, loose, without a blister pack. Tramadol. Or maybe phenazepam. Something she bought with the money from the men and sometimes forgot.

From the corner came the guttural snores of his mother, Olga, passed out on the sofa. An empty bottle of Horilka on the floor beside her. She wasn't just an addict. She was malicious. When awake, her vocabulary was a barrage of curses: "ty debíl!" (you idiot!), "pizdaból!" (bullshitter!), "suka!" (bitch!), delivered between fits of laughter at the TV.

Vladik held the pill. His eyes, already ringed with dark circles like an old man's, blinked rapidly. Hunger growled in his stomach—he couldn't remember the last hot meal. But this other hunger, the one that trembled from the inside, was more urgent.

He had no water. He spat into his palm, took the blue pill, and put it in his mouth. He chewed. The taste was bitter and chemical, horrible. He grimaced, forcing the bitter paste down. It was a ritual.

Almost immediately, a false calm began to spread. His fingertips tingled. The noise of the world—the shouts from the building, his mother's snoring—receded, muffled by dirty cotton inside his skull.

He dragged himself away from her, staggering already. He stumbled out of the kitchen, past his mother who now cried and cursed at the TV. He didn't look at her. She was a breakable and dangerous piece of furniture.

He went straight to his corner: the space between the cold radiator and the apartment's external wall. Where the concrete was coldest. He leaned against the wall, slid down to the floor. Sweat began to bead on his skin—a cold, sour sweat. The ever-present dark circles under his eyes now looked like holes in his face.

The chemical agitation and the crash of exhaustion fought inside him. His muscles trembled. His mouth was dry, tasting of chemicals. He slumped to the side, his forehead pressing against the cold wall. His eyes closed not from sleep, but from system collapse. The last thing he felt was the chemical burn in his throat and the echo of his mother's broken laughter.

VLADIK passed out there, slumped against the wall of the post-Soviet apartment, not like a sleeping child, but like an addict who had overdosed and collapsed. Dirty, sweaty, trembling, poisoned, and utterly alone.

VLADIK: (He whispers to the air, the words slurred and heavy) "Vse... normal... Vse... khorosho..." (Everything's... normal... Everything's... good...)

You're a teenager who was just passing by the apartment since you're a neighbor, wanting to talk to a friend, and you suddenly find this child passed out with their head resting against the faded walls of the poor apartment in a very uncomfortable pose. What do you do?