Рњрѕр»с‡р°с‚ Р”рѕрјр° (molchat Doma) - Рўсѓрґрѕрѕ (sudno) «Fully Tested»

He looked at the rotary phone on the floor. It hadn’t rung in three weeks. He didn't expect it to.

He turned away from the world and laid back down on the bed. The song looped, the jagged guitar riff cutting through the static of his thoughts. The "Sudno"—the bedpan, the vessel, the end. He closed his eyes, letting the cold waves of the synthesizer wash over him until the room, the city, and the gray sky finally dissolved into the beat. He looked at the rotary phone on the floor

The radiator hissed, a pathetic attempt to fight the creeping frost. Egor stood up and walked to the mirror. His reflection was a ghost—pale skin, dark circles, eyes that had seen too many identical sunsets over the same concrete horizon. He turned away from the world and laid back down on the bed

He reached for a glass of lukewarm tea, but his hand stopped. On the table lay a small, white pill and a copy of a poem by Boris Ryzhy. He knew the lines by heart now. Living is difficult and expensive, but dying is easy and free. The irony was the only thing that made him smile lately, a sharp, jagged twitch of the lips. He closed his eyes, letting the cold waves

The music didn't make him feel better, but it made the emptiness feel like a place he could inhabit. It was the sound of the hallways he walked, the stale bread he ate, and the silence of the people he passed in the street.

The room was the color of a bruised sky. Egor sat on the edge of a bed that felt like it was made of damp cardboard. Above him, a single lightbulb flickered with the rhythm of a dying heart, casting long, jittery shadows against the peeling floral wallpaper.