Winter of 1929. A small village in Bashkiria. The whole hamlet is covered in snow. You find yourself in a Russian peasant hut, exhausted and frightened. Your husband, Sergey, should be back with firewood any minute now. You hear the icy ceiling and furnace creaks and your daughter's shrill squeal. Her name is Nina. Nina was born in terrible pain. Sergey was not happy about the girl, especially after the death of the only son, the heir.
You've already stopped recognizing her screams. You can't tell if she's cold or hungry. There's hardly any milk in your breasts. The milk probably isn't coming in because you haven't eaten in over a week or so. All the food is hidden, buried in the ground next to your son’s grave. He only lived for a few minutes before he even got a name. “It's for the best, then.” — you say to yourself when things get tough — “Just hope they don't find our bread. Just hope they don't come.”
It is Saturday, so you have to stoke the bath. Sergey just came back, probably tired and cold. You don’t even notice that you haven't bathed in weeks. Nina never stops crying and can't be left alone, even for a minute, especially for your own ‘pleasure.’
You had no sooner left the house than you heard the sound of a sleigh pulling up. The headscarf your mother gave you for your forteenth birthday hung on the chair. You used it when guests came to feed Nina. There was also a knife on the table. It was the most crucial thing in the household. It was used for everything, from cutting bread to brushwood.
You grabbed [[a knife->Where?]] or [[a headscarf -> Where?]]
Knock on the window: two slow ones, one fast one. Nina stops crying, and for a minute, you feel complete silence. You know that something bad is about to happen. “Prayers did not help; it seems that God's gaze did not reach this remote village of Bashkiria” is running through your mind. When Sergey had a drink with his comrades every Sunday, the words flashed through the conversation: bread monopoly, prodrazverstka, prodnalog, Bolsheviks, prodotryadnyad, Stalin. It was as if they all came to life in that second of complete silence, and you finally realized what they meant.
“Out of the hut!” orders the Redguard, shouts and slams his rifle against the floor, that the clay pots fall from the stove with a terrible rattle. It's -40 outside. The Redguard throws you out into the street. You can see a sled with a few sobbing women in their dresses and two dead children. They couldn't stand the cold. A crowd goes into the hut and goes through everything, looking for bread, meat, and any leftovers the town could use.
Through clenched teeth, Sergey says: “You'll never find anything.” The man who's been watching you takes the rifle walks up behind Sergey, and pulls the safety off, pointing it directly at his temple.
[[Stab the guard with the knife->Nina's death]] or [[Save the knife for later ->Sergey and Nina's death]]Knock on the window: two slow ones, one fast one. Nina stops crying, and for a minute, you feel complete silence. You know that something bad is about to happen. “Prayers did not help; it seems that God's gaze did not reach this remote village of Bashkiria” is running through your mind. When Sergey had a drink with his comrades every Sunday, the words flashed through the conversation: bread monopoly, prodrazverstka, prodnalog, Bolsheviks, prodotryadnyad, Stalin. It was as if they all came to life in that second of complete silence, and you finally realized what they meant.
“Out of the hut!” orders the Redguard, shouts and slams his rifle against the floor, that the clay pots fall from the stove with a terrible rattle. It's -40 outside. The Redguard throws you out into the street. You can see a sled with a few sobbing women in their dresses and two dead children. They couldn't stand the cold. A crowd goes into the hut and goes through everything, looking for bread, meat, and any leftovers the town could use.
Through clenched teeth, Sergey says: “You'll never find anything.” The man who's been watching you takes the rifle walks up behind Sergei, and pulls the safety off, pointing it directly at his temple.
[[ Keep silent->Sergey's death]] or [[Elbow the rifle out -> You're beaten]]You pull a knife from your pocket and stick it between the “guard's” ribs. He shrieks and falls to the ground. Blood stains the white snow. A crowd runs out of the house and stares at you in bewilderment.
Nina is already blue from the cold; she is silent. It's scary. Perhaps mother’s warm milk would give her a few more minutes of life. But feeding in front of men is not allowed, and there is no milk even to try. She is slowly dying in your arms when several men grab you by the neck and pull you away, standing in front of Sergey so that he can agonize in helplessness, seeing with his own eyes how they beat you for your misdeed of saving him.
You open your eyes in the sleigh. You try to realize where you are. You see endless rails and crowds of peasants in tears and helplessness. Nina is gone. Sergei's gone, too.
You are led into a train. You feel dizzy. Your whole body aches from the beating. But the physical pain is insignificant compared to the fact that now two of your children are in the grave. In fact, the second one doesn't even have one. It smells like a mixture of dead meat and sour milk. There is a buzz of screaming children and tears of their mothers.
You have a choice: [[lower->Husband]] or [[upper-> Escape 1]] bunks. You freeze in fear, unable to say anything. Nina is silent, too. The sound of a trigger, a gunshot, a body falls to the ground. Something inside you has been torn apart, and there is no going back.
Nina is already blue from the cold; she is silent. It's scary. Perhaps mother’s warm milk would give her a few more minutes of life. You pull out the headscarf you've saved and wrap it around your chest as if to shelter Nina and cover your breasts from the men. Nina struggles to find the nipple but finally sinks into it with incredible force and begins sucking out the last drops of sweet milk. Her face turns pink. It brings you a second of pleasure. For this little second, you forget about the dearest dead body lying next to you, the cold, and the lack of a future. There's life in those pink cheeks.
The commandant orders you to finish feeding and kicks you to the sled. You sit on the edge. The women in the sleigh strip the clothes off the dead children to keep Nina warm. She is the only light left in this village. Tiredness and pain make your eyes close for a moment. To forget, if only for a tiny moment.
You open your eyes, trying to realize where you are. You see endless rails and crowds of peasants in tears and helplessness.
You are led into a train. You feel dizzy. Your whole body aches either from the cold or the pain of loss. It smells like a mixture of dead meat and sour milk. There is a buzz of screaming children and tears of their mothers.
You have a choice: [[lower->Escape (Nina survives)]] or [[upper-> Escape 3 (Nina dies)]] bunks.
You can feel the commandant's hand. Years of housework have taught you to use your peripheral vision and be precise. You shift Nina in your other hand and knock the rifle out of the commandant's hand with a swift kick. Before you can throw a headscarf over Nina, you feel someone's hand digging into your neck, trying to strangle you. He pulls you away, standing in front of Sergei so that he can agonize in helplessness, seeing with his own eyes how they beat you for your misdeed of saving him. You don't remember how long it lasted. You only remember looking into Nina's eyes and whispering: “Just bear with me a little longer.”
Nina is already blue from the cold; she is silent. It's scary. Perhaps mother’s warm milk would give her a few more minutes of life. You pull out the headscarf you've saved and wrap it around your chest as if to shelter Nina and cover your breasts from the men. Nina struggles to find the nipple but finally sinks into it with incredible force and begins sucking out the last drops of sweet milk. Her face turns pink. It brings you a second of pleasure. For this little second, you forget about the dearest dead body lying next to you, the cold, and the lack of a future. There's life in those pink cheeks.
The men tearing through the house, yelling to leave Sergey with them. The commandant orders you to finish feeding and kicks you to the sled. You sit on the edge. The women in the sleigh strip the clothes off the dead children to keep Nina warm. She is the only light left in this village. Tiredness and pain make your eyes close for a moment. To forget, if only for a tiny moment.
You open your eyes, trying to realize where you are. You see endless rails and crowds of peasants in tears and helplessness.
You are led into a train. You feel dizzy. Your whole body aches either from the cold or the pain of loss. It smells like a mixture of dead meat and sour milk. There is a buzz of screaming children and tears of their mothers.
You have a choice: [[lower->Shooting 2]] or [[upper-> Escape 3 (Nina dies)]] bunks.
The compartment was stuffy and stinking of sweat. You chose the lower bunks, right next to the table. A man with a surprisingly familiar face about Sergei's age is sitting on the bunk opposite you. After a few hours of conversation, he turned out to be one of Sergey's comrades who had inadvertently found himself on this train filled with women and children.
Vladimir told you that he knows Sergey is on the same train. He was placed in a separate compartment of the seventh carriage (while you're in the fourth). Your first thought is to find him. Find him, find out how he's doing and what to do next. You finally have a goal that keeps you moving forward. Find him.
You rise from your seat, thinking you could lose yourself in the crowd, and make it to the seventh carriage.
The wind blows in your face, and you step from the fifth to the sixth, hiding from the commandant in the restroom. There's only one corridor left, but some woman notices you and denounces you to the commandant.
“Where are you going, you Bashkir whore!” — the guards grab you and kick you into a small enclosed space where you have to conserve air. It isn't clear how long it will last.
You hear a whisper outside the door. It's Vladimir. Through a small slit at the bottom of the door, he held out a paper and a small jar filled with ink.
That piece of paper saved you from losing the strength to survive. When you can no longer change the situation, you are challenged to change yourself and your responses to the circumstances. This piece of paper became your extension, an extension of your thoughts that transformed into poetry. It became your purpose.
*Сommon sense oozed from between my fingers,
The world was broken, and hell gapped in the rift.
It seemed that it was impossible to reach for the stars
But the savior was love. *
During this time, without food and water in four walls, you thought a lot about your life purpose, Sergey, your children, and the future.
When the train stopped, it seemed like the impossible had happened. You get outside, and everything around you is filled with snow. Covered with a white and fluffy blanket. Untouched land. In a massive crowd of people, you notice Sergey’s head. He looks weak and frustrated. People are staying outside while the commandant assigns each with a number. These remaining people are no longer people but numbers. In complete silence, you manage to slip through and run right up to your husband. He pretends not to be surprised and whispers questioningly in your ear: “Escape?”
[[Yes->Escape]] or [[No->Death]]
The compartment was stuffy and stinking of sweat. You chose the upper bunks right up against the ceiling. After a few hours of pondering to the sound of a humming train, you started thinking about how you could escape from here.
Going through the door is unsafe, but what can you do? After a long time of staring at the ceiling, you notice that there is a fragile spot, like a slit, that can be penetrated with a knife. There is a knife in your pocket that you grabbed on your way out of the house. It warms your heart and doesn’t let you give up. “I'll escape through the roof,” you think. No one can see. You will do it at night.
After the evening rounds, when everyone was asleep, you started gently tapping on the crack in the ceiling a little at a time. Every hour, it got bigger and bigger. The wind began to whistle through it. The man downstairs woke up. His name was Vladimir. He was silent, but you could tell by his body language that he would do this to you.
After a couple of jumps and pull-ups, you are on the roof. You can smell freedom, the train rushes under your feet, and you leap forward into the snowdrift as fast as you can.
You spent the next few days on the run. You met wolves and slept out in the cold. But finally, you found the light. A small house in the middle of nowhere. They welcomed you warmly. There until spring, and then you can go. Maybe you'll get to Belarus.
IF you can get there. You freeze in fear, unable to say anything. Nina is silent, too. The sound of a trigger, a gunshot, a body falls to the ground. Something inside you has been torn apart, and there is no going back.
Nina is already blue from the cold; she is silent. It's scary. Perhaps mother’s warm milk would give her a few more minutes of life. But feeding in front of men is not allowed, and there is no milk even to try. She is slowly dying in your arms when several men grab you by the neck and take you to the sled. The sleigh is filled with women and their dead children. Nina is next. There is no strength to cry. You just want to close your eyes and die. You close your eyes.
You open your eyes, trying to realize where you are. You see endless rails and crowds of peasants in tears and helplessness. Nina is gone.
You are led into a train. You feel dizzy. Your whole body aches either from the cold or the pain of loss. Now, two of your children are in the grave. In fact, the second one doesn't even have one. It smells like a mixture of dead meat and sour milk. There is a buzz of screaming children and tears of their mothers.
You have a choice: [[lower->Friend]] or [[upper-> Escape 1]] bunks.
The compartment was stuffy and stinking of sweat. You chose the lower bunks, right next to the table. A man with a surprisingly familiar face about Sergey's age is sitting on the bunk opposite you. After a few hours of conversation, he turned out to be one of Sergey's comrades who had inadvertently found himself on this train filled with women and children.
Vladimir told you he wanted to escape through the roof and asked whether you had something sharp.
[[Give him a knife-> Escape and Survival]] or [[tell him you don’t have anything-> Shooting]]
The compartment was stuffy and stinking of sweat. You chose the lower bunks, right next to the table. Nina screams and tears up her throat. She is hungry, but there is no milk. Stress, hunger, and cold have deprived Nina of food.
She lived like this for a couple of days. She was silent and white as a sheet when they put a woman in your compartment. Her baby was taken away, but there was still milk in her breasts. “Let me feed her,” she said. Words cannot express the gratitude you feel for this woman. If there is love on earth, it is here, on this train, in this carriage, in this hell. In this act of feeding is all of a woman's tenderness and essence. This woman granted Nina a second life.
You've been on this train for weeks. Your whole life consisted of getting food for Elena, the woman who became Nina's second mother. Every morning and every evening, there were compartment rounds. Commandants shouted, beating people for every unnecessary word. People gradually began to die. The smell was terrible. But nothing was substantial compared to the life of a daughter. She was still the leading light, the main incentive to live.
When you got there, it seemed like the impossible had happened. Everything around you was filled with snow. Covered with a white and fluffy blanket. Untouched land. But it wasn't the end. It's another 200 kilometers to our destination on foot, then 80 across the river. How to survive? Will Nina survive it? Will you survive it?
There's only one thought running through your head. Escape. Run wherever the devil's eyes are. Elena said she'd cover for you. She doesn't have the strength to run. She knows she's going to die. There's no meaning to her life anymore.
You spent the next few days on the run with Nina in one headscarf. You met wolves and slept out in the cold. But finally, you found the light. A small house in the middle of nowhere. They welcomed you warmly. There until spring, and then you can go. Maybe you'll get to Belarus.
IF you can get there. The compartment was stuffy and stinking of sweat. You chose the upper bunks right up against the ceiling. After a few hours of pondering to the sound of a humming train, you started thinking about how you could escape from here.
You've already lost count of the days. Every morning and every evening, there were compartment rounds. Commandants shouted, beating people for every unnecessary word. People gradually began to die. The smell was terrible. One day, Nina didn’t open her eyes. She was gone. “She was a strong girl, lived longer without food than many adults on this train,” you told yourself.
The plan was the only thing that kept you alive, serving as an incentive. After a long time of staring at the ceiling, you’ve noticed that there is a fragile spot, like a slit, that can be penetrated with a knife or a stick. Every day, walking from one end of the carriage to the other, you were thinking how you could get into the commandant’s room.
One night during the evening rounds, when all the guards were watching what was going on in the car, you snuck into the toilet and into the commandant's room to steal a knife. You saw the commandant walking towards the room. “He must have forgotten something,” you think.
[[Hide behind the closet-> Rape]] or [[quickly run out of the cabin-> Escape 4]]The compartment was stuffy and stinking of sweat. You chose the lower bunks, right next to the table. Nina screams and tears up her throat. She is hungry, but there is no milk. Stress, hunger, and cold have deprived Nina of food.
She lived like this for a couple of days. She was silent and white as a sheet when they put a woman in your compartment. Her baby was taken away, but there was still milk in her breasts. “Let me feed her,” she said. Words cannot express the gratitude you feel for this woman. If there is love on earth, it is here, on this train, in this carriage, in this hell. In this act of feeding is all of a woman's tenderness and essence. This woman granted Nina a second life.
You've been on this train for weeks. Your whole life consisted of getting food for Elena, the woman who became Nina's second mother. Every morning and every evening, there were compartment rounds. Commandants shouted, beating people for every unnecessary word. People gradually began to die. The smell was terrible. But nothing was substantial compared to the life of a daughter. She was still the leading light, the main incentive to live.
After another death, a man with a surprisingly familiar face was placed in your compartment. His name was Vladimir. After a few hours of conversation, he turned out to be one of Sergei's comrades who had inadvertently found himself on this train filled with women and children.
Vladimir told you that he knows Sergey is on the same train. He was placed in a separate compartment of the seventh carriage while you're in the fourth. Your first thought is to find him. Find him, find out how he's doing and what to do next. You finally have a goal that keeps you moving forward. Find him.
Nina stayed with Elena. The only thing you told her in the afterword was “Take care of her.”
You rise from your seat, thinking you could lose yourself in the crowd, and make it to the seventh carriage. The wind blows in your face, and you step from the fifth to the sixth, hiding from the commandant in the restroom. There's only one corridor left, but some woman notices you and denounces you to the commandant.
“Where are you going, you Bashkir whore!”, the guards grab you and kick you into a small enclosed space. You'd been sitting there for about 30 minutes when you heard the sound of the door opening. The image of the commander with a rifle appeared. The familiar click of the safety was the last sound you heard.
Silence fell on the train. You handed him the knife.
After the evening rounds, when everyone was asleep, Vladimir started gently tapping on the crack in the ceiling a little at a time. Every hour, it got bigger and bigger. The wind began to whistle through it. It is very scary. What if they will find us? What if we won't survive? But there was nothing to lose. Sergey and Nina were gone. If there was any point to live, it was only in the interest of surviving. Where will it take you?
After a couple of jumps and pull-ups, you are on the roof. You smell freedom, the train rushes under your feet, and you leap forward into the snowdrift as fast as you can.
You spent the next few days on the run. You met wolves and slept out in the cold. But finally, you found the light. A small house in the middle of nowhere. They welcomed you warmly. There until spring, and then you can go. Maybe you'll get to Belarus.
IF you can get there.
You told him you didn't have any. Running away was scary. Even though you had nothing to lose, something made you fight to survive—to endure each new day without food or water, as if this earthly suffering made the afterlife easier for loved ones.
The next day, when you returned from the bathroom, you saw Vladimir rummaging through your things. He pretended to drop something and look for it on the floor, but you realized what he was doing. A couple of days later, the commandant came to get you. He grabbed you by the neck and dragged you into a small, enclosed space. You'd been sitting there for about 30 minutes when you heard the sound of the door opening. The image of the commander with a rifle appeared. “His betrayal killed me” flashed through your mind. The familiar click of the safety was the last sound you heard.
Silence fell on the train.
“Yes,” you whispered back. The plan was to move within the crowd so the commandant couldn't assign you a number. When the count was over, lie on the tracks under the train.
Your knees are shaking, and your palms are sweating, but Sergey is beside you, and with him, everything is easier. You lie under the train and hope it will move after they leave. You hear the commandant's command to move towards the forest.
You don't remember when the train started moving, but its powerful force pressed you to the ground so tightly that you seemed to fall deep under the ground. The train passed. You can smell freedom.
You spent the next few days on the run with Sergey. You met wolves and slept out in the cold. You warmed each other with a touch. But finally, you found the light. A small house in the middle of nowhere. They welcomed you warmly. There until spring, and then you can go. Maybe you'll get to Belarus.
IF you can get there. “No, I’m afraid,” you whispered back. That was the weakness that ruined everything. Faith was the only thing that kept you standing till this moment. Sergey was perplexed. There was no time to make a decision. The commandant came closer and closer. His voice was already ringing in your ears: “128, 129, 130...” Sergey grabbed your hand tightly. Your numbers are 133 and 134.
Sergey asked if you kept the knife. You answered that you did. He took it and shoved it sharply into his throat. The bloody body fell to the ground. You remained lying there. Next to him, ignoring the commandant's screams. The last thing you could make out was, “Leave her here. She'll die anyway.”
This time, you succeeded. You grabbed a knife and quickly ran out of the cabin. Unnoticed.
When everyone was asleep, you started gently tapping on the crack in the ceiling a little at a time. Every hour, it got bigger and bigger. The wind began to whistle through it. The man downstairs woke up. His name was Vladimir. He was silent, but you could tell by his body language that he would do this with you.
After a couple of jumps and pull-ups, you are on the roof. You smell freedom, the train rushes under your feet, and you leap forward into the snowdrift as fast as possible.
You spent the next few days on the run. You met wolves and slept out in the cold. But finally, you found the light. A small house in the middle of nowhere. They welcomed you warmly. There until spring, and then you can go. Maybe you'll get to Belarus.
IF you can get there.
You heard footsteps approaching and hid behind a tiny closet in a commandant's cabin. He carefully stepped into the room and asked, “Who's here? I was told there was someone here.” You try to hold your breath. But the room is too quiet for him not to hear every inhale and exhale, every rustle. He looks behind the closet and sees you with your hand behind your back, hiding a knife. The only thought in your head is “Execution.”
But the commandant silently stepped back and locked the door. He ordered you to come out and undress. Everything after that was a blur. You tried not to think about what he was doing to you and how humiliating and disgusting it was. The pain, the screaming, the humiliation. And some strange, scary, death-defying pleasure. When he was done, he stepped out of the cabin into the restroom.
You took the knife and stuck it down your throat.
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_**Dispossessed**_
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_A story about the essence of life and death, hell and heaven, that takes you to the times of repression, terrible hunger, and millions of deaths during Stalin's regime_
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Vaygach Island 1930-1936. Photo from the album “Gulag”, author unknown.
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[[Start the game->Hamlet]]