... in which Lyonya becomes disillusioned with love and humanity, yet realizes all the benefits of skiing.
Lyonya woke up because it was too cold in the room. Shivering, he tried to tuck his frozen feet under the blanket and go back to sleep, but it didn't help. Sleep had completely vanished. However, so had Kristina, who, as he remembered, had visited him yesterday.
Outside the window, there was still a gray-brown twilight. Apparently, it was very early morning. Sitting on the unfolded sofa and feeling the cold floor with his bare feet, he took his phone from the edge of the table to check the time.
— 8:39... And it's still dark. Damn autumn,— muttered Lyonya, but immediately forgot about the season and the time of day, because he opened an unread message:
"I shouldn't have tried anything with you. You're a loser. I'm leaving for Petrov."
— Well, Kristina... Bitch!— the guy cursed silently to himself and almost slammed his smartphone onto the floor out of anger. — A scumbag... Whore. Decided to laugh at me?
Without stopping his silent cursing, he pulled on the pants lying near the sofa, put on a t-shirt, and stood up, looking around for a sweater, because he was still cold.
— Stupid bitch... Sucker...— he continued mentally cursing the girl, pulling his head through the narrow knitted collar. — What if I laugh at you? I still have that video where you're showing off your best side...
Lyonya found the file in the gallery and was about to share it in an unofficial Telegram chat at the university, but the app froze on the message "Connecting..."
— Damn, there's no internet either...— the guy touched the battery, taking off a pair of socks from it.— And no heating... Damn country. I need to leave...
Apparently, the last phrase referred more to Leonid's place of residence than to the country as a whole. His current financial situation as a poor student allowed him to get to and from the university, but certainly not to take on the interesting and adventurous role of an emigrant. Preferably a political one, since, according to the unanimous opinion of all his classmates, they are more loved in the West.
Putting on his socks and shoving his feet into sneakers, Lyonya grabbed his bag and, closing the door firmly behind him, went out into the common corridor. He hadn't bothered to install a lock on the door of the room he rented in the communal apartment, so he simply left nothing valuable there. The kitchen was already lit. Probably, the elderly retired neighbor, waking up and shuffling around starting at six in the morning, was drinking tea.
The guy peeked into the kitchen to say hello and maybe grab a cup himself, but found only Pavlik there. The thin, frail drug addict, usually absent-mindedly staring at his smartphone and rarely appearing in public places before eleven o'clock, looked unusually strange. He sat on a stool, swaying slightly to the rhythm of invisible music, directly opposite an old radio set. Covered in dust, the device had survived in the communal apartment since Stalin's times and had no practical value. Even the local old-timers had long switched to high-tech brainwashing via colorful digital TV, spending hours discussing Malakhov's shows or the twists and turns of some idiotic soap opera plot.
Apparently, Pavlik had turned on the receiver for some reason, because loud noise and crackling now came from it, sounding somewhat ominous. The drug addict's cheap, thin t-shirt, clearly bought on AliExpress for two hundred rubles, and even its owner himself, were stained with something. Suddenly, Lyonya realized it was blood. The walls and refrigerator were also smeared with it in places. A dark red puddle was spreading across the floor. In its center, partially hidden by the table, lay the elderly retired neighbor.
"What have you done, junkie?!— exclaimed the student and immediately regretted his thoughtless action.
Pavlik slowly turned his bloody face toward him, a wild grin frozen on it, and looked at Leonid with empty, wide-set eyes. Letting out some kind of indistinct groan-cry, he lunged toward the student, but the latter managed to dodge and ran back into the corridor. Bumping into the old wardrobe, bicycle, knocking over mops and other things in the darkness, Lyonya rushed toward the entrance door seeking salvation and tried to open it, but without light, it didn't work well. The tight door chain, practically stuck shut, wouldn't budge. Behind him, just a few steps away, loomed the staggering silhouette of Pavlik.
Suddenly, in the dimness, the guy's gaze fell upon a pair of ski poles hanging on hooks by the door along with some worn-out coats and an old work coat that no longer belonged to anyone. Grabbing one of them, he desperately, like a defender of Thermopylae, swung it with all his might, driving the metal tip straight into Pavlik's gaping mouth. The blow was so powerful that the round yellow plastic guard shattered in half, and the steel spike pierced through the drug addict's throat and emerged from the back of his neck. The opponent gasped, but seemed to press even harder against the student, reaching out his hands toward him. Lyonya forcefully pulled out the pole and, grabbing it with both hands, pressed the swaying drug addict against the wall by the neck. Pavlik still gasped, trying to break free, frantically grabbing the student's sweater, but he pressed the pole with all his strength into the opponent's broken neck. Finally, there was a crunch of a broken spine, and Pavlik stopped gasping. Still twitching slightly, he slumped lifelessly to the floor.
In the silence of the dark corridor, only the clicks of the massive electric meter behind the fuse box could be heard, under which the bloody corpse now lay. The second one in this apartment. Trying to comprehend what had happened somehow, Lyonya, breathing heavily, stared motionless at the body that had once been his neighbor. Then, for some reason, he wiped the plastic window on the electrical panel clean with his sleeve and left the apartment.