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Evie As my mom and grandmother cooked dinner in the other room, my dad messed with my babushka’s old TV on the other side of the room, clicking the power button over and over again so me and my brother, Aleksandr could watch cartoons before we had dinner. We both sat on opposite ends of the couch, covered by one of the persian rugs that seemed to be on every surface of every room.“It’s fine, Papa,” Aleksandr said in Russian after what felt like an hour of watching him trying thing after thing, some of the same, some different, “It’s not gonna work anyway.”“You were the one who was begging him to try and fix it,” I observed. Our dad was kind of a scientist… He made a lot of different things. Different experiments. He had a small lab inside our apartment back in Moscow. I was never allowed in, but I knew of a small compartment where I could hide to watch my dad work.“Enough,” Papa sighed, not looking up from where he was reaching behind the TV, trying to adjust something…“There we go!” he exclaimed after the TV flicked to life, lifting his head and looking at the now colorful screen, “Now what to watch…”Aleksandr perked up, immediately fixating on the TV as he moved forward onto the floor, sitting on his knees,“ Nu, pogodi! ”I nodded, going to sit down next to him. Nu, pogodi! being both of our favorite shows was one of the only things we could agree on. I tucked my knees against my chest, excitedly watching the show as Papa sat down on the couch behind us. It was the fifth episode that was on, beginning with Volk , a wolf who seemed to be hellbent on catching Zayats, the hare, to eat him and was always smoking a cigarette.Volk was spying on Zayats by a monocular. Zayats hops down a flight of stairs and is scooped up into a bag by Volk. Volk hides the bag in a telephone booth as pedestrians walk by, allowing Zayats to escape and trap him in the booth instead. After the title screen, Zayats skips down the street and goes up to a stand to buy a watermelon. What he doesn’t know, however, is that Volk is disguised as one of the watermelons. Volk jumps out and grabs Zayats before a hippopotamus comes to the rescue. Zayats gets onto a trolley bus and Volk follows him, but gets his head stuck between the trolley doors. The chase continues through the city before ending in a subway station, where Volk slides down an escalator and is slowed down after crashing into the hippo and the latter lands on top of him. The episode ends with Volk crawling across the floor, shouting,“ Nu, Zayats… Nu, pogodi! ”I smiled as the screen faded to black, signaling the conclusion of the episode. As if on cue, I heard my mother yelling from the kitchen,“Mikhail! Aleksandr! Evelina! Dinner is almost ready!”“Coming!”Papa switched off the TV to be met with a groan from my brother still sitting next to me. Instead of listening to his whining, I decided to go into the kitchen and ask if my help was needed.“Do you need help, Mama?” I questioned, peeking into the kitchen and looking at the small dining table, where Babushka was setting up plates,“Go help your babushka with setting table,” Mama commanded, not looking up from the food she was putting in a dish. I obeyed, going over to place the silverware. After dinner, Mama tucked me into bed. The room smelled vaguely of cigarette smoke, and the bed was stiffer than the one back home, but the plain sheets and blanket were still comfy.“Good night, malysh,” Mama kissed my head and turned on the lamp, leaving the room.That night, I dreamt of animals. A wolf, a leopard, a snake, a spider, a bee, a raven, a chameleon, and an axolotl. I dreamed about running along with the wolf and the leopard, climbing trees with the snake, the spider, and the chameleon, flying with the raven and the bee, and swimming with the axolotl. It was a fun dream, but also kind of strange… The next morning, we had breakfast before saying goodbye to babushka and getting in the car to go home. I just stared out the window for most of the ride, watching as the dirt road lined by trees eventually phased into concrete, and the view of trees eventually became one of buildings. Once we neared the edge of the city, I heard Papa talking,“I might do some experiments when we arrive back…”Experiments? This sparked my excitement. I had recently seen him extracting DNA from animal blood. I wondered if he was going to be experimenting with that. I just had to sneak in and hide before he went in.When we got to our apartment, I took my shoes off and looked up to Mama,“I’m going to go to my room.”“Alright, malysh,” she kissed me on the head, “just come to dinner when I call you.”I nodded before going down the hallway and looking back. Once both my parents had their backs turned, I turned the doorknob to Papas lab and went inside, slowly closing the door behind me so it wouldn’t make noise. Then, I crawled into the little compartment underneath a table, moving some boxes in front of me. It was a little cramped, but worth it to see the cool stuff Papa would do.Once Papa walked in, I put a hand over my mouth to keep myself quiet. He sat down at the desk and took out some tools. I couldn’t see what exactly he was doing, but he seemed to be mixing something… It happened too fast for me to know what happened… I heard a loud boom sound and instinctively covered my ears, curling up into a ball to protect myself and shutting my eyes tight. Once the ringing in my ears stopped, I slowly opened my eyes and uncovered my ears, looking out of my hiding place to see Papa laying on his back on the floor.“Papa…?” I crawled towards him, but accidentally cut my hand on a broken piece of glass. I hissed in pain, looking at the red liquid dripping from my palm. I clutched my hand closed in an effort to stop the bleeding, looking down at Papa to see if he was breathing.He wasn’t.“Papa!”I leaned forward on my hands, feeling the one I had cut rest in a puddle of something. I reeled back and looked at my palm to see a dark green substance mixing with my blood. It seeped into my wound and disappeared from my skin. The bleeding also stopped, and I saw the cut was now gone. I rubbed my palm with my fingers, confused. I heard the door opening behind me and turned to see Mama with Aleksander standing behind her,“Evelina, what are you doing in here?!” she rushed over and knelt beside me, “You know you’re not supposed to be in Papa’s lab!”“I know, I’m sorry, but-” I looked down at Papa, Mama followed my gaze and gasped,
“Mikhail…?”
Aleksander slowly stepped forward to see what was going on. I just started sobbing, grabbing Mama’s shirt and clinging to her,“I’m sorry, I didn’t want this to happen!”“Shhhh, malysh, it’s okay…”“He was making- doing something- and then…”“It wasn’t your fault, malysh.”Mama gently rubbed my shoulder to reassure me as I cried, tears flowing down my face. My breathing became uneven as I tried to gasp for air through the lump in my throat.Papa was gone.