1
ALINA
Iwake to the soft chime of my alarm at 6:45 a.m.
It’s the same sound I’ve heard every weekday for the past two years.
The alarm is polite, delicate, and almost apologetic as if it understands it is interrupting the last few minutes of peace I manage to carve out before starting my day. Classes and late-night study sessions and the heavy weight of expectations that never seem to end are what await me outside of these warm sheets.
All things I’ve come to dread over the last few months.
The room around me glows faintly with the winter dawn coming in from my windows, all muted indigos and silver-blue shadows.
The heated floors hum quietly beneath the polished marble, the only other sound in the vast quiet of my family’sRublyovka dacha. My room is large—too large, if I’m being honest. My mother once said she wanted me to have space to grow into, butthe truth is, it still feels like I’m rattling around inside a museum exhibit of someone else’s life.
I stare up at the ceiling for a moment, letting my eyes trace the ornate molding, gold leaf curling through white plaster in patterns my mother agonized over years ago. She chose every detail herself down to the exact shade of ivory silk for the curtains, the soft blush tone of the rug, even the subtle peach scent diffused through the vents before bedtime. She wanted the room to feel warm and safe, a sanctuary.
Some days, it still does.
Most days, it just feels like a mausoleum.
I close my eyes and inhale, letting the faint scent of my lavender pillow spray linger in my lungs before exhaling. Beyond the walls, muted and distant, I hear the footsteps of our staff moving around to ready for breakfast.
Beyond that are the guards changing shifts.
Men from my father’s security detail, all ex-military, all overly serious and allergic to smiling. They’re no doubt already awake and sipping coffee in the guardhouse while waiting for me to wake up and revolve their schedule around me. Just like always.
I know the routine all too well.
They’ll wait for me to emerge from the house right at 7:30. They’ll take me in one of our town cars to campus and drop me off at the front entrance. They’ll sit with their tablets open, linking to every security camera on campus, and monitor every building I enter, every step I take.
My life has always been divided into coordinates and check-ins. My father calls it “precaution” but I call it a cage with invisible bars.
My alarm chimes again, a softer trill this time. A reminder that if I don’t move now, I’ll end up scrambling later and arriving to class with damp hair and annoyance at my own dallying steaming off my shoulders.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, the silk of my pajama shorts brushing smoothly across my thighs.
The rug beneath my feet is plush enough that my toes almost disappear into it. A birthday present, I think, from years ago. Was I seventeen? Eighteen? Not that it actually matters. Gifts have always been used to fill the spaces where conversation and connection should’ve been.
The air is cool against my bare shoulders when I rise.
I cross the room to the window and pull the curtains aside. Another gray Moscow morning stares back at me—cold, muted, and incredibly indifferent. The frost paints delicate veins across the glass, spiderwebbing into patterns that look almost floral. Beyond the window are the wooded edges of our property.
The guardhouse sits at the front gate, a squat building of dark stone. I can just make out two figures standing outside it, silhouettes moving in slow, habitual rhythm as they prepare for another day of hovering near me like nervous shadows. If they see me at the window, they pretend not to, but they will already have been waiting for me down in the foyer by the time I get dressed and grab my school bag.
Privacy is selective in this house.
I let the curtain fall back into place and pad toward my vanity. The mirror is cold when my fingertips brush the surface to wipe away some of the smudges I left on it from the day before while I was readjusting the angle.
For a second, I simply look at myself. My hair is a tangle of chocolate-brown waves, eyes still heavy with sleep with dark circles under them to match. My cheeks are faintly flushed from the warmth under the covers and are a stark contrast to my pale skin.
I look soft here, unthreatening. A porcelain doll placed on a shelf and left to collect dust for fear of breaking.
Beneath that softness, though, and beneath the perfume-scented sheets and curated safety, something restless stirs.
It has been for years.
Not that I can ever put a name to it. But no matter how many mornings I try to ignore the tension growing inside my body, it never works. I’m always brought back here to this moment, to the person staring at me in the mirror, waiting for something to finally happen.
