Since We Are Apart

Chapter 5. We

When I entered the classroom, Dasha still wasn’t there. Sitting in my usual spot, I pulled out a copy of Zamyatin’s We, my pencil case, and my notebook from my backpack. Despite my long absence, the other classmates behaved fairly calmly: I had become old news to them as quickly as a sickly sweet piece of chewing gum, which was a relief. No one stared at me with curiosity or pestered me with questions about what happened on Halloween night. When I first arrived in Kserton, the intense stares and the annoying habit of kids from other classes trying to eavesdrop on private conversations used to irritate me. Hopefully, now fewer people would be interested in such foolishness. If only they knew who they were sitting next to and what dangers lurked here daily, they’d have switched to homeschooling long ago.

Though, realistically, a more likely scenario would be worried agents from special services, for the sake of everyone’s safety and the country’s good, not just observing the supernatural in inconspicuous Kserton, but wanting to take control of this unknown power. To study it and use it for their own ends. Thinking about that suddenly made my neck cramp, as if I’d slept all night in an awkward position.

Dasha appeared in the doorway before the teacher began the lesson. Seeing me, she stretched her lips into a welcoming smile and hurried to her desk.

“Did I miss anything?”

“Nope. The teacher hasn’t started yet.”

“Great,” she whispered and sat down. “I thought about visiting you in the hospital today, but I see that’s not necessary anymore.”

“Dr. Smirnov finally let me go home. Although I’ll have to go back again today...” I started automatically but caught myself and stopped.

Unlike most people around me, Dasha was an ordinary person and had no idea about the mystical nature of some Kserton residents. I really didn’t want to be the one to dispel the thick fog of ignorance and deprive my classmate of sleep for months until she accepted the new order of things. I knew from experience how hard that was.

The scariest thing about the new secret was that for those who once learned it, there was no way back. The hidden would become revealed and force Dasha, like me, to scrutinize strangers’ faces, wondering which clan they belonged to. Was she in danger now? And if so, what could she do about it?

“...physiotherapy appointments,” I finally remembered the tricky word.

“Still something hurts, huh?”

“More like recovery — I moved too little in the hospital.”

Dasha nodded understandingly. Before she could ask more, Georgy Vasilyevich got up from his desk and, without much enthusiasm, began enlightening the students about Zamyatin’s biography:

“Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin was born in the Tambov province on February 1st, according to the new calendar, in 1884. His father was a priest and taught the Word of God, while the writer’s mother was a pianist. Yevgeny showed early zeal for literature: by the age of four, he was reading serious works, including the writings of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. Unfortunately, Zamyatin’s conclusions on this matter have not survived to our time,” Radzinsky paused and smiled gently, though few in the class caught the point. “In 1896, the family moved to Voronezh, where Yevgeny Ivanovich graduated from gymnasium with a gold medal, which was considered quite prestigious back then.”

“Is it considered prestigious now?” someone shouted from the row near the window.

The teacher shrugged and gave an ambiguous answer:

“Depends on how you look at it. However, for now, our minds are still stuck at the end of the 19th century, so let’s leave the discussions about the charms of the 21st for later.” Georgy Vasilyevich frowned and slowly rubbed the back of his neck. “Where was I? Ah, yes. At school, Yevgeny, like many of you judging by the records, was inclined towards the humanities, while math was difficult for the young writer. However, in 1902, Zamyatin challenged himself and enrolled at the Polytechnic Institute of Saint Petersburg, where, together with other students, he joined the Bolshevik faction and participated in revolutionary activities, for which he was later arrested and exiled back to Lebedyan. To complete his studies, Yevgeny had to return illegally to Petersburg. In 1908, Zamyatin graduated as a marine engineer and was hired at the same institute as a shipbuilding instructor. That same year, Yevgeny Ivanovich published his first story “Alone” in the journal Education while also working on The Girl. But his first novella was only presented to the world three years later, when he was exiled to Lakhta for illegal residence in Petersburg. He dedicated this novella to provincial problems and did so so well that contemporary critics noticed it...”

“That doesn’t sound like the biography of a dystopia writer at all,” Dasha whispered to me.

“Of course it does! He was involved in revolutionary movements, so he clearly wasn’t happy with the status quo.”

“Yeah, but all these exiles and bans on living in specific cities sound crazy. How can a citizen be forbidden to live in, say, Novosibirsk? How is that even possible?”

I shrugged.

“Probably it was possible in the 19th century. Petrograd was the capital then.”

Dasha frowned and hesitantly raised her hand to ask the teacher a question but changed her mind halfway.

“Ah, never mind. I’ll read about it on the internet at home. This is all strange.”

“Well, many writers were exiled for their dissenting opinions. Why are you so surprised?”

“I don’t know. Somehow Zamyatin’s case just seems ridiculous to me. Although maybe the problem is with Radzinsky’s way of telling it. He tells it strangely.”

“And boringly,” I added. “Hopefully, when we get to We, it will become more interesting.”

I was right. The class came alive as soon as the discussion touched on the characters in the novel who faced the clash of the individual and the collective. Listening to my classmates’ arguments, I thought about modern realities. About how those same people I lived with day after day under one roof would react if they knew the truth about Kserton’s other side. Hidden from outsiders’ eyes, and yet harboring a threat beyond imagination. At least, I still didn’t fully realize my own power or the Smirnovs’. Born vampires, weak-bloods, werewolves, the broken Kserton coven... everything that had so far deeply rooted in my mind boiled down to a vague understanding of the frailty of the human body and the brilliance of a power that could end any life with a single swift move. I hadn’t yet noticed any obvious physical changes I needed to hide from ordinary people. My body was growing stronger, as if I exercised regularly and ate well, and moments when my senses sharpened — smell or sight — were barely noticeable to others. But there was more to come.

“I didn’t like the novel,” a boy from the front row said loudly. “Its ending is kind of vague. I’d even say half-open, which gives an impression of incompleteness. They didn’t finish the thought, only vaguely hinting at how terrible life could be in Zamyatin’s society.”

“In the past,” the teacher said patiently, “it was considered good form to leave more room for the reader’s own reflections and subsequent analysis.”

“In my opinion,” the classmate kept arguing, “it’s just plain lazy writing. The author chose to act as if he himself didn’t know what idea he wanted to reveal in the end or simply lacked the skill to explain it clearly and simply.”

The literature teacher gave a crooked smile: "Ah, Golubev. I was already thinking of giving you a five in the gradebook for your participation today, but that 'stupid' spoiled everything, of course."

"Whatever," the classmate leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms in dissatisfaction. Like a little kid, honestly.

The discussion was so absorbing that I lost track of time. Soon the bell rang. As I was leaving the classroom, I habitually paused in the doorway and scanned the hallway for Nick, but quickly stopped myself: even if he were at school and came to walk me to the next class as usual, it wouldn't change anything between us. What's done is done.

My good mood vanished immediately.

For the next two lessons, I barely heard what the teachers were saying. School life flowed past me no matter how much I tried to fit in. Everything was happening so close, right under my nose, but it felt like I was watching through a transparent dome and, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t merge with the flow.

How I wished I could move in unison with the others and enjoy the last month of carefree senior year, but I felt even that had been taken from me. And no money could buy back that previously underestimated chance.

I decided not to go to the cafeteria at lunch: I didn’t want to sit among everyone like a gloomy dark cloud, stealing what little light was still glowing in the pristine white walls. After quickly brushing off Dasha, who had been silent most of the day anyway, as if my mood had rubbed off on her, I left school and headed for the edge of the forest beyond the parking lot.

Galina’s trailer stood abandoned in its usual spot, mentally taking me back to the disco evening. My legs kept moving, and before I realized it, I had reached the familiar clearing surrounded by tall firs and a few bushes at the edges. The snow lay as a flawless sheet, hiding the massive tree roots beneath. Once in the center, I tilted my head back, closed my eyes, and breathed in deeply with pleasure.

The frosty air burned my mucous membranes and lungs, clearing my thoughts with sensations and giving fragile peace to a sick soul that now knew no rest.

Maybe I should have gone home? Stayed away from everyone. Given myself more time to digest a world turned upside down, a world where I could barely find a place. Who am I and who are the Smirnovs? Diana and Stas had known from birth about the creatures they were, while I, like a blind kitten, had learned I was different from the stork that raised me—and couldn’t fly. It was hard to imagine how, now a werewolf, I could live among humans. Continue studying alongside them, then find a job and build a personal life. Most likely a double life, like my dad had to.

What if one day I fell in love with a fragile human, like Kostya once loved Maria?

More than anything, I wanted to go to Rostov and talk to my mom. To find out how Maria found the strength not only to accept who my father really was but to dare to build a family with him. Even though their "happily ever after" never happened, at least they had the courage to take the risk. And I was their proof of that.

How do you learn to combine the extremes of being a simple high school girl who loves literature, and a werewolf girl who by calling must turn into a wild beast and hunt down bloodthirsty vampires gone mad?

I couldn’t imagine myself capable of harming anyone. I didn’t even want to try. If only for a second I had believed it and found a place in my heart for hatred, then there might be no way back. Life’s value had always been the highest good and indisputable right of every being to me. But now the wolf inside me had to learn indifference to fulfill what fate had ordained. The creator of good and the reaper in one form.

How simple it would be if my heart were just a little more optimistic. Hope to find a loophole would keep me afloat, but instead I completely fell apart and started to cry. Probably, I went to school too soon, and Kostya was right — I should have stayed home.

I spent some more time on the snowy clearing, letting the tears flow. It was better to cry everything out now when no one could see than at home or, say, in front of friends. I was tired of worried looks and others’ concerns for my life. Everyone pretended to know what was best for me while I couldn’t even figure out the basics.

Unlike everyone else, I wasn’t sure it was worth trying to contact and get to know the spirit living inside me. What if what connected me and that being wasn’t the consequences, but some lingering effect of vampire poison? Had anyone studied it fully enough to know for sure? I doubted it because not only my father, but also Doctor Smirnov shrugged helplessly, afraid to give a final verdict.

I thought about this and gradually felt better. The icy crust on my heart thawed and stopped constraining the restless muscles and, with them, the pain.

Where tears had just run down my cheeks, only two thin lines remained. The salty moisture stung the cold skin unpleasantly, and I carefully tried to rub away the remnants with my sleeve but only made it worse. Realizing only washing my face could help, I decided to go back to school.