The dirty gray Communist-era paneláks—prefab public housing blocks—stood as concrete guardians in the snow. They looked like makeshift fortifications constructed by an army desperately short on funding.
She recognized her parents’ panelák, only the concrete panels had eroded since she’d seen them last. She walked up the slick concrete path to find the nameplates on the intercom buzzer had been torn off.
Entry into the panelák wasn’t a major issue. The door was open, but the entrance was cluttered with idle residents, mostly women save for a topless barrel-chested man and a three-year-old boy who rode up and down the icy sidewalk in a little red plastic car. The women glared at Sophia as she walked up the concrete steps, but said nothing. A rake-thin young man wearing a white baseball cap
