Short angst for Ivan braginsky
Snow buried the fields. Snow swallowed the roads. Snow crept beneath doors and cracked walls. Even when spring arrived, the cold remained somewhere inside his chest, frozen deep where nobody could reach it.
As a child, Ivan Braginsky learned that warmth was a luxury.
He remembered nights when the wind screamed against the wooden house like a hungry beast. The roof groaned. The windows rattled. His hands were always red from the cold, fingers stiff as he carried water or chopped wood.
The cold arrived before Ivan could remember his own name. It was there in every memory he possessed. The crunch of snow beneath tiny boots.The sting of icy wind against his cheeks.The endless white horizon stretching farther than he could see.
The world around him seemed to exist in shades of gray and white. Snow buried fields that should have been green. Rivers froze into silent sheets of ice. The trees stood like skeletons against a pale sky.
The adults called it normal. They told him this was how things had always been.
How they always would be.
But Ivan often wondered if somewhere beyond the endless snow there existed a place where people did not wake up shivering. A place where the earth was warm beneath bare feet.
A place where the sun stayed long enough for sunflowers to grow. He had never seen such a place.
Ivan learned early that hunger could make even the kindest person selfish.
A loaf of bread could start arguments. A warm blanket could become a treasure worth fighting for.
And firewood, firewood was life itself.
He remembered carrying logs larger than his arms could comfortably hold. The wood scraped against his coat as he dragged it through deep snow.
His fingers would become numb.
Sometimes he would stumble and fall.
Everyone was trying to survive.
At night, He would sit close to the stove and watch the flames dance behind iron bars. The fire was small, weak, struggling to survive just like everyone else.
Not too close, never too close. Others needed the heat more.
Ivan learned to endure. He learned to smile and say he was fine. He learned to pretend his hands weren't shaking. He learned to keep quiet when his stomach growled.
The fire crackled softly.
He would stare into the flames for hours.
The warmth never lasted long enough.
Nothing warm ever stayed.
Winter was merciless that year.
Even the adults whispered about it.
The rivers had frozen earlier than usual. Snow buried entire roads. The wind howled day and night, rattling homes like it was trying to tear them apart. People stayed indoors whenever they could. But survival did not wait for better weather. There was always work to do. Always something that needed carrying.
Ivan had left before sunrise.
The sky was still dark, heavy clouds hiding what little light the moon offered. He remembered clutching a small bundle beneath his arm as he trudged through the snow.
The wind grew stronger. Snow stung his face. Soon he could barely see. Everything became white.
Even the trees seemed to dissolve into the storm.
Ivan tried to keep walking. He really did. But his legs felt heavier with each step.
His fingers had long since gone numb.
His nose was bright red from the cold. Eventually, he stumbled. His foot caught beneath a drift of snow.
The impact wasn't particularly painful.
In fact... It felt strangely comfortable. The snow was soft, softer than he expected. For a moment he simply laid there. The storm roared around him, yet somehow it sounded distant.
As if he were listening from underwater. His eyelids felt heavy.
And his vision was blurry.
He could rest for just a minute.
Just one minute, then he'd get up. That was what he told himself.
The cold no longer hurt. The biting pain that had filled his hands and feet was disappearing. His fingertips were pale and motionless.
The wind covered parts of him with fresh snow. And for the first time all day...
A small smile appeared on his face.
Just silence, Warm silence. Or at least it felt warm.
Ivan blinked slowly, the gray sky above him blurred. His thoughts drifted. He imagined a
Far larger than the little stove back home.
Its flames danced brightly. Golden, beautiful and Warm.
He stretched out a hand toward the imaginary fire, his fingers barely moved. The storm continued to rage around him. But Ivan no longer heard it, his body was growing colder. Yet his mind was drifting toward warmth.
Toward something dangerously comfortable, maybe he could close his eyes just for a little while.
A voice. Distant, Muffled, Calling his name.
Louder this time. The voice sounded frightened.
Strong hands grabbed his shoulders.
The world lurched. Snow fell from his coat. Someone was shaking him. Forcing him awake. Forcing him to open his eyes.
The voice sounded close now. Pain suddenly rushed back into his body.
His fingers felt like needles. His lungs hurt, His entire body ached. And somehow that pain saved him.
Because pain meant he was still alive.
The beautiful fireplace vanished.
The peaceful silence shattered.
"Big sister.... i-irunya...?" Ivan coughed
"Yes, it's me. Brother- are you okay?! Do you know how worried I was when i saw you?! Lets go home and warm you up."
And so, the journey home was a blur. Ivan remembered being wrapped in blankets. Remembered adults speaking in worried voices. Remembered sitting near the stove while feeling slowly returned to his hands. No one spoke much about what had happened afterward. People in places like this rarely did.
Yet Ivan never forgot that day. He never forgot how easy it had been.
how simple life would have been if he just died.
The child became a young man and became something stronger. Something larger. Something people looked toward when things became difficult. Yet strength did not protect him from suffering.
Strength did not stop wars.
Strength did not stop invasions.
Strength did not stop loss.
The land around him was constantly tested. Enemies came from every direction.
Empires expanded and shattered.
Every conflict left scars, some were visible and most were hidden. There were villages he remembered that no longer existed. Families whose names had been forgotten. Children who laughed one summer and never returned the next.
The years blurred together.
The winters remained. The cold remained.
Sometimes Ivan wondered if the frost had seeped into his bones. If perhaps he was no longer capable of feeling warm at all.
He knew that. They saw his height, his strength, his unsettling smile, and his strange laughter.
A force of nature. They never saw the loneliness. Never saw the exhaustion, never saw the centuries of hardship pressing down upon his shoulders.
Never saw the little boy staring longingly at a fireplace.
Nobody ever asked whether Ivan was tired. Nobody ever asked whether he was hurting. Perhaps they assumed someone as strong as him couldn't feel pain.
Pain had grown alongside him.
And still the snow fell year after year, Century after century. Then came 1812.
The year everything changed. The year that would follow him forever. The year people would misunderstand. The invasion began like many others.
But this one reached deeper.
Closer to the heart. The soldiers marched toward Moscow, toward the city that had witnessed centuries of history. Toward the city that carried memories older than many nations.
He had witnessed countless wars before. Yet this felt different. Every step the enemy took felt like a wound. Every mile lost felt personal. The city grew quieter.
People fled. Others stayed behind. The tension hung in the air like a coming storm.
At first it appeared as distant orange glows against the darkness. Something small and harmless. Then the flames spread.
Building to building, Street to street.
The sky turned crimson, smoke swallowed the stars. The city became an ocean of fire. People screamed. Church bells rang, Walls collapsed.
Entire districts vanished beneath roaring flames. The destruction was unimaginable. Beautiful in the most horrifying way. Ivan stood motionless. The inferno reflected in his eyes. Heat washed over him.
Not the weak warmth of a struggling stove, not the fading warmth of a blanket, and not the temporary warmth of sunlight.
This heat was overwhelming.
It wrapped around him, touched his frozen skin, and filled his lungs.
For a moment, he simply stood there.
The city burned. Ash drifted through the air like black snow. And suddenly, he remembered. He remembered every winter.
Every moment spent longing for warmth.
All of it crashed into him at once. The child he once was seemed to stand beside him.
The little boy reached trembling hands toward the fire. Toward the warmth he had spent a lifetime chasing.
Ivan's lips parted. He gazed at the flames with longing. The words escaped without thought. Without calculation, and without understanding.
The sentence was almost a whisper. Almost lost beneath the roar of the flames. Yet those four words would outlive centuries.
And many would misunderstand.
They would think he smiled because he enjoyed the destruction.
Because he found joy in suffering.
The smile wasn't born from happiness, It was born from tragedy. Because standing before a burning city, Ivan realized something.
The first warmth he had truly felt in years came from disaster.
From flames consuming everything around him.
The irony was unbearable.
His chest tightened, His throat burned. For a brief moment, he wanted to cry.
Not even for the destruction.
For the lonely child who had spent centuries searching for warmth in a world that offered none, For the boy who had learned to survive instead of live, For the person who had become so accustomed to suffering that even comfort felt unfamiliar.
The fire continued burning through the night.
The warmth touched his face, his hands and his heart.
Yet he already knew it would not last. Nothing warm ever did. Eventually the flames would die. The ashes would cool. The snow would return.
It returned to the fields.
It returned to the cities.
It returned to the people.
Years later, centuries later, people would still speak of the strange giant standing before the burning city.
The one who smiled and whispered:
But they would never understand what those words truly meant.
They were not a celebration. They were not a joke. They were not the words of a monster.
They were the words of a child who had spent his entire life freezing. A child who, for one fleeting moment amidst smoke, fire, and ruin, finally felt the warmth he had been searching for all along.
And perhaps that was the saddest thing of all.
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