Bang Bang | Istra NYE (Self)
Everything about that evening was simply exquisite: the company, the decor, the atmosphere. As many times as Sofia had been to Istra, never had she seen it look as it did tonight. And this evening, after the Russian princess had dropped her son off with his grandparents, she’d decided that with a new year approaching, things in her life would be different. The brunette wanted to make changes, to begin a new outlook… and the impending new year provided the perfect opportunity.
Spending the evening with her family, Launceston’s Russian Royalty all together in the same room, provided more elation on her part than she would’ve imagined previously. Sofia was aware that her family had more shortcomings than most, yet in the depths of all their hearts, she didn’t doubt that they loved one another.
Yes, before that horrible sound occurred, the Russian princess was actually enjoying herself. She hadn’t noticed the security usher everyone inside, nor had she noticed the doors being locked. Until Sofia heard the crash, the smile on her face had never left. Yet the flying glass and the loud ‘BOOM’ reverberated throughout the room, leaving everyone in a panic, including herself. She’d barely felt a few shards of glass that had hit her exposed skin, more concerned with the source of the explosion she’d just heard.
"What’s going on?" she asked a few of the security me, their wide-eyed glances indicating that they knew very little. She hurried in another direction, to find Katarina, Kosta, Mikhail… anyone that knew what was happening, but people’s panic from inside the club made it nearly impossible. As she searched, her eyes finding the blonde for a moment on the platform, yet a small part of the Russian knew that not even her cousin knew what was going on. ‘This was a mistake,’ her mind told her, as if she hadn’t already realized such a simple fact. The flaming bodies of the former Russian security laid in the middle of the room, dangerously close to the alcohol that had just spilled all over the floor. She needed to find a way out, and she needed one now.
The minutes she spent searching the furthest corners of the club stretched on longer that the Russian intended, yet the scared party attendees seemed no longer concerned with her… everyone was worried about finding a way out. As she kept the thought of Andrew fresh in her mind, a new worry rose to the surface as she looked for Aaron, having not seen him for hours. The debris and bodies in the center of the club made it nearly impossible for her to check the opposite side, yet as Sofia attempted to continue her search for her child’s father, as well as the family members that she hadn’t seen in what seemed far too long, she realized that a portion of the ceiling that hadn’t quite sustained enough impact to fall earlier looked as though it was no longer able to remain where it belonged, no doubt jostled from the frantic happenings down below.
She hadn’t seen it hit her, yet the impact was instant, and her world went black only a moment later. What the Russian didn’t know, however, was that she was pinned under a ceiling beam that had fallen. When she finally came to, Sofia wasn’t sure exactly how long she’d been unconscious… yet the water slowly filling the room where she was trapped provided an entirely new danger. “No…. No!” she panicked, trying desperately to free her leg from the beam that was holding her to what appeared to be her death. “Someone, help me… please!” Yet with the frantic party-goers just as terrified as she, and her family nowhere to be found, the princess could do nothing but try pointlessly to move the beam trapping her, all the while praying that anyone could hear her over the noise and screams.
Only a short time into the new year, Sofia thought, and already it seemed she’d never see the next, for if it wasn’t the beam that trapped her to drown, it seemed evident that the fire would catch some of the alcohol nearly everywhere in the club and there’d be yet another explosion…
