Vision of a student (A short story)

~Hand prints of my mates~

Good day everyone!
Currently I'm studying in Moscow, meaning that I'm living in a dormitory for foreign students. Few months ago, I decided to compete with my friend on who can write a better story. It was hard to come up with a good storyline, right about that time my other friend from Bulgaria passed by and I thought, maybe writing a story about a foreign students in Moscow would be a good start. That is how this short story was written, on the basis of my friends here in our dormitory. Enjoy!

                         Vision of a student

                               Chapter I
                            Beyond the Sun

Moscow is busy, but it feels strangely empty. Too much noise outside, however, silence is always there, inside. We live in a city where many dream to live in, we have so many possibilities here yet something is wrong with our feelings. Our mind is filled with thoughts, emotions, and desires but what our heart wish is only but one. Freedom. Why do we feel chained down when we are free to do whatever we want here? Thought a foreign girl.

The girl's name is Anya. A simple looking girl from a small town in Bulgaria. She came to Russia to study international relations at Moscow State Linguistic University. Like many others, Anya wanted to leave her country, hoping to shake off her lonely memories from the past. After living and studying here for a while, she understood her loneliness wasn't left behind, but it came with her and nothing seems to be helping her with this feeling. Anya had friends from many different countries: Nuurim from Kyrgyzstan, Mari from Georgia, Namuun from Mongolia, Militsa from Serbia with who she spent most of her time. Often they would hang out together and sometimes they would have lunch or dinner at KFC or Burger King.

One day Mari was feeling hungry and she did not want to cook lunch, so she asked everybody to go with her to grab some fast food. Militsa was at school, Namuun was trying to avoid everyone, Nuurim was cleaning her room, saying that she has no time for KFC. Only Anya was free at the moment but she was sleeping. She was having problems with sleeping. Insomnia. Because of that, she usually went to bed during sunrise. Mari woke her up and convinced her that Anya must eat something crispy and delicious before going to lessons. Anya couldn't refuse to her since Mari said it would be on her. Together, as usual, they grabbed chicken legs at KFC with fried potatoes and Coca-Cola. Mari couldn't help but to see discount offers from KFC all over the place and since she was hungry enough to eat a horse, she got up to get herself another bucket of chicken wings. There was a long queue and Mari had to wait to get what she wanted. At that time Anya was listening to her old play list from her phone with her eyes closed. She still wanted to sleep as she couldn't get full rest because of her Georgian friend.

Suddenly a homeless old man showed up in the KFC and dragged himself to their table. He sat on Anya's left side and he was reeking of wine and weed. His skin was tanned, strange that it was almost close to November, where could he get suntanned here in Moscow? Asked Anya to herself. He had wrinkles all over his face and had a white long beard. He had light but torn robe and a white hat on his head resembling a turban. He started to speak to Anya but the words were all gibberish for her ears. Even though Anya couldn't understand a thing, she could hear rhythm and rhyme in his utterance. She was afraid of that person and she looked around for others to get rid of this weird old man, but everyone was minding their own business. When she was trying to ignore by looking away and that man suddenly grabbed her hands and put a wrapped piece of paper on her palm. Then the man's voice sounded like girls and he was shouting "Anya! Anya! Wake up, Anya! When Anya opened her eyes, she saw Mari in front of her with the bucket of chicken wings. Her phone was in her right hand and the song Black Sabbath was almost at its end when she discovered a piece of wrapped paper in her left hand.

Mari sat next to her and she started devouring the wings one after another. Was it dream or not, that strange man talking to her and giving her the piece of paper? Anya couldn't believe in what she just saw but that paper was in her hands without a doubt. With curiosity and caution Anya carefully examined whats inside. She discovered high-quality weed inside with a certain message on the paper saying:
Feeling downhearted?
Experience Hashish -
And the darkness will be no more.

                             Chapter II
                          To the Darkness

Anya was afraid of others seeing her with cannabis in public, she hid it right away after reading the message. Later on, Mari was talking about her usual everyday stories but none of it reached Anya as she was trying to figure out what had happened to her. During the lessons, she couldn't get her mind off the old mysterious man and that weed he gave in her daydream. After 3 full lessons, at last, she came back to the dormitory, entered the bathroom, closed the door and took out the paper. She examined it again, the paper looked so old but very pleasant to touch, the weed was fresh almost as if it was harvested on that very day. Anya was thrilled and she was tempted to try it but if she smokes, everyone in the room would notice the smell. Then she remembered that one of her friends smoke weed in the dormitory and she decided to go to his place since their lessons practically finish at the same time. When she knocked his door, luckily he was there alone in his room. Anya asked if it's alright to smoke it in his room, he said he wouldn't mind. Everything went smoothly as if the God or Devil was telling her to get stoned! His friend had his own joint so he didn't bother trying hers. He opened the window and lit the joints. When she inhaled the smoke, she felt nothing unusual right away but for some reason, her friend was smiling so she tried to smile at him back. She couldn't smile, she got this feeling that she was smiling all this time but she did not notice that. Her body was feeling numb and she couldn't control her limbs freely. Then her friend started laughing at her almost as if she is making a weird facial expression. She couldn't help but laugh with him as well since his laugh was hilarious. Strangely it felt like not just his laugh but his face, his eyes, his tears, his choice of clothes combination and even his very existence seemed so absurd, humorous yet fabulous.

Everything looked so sharp and vivid that it was almost as if the weed heightened hear sight tenfold. Her friend was experienced in all this process, therefore, he put some old school hip-hop songs on his gigantic TV. Each note, each drum beat was like thunder, she could hear them so loud and clear that she could not just hear them with her ears but she could feel the vibration of the music through her body. The lyrics seemed to have so many meanings, like as if it's about everything. Everything is connected to each other, there is no such thing as an individual, she thought to herself. Her entire body was like a sound vibration that is interacting with the vibration from the song. Her throat felt so dry that it was almost as if she never drank that day, she wanted to drink something but her body was not responding to her will as if its a statue. Her heartbeats started to overwhelm her, she thought her heart is reacting to the strong beats from the television sound.

Anya had lost her sense of time and duty from all this bombardment of experience. At a certain point her friend started to look like a Pokemon, she had this urge to squish his cheeks and tease him. Then it felt like his friend is looking at her so suspiciously which made her feel very uncomfortable. Anya wanted to go back to her room but she couldn't, her body was not listening to her commands. After quite some time she was starving so much that her stomach was like an endless pit, demanding anything that can go through it but unfortunately there was nothing to eat in his room. They were talking nonsense most of the time. At last, the effect was wearing off and her eyelids weighted so much that she fell asleep as soon as she put her head on a pillow and closed her eyes.

Oddly she was aware of everything happening around her even if her eyes were shut tight and body motionless like a corpse. Must be the effects of the drug, she thought. Anya was in the void, that familiar void which greets her every time when she goes to slumber but this time it was unlike anything before, she was aware of herself within the darkness of her mind. She was falling and falling endlessly amidst colorful clouds of thoughts and memories. She saw flashbacks from her hometown, kindergarten, and school. Her friends were mostly wasting their time, playing useless games and laughing at stupid things. She was mostly sitting alone in the classroom, listening to her music. Others did not pay attention to her nor did she pay attention to them. She tried to stop all these images from the past flushing out but the more she struggled to get away, the more memories arose like chains one after another until she finally woke up.

                           Chapter III
                       Beyond the Darkness

It was early in the morning when everything was dark that she couldn't see much, but the first thing she did was to find her phone in that pitch black room and she checked time. It was 3:00 am in the morning and her throat was as dry as Gobi desert during the daytime in the middle of July. She struggled to pull herself up from her bed. When she, at last, grabbed a glass of water and after drinking the water in one go, she noticed that her roommates weren't there in the room and for the first time in Moscow she felt complete utter silence. No noise from indoor or outdoor whereas usually some people would be going in and out in the corridor or cars would be quite noisy on the highway even late at night. Anya wanted to see if she is still under the effect of the drug and she tried to pinch herself but the pain was real, it was no dream. Her room, her belongings, her bed, her phone, the sensation of her body and her mind were real, everything was real but still, she couldn't hear a soul. She first tried going to her friend's rooms in the dormitory but no one was in the dorm. Then she tried going downstairs to see if the security guards are there but as she expected, there wasn't anyone on the post. Strangely the entrance door was open, which should be shut tight at this hour. She was afraid that no one was in that building, so she decided to go out to at least find someone.

When she got out, the air was as not as cold as she expected, in fact, it was sort of warm and relaxing. The whole city was dead. No sound of car or people as far as she could hear. She tried to go to the metro station, where the most people would gather but still no sign of life. She was panicking, trying to convince that it is just a nightmare that she is having. But it was a nightmare from which she couldn't wake up. After so much walk, she slowly started to find out that it is the reality. She was in that reality of emptiness, silence, darkness from which she came from, which were there to her and which she is supposed to go back to. She started to doubt if she is alive or not, whether that drug killed her or even worse, maybe the devil himself tricked her into his den. Thoughts and fear were growing in her mind one after another until she didn't know if she should cry or laugh. She regretted so much for smoking that weed and she wanted to go back to the real world so much. It was the first time Anya being frightened like this. She thought about that note on the paper and then she remembered that strange man who gave her that weed. Anya figured if she goes to that KFC again, maybe she could talk to that person again and find a way to get out of this world.

She entered that KFC and she could hear the sound of ticking. It was coming from a clock on the wall and she saw the pointers and they were showing 3:00 on that clock. She spent at least an hour walking here and there after waking up but time hasn't changed, but why is it ticking? Anya tried to double check the time from her phone but the phone was not turning on but rather it was showing her a black figure instead of her reflection on the screen. Before she managed to throw away her phone, her mind sank into that black screen and she was falling into some strange psychedelic, geometrical images. She heard strange sounds or music in her mind and in the end, she was about to hit a dark liquid surface after all those images, but strangely that dark surface was the hardest to pass through, it was sucking her slowly like quicksand. She was hearing screams and screeches of thousands and millions of people. When she got fully devoured by that darkness, she saw a skull wearing the light torn robe with a white turban. It welcomed her to that world where everyone was suffering.

People were all naked but chained down by something that they cherish most: money, car, food, phones, house, religious books, work, social status, guns, power, women, men and even their loved ones. Their materialistic objects, feelings, earthly desires were so important to them that thought about them soon became an inseparable part of their very existence. The chains were loose and anyone could take them off but no one seems to even notice that they are chained to that miserable hell. It was such a nasty view of how low and ugly people can get. Anya wanted to get out of that place and tried to escape but she was also chained down like the others. That long dreadful chain was hooked up to something behind her and when she turned around, there was that black figure which she saw on the screen. Anya was trembling and she asked: Who are you? What do you want from me?
The black figure answered:
Who am I?
I am your beginning
I am your friend
They leave
They betray
I was always there with you
As your shadow
As your companion
Through night and day
But
You never paid attention to me!
You always wished to be with them!
In their fantasy world
In their illusion
But hear me
I am your life
I am your death
I am the truth
I am the darkness
At the end of your suffering
Now, we are whole again
Now, I will never let you go!

Anya attempted to take off her the chains but the chains were getting tighter and tighter. Anya wanted to scream but no sound came out from her mouth, she wanted to cry but no tears came out. She was praying for someone to wake her up, she remembered her friends, her family. She even prayed for God to help her but nothing. She never felt this lonely because she was all alone there and nobody was by her side to help. She couldn't breathe much longer and her vision started to blur. She was losing consciousness and the darkness gradually took over her mind. She felt numb and empty, it was pitch black. Then everything became yellowish and Anya heard a familiar sound, after few moments she understood that it was her alarm. She opened her eyes and she saw the sunlight early in the morning.

                            Chapter VI
                           To the Light

Anya was so relieved to be back in her room together with her roommates. She has never been so glad to be alive, life seemed so vibrant and colorful to her. Everything seemed so precious, thank god that were no chains around her neck choking her to death, she felt thankful even for the very air she breathed. It was 8:15 am and since she was thirsty, she had to get something to drink. She drank some water and decided to cook breakfast for herself. Anya did not want to go to KFC again for some junk food, so she cooked some Bulgarian dish and invited her friends: Mari, Namuun, Nuurim. It was the nicest feeling to have her friends around. Later on, they went to school together and there Anya was listening attentively to her teachers with much interest, even the boring lessons seemed to be so thrilling for her. She was a completely different person.
One day she woke up in the morning, it was sunny outside. She got up and stretched looking at the sun. The sunlight was bright, which was quite a rare thing to see here in Moscow. When she turned around, under the intense light her shadow strongly contrasted on the ground. It waved at her.