The only noise that echoed through the streets and alleys of Leningrad was the crunch of freshly fallen snow, created by a bundled man trudging on the sidewalk. His breath crystallized in front of him as he moved along the cracked and empty road. Not a single light shone on the delicate white walkways, and no warm glow peered through the apartment windows above him. All but the occasional bird seemed to be whisked away from the city that no longer breathed.
His moon-brought shadow kept pace with him as he maneuvered about debris that was left over from so many years ago. Many bricks, splinters of wood, cement chunks, and other remnants of everyday life still clogged the street. The place had certainly seen better days. What had formerly been one of the biggest cities in the Soviet Union was now reduced to a scavenger's paradise.
The man, however, was not there to scavenge, and even if he were, little of use would remain following the years of pillaging. No, he had a different reason to trace his path through the unbroken blanket of snow.
He couldn't remember a time in his life that wasn't plagued with hardship. The Bolshevik revolution took place in the months following his birth, which would put the Communists in power across his entire home country. The chaos of the Great Depression certainly hadn't helped to ease anything, either. He often wondered what life would have been like had neither happened.
That said, he daydreamed more often of a life without one certain despicable, dastardly German man. How that violent man had taken everything from him!
He'd lived in Leningrad most of his early life, remembering every name it had carried along the way. At age six, glorious Sankt-Peterburg was his home. There he attended school, played with the other kids on the cobblestone streets, and developed a love of literature. A few days past his tenth birthday, with the outbreak of World War I, the city was called Petrograd. Around this time, he was learning to write stories and enjoying his life, completely oblivious to the chaos taking place a couple of countries away.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Leningrad was the name it carried seven years after the Bolshevik Revolution, in honor of Lenin's death. He had been a young adult, aged nineteen years, when this last name change occurred. He was also deeply in love with a beautiful Polish lady who lived not far away. They would exchange their wedding vows a mere three months prior to the global market crash.
Oh, how his life would worsen.
He passed by where his apartment used to be, which had long been reduced to rubble on the streets. He remembered hiding there for days with his wife as the German siege of Leningrad took place. They were starving, and he was desperately trying to keep his wife, infant daughter, and ten-year-old son alive as artillery and bombs rocked the city. The explosions seemed to take rent next door.
In his eyes, his unending pain and sorrow was the product of one country: Germany. Surely, they were involved in creating the Depression; they had ultimately started two wars, after all. But most of all, he resented Adolf Hitler, who had been the leader of Germany at the time his wife and son had died. Hitler, the seemingly unstoppable tyrant, had torn the world apart for over a decade.
The man's pace slowed as he approached the graveyard. In an empty, eerie city, the graveyard seemed almost redundant. Very few headstones remained in readable condition. Just one grave, dead ahead, appeared remotely new. That was his destination.
It was a smooth marble, choice-picked from an old buddy's quarry just out of Moscow. It was the finest quality he could buy. His only regret was not having enough money for two of them.
He opened his thick black jacket and unveiled equally black roses from inside. Then, he cleared a spot of snow on top and in front of the gravestone and lamented for a while in front of it.
It would also be the last time he would. The man, now many years into his retirement, wished he would see the day that the cause of his suffering had ended. He knew that the man who had committed these injustices was nearing the end of his own life.
He rested himself on his knees. Like the once-thriving city of Leningrad, his vitality crumbled. Still, he offered a few more words to the night sky.
"Adolf Hitler," the man said, kneeling in front of the gravestone, "you are an old man. Older than I. But, when you finally deliver yourself to Hell, I have every intention of giving you the same treatment you gave my beautiful wife and son."