['I'm happy to have met you,' he says, 'a real cosmonaut', and despite all of the lingering fears and horrors just beneath the surface, Konstantin feels a soft flutter of warmth. He remembers how diligently the younger man had stayed with him that first night, after the crash — an act of dedication. His eyes warm right along with that pleased flutter, deep browns softening, and the moment only lasts a heartbeat or two, but it was there. It helps. These days, he has to hold onto those small moments of warmth and hope and use them as fuel to keep going.
It's nice to talk to another human being again. It's nice to be looked at as though he is something special, and brave, and good. ]
I suppose both of us were in the right place at the right time.
[ Said with a bit of playfulness, a little wry, but no less warm, before it's his turn to pause for a moment, mouth easing back into a softer line. Not quite a frown, but thoughtful. In truth, he's deeply terrified that he may not see his mother again. ]
She must be worried. They'll have let her know that I'm in recovery, but they haven't let me contact her, personally. [ No matter if they're listening to this conversation; it's not hidden information. He hasn't been allowed to make any phone calls. ]
As soon as I'm released from here, I'm going to her. To Moscow, where she lives. And I may just take a vacation from the stars, for a while.
[ Another smile, one that only falters just slightly at the edges. He remembers the way it slithered, squirmed, that creature from the stars. Small and thin and fast, body able to squeeze and contort itself, pulsing wet down his throat, making it difficult to breathe — but not impossible, no. It wouldn't allow him to die.
Death would have been a mercy, and maybe some part of him wishes it would come. For now, it's step by step, and what he doesn't say is that there is a pitstop needed in Rostov first: recover his son from the orphanage there, then take him to his grandmother in Moscow. ]
[ It's disappointing to hear—but not surprising, not after the way he's been treated. This is what they do when you've outlived your usefulness, even if you're a Hero of the Soviet Union. It's not how things are supposed to be. It never should have been like this, Lenin never wanted it to be like this.
He's not sure that Konstantin's mother would have been told he was in recovery, truth be told: that the KGB and assorted state intelligence networks at play here would go to the effort necessary to craft such a mistruth to begin with. She was just probably told he died of unrelated causes shortly after landing and will be given a hero's funeral—but Vasiliy keeps that thought to himself. It wouldn't be kind and it wouldn't serve any purpose to share it.
Vasiliy suppresses a yawn—slowly, the massive spike of cortisol from his sudden relocation is tapering off, leaving a carved-out shell of a person in its shadow. He can't truly relax, not when he knows he'll be tortured before too long, but his body is unable to maintain such a heightened state indefinitely. ]
You work hard. You deserve to rest. Even if it would be better to not rest here. ...Moscow is a nice city. I liked it.
[ He may not fully believe his own words, padding the truth in something nicer, though for whose sake, he isn't certain. Perhaps more of that fuel he holds onto in order to be able to keep going. Underneath everything, Konstantin trusts nothing and no one here. Years of training and being privy to secrets have taught him many things; he's seen the inner workings, to some extent. Already he's preparing to have to take drastic action, if he must. For now, he'll wait, gather details and make his own observations of this place and what they want from him. They think he's harmless, perhaps a little arrogant and too reliant on his own charm. Let them keep thinking it.
He looks back over at the other man, and he isn't quite able to sense what the creature can, on this level. Not just yet; they're still too new to one another. But the thing is so sensitive, its body serving the purpose of adaptation, impossibly soft and pliable. It absorbs from the world around it like a sponge. It can perceive on a level no creature from Earth could. Perhaps even deep within the core of himself, it can feel Vasiliy, and some of those shifts within the man's state. The rise and fall of hormone, the swell of adrenaline, the sigh of exhaustion.
It moves, a little. Disturbed by Vasiliy's presence, maybe, or longing for the things it knows it can't take from him. Konstantin can feel it, and sits up a bit straighter, adjusting his position but perpetually uncomfortable, swallowing back against a wave of sudden nausea. ]
Speaking of resting — you should, if you need to. I'm sure it's been a long day for you.
[ He isn't trying to cut the other man's thoughts off, but he's worried by the thing's reaction to him, and him speaking. Perhaps if Vasiliy sleeps, it will settle down again, and then.... (And then what? What does he do? He doesn't have a plan for this.) ]
I'll be up for awhile, so I can keep watch. Make sure our hosts behave themselves.
[ Another teasing smile, but behind it — truths they both know. ]
[ He's grateful that his senior in rank (and, possibly, by a couple of years, though it's hard to tell with someone that attractive) has voiced that it's okay for him to rest—it would be unthinkable, at least to a lowly interrogator from Stalinist Russia, to allow himself to be so visibly casual and at ease in the presence of someone who outranks him and outaccomplishes him so greatly. He should really be standing in the commander's presence, and he would be, were it not for their shared status as captives of their own government.
He suspects that the real reason for his expected alertness is simply stress—how does a man relax when his fate is uncertain? He'd never seen anyone sleep soundly in the Lubyanka except for the bone-tired men on the right side of her heavy steel doors. Vasiliy slides his feet from his shoes, smiling rather meekly. ]
Thank you.
[ He slips under the neatly folded covers, though it's hard to feel at ease lying down under blankets a meter away from a Hero of the Soviet Union. Does he know that, Vasiliy wonders? How long until he knows the rest of it and his false (but pleasant) image of Vasiliy Yegorovich the First Responder is replaced by the unappetizing truth?
He lies still for quite some time, eyes closed and mind in a flurry of activity, before sleep somehow finds him, his body at last giving out, unable to keep itself alert a moment longer. He gets maybe four hours like that before his eyes snap open in the dark, coughs and the creak of the opposite mattress jarring him awake. At first he thinks the man's just got a cough, that he's sleeping more lightly than usual because of the sheer amount of stress he's under—but then the noises begin to take on an intensity that isn't right. ]
[ Throughout everything, there is that part of him that's happy to help. To be relied on — even by a near-stranger. He knows the other man must be anxious, worried, and there's some lingering thought in Konstantin — Does Vasiliy Yegorovich even know what's wrong with himself? Could it be that he's been infected with something, too? Perhaps he doesn't know. In one short experience, Konstantin's view of the world and everything that seemed logical has come crashing down in a blaze of fire and smoke and blood.
....He is responsible for him, in some way. He is in a room with a man that could die because of him, if the creature decides to feed from him this time. And this man is no felon, no prisoner; he's an EMT with kind eyes and a soft face. He doesn't want to hurt him. He's terrified to.
Maybe he can stay awake through the night. Mutter to himself (but really to their observers) about insomnia, restlessness. Maybe the creature won't emerge if his body is awake.
He tries, and he manages to keep himself awake for a few hours yet, but eventually he succumbs, and perhaps it wouldn't have mattered anyway. The creature releases something within his body that will knocks him out regardless — but the process is never easy. His body is racked with harsh coughs, and then it's thrashing as though with seizure, head snapped back, the veins in his neck pulsing. It contorts him like a man possessed, pupils blown out and swelling, eyes unnaturally black as a result. Every part of his body resists its unwelcomed occupant, but the creature manipulates him like a puppet.
Finally, his body falls limp again, unconscious. Only for a moment or two is he still, before it comes — uncoiling itself from the safety of his stomach and pushing up through his throat, out of his opened jaw. A mess of slime and saliva upon the cold concrete floor, a thing that's growing and lengthening from its own protective membrane, forming long arm appendages, dragging itself. It chitters quietly, black eyes scanning the room and locking onto the other bed, now occupied. Immediately it's displeased; it's already smelled this one, flinched from the odd scent of him... but it's hungry. Maybe if it examines him again.... His hormone levels have certainly been all over the place.
The creature stays low to the ground, uncertain, hungry, and nervous — slowly slithering towards that bed, peering up with glittering eyes. ]
[ Vasiliy throws on the bedside light as the coughing becomes hacking and retching—and stares with horror as he begins to convulse, body jerking and thrashing with tonic-clonic movements. Blood begins to ooze from his mouth, a resurgence of the internal bleeding, and within seconds as he prepares to leap up—something leaves his mouth, dark and leechlike, and slithers towards him, blossoming into a more complex shape as it moves. Some sort of monster. Alien. This is why they kept him.
By habit he reaches for the empty space on the bedside table where his gun should be, where it would be were he at home, the weapon still in his possession, and grasps air. There is no comfort to be found, no way to defend himself.
On the other side of the creature-occupied gulf between the two beds, the cosmonaut is unconscious, bleeding from the mouth, barely breathing. He hesitates, heart racing—then, in a moment of impulse, rises to stand on the bed and jumps over it, onto the floor, quickly dashing toward him. He stands on the far side of the bed, so that he can remain face-to-face with the creature as he places two fingers to the man's jugular vein, checking his pulse—slow but there, so much slower than his own. ]
[ The creature shirks immediately from the light that comes on, flinching and pressing itself even closer to the cold of the concrete floor beneath its soft, wet body. The sudden light is enough to stun it for a few moments, while Vasiliy's taking that jump over the bed and moving to Konstantin — an action that further seems to surprise the creature even as it turns itself around to face the man with a slimy squelch.
It stays there for a long moment or two, staring with too many eyes. It isn't used to this — to someone being in this particular room with it. ......And certainly not to someone moving to its host. What is the man doing? Touching its host, checking him. The creature lifts its strange hooded head and chitters loudly, angrily — very much the equivalent of an affronted cat hissing and spitting.
It's cautious, though. It remembers this man from before, of course, and the way he'd smelled — like something that shouldn't be. Like the imitation of meat, like something wrong; this human's body is frozen inbetween something inexplicable, and will neither rot nor thrive.
Slowly, the alien begins crawling towards the man again, skinny arm-like appendages hunched upwards, tense as it drags itself. Smelling the air — smelling him as it moves closer. ]
[ The thing chitters at him, mouthpiece clacking, the sort of noise a squirrel might make to accompany angry lashes of its tail. What it means in an extraterrestrial is anyone's guess, but he assumes, especially in conjunction with the flare of its cobra-like hood, that it's probably related to aggression.
There's not exactly much he can do as it approaches, staring at him with eight beady black eyes. The unconscious cosmonaut is his priority, and it is his duty, even if he is now in a test subject's tracksuit instead of an EMT's uniform, to help this man.
He keeps his eyes on the creature as he moves Konstantin Sergeyevich onto his side, bending his leg to bring one knee up to his abdomen. He'll stay on his side like this, and hopefully won't choke on his own vomit, but what he needs is help—even though Vasiliy has to remind himself in his frantic state that their minders almost certainly already know about the thing dwelling within him.
He doesn't think to cry out for help, truth be told; on an unconscious level, he knows it would be pointless. Nobody is coming for him—but possibly for Konstantin. It's not good for his brain for him to remain unconscious this long.
Vasiliy slowly, shakily inhales, then takes a step forward, and another, staring the creature in its eyes in the hopes that whatever species the thing is has a similar way of understanding dominance as dogs, as bears. ]
[ It watches as the human moves its host so deliberately, tail slowly swiping from side to side, tense and angry but confused through everything else. The other humans here have been feeding it; why would they give it this? This meal it can't eat? It can't understand, a creature meant for adaptation and finding little about this situation that it can learn from.
.....But there is always something to learn. The man who smells wrong is approaching, slow and careful, and the creature stares up at him, angry clicks and chitters coming to silence for a few lingering moments. Despite everything, it's curious, driven by that instinctual need to take in and absorb all the stimuli it can.
And so it stops its crawl, neither approaching nor backing away. Not for a long moment, because this human is unlike any others it's encountered so far and it's staring, staring..... lifting its head a bit more as though transfixed — childlike and alien in its lack of understanding. ]
[ The creature falls silent, its mouthparts growing still, and holds eye contact like something humanoid. It could be preparing to strike, or frozen in fear—it's impossible to tell. Possibly it's more intimidated by him than he of it, or maybe not. Maybe it's venomous.
It's irrelevant. He needs to get to that wall, to get someone before the cosmonaut on the other bed starts losing brain function. Vasiliy braces himself, tries not to think about thw fact that he's interacting with an alien from outer space, and who knows what pathogens he's been exposed to, and simply— takes another step into its space, waving his arms, making himself larger. ]
[ It's yet another first for the creature — seeing a human do these things, stepping towards it, arms held out and moving. Humans have shirked in fear from it, or aimed their weapons its way, but not this. Shouting words at it, things it can't understand but can feel the tone of, sharp and aggressive.
The alien is startled, the flaps of its hood rippling up and down, rapidly. At the same time it shrieks, fitful, and turns back around, slithering away from the man who smells so wrong, squirming as it wills its wet body quickly away. It wants to hide, and it crawls its way back up to the bed its host is lying unconscious on, quickly secreting more thick slime to coat itself with so that it doesn't damage its entrance back inside.
Its girth shifts and changes as it forces its way into the man's mouth and down his throat, working its glistening, snakelike form with a mixture of pumping and squirming, Konstantin's body thrashing with spasms as the invader keeps going — until only the tip of its thrashing tail is disappearing into his lips. The man's throat ripples with movement, and a few more convulsions have him violently shaking against the thin bed, but finally he'll go still again once the creature has settled somewhere deep within him. ]
[ Vasiliy doesn't consider himself squeamish—in fact, his lack of reaction to the indescribable gore that can be inflicted upon the human bodies he and his partners were tasked with saving has drawn attention in the past—but he watches first with amazement as the creature shapeshifts, then open-mouthed horror as it forces itself into the cosmonaut's body, jerking him around like a puppet.
It seems impossibly large to even fit down his throat without esophageal rupture, but to carry that thing in his stomach? He can't imagine. How has the poor man been eating? Is this why he was bleeding and vomiting? Was it trying to get out in the hospital room—was his body trying to get it out?
He'll process this later. Clad in a similar outfit to Veshnyakov's own, he rushes to the one way glass, slapping his palms against it repeatedly. ]
He needs help! He had a seizure and there's some kind of parasite in him and he's still unconscious! He needs to be taken to a hospital now or he will have brain damage! Help him!
[ The doors swing open, but the two guards stride briskly toward him, not Konstantin Sergeyevich. They ignore him. ]
-
[ It's explained to him. It won't be good for Commander Veshnyakov to know what's going on until they can get it out of him, to avoid causing undue stress. The penalty for a dissenting opinion goes unspoken: they know he was in the NKVD. They know he knows better than anyone.
The earliest light of dawn is coming in through the curtains when they return him to the glorified prison cell. Immediately he finds his way to Veshnyakov's bedside, counting his respirations as he approaches. And, with a sense of foreboding at the uncertainty of whether or not there will be any response to the stimuli at all, he touches the man's bulky arm and quietly speaks up. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
It's nice to talk to another human being again. It's nice to be looked at as though he is something special, and brave, and good. ]
I suppose both of us were in the right place at the right time.
[ Said with a bit of playfulness, a little wry, but no less warm, before it's his turn to pause for a moment, mouth easing back into a softer line. Not quite a frown, but thoughtful. In truth, he's deeply terrified that he may not see his mother again. ]
She must be worried. They'll have let her know that I'm in recovery, but they haven't let me contact her, personally. [ No matter if they're listening to this conversation; it's not hidden information. He hasn't been allowed to make any phone calls. ]
As soon as I'm released from here, I'm going to her. To Moscow, where she lives. And I may just take a vacation from the stars, for a while.
[ Another smile, one that only falters just slightly at the edges. He remembers the way it slithered, squirmed, that creature from the stars. Small and thin and fast, body able to squeeze and contort itself, pulsing wet down his throat, making it difficult to breathe — but not impossible, no. It wouldn't allow him to die.
Death would have been a mercy, and maybe some part of him wishes it would come. For now, it's step by step, and what he doesn't say is that there is a pitstop needed in Rostov first: recover his son from the orphanage there, then take him to his grandmother in Moscow. ]
no subject
He's not sure that Konstantin's mother would have been told he was in recovery, truth be told: that the KGB and assorted state intelligence networks at play here would go to the effort necessary to craft such a mistruth to begin with. She was just probably told he died of unrelated causes shortly after landing and will be given a hero's funeral—but Vasiliy keeps that thought to himself. It wouldn't be kind and it wouldn't serve any purpose to share it.
Vasiliy suppresses a yawn—slowly, the massive spike of cortisol from his sudden relocation is tapering off, leaving a carved-out shell of a person in its shadow. He can't truly relax, not when he knows he'll be tortured before too long, but his body is unable to maintain such a heightened state indefinitely. ]
You work hard. You deserve to rest. Even if it would be better to not rest here. ...Moscow is a nice city. I liked it.
no subject
He looks back over at the other man, and he isn't quite able to sense what the creature can, on this level. Not just yet; they're still too new to one another. But the thing is so sensitive, its body serving the purpose of adaptation, impossibly soft and pliable. It absorbs from the world around it like a sponge. It can perceive on a level no creature from Earth could. Perhaps even deep within the core of himself, it can feel Vasiliy, and some of those shifts within the man's state. The rise and fall of hormone, the swell of adrenaline, the sigh of exhaustion.
It moves, a little. Disturbed by Vasiliy's presence, maybe, or longing for the things it knows it can't take from him. Konstantin can feel it, and sits up a bit straighter, adjusting his position but perpetually uncomfortable, swallowing back against a wave of sudden nausea. ]
Speaking of resting — you should, if you need to. I'm sure it's been a long day for you.
[ He isn't trying to cut the other man's thoughts off, but he's worried by the thing's reaction to him, and him speaking. Perhaps if Vasiliy sleeps, it will settle down again, and then.... (And then what? What does he do? He doesn't have a plan for this.) ]
I'll be up for awhile, so I can keep watch. Make sure our hosts behave themselves.
[ Another teasing smile, but behind it — truths they both know. ]
no subject
He suspects that the real reason for his expected alertness is simply stress—how does a man relax when his fate is uncertain? He'd never seen anyone sleep soundly in the Lubyanka except for the bone-tired men on the right side of her heavy steel doors. Vasiliy slides his feet from his shoes, smiling rather meekly. ]
Thank you.
[ He slips under the neatly folded covers, though it's hard to feel at ease lying down under blankets a meter away from a Hero of the Soviet Union. Does he know that, Vasiliy wonders? How long until he knows the rest of it and his false (but pleasant) image of Vasiliy Yegorovich the First Responder is replaced by the unappetizing truth?
He lies still for quite some time, eyes closed and mind in a flurry of activity, before sleep somehow finds him, his body at last giving out, unable to keep itself alert a moment longer. He gets maybe four hours like that before his eyes snap open in the dark, coughs and the creak of the opposite mattress jarring him awake. At first he thinks the man's just got a cough, that he's sleeping more lightly than usual because of the sheer amount of stress he's under—but then the noises begin to take on an intensity that isn't right. ]
no subject
....He is responsible for him, in some way. He is in a room with a man that could die because of him, if the creature decides to feed from him this time. And this man is no felon, no prisoner; he's an EMT with kind eyes and a soft face. He doesn't want to hurt him. He's terrified to.
Maybe he can stay awake through the night. Mutter to himself (but really to their observers) about insomnia, restlessness. Maybe the creature won't emerge if his body is awake.
He tries, and he manages to keep himself awake for a few hours yet, but eventually he succumbs, and perhaps it wouldn't have mattered anyway. The creature releases something within his body that will knocks him out regardless — but the process is never easy. His body is racked with harsh coughs, and then it's thrashing as though with seizure, head snapped back, the veins in his neck pulsing. It contorts him like a man possessed, pupils blown out and swelling, eyes unnaturally black as a result. Every part of his body resists its unwelcomed occupant, but the creature manipulates him like a puppet.
Finally, his body falls limp again, unconscious. Only for a moment or two is he still, before it comes — uncoiling itself from the safety of his stomach and pushing up through his throat, out of his opened jaw. A mess of slime and saliva upon the cold concrete floor, a thing that's growing and lengthening from its own protective membrane, forming long arm appendages, dragging itself. It chitters quietly, black eyes scanning the room and locking onto the other bed, now occupied. Immediately it's displeased; it's already smelled this one, flinched from the odd scent of him... but it's hungry. Maybe if it examines him again.... His hormone levels have certainly been all over the place.
The creature stays low to the ground, uncertain, hungry, and nervous — slowly slithering towards that bed, peering up with glittering eyes. ]
no subject
By habit he reaches for the empty space on the bedside table where his gun should be, where it would be were he at home, the weapon still in his possession, and grasps air. There is no comfort to be found, no way to defend himself.
On the other side of the creature-occupied gulf between the two beds, the cosmonaut is unconscious, bleeding from the mouth, barely breathing. He hesitates, heart racing—then, in a moment of impulse, rises to stand on the bed and jumps over it, onto the floor, quickly dashing toward him. He stands on the far side of the bed, so that he can remain face-to-face with the creature as he places two fingers to the man's jugular vein, checking his pulse—slow but there, so much slower than his own. ]
this icon is just Konstantin, always,
It stays there for a long moment or two, staring with too many eyes. It isn't used to this — to someone being in this particular room with it. ......And certainly not to someone moving to its host. What is the man doing? Touching its host, checking him. The creature lifts its strange hooded head and chitters loudly, angrily — very much the equivalent of an affronted cat hissing and spitting.
It's cautious, though. It remembers this man from before, of course, and the way he'd smelled — like something that shouldn't be. Like the imitation of meat, like something wrong; this human's body is frozen inbetween something inexplicable, and will neither rot nor thrive.
Slowly, the alien begins crawling towards the man again, skinny arm-like appendages hunched upwards, tense as it drags itself. Smelling the air — smelling him as it moves closer. ]
no subject
There's not exactly much he can do as it approaches, staring at him with eight beady black eyes. The unconscious cosmonaut is his priority, and it is his duty, even if he is now in a test subject's tracksuit instead of an EMT's uniform, to help this man.
He keeps his eyes on the creature as he moves Konstantin Sergeyevich onto his side, bending his leg to bring one knee up to his abdomen. He'll stay on his side like this, and hopefully won't choke on his own vomit, but what he needs is help—even though Vasiliy has to remind himself in his frantic state that their minders almost certainly already know about the thing dwelling within him.
He doesn't think to cry out for help, truth be told; on an unconscious level, he knows it would be pointless. Nobody is coming for him—but possibly for Konstantin. It's not good for his brain for him to remain unconscious this long.
Vasiliy slowly, shakily inhales, then takes a step forward, and another, staring the creature in its eyes in the hopes that whatever species the thing is has a similar way of understanding dominance as dogs, as bears. ]
no subject
.....But there is always something to learn. The man who smells wrong is approaching, slow and careful, and the creature stares up at him, angry clicks and chitters coming to silence for a few lingering moments. Despite everything, it's curious, driven by that instinctual need to take in and absorb all the stimuli it can.
And so it stops its crawl, neither approaching nor backing away. Not for a long moment, because this human is unlike any others it's encountered so far and it's staring, staring..... lifting its head a bit more as though transfixed — childlike and alien in its lack of understanding. ]
no subject
It's irrelevant. He needs to get to that wall, to get someone before the cosmonaut on the other bed starts losing brain function. Vasiliy braces himself, tries not to think about thw fact that he's interacting with an alien from outer space, and who knows what pathogens he's been exposed to, and simply— takes another step into its space, waving his arms, making himself larger. ]
Back! Get back.
no subject
The alien is startled, the flaps of its hood rippling up and down, rapidly. At the same time it shrieks, fitful, and turns back around, slithering away from the man who smells so wrong, squirming as it wills its wet body quickly away. It wants to hide, and it crawls its way back up to the bed its host is lying unconscious on, quickly secreting more thick slime to coat itself with so that it doesn't damage its entrance back inside.
Its girth shifts and changes as it forces its way into the man's mouth and down his throat, working its glistening, snakelike form with a mixture of pumping and squirming, Konstantin's body thrashing with spasms as the invader keeps going — until only the tip of its thrashing tail is disappearing into his lips. The man's throat ripples with movement, and a few more convulsions have him violently shaking against the thin bed, but finally he'll go still again once the creature has settled somewhere deep within him. ]
no subject
It seems impossibly large to even fit down his throat without esophageal rupture, but to carry that thing in his stomach? He can't imagine. How has the poor man been eating? Is this why he was bleeding and vomiting? Was it trying to get out in the hospital room—was his body trying to get it out?
He'll process this later. Clad in a similar outfit to Veshnyakov's own, he rushes to the one way glass, slapping his palms against it repeatedly. ]
He needs help! He had a seizure and there's some kind of parasite in him and he's still unconscious! He needs to be taken to a hospital now or he will have brain damage! Help him!
[ The doors swing open, but the two guards stride briskly toward him, not Konstantin Sergeyevich. They ignore him. ]
-
[ It's explained to him. It won't be good for Commander Veshnyakov to know what's going on until they can get it out of him, to avoid causing undue stress. The penalty for a dissenting opinion goes unspoken: they know he was in the NKVD. They know he knows better than anyone.
The earliest light of dawn is coming in through the curtains when they return him to the glorified prison cell. Immediately he finds his way to Veshnyakov's bedside, counting his respirations as he approaches. And, with a sense of foreboding at the uncertainty of whether or not there will be any response to the stimuli at all, he touches the man's bulky arm and quietly speaks up. ]
Konstantin Sergeyevich.