The concrete walls of the Khrushchyovka were webbed with cracks, like trenches carved by artillery fire. Nikto counted the missing cast-iron railings on the fifth floor, finally confirming this was his home. The stairwell handrails, rusted into jagged fangs, still bore the strips of waterproof cloth he had wrapped there last summer, now frozen into a gray-blue shroud in the minus twenty-degree wind.

The sour aroma of borscht seeped out from the doorframe, laced with the bitter trace of crushed bay leaf. He remembered the last time he left - his wife was pickling beets, the deep magenta juice trailing down the inside of her wrist, mapping the same path as the veins beneath her skin. Now, the same color oozed at the edge of his mask as pus, and the wool fibers of his balaclava bit into the rotting flesh of his cheekbone like frostbitten splinters.

As the key slid into the lock, the walnut wall clock in the hallway emitted a hoarse tremor. This 1897 antique perpetually halted at 7:38, just as he remained trapped in the moment Zakhaev flung open the cellar's iron door with a sinister grin. The stench of rotting flesh seeped through his bandages into his nostrils; he had to bite hard on the inside of his cheek to suppress the urge to vomit.

A radiator pipe in the corner let out a wailing burst, droplets falling into an enamel basin adorned with red stars. The peeling wallpaper curled with East German floral patterns, the dining table draped with a Georgian embroidered cloth found at the Izmaylovo market, two sets of silverware glinting under candlelight. The scene was too perfect - perfect like the angels in the frescoes of Kazan Cathedral, destined to be consumed by war.