Batan Watanabe was a Japanese local who lived in Anadyr. That was already quite uncommon as he was one of the few people that weren't natives or Europeans.

He owned a one storey house with a large garden, which was a fever dream to many Anadyr children. Oftentimes when I was young my friends and I would go to his house and play in his garden, where he happily let many children cavort. We would sit in the grass, bundled up in coats with dolls clutched in our tiny hands as our imaginations ran wild with the wind. To my young mind he was like Santa Claus, bringing us presents and letting us play in his winter wonderland. To my current mind, I now question many things about those interactions... the lingering touches and the constant invitations.

Batan lived alone, but his family would visit him each year. His daughters - Nonoka, Asa, and Sakura Watanabe - had just arrived in Anadyr, barely a day before the borders closed. Now trapped here and they live with Batan in his small home.

My mother is a woman who was always dedicated to helping the community. She volunteered at charities and helped raise money for the poor, so it was no wonder when she offered to take in Nonoka, considering that there was no more space left for her in Batan's home.

Nonoka, ever so grateful, brought us chocolate donuts and flowers as a gift of her gratitude. In her broken Russian, she thanked us profoundly.

I do like Nonoka. She's a nice girl, only a few years older than me. She towers over my mother as she wraps her in a hug with her skinny arms. When I look at her, they look close to snapping - paper thin. What else is hidden under the surface?

Nikolay and I went out to escort her around Anadyr since she wanted to get out of the house yet didn't want to return home. I understood that there was a tense situation between her and her father, so I didn't try to push for more information or question anything. My heart went out for the girl. We walk along the paved path, where a green bush rode along the black fence. We were dressed in our furry coats and hats and it was early morning. The sky was littered with pale blue hues like a numb finger on the verge of frostbite.

"It's unlucky," Nonoka begins, "that borders closed as soon as we arrived in Anadyr. Now I'm stuck with my father for weeks - however long!"

I listen to her rant, nodding along slowly. "That must be terrible." I try to empathise with her.

"Yes," Nonoka sighs. "All the time I'm criticised for the small things I do. If something is not his way then it's wrong and worthless !"

I wonder why she's telling me all this; we only met a few days ago. Maybe she's so sick of being ignored whenever she speaks up that she resorts to confiding in teenagers? Maybe she's so desperate to have somebody who will listen to her that she's willing to talk to anybody, just to get things off of her chest? I wonder.

"That's why you volunteered to live with us?" Nikolay asked casually. I admire how even and level his voice is. Nonoka confirms his theory.

Turns out that the man I had looked up to as a child wasn't exactly the best father. Childhood neglect cuts deep scars and every visit puts salt in the wound. I don't understand how Nonoka feels; I had never experienced a neglectful childhood. Despite her flaws, which were scarce, my mother had done a splendid job parenting.

As she walks forward, from my peripheral vision I see Nonoka's foot lose balance on the concrete. She begins toppling over with a quiet shriek but I reach forward to try and take a hold of her arm. Nikolay has the same idea and dashes in front of her to catch her. Dazed, Nonoka laughs awkwardly as we let her go.

"Sorry," she says, "I don't know what happened. I felt very dizzy."

Nikolay is concerned. "Are you alright?"

"Oh yes, I've just been sick. For the past few days I have had dizziness, but it's nothing to worry about," Nonoka reassures us, and I look at her quizzingly.

"Other than dizzy spells, is there anything else?" I ask. "Like blindness... or dry skin?" I wonder if she knows what I'm getting at. I remember what I heard about the symptoms on the radio: weight loss, dry skin, dizziness and blindness. Nonoka already had two. I need to stop. I'm paranoid.

"No," she says and narrows her eyes at me. "Why?" I'm sure she knows exactly what I mean. I slam my mouth closed, turning away lightly with a burning face.

"Nothing... I'm just worried. You've been looking sick since you've arrived," I say, and Nonoka's expression lightly softens. She tells me not to worry and that she's fine. That she's always been a sickly child prone to illness and disease. She reassures me that there's nothing going on, but I don't believe her. She's so intent on denying it.

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We sit at the mahogany dinner table, a flowery cloth laid over it and on top an assortment of foods. I'm exaggerating - there was only chicken, potatoes and some green vegetables that always made Nikolay squirm. At the head of the table is my mother, and opposite her sits Nonoka. Nikolay and I are on either side.

"This food is delicious, Bogdana," Nonoka praises. I can see she's uncomfortable with the silence and tries to make conversation. In our household, it is normal for everyone to be silent during dinner since we are eating, and there isn't room for meaningless speech. As soon as dinner is over chatter once again fills the house as we either play board games or spend time together in another way.

My mother smiles warmly. She picks up the chicken plate, placing some more onto Nonoka's plate. "You're so thin, honey. Eat some more."

If there was one thing I had to complain about regarding my mother, it was her pushy nature. Of course she cared for everyone, but her motherly attitude oftentimes resulted in her attempting to force what she believes is best for someone onto them. Nonoka is experiencing such a thing right now.

"Oh no, I'm full," Nonoka says, holding her hands up. She doesn't stop my mother from placing another portion onto her plate though. "Thank you." She looks down at the food on her plate with a resigned expression.

My mother smiles, and gives everyone at the table an extra portion of chicken, potatoes and vegetables. It was double what I had already eaten.

The table is absolutely seeping with food. Plates are scattered all over the surface, filled to the brim with different cuisines that my mother cooked. She loves cooking and then watching people eat and enjoy whatever she makes. We never go hungry with her here, and the food is delicious.

I myself look at the table full of food and my stomach swirls. Small butterflies roil around, the wings lightly brushing against my stomach lining as my nausea increases. I have already eaten, and having more would be too much. I already feel so full. I couldn't. I wanted to. I won't. I already ate too much.

I quickly excuse myself, smile pleasantly, rush out of the dining room, and lock myself in the bathroom. I close my eyes, breathe, open them, close again, repeat. My stomach feels so bloated and so disgusting. I feel oily and covered in a thick layer of grease. Hands grip the sink basin firmly, so hard the knuckles turn white. I stare at them with a shaky breath, but don't loosen my hold.

Get a hold of yourself.

The breathing exercise I was doing calms me, and the sickening feeling overwhelming my body slowly ceases to exist. I stare at the mirror for only a moment before ducking my face under the cold tap. When done, I dry my skin, stretch my mouth into a smile, and walk to my family once again.

──── ∗ ⋅◈⋅ ∗ ────

The sun hangs in the sky, bright white, bathing Anadyr in a warm glow. It funnily juxtaposes the cold air and I wrap myself tighter in my fur coat. The metal poles of the swing I'm sitting on are blue, with peeling paint scraping away each time I place my hand in a new spot. I retract my hand, flicking off the blue paint left over. The empty playground is small and is surrounded by a dark metal fence, closing in like prison bars. Just a prison inside of another prison.

The trees are bare, their long branches stretching out like the webs of a spider, occasional birds caught like pathetic flies. Some of them already have the first leaves blooming, bringing a touch of green to Mother Nature.

There are two swings like identical twins. Nikolay sits on the other one, swinging himself as high as he possibly could as we wait. The soft zephyr brushes past my head, tickling my neck and whispering into my ears "she's coming". The wind then carries the whisper away and I watch it leave, drifting in whirlpools as it is blown away and out of sight. All is quiet again and I listen, wait, swing. Repeat in a rut.

"You alright?" Nikolay asks, his raspy voice disturbing the peace in my ears. My head snaps towards him and I nod. We return to silence once more. I'd rather not talk; I have too much on my mind.

Where the gate to the playground stands runs a path, framed with cropped grass and a low dirt barrier. It is only a small clearing of grass before it's blocked off by the road and noisy cars. At the end of the street, I see a short figure clad in a thick coat and earmuffs. I can see a puff of lengthy hair dyed blonde clapped on the figure's head, styled in a ponytail being whipped around by the wind. They quickly walk towards us on wobbly legs, before breaking into a sprint heading to the playground. I recognise the figure as Sofiya Ivanova as soon as I see her.

She's the girl who used to take my food when we were kids and pull on my braids. She used to pass me rude little notes and insult my bowl cut hair. She's also the one who would invite me out every day so I had someone to play with. She's the one who would sing the loudest during birthday celebrations and give the biggest gifts. Sofiya was funny, smart, quick-witted, confident and brave. And she was also my best friend.

I see her face clearly as she approaches. It is caked in carefully applied makeup with pink tinted gloss and a natural blush spread across her rosy cheeks. She is a pretty girl with a very Slavic appearance. She'd moved to Anadyr with her parents from Moscow before the age of ten.

Sofiya opens the gate and jogs up to us, throwing her arms around Nikolay in a hug before moving to envelop me. "Hi!" she greets, a bright smile on her face. "I-I-I've snuck out, so we do-don't have long."

Since her childhood, Sofiya had struggled with a stutter. Perhaps it was because she was born late, and couldn't take that life-saving gasp of breath when she left the cavern of her mother. She's working with a speech therapist, and over the years the stutter has decreased to a point where it is (almost) barely noticeable until certain words and plosive sounds.

Sofiya had always been made fun of because of her stutter, earning the cruel nickname 'Stammering Sofiya'. I'm a fan of alliteration and call her that too. Though there is a fine line between a fond nickname and a mocking insult. With no other friends we found each other, and it was always us three: Alina-Sofiya-Nikolay, Sofiya-Nikolay-Alina, Nikolay-Alina-Sofiya. Stuck together at the hip ever since we discovered the purpose of legs.

"You're crazy." Nikolay giggles and a corner of his mouth lifts ever so slightly. As he smiles a tiny dimple appears on his cheek. He shakes his head slowly, and Sofiya barks out a laugh.

"Crazy! Insanity runs through my veins," she says. Sofiya fishes in her pocket as she stalks towards me, placing herself on my lap. I have to grab the metal chains of the swing to not tip back as I feel her weight on me. It was a casual gesture, something she did to both Nikolay and I to express her adoring love for us. Sofiya digs in the pocket of her coat, fishing out a little white paper box, full of rolled up cigs of death. She takes out a cigarette and hands one to me. Nikolay refuses to take one, saying he doesn't want the smell to linger on his clothes. Our mother has the nose of a wolf, but in my state of mind, I find it hard to care. I want to have fun with my friends and forget.

About what, exactly? People have bigger problems.

"Thanks," I say as she hands me her pink lighter. I wrap my lips around the cigarette, cautiously shield it from the breeze with my hand, flick the lighter once, twice, light the fire and the poison. I can feel the smoke in my mouth as I breathe in. Nikolay always joked about calling cigarettes 'lung suckers' and how they give you AIDS.

Forget, the wind whispers. Let yourself loose.

I hold the cigarette between my two fingers as I exhale almost too quickly, half-lidded eyes watching the murky smoke diffuse and be swept away. The wind doesn't leave. Within moments any evidence of my sin is gone.

"You're d-doing it wrong," Sofiya says, scoffing. She takes a deep inhale of her own cigarette and blows it out into little rings, perfectly shaped like she'd been practising for years. "You're supposed to hold it in, then let it out. Then it doesn't waste."

Bringing the cigarette to my lips again I wolf it down, feeling it trickle down my trachea and flood my lungs. I hold it there for a few seconds before I feel the burn in my chest and I open my mouth to cough, smoke leaving through my open mouth and nose. Sofiya laughs deeply, clapping me on the back to soothe my violent coughs.

"God, you suck."

"You're not meant to laugh at me. You're supposed to be my friend," I whine, shoving her until she almost falls off my lap.

"Yeah, and as your friend it's my d-duty to tell you that you suck."

I love her dearly. She may be a bad influence but I am too, dragging her into just as many mishaps as she does to me. Sofiya is the person I would shove off a cliff, only to run down below and catch her before she hits the hard ground. Nikolay has stopped speaking, resorting to scrolling through his phone with a neutral expression on his face as he doesn't look at either of us.

Sofiya seems to sense he was feeling excluded. "You sure you don't want a puff?" She holds out her cigarette, waving it around so much in her trembling hand that I fear it may extinguish.

Nikolay looks at it with an eyebrow quirked and rolls his eyes. "A puff," he finally says and reaches for it. He puts it to his lips and closes his eyes, inhaling the toxin. Unlike me, he doesn't cough but instead holds it for a few seconds before letting the smoke out in a stream of lines resembling a barcode. He inhales it back up his nose like a dragon.

"How'd you do that?" I ask.

"Exhale through your teeth," he replies, smugly as if it was nothing. "And don't open your mouth too much."

I once again take another puff, feeling the smoke gather in my lungs before I push it into my mouth and exhale, teeth grit together and mouth in a straight line. It hardly works. Though soon I feel the familiar dizzy rush in my head and I grip the chains harder to not fall back with Sofia on top of me. That was the best part about smoking. The detachment you feel once it all gets to your head and the addictive feeling of a nicotine rush that makes your world swarm. I find myself craving the spin more and more each day.

"You've ruined me," I joke, and Sofiya barks out a loud laugh. The wind sweeps it away again, along with the smoke and poison we polluted the playground with. I find it ironic that a trio of awkward, rebellious teenagers chose a place for children associated with happiness and fun to carry out their sinful actions. Everybody does it, I think, nobody bats an eye at the graffiti drawn on the slides with black ink, displaying lewd images and curses.

What difference does it make?

We live in a ruined world, don't we? I see adverts on television and am taught in school about how we should save the planet. Smoking kills, cars kill, burning releases carbon dioxide to add to the already overflowing amount of toxic gases in our atmosphere. On the radio I would always hear about how we could reduce our carbon footprint, and I begin walking to school, I turn off the lights, I dress warm instead of using the radiators. I try.

Though when I go online and I see an article about a celebrity using millions of fuel to go on a private jet from one side of America to the other I just think, is there any point? I'm one person, living in a corrupted world that my ancestors chewed up and spat out into the dirt. I've stopped caring. I know we've crossed the point of no return, and that a single person can't do a thing when standing against countless others pulling the rope in the opposite direction. They only pretend to care. I, at least, don't pretend to.

A man walks up the path to the playground, two small children - a boy and girl - clinging onto each of his gloved arms. He shouts something at us and I exhale into my sleeve, coughing slightly and masking it with a sneeze.

"Act natural," Nikolay whispers and I begin swinging back and forth, Sofiya clutching my shoulders as she lets out a giggle. She throws her cigarette to the ground as Nikolay stamps on it to put it out, while I hide mine behind my back and hope the wind diffuses it away.

The family is close enough now that I can see their facial features. The children are bundled up tightly in hats and scarves. The taller of the two, the boy, looks at us with wide eyes full of curiosity.

"What are you doing here?" The man asks us gruffly, putting an arm in front of his children as if to shield them from us. Like we were dangerous, wild animals free from a cage and they were the cornered prey. "This is for children."

"We're about to leave," Nikolay says, shooting the man a smile. He stiffly walks away, and Sofiya jumps off my lap to follow with a bashful smile. I don't look at the man as I pass him, but I can feel his hard gaze burning holes into my back and I'm sure he saw the cigarette in my hand. Even if he didn't see it, I was sure he could smell it.

As I close the gate I look into the young boy's eyes. He hasn't stopped staring at me even as his sister pulls him onto the swings we previously occupied. They're breathing in the poison that our cigarettes released, and I realise that we are polluting their world.

Whatever we do sends a wave of dominos and affects others too. Like a mosquito sucking the blood from one's skin, they suffer while we thrive.