Fall Of The Last Tsarevich

"I want you to know: that if anything happens, I love you forever. Our bond is stronger than death." That was the last thing Alexei's sister said to him, before they both died.

It was a bleak morning in 1918, with fog covering up the sunshine, when the USSR officers told the Romanov family to go to the cellar downstairs. They said the Soviet Union had been overthrown and that the Russian people want the Tsar back, so there was nothing to fear. All the family had to do was go inside and have a photo taken of them, to prove to the public that they were still alive.

Alexei had been suspicious about the whole thing, and even more restless ever since his playmate Leonid, the kitchen boy, had been hurried away in the morning without even a goodbye. Furthermore, as the family walked to the cellar, he saw a pile of stuffed mother bears and cubs that stood on the landing, a sign of respect for the dead. Alexei and his sisters had whispered and became nervous, but the Tsar was unconvinced.

"We're going to get out of this place," he told them firmly.

But that, was the beginning of the end.

Alexei, his family and the servants were ushered inside the empty cellar and placed accordingly for a photograph: poses they had struck hundreds of times before. But this time, something in the air felt different. Alexei's sister, Anastasia, squeezed his hand as she stroked Jimmy's fur with the other. The Tsar, their Papa, asked for two chairs. One for Alexei, because he had fallen down a flight of stairs and his legs could no longer work because of his haemophilia. And another for his Mama, the Tsarina, who had been suffering from illnesses ever since they were placed under house arrest.

After that, the family waited.

Then, about a dozen Bolshevik officers came into the room. They were tall and muscular men and walked in an orderly fashion. Their leader, the one with the most badges on his uniform, told the family that they were to die by the firing squad right now. The photograph was a mere lie to trap them in the same room.

Because, in their hands, were guns.

The Tsarina was the first to reply. "I—I don't understand!" She stuttered. "Oh my god, oh my god! What have we done to deserve this? Our children-"

"Don't worry, Alixy," the Tsar assured, laying a hand on her trembling shoulder. "I'll take care of it."

He stood up, but before he could speak a single word, they all opened fire. Alexei saw his Papa falling to the ground as his Mama stifled a scream, and the officers spitting on him while hurling insults and mockery. His papa, the Tsar, the last imperial ruler of the Romanov dynasty. Dead.

Pain washed over Alexei.

The officers targeted the Tsarina next, and she screamed, her form jerking this way and that as she was hit repeatedly in the stomach, arms and legs. Then she went still when an officer fired a shot to her head, blood oozing out of the numerous bullet holes as she slumped down, never to rise again.

Sadness and anger overwhelmed Alexei, and tears burned in his eyes. He remembered what his papa used to say, "us men don't cry, my boy," but he didn't care. All he could think of was his Mama stroking his hair when he was in pain, his Mama keeping him safe from the world outside, and his Mama welcoming him into her lap in the middle of a night, lighting a fire for his brittle heart. His Mama, whom the ignorant people called "lazy" and "selfish," had worked days and nights sewing jewels inside her children's clothes, in hopes that if something went wrong, the bullets would ricochet and they wouldn't be harmed.

Such was a mother's love.

"She was a monster," he heard one of the officers snarl. But Alexei knew she wasn't. She might not have been a good Tsarina, but she was his mother.