The Romanov Diary

Chapter thirty four

July 24, 1918

"NOOO!" Alexandra's voice echoes through the basement as Nicholas' body falls to the floor.

His blood floats out from the wounds and onto the cold floor. The screaming from the victims echoes through the house levels. Anastasia sees a bullet fly through her mother's head. The servants - Demidova, Kharitonov, Trupp and Botkin - lay on the floor, all shot to death. The green wallpaper falls down from the walls as the bullets fly around the room. The house pounds like the heart of a horse running for its life. The air is as thick and cold as snow. Anastasia turns to her oldest sister.

Dead.

She looks at Maria.

Dead.

Tatiana.

Dead

Alexei.

Dead.

Death has laid its blanket over the room. You could almost feel the grim reaper enter the basement and take the souls from her family. She looks at her brother Alexei. His eyes stare at the ceiling.

Dead, soulless and empty.

The dead and emotionless eyes from her dead family reflects their dreams, hopes and goals they never got to achieve. Their ghosts fly around her in the small room. She feels so alone, so very alone. The warmth from the weather, bullets and her own adrenaline makes the sweat run down her body. Anastasia stares at her sisters who used to breath, laugh and smile with her. Now, they're spread out on the floor, shot and cut like dolls.

Their crime? Being grand duchesses in a time of revolution.

"Anastasia." Milo says from the door.

She looks at him, the only friend she has left. She's looking for help in his eyes, but they are dark as the night outside of the house. He smiles, but it's not a smile of love. Theo stands beside him, grinning at Maria's corpse, as if she never meant anything to him. Milo loads his gun, points at her head and fires.

And it all goes black.

"HELP!" Anastasia screams and sits up.

The basement walls are gone, and so are the corpses of her family. All she can see are trees, a small glowing fire in front of her and her friends sleeping in a circle around it. They used the blankets as pillows and mattresses while wearing the coats to prevent the night's coldness from entering their bodies. None of them were awakened by her scream, Ella just shifts a little and mumbles in her sleep.

As she looks at the fire she notices she's not alone. Alexei is awake. He sits on the other side of the fire, poking the firewood with a stick to keep it illuminated and warm.

"Nightmare?" Alexei asks and looks at his newly awakened sister.

Anastasia nods and pulls her knees towards her chin. The adrenaline still pumps around her body, as if she's a scared animal running from something dangerous. She tries to get control of her breath again, and as she breathes small frosty steams come out of her mouth. The warmth that covered Siberia on the night of the murder has diappeared without a trace. The current cold reminds them how far away from home they truly are.

"Yeah. I couldn't fall asleep." He lays the stick on the ground and watches the fire dance in front of him.

Joy sleeps on the ground to Alexei's right, happy to be together with her master again.

"Weird, isn't it? The oxygen keeping this fire alive used to keep our family alive. They killed them just as easy as it is to kill a fire." Alexei takes a deep breath.