The Red World

Chapter 1: Beginning

"Beep! Beep! Beep!"

The alarm clock's beeps were heard around the room. The sun was shining through the window, and the curtains were waving. It was 6:30 am in the grand city of Moscow, which is ever-so busy in this time.

Soon enough, the beeping stops, and yawning is heard instead.

"Yawn...!" exclaimed 16 year old Andrei Nikitin, rising from his king-sized bed. "Good morning...", he said in a moderately tired voice. He then gets off his bed in a moderate pace to get to his home's dining room. He carefully slips in his bedroom slippers whilst wearing his night pajamas.

The smell of food from the kitchen intensifies as Andrei reaches the dining hall. There, two of the home's butlers greet him at the entrance to the dining hall. "Good morning, Sir Andrei. We hope you have a good breakfast." They said to him, greeting with a slight bow. "Same to you as well." Andrei said in a more relaxed tone. "What's for today's menu?" "Butterbrots and boiled eggs as usual, with a side of some American-imported orange juice." Andrei's stomach rumbled slightly after hearing his favorite food for breakfast. He proceeds to eat his beautifully-prepared breakfast, made by his top chefs.

After finishing up his meal, he proceeds to take his usual steaming hot shower. It was about to be winter in Russia, so taking a hot shower is enough to warm the body a little. Then, he starts dressing up to go to school. He dons a pair of jeans, a polo, a winter coat, a scarf, and a pair of leather boots. He grabs his school bag, and heads out the front door, along with some of the butlers bidding farewell. He then passes by the gates of his family's large mansion.

As he makes his way to the local Metro Station, he passes by numerous propaganda art posted in the exterior of numerous condominiums. The art itself, painted and unveiled in 2016 for the 98th anniversary of the October Revolution, depicts the working class using newer technology, such as Soviet-made phones, planes, automatic tractors, etc.

Others include art painted for the 16th anniversary of the end of World War IV, which ceases the existence of the United States, formerly the world's largest democratic nation remaining, now remade as numerous Soviet Socialist Republics. Andrei, seeing this particular art piece in a 5-star condominium, smiled.

The propaganda art doesn't stop there, however. As Andrei reaches and enters his local train station, propaganda art of happy commuters riding the modern-era metro trains are seen in numerous halls. Posters of the 102nd anniversary of the October Revolution are posted in the train's usual advertisement spots.

Eventually, Andrei reaches his school, the prestigious Vladimir Moscow State Academy. As he enters the school's gates, many of his classmates start going up to him, others passing by, saying hello to him. Andrei, as the grandson of the current leader of the Soviet Union, Pankratiy Nikitin, was fairly popular in school. Many boys want to be friends with him in hopes he spares them if they are caught by the KGB, while the girls were fawning over him, getting a little flustered every time he passes by or looks at them wanting to be his girlfriend.

On the entrance of the school, Andrei meets up with one of his best friends, Dmitriy Zhukov, who has been friends with Andrei since middle school. "Hey, Andrei!" he said, running to him while holding his bag. "Oh, hey Dmitriy! Wonderful day isn't it?" "It truly is. Say, shall we move to our first class?" "Yeah, let's go!" The two begin to move to their lockers and into their classrooms. As protocol throughout the entire Soviet Union, learners had to sing the Soviet national anthem before starting class.

Andrei is one of the gifted ones at Vladimir. He is smart at many of his subjects, can play sports without hassle, and has won many awards. He is aware of his popularity at school, so he tries to maintain a distance between his studies and his popularity.

Eventually, it's lunch time. Andrei meets up with Dmitriy at the school's cafeteria, where he starts walking up to him prepared with a food tray.

"So, ready for lunch?" Dmitriy asked Andrei. "Yep, isn't it international food day or something?" "Yeah it is, today's international food day is East Asian food." Andrei's stomach rubbles again. "Sweet, let's go!" The pair starts to move towards the food cafeteria.

The academy, as part of the USSR's education curriculum, holds these kinds of events as a propaganda event to promote unity between the Russian SFSR and its others SSRs. A region is picked by the school's committee and the menu is replaced with hand-picked food choices from the said region.

The pair had finished picking their meal for the day. Andrei picked 5 sushi, 5 dumplings, a bowl of wonton noodles, and hot green tea. Dmitriy got a similar meal, but instead of wonton noodles, he got a serving of udon. The smell of the wonton and udon could make you hungry the second you were served the bowl. In a matter of minutes, lunch was done, and so was their meal.

The rest of the day is allocated for sports and club activities. Andrei, as usual, was the fastest in swimming and ice skating. He was always cheered on by his fellow schoolmates. Dmitriy was part of the chess club, and is particularly good at chess.

Soon, it was time to leave the school. Andrei and Dmitriy met at the school's entrance once again to say their farewells to each other. "Bye dude, I'll see you tomorrow!" Dmitriy said to Andrei. "Yeah, bye!" he replied. They waved at each other and went their separate ways.

Andrei walks back to the school's train station, and hitches a ride back to his family's mansion in Moscow's city center. On his walk back to his home from his local station, he can't help but try to guess what car brands currently drive the Soviet-built streets. Along with guessing the brand, he can tell where the brand was headquartered, like Toyota from the Japanese SSR, or Volkswagen-Rot from the German SSR.

As Andrei arrives back to his family's mansion, he is greeted again by the family's butlers. "Welcome home, sir Andrei. We hope you had a wonderful day at school." "Sure did." He replied. "We prepared a small serving of Borscht as a snack for you,  It is at the dinner hall." One of them replied. "Sweet, I can smell it from here!" They both share a chuckle.

He brings his borscht with him to his room, where he simultaneously eats it while studying. As he is expected to soon lead the Soviet Union, he is expected to be really smart, responsible, and capable of running the largest country in the world. Andrei is aware of this, so he spends less time on playing, and more time on studying. With this, he also volunteers to be group leader in groupworks in school.

By night, he, along with the rest of his family, occasionally including Pankratiy Nikitin, eat dinner together. Dinner, in particular, is always presented elegantly and prepared by the mansion's top chefs. They use pure Russian ingredients for preparing their meals. Dinner is where the Nikitin family talks about their day, with Pankratiy in particular talking about his current projects inside the Kremlin. Some classified projects are shared by Pankratiy to his family, because he trusts them the most.

Soon enough, dinner ends, and Andrei goes back to his room to prepare for the night. He puts on his night pajamas and brushes his teeth. As part of being a gifted child, he sets his sleeping schedule to 10 pm for eight preferred hours of sleep. Back at his room, Andrei's king sized bed is covered with lavender-scented sheets, which are also very comfy and soft. He takes off his bedroom slippers and climbs into the bed to sleep. This ends Andrei's usual day in Soviet Moscow.

For years since his elementary school years, this is how Andrei Nikitin's daily life occured. At first, he didn't mind how his days usually went, but now at 16 years old, he realizes his boring life as an ideal high schooler, to the point of sometimes talking about how boring his life is moments before he drifts to sleep at night. Andrei really likes going on new adventures, but since he was destined to become the leader of the Soviet Union soon, he had no choice but to follow these daily events for the rest of his pre-adult years.

Little did he know his life would change one day...

One Friday Afternoon on November 5, 2023, Andrei was walking back to his mansion the usual way. He proceeded to start guessing the car brands that drove on the roads beside him. However, one minute after looking at the car-filled road, he was suddenly grabbed on by the shoulder.

"Huh? Wh-what's that? Who's there?!" He said, before being pulled back to the bushes. 

His shrieks abruptly turn into silence.