I was still shuddering, having butterflies in my stomach as a sign of dismay.
Aleksandr was looking at his shoes, the red colour of his feverish face seemed so odd to me. A few inches away waterdrops were falling down. Even the control panel was poured by the strange rain.
He laid his hand there, tightening the edge for quite long.
While I was getting lost in his frightening wrinkles, I began to wonder why I felt the air so mesmerizingly cold. What lied beneath that awkward silence and how could the man – who since becoming the senior reactor control chief engineer of the fourth block always shielded me like a nuclear blast-proof – lose his mind.
The one with whom, I recall, used to laugh so hard that even our cigarettes fell out sometimes.
“How could they all lose their minds?” I remained quiet. Then I realised something went terribly wrong.
Something awful was floating in the air.
Real fear reigned over me for the very first time in my life, I comprehended. The fear of disgrace and the final destruction of my parents’ honour, but above all, real fear of the unknown.
Since 01:23:40 AM I had found myself being a child again, so helpless. Seeing Aleksandr going through the same thing had been the worst experience.
Having no idea who to fall back on, in this gloomy solitude I deeply wanted to know if any act was conceivable. As if he was hearing my thoughts, he turned to me.
“We need to open the valves by our hands! This is the only thing we can do” he sighed.
03:30 AM. We were alone.
“Is it sure that you want this?” I asked thoughtfully. The next moment I noticed the blood on his palm. Sewage already covered my shoes. With trembling knees, I stepped back and though I admitted the importance of Sasha’s plan, in this grim silence I was unable to sum up the situation none of us truly understood.
That night the silence in the control room was not the taciturnity of those tired nights. It diverged from the tranquil, yet social periods when everything went into the right direction. The alarm went speechless, lights in a low mood, as relaxing pillars, as heartening they could be. But that silence tasted metal.
We felt it in our mouths.
“Sasha” I gasped with trembling voice.
He grunted his words out with outlandish rigidity.
“We need to go as soon as we can! You know what happens when it melts!”
“What if the core surely exploded? They saw it’s nothing there anymore!”
My throat scratched. In the heat of the moment I knew how lucky I was, not saying this out loud in front of Comrade Dyatlov. Otherwise my distrust would spark him.
For a while I was tearing my cloak with such nerve as if the monster of the turbine hall was coming inside me. Sasha grabbed my arm and slammed the door restlessly.
“Leonid…”
“We need to pump water to the core. If not…”
He coughed, then all was quiet.
We looked upon each other to draw courage. Instead, we grew fear in the heart of the other one. Like a heated poison, it was revolving around and to smother it, we were too unversed.
Wordlessly entering the corridor, this feeling overwhelmed me. Debris floating, lights were all out. The gathering water was so high it reached our knees. Still did not understand it.
We were starting to open the valves on the twenty-fourth floor, when I was unusually overwhelmed with exhaustion. The stings on my skin, the taste of metal in the mouth, they were all growing…
The valve creaked but not moved as in this mess, not losing the desperate will to fight, I was constantly trying to remove it. The following moment it slipped out of my hands. Then I noticed the red drops streaming down from my skin.
I grabbed the valve to hold on, so I managed to remain on my feet. I felt terrified. Sasha’s voice seemed to be hollow.
“Leonid… you look white.”
“I am sorry” I moaned. I started to cry and vomit shamefully.
I hugged the valve as if my mother would stand there, to stay awake for those many lives and to save the core.
But then in a dark and blurry moment of ruined reality, all was gone.
Photo: Pripyat.com
Négyes Blokk 