I think I loved him even before I met him. My best friend Iryna kept on talking about her crush, how well-mannered he was, he didn't get drunk or violent. But how much a fourteen-year-old could know and discern? Nonetheless, this unbelievably perfect persona was created in my subconsciousness. Kind, caring, not violent, doesn't get sloppy wasted or get into drunken brawls. In a poor community, violent alcoholism could be seen a lot. It was the only form of entertainment and could be easily taken too far, spinning lives into wasteful demise.

I barely knew anyone in town. After father's passing, mom had to get a better paying job far away to help support her three children, two of which recently got married and had grand babies with more on the way. With my siblings being in their twenties, I was the young runt of the family, shuffled between my paternal grandmother for summers in remote rural village without even post station to make telephone calls, or even a school. If there was one, I would probably stay with grandma full time, since the other option was a lot more unpleasant.

My brother was a son in-law, in a small village near my hometown, with a tiny three-room building housing him, his wife with their baby, and her parents, there wasn't viable room for me to stay there, and I would still need to commute two hours back to my hometown to go to school.

Thus, my only viable full time option was family home that now my sister lived in with her unpleasant husband. When I was younger, I ran away to grandma's as much as possible, but with entering final school years I was staying home more often recently.

My entire circle of friends consisted from the school classmates, who would tell me stories about everyone else. I had no idea who they actually were talking about, and most stories would just go over my head. However, I loved listening to fun shenanigans kids had, and desire to hang out with them more often grew. I was getting bigger, and a bit less afraid of my sister's husband, so when my fourteenth summer rolled around I stayed home this time and only visited father's grave at grandma's village.

This was going to be my first time hanging out with my friends, and not just heading home from classes, I was very excited. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, I went to my friend Ira's house and waited outside her gate for her to come out, neither of us had Telephones in our homes, so getting together required one person picking up another on the way out.

After about ten minutes my beautiful friend was dressed and ready, I watched as a tall brunette emerged from her home and smiled at her. Her short hair was a bit wavy, slim long legs, accentuated by a skirt that looks almost too short on her, she looked like a stunning magazine model. It was a pity she was self-conscious about her height, but kids are brutal, teasing anyone about anything growing up. We back tracked a bit towards my house, and went to pick up our other friend Lana, she was beautiful girl with auburn hair, all the boys in our class were at her feet. We got to her home and waited for her to come out after knocking on aged wooden door with red paint chipped away in places, but an older man opened the door instead. He resembled the aged wood, lean and lanky, his iron muscles gave shape to the weathered leather of his rough kin.

"Hello Iryna, and who might you be?" he looked at me.

"I'm Nastya... Anastasiya Hamsterova, L-Lana's classmate." I answered a bit flustered; it was my first time meeting her father. I rarely hanged out with my friends before, aside heading home after classes.

"…I knew your father. We worked together in the energy ore mine. God rest his soul. You're growing up beautifully." He looked remorseful, the mine paid well, but was very dangerous. Unfortunately, it reminded me of the tunnel collapse that took my father's life, I was choking up a bit, this tended to happen a lot when anyone was very kind to me.

"Ahh, thank you…" I knew he was flattering me, with average looks, brown eyes, black hair, slightly chubby, there was nothing especially pretty about me. But still, a little bit of that kindness felt really good and I smiled with most brilliant sincerity. He looked a bit taken back and called out for his daughter.

"Lana, hurry up! Your friends are waiting."

After about a minute a pretty girl emerged from back door, still tying her auburn hair up, slipped into her shoes and crossed the wooden threshold to give us hugs.

We said our goodbyes and went to hang out. Which consisted of walking through the small town a bit before settling on one of the many benches sprinkled around town's many small park areas. After making few rounds through curvy town alleys, we settled on two benches facing each other in the town square and kept on chatting.

"Omg! That's Alexander!" Ira exclaimed in excitement looking in direction of two guys.

"Who?" I asked, clueless as always.

"Alexander Sudailov, Victor's older brother!" She answered with stars in her eyes. Ahh, Victor, her beloved crush I've never met, but felt like he's constant part of our lives. "He must have returned from the army, right after Victor got conscripted. Makes sense since they are about two years apart. I wonder how many monsters he subjugated? Look at that physique!" Yeah, she was swimming in dreamy clouds now, rambling on and on.

I looked over and there was a tall young man with sandy blonde hair, standing next to…our classmate Pasha? Yup, its Pasha, I was confident I recognized him correctly when he turned around. Yup, they are looking at us. I looked at my friends, to my left was Iryna who had this hazy look, looking but not responding, to my right Lana was beaming at the boys and waving enthusiastically. I look back, yeah, they are heading towards us, butterflies stirred in my stomach and I felt a little parched.

The boys settled on the bench facing us. It was awkward for me, Ira was barely responsive with a dopey smile on her face, Lana was chatting with the boys, but eventually we were all laughing at this ridiculous and slightly nauseating army story of a guy that got caught being gross.

I still can't believe that someone would stoop to scraping oils with a spoon from the sides of a tub where troops dishes were done. No matter how much you think that the rations weren't enough.

After a while, when topics died down, Lana asked Pasha to play for us since he was learning guitar, but he vetoed it immediately saying he is still too new for that. Pasha lived near the town square, and offered to bring out his guitar if Alex would play for us. Eventually, we all went into the back of an old, narrow, two-story grey building, that had a book store at the front first floor with two apartments on the second. The back door was much smaller, we passed through crooked brown door and settled on an ancient wooden stairwell to wait for Pasha while he went to fetch the instrument.

I was sitting on the bottom stair leaning on Lana's lap who sat next to me, one stair-up stroking my hair, then Ira was sitting above me, and then Alex few stairs up behind her. When guitar arrived, we were mesmerized by a low-pitched sweet honey song.

I didn't even remember how we parted when I got home, Alex might have a siren's blessing, because I could only remember sweet trance that I was emersed in while he was singing, not the song itself. I guess this how it felt to be high, I was giddy anticipating hanging out more with local youth. Sadly, that was the only time us kiddos got any attention. Soon more youth came back, some from finishing their two-year term in the military, others from the vocational Universities. So those of age of sixteen and up would hang out together, and us under age kiddos would just hangout on park benches till sundown, while others would go to the bar or dance club to have as they said "Real fun!" whatever that was.

In our town we even had few lucky people to attend magic Academies, elite schools that are very hard to get into and very expensive to boot. Maryia was hanging out with us during the summer; she was our former classmate and a friend we rarely got to see recently. She got in on a scholarship to a small magic academy in our local center city Oblast, by studying a lot in middle school, and being lucky enough to have a distant relative tutoring her magic during summers. All I had was experience helping grandma around her farm during my past summers, and with my grades slipping to mediocrity after father's passing, I couldn't even dream of prestigious school life. Heck, I would be lucky to get into a good University and get a vocation.

The Summer passed by lazily and uneventfully. We rolled into Fall and begun grinding first high school year material into our minds. The most terrifying person to meet was the history teacher, whom we heard from rumors was extremely picky and strict; ironically she turned out to be one of my favorites. Yeah, she was strict and required a lot of memorization; the battle plans, tactical fails and dates to keep track of were never-ending.

However, after middle school teacher, who always failed me she was a blessing. No matter how much I memorized pre-empire history I could never get more than a three out of full mark of five in middle school. She had me convinced I was an academic failure, and with no parents around to check in on things I was convinced I had no academic aptitude and only had manual labor in my future.

So getting a relatively easy five on my first day answering a question our scary high school history teacher asked opened my eyes. Yes, I studied a lot before that class thinking I would have to triple my efforts since I could barely float above the failing mark of two before. But getting the good mark without having to answer many extra questions made me realize that the previous teacher would bombard me with extra questions looking for flaws in my answers. Eventually I couldn't even read chapters properly, with blank screen in my eyes I was convinced I'm too dumb to understand it.

Out of anger and outrage was born hope, yeah I was in relatively hopeless situation, but I could try to get into a vocational school (or maybe even an unimportant, and small university wold take me? (a secret wish)), so I decided to dive into my studies. How my first year of high school passed? I went from barely not failing to almost top student in one year!

Following summer was filled with chores and studies, I barely hanged out with my friends. My sleep schedule changed, I woke up extra early 4-5 am to do my chores and studies, and went to bed around 7-8 pm, all to minimize time spent with my family who woke up around noon on a weekend. Slowly cleaning the house, or reading the book by the twilight was so peaceful while everyone slept. Although, the witching hour before the first rooster's cry was spooky sometimes, especially when the creepy crawling felling ran down my spine and I just knew someone was up to no good. That quickly followed by a quick prayer and sprinkling of salt over my shoulder. I wished I knew more about counter-curses and anti-jinxes, but we could barely afford the daily bread and magic studies were expensive. Being an empath sucked, picking up on creepy or negative stuff was annoying, and could easily tip you over into depression.

The more time has passed since my mom left to work as a maid in some rich guy's mansion in the former capital, the bolder my brother-in-law started getting. He was drinking more and more with time, and acted like he owned my mother's house. The fights sis and him had were getting increasingly unbearable, especially with him spending whatever he earned on alcohol and drinking buddies. I did my best to stay out of their sight, but unfortunately I would get caught in crossfire sometimes. So my friends became like my real family instead.