This is a four or five-part piece that I'm working on. This part is extremely short and still needs some editing, but here goes:

Of the Red Square

“I’ll see you when you get here.” Natasha heard the even-keeled voice sound out, no affection or salutation attached.

The line clicked, and Natasha flipped her own phone shut, tucking it away in the side pocket of her woolen jacket. She took a seat among a series of identical, grey pinstripe chairs. Her faded, leather bag rested in her lap, sagging over slightly while five fingers clutched to the buckled strap. The other fingers, unoccupied, tightened into a fist, reaching to muffle a deep yawn.

Such an early morning journey had worn Natasha out. Catching little sleep the night before, tossing and turning about in her tiny cot and rumpling the blankets down to her bare feet, Natasha had unwillingly batted open an eyelid to the impatient buzz of the alarm clock. 4:00 AM. Emitting a reluctant groan, Natasha pulled her half-asleep body out of bed and over to the sink on the opposite side of the room.

A cracked mirror hung above the metal faucet, and Natasha examined herself. Frosted, blue eyes roved over a narrow-tipped nose. Her skin reflected a glowing paleness, topped by a blossom of platinum, flaxen hair –both so blinding that one could never tell where complexion ebbed and follicles thrived. Upon a blank palette of a face, roses stained the cheeks with a delicate liveliness. The crack tore straight through her forehead, shattering the porcelain doll image staring back at her, as did the uncommon circles that blemished skin just below the lashline.

Natasha yawned and stepped away from the mirror. After dressing and teasing her hair into an acceptable arrangement, Natasha exited her one-room, first floor apartment and snuck out onto the quiet, snow-laden streets. Heavy downfalls of flakes pounded against her feathery frame as she trudged around a block corner and toward a center of gleaming lights. It was there that other folks bustled about, unfazed by the storm or the time. Natasha blended in, another face in a numberless crowd. Along the streetline, the only semi-open space to get any air, Natasha flagged down a taxi.

In all her twenty-one years, it was only the second time she had ever ridden in a taxi. Once before to ride along with her parents to the hospital when her mother was pregnant with her younger sister, Alena, and now. But she took pleasure in the rarity, soaking up the warmth that whirled inside the vehicle.

Some brief minutes later, she was sucked from the comforting warmth and hurled back into the blustering vortex of coldness, as the taxi had already shuttled her to the destination. Handing the driver a fistful of money, she had stepped out and entered the building where she sat now.

I’ll see you when you get here.

With a passport in hand and a wad of bills that amounted to more money than she’d ever possessed, she would arrive there soon.

“Flight 482 en route to Chicago is now boarding,” a uniform man announced overhead.

Natasha grabbed her boarding pass and stood up to meet the call.