~repack~: Veta Antonova

Veta looked at the pile of rust. The spoon was somewhere in there, buried. She couldn’t see it.

The first time Veta Antonova killed a man, she was seven years old, and she did it with a teaspoon. veta antonova

She didn’t think. She never thought. Thinking was for people who had the luxury of regret. Veta looked at the pile of rust

Afterward, she sat on the stairs and looked at her hands. They were shaking. Not from fear—from the sheer mechanical violence of what she’d just done. Her body was a machine she didn’t fully understand, and it had just performed an operation she hadn’t authorized. The first time Veta Antonova killed a man,

Veta didn’t answer. She was thinking about her father. About the soldiers. About the soup, cold and salty, and the way she had lifted the spoon to her mouth again and again, even though she wanted to scream. She was thinking about finishing.

They beat her. Broke two of her ribs and one of her fingers. They took her to a warehouse outside the city and tied her to a chair.

Doru laughed. It was a wet sound, phlegmy and honest. “I like you, Veta. You’re strange. Strange is valuable.”