It was 13 years ago when the final act occurred, between the once wealthy and the poor of Russia. Years of riots and violence in the nation had led to an almost apocalyptic scene where martial law was enacted. The people still lived in normality, or at least they tried their best too, but no one could forget the scenes of the massacre that had pushed the president over the line. One of his friends had been brutally murdered by some scum bum too afraid to face the law after committing the atrocity. He was shocked by the images of his once childhood friend, now nothing more than a bloody pulp of human remains. It was the 100th murder that week, and that was just too many for the Razutt, and he had to show the poor and weak of Russia that they had no power, the power resided within the educated and fortunate, and that's how it will always be. Deep down he even questioned himself weather or not this was just an attempt to stop the constant riots that were occurring all over the nation. Either way it was too late to change it now, all he could do now is wonder why Vladimir had been so unfortunate, and why he had used his death to his advantage.

The icy wind blowing through the dark alleyway Victor was sitting in. Vlad showed no sign of even noticing the seemingly skeleton of a boy sitting behind a trash-bin. He was too hungry to notice anything, this was only his third week on the streets and he was still learning to deal. The savage manner in which the winter’s grip snatched the warmth from their bodies took its toll. Vlad had no will to continue except the absolute guarantee that there was food behind the restaurant Martelli’s. A traditional slavic restaurant with the sweetest kampot and warmest dumplings in what seemed like all of europe. However Vlad couldn’t help and lose his thoughts as he opened the trashcan only to find a pile of the mornings leftovers, freshly tossed. This was the best thing he had found since the second day he had lost everything, that was when a mongolian restaurant had taken him in and fed him. They had offered him a job at 1000 Rubles flat an hour with bored above the loft, He remembered telling them he needed time to think and that he’d be back, now he wished he could remember where it was at. He sighed a deep heavy sigh and took one more look behind him, he could’ve sworn he saw a pair of eyes staring out at him from the shadows, however overcome with hunger he convinced himself it was nothing but his mind playing tricks. He picked up two dumplings in one hand, both of them still slightly warm as if to reward him for his treck here. He bit into one and immediately salivated almost all over himself, this was the best thing he had eaten in over 6 months by now. He had a sense of nostalgia eating this polish recipe, as he remembered all that he had done during his short time in moscow. He had immigrated here when he was 14 with a fortune from the passing of his father, a polish noble. That fortune had taken him far, but the drugs and alcohol took that all away from him and now he had nothing but dumpster dumplings to satisfy his hunger, a little bit of an adjustment from his nightly 5 course meals he enjoyed up until less than a year ago. Lost in his thoughts he completely missed the raspy breathing and hard footed steps coming from behind him. He finally heard a noise that sounded like a piece of metal scraping against something, and he began to turn only to have something driven into the side of his head knocking him to the ground with a loud clap of impact. He blacked out almost immediately but faintly heard the yelling of an angry man calling him a stupid son of a bitch. He heard a very distorted and short flurry of insults before he finally blacked out.

Victor looked up slightly as he heard footsteps approach, distant now, but slowly getting louder and louder driving out the deafening winter wind. He paused considering his options and the possibilities of the coming encounter. He knew it wasn’t Boris, Boris wanted his money back but he knew Victor was good for it, or at least Victor hoped he did. Could it be that cop that liked to kick Victor out of his nightly home, coming to torture the poor man again? Unlikely, cops rarely came out of their vehicles in the winter and even such a cruel joke wasn't worth it considering the actually temperature. The thermometer on the outside of the church Victor sometimes went into read -25 C this morning. The coldest day yet, and of all days, today’s the day some dumbass decides to walk down his alley. He slowly and silently shifted his body into the shadow coming from the roof of the buildings surrounding him. He put himself against a barrel and watched for the footsteps now seemingly upon him. His adrenaline was pumping through his body at an unheard of speed. Usually he would know who was coming based on weather they were talking to themselves, a junkie, announced themselves, a cop or social service worker, or a raspy cough, his friend Poko coming for a visit. Instead what slipped into his view was what appeared to be a boy no older than 19 in a tattered and stained coat slowly walking towards the food Victor was surviving off of. He held his breath, somewhat unworried for it was almost impossible that anyone else could think of this treasure trove of nutrients. He had been homeless for 3 years now, since he was 19 he’d been eating out of this same garbage can, at 22 he wasn't about to just ‘share’ his prized discovery. As the stranger continued towards the can Victor got more and more worried, this had been his home for a steady 3 months now and the thought of losing it to some teenage bum pissed him off beyond reasoning. He picked up the 2x4 he had attached a crude handle to by forcefully drilling a screwdriver in by hand. As he continue to watch the young street rat reach and begin to open the garbage can, anger overcame him. This was HIS alley, this was HIS food, and this was all VLADIMIR's fault, that grimy piece of sh*t. He had swooped in and bought up all the local Polish restaurants he could when he came to town, including the restaurant Victor had worked at since he was 11 with his father. He saw the man look up as if to praise good for his snooping abilities, and then he saw it, he saw Vladimir Kowalski’s face, clear as day. He quickly got to his feet and began to ever so carefully approach the man who looked exactly like his mortal enemy. He jumped into the shadows when he saw the man begin to turn around and crouched low to the ground. Finally the man turned back around and took a huge bite out of one of Victors dumplings. That was the final straw, and Victor lost all control of his actions as he began to move towards the man pillaging his food. As he walked he let the metal end of the 2x4 lightly bounce off the ground making an ominous sound as he approached. His footsteps seemed to echo endlessely but he notice that the stranger still had not even lifted his head from Victors stash. Finally short of breath because of the pure adrenaline rushing through his body he was right behind the man he now was confident had ruined his life. As he stared at the back of the mans head he thought about going wild on him, killing him and quickly hiding the body. However, Vladimir was too much of a public figure for something like that even if he had fallen from his once cushioned life in the past year or so. Victor hay be homeless but he wasn't uninformed. He knew that a huge protest that broke into a full scale city wide riot had torn apart most of his restaurants causing millions in damages. Full scale crystal chandeliers had been torn from the ceilings and destroyed. The most unfortunate, or fortunate, part of it all is that Vladimir had nothing to do with the protesters, they were fighting for better representation in the workplace and it had begun to be suppressed violently by the government before it broke into a full scale riot. Most of the town had been considered a danger zone that night and over a thousand people were missing or dead. None of that mattered tho, Victor was back in the alleyway now staring at the man who had mad him and his father’s lives so miserable. As he raised his arms back to strike he couldn’t help but think of his fathers approving face, and how much he would’ve relished this moment. Then Victor brought the makeshift baton hard down on the mans temple. He watched the man fall back and look him in the eyes terrified and scared before his eyes rolled back and he was unconscious. As he had been falling, Victor saw now with pure confidence it was Vladimir, and he began throwing out all the insults he had ever heard including some in foreign languages. He was beyond anger at this point, he was engulfed in pure rage.

As officer Dugrod rushed past traffic his mind was fluttering, he could still hear the words of the dispatch replaying in his mind. “Homicide on Arbat street, officer’s needed immediately suspect still at large”. He began to think about why this specific murder bothered him so much, it was another apparently random homicide in which the victim was unidentified and almost unrecognizable. As he arrived to the scene he saw two other police cars and an ambulance, not that it was necessary. He walked towards the crime scene and saw a puddle of a once human laying on what appeared to be its stomach on the ground. Dugrod was unphased, he was the lead homicide detective of Moscow after all, he’d seen it all and there wasn’t much that made his stomach churn anymore. He watched as the ambulance did its necessary routine and, then they had the body taken to a nearby facility for examination and identification. Since the 100th anniversary of Stalin’s death, there has been extensive medical records on every citizen in Russia since birth. Dugrod wasn’t much of a fan, the only reason it had been successful was because it included universal health coverage for minor cases of illness and injury up to ₽3,250,000 twice a year. This was insanely expensive to achieve however with the development of siberian oil drilling Russia was now one of if not the wealthiest countries in the world. Dugrod was caught up in the complex politics of his homeland until a blistering cold wind tore him out of his thoughts. He pressed further into the alleyway to meet the other two officers on duty. He looked up from the ground when he heard them about 30 feet away from him, and he had  quick thought of how dirty this alley used to be. It seemed like someone had cleaned the alleyway up extensively from the concrete to the graffiti on the walls, it was all nice and neat. There were two tables out one with a chair and another with what appeared to be a makeshift sitting mat, Dugrod knew for sure someone had been staying here and he approached the officers as if this was common knowledge. “Think the vic lived here or was it the perp?” he asked out loud not to either officer specifically. “Definitely the perp, we have his fingerprints all over the shitpiles here including the murder weapon.” responded the older looking gentleman of the two officers, he had a long white beard and a curly mess of white hair on top of his head. Dugrod thought about the information they had, they could easily assume that the perp lived here, but in that case what was the victim doing here. Dugrod heard radio chatter buzz loudly from his back pocket and he reached for it, before he could even turn up the volume the infamous word, homicide, hit his ear. A double homicide in the Okrug sector, the South Western part of Moscow. This had recently become a toxic slum, where mob's fought for control for territory while pollice arrested drug dealers to resell their drugs or for their own use. The police in this region where heavily known for their corruption and negligence, however no ones been willing to put the time and effort in to remove these officials, leading to their heavy establishment presence to be unchallenged. Dugrod knew this was likely a mob offing however one word of the report that was still blaring in over his radio, both victims had been beaten to death. As he walked back towards his car to go investigate this new case, he looked up at the Kremlin, and for the first time in years, he decided that his case can wait. He walked into the local kompot and Dumpling shop, a chain, one of the newer ones that had bought out the Vladmimir's resteraunts after he was investigated due to allegations of involvement in a journalists assasination and the attempted bombing of one of his own resteraunts in Ossetia.  As he sat down to eat, he couldnt but help thinking about how many people's lives Vladimir had ruined, and how hard Karma had struck him back. He sat down and ordered a bowl of dumpling soup. He had just started eating when the noturious word, homicide, rang out again on his radio, however before the details could be continued he turned it off, he'd finish his meal in peace this time, it's the least he deserved right now.