CHRONICLES OF ULTRA RUNNER

Birth of Ultra Runner

It’s April 24, 1986.

Masha, nine months pregnant and about to burst, lives with her husband Alexander at the heart of Chernobyl, Ukraine. Alexander works as a power plant operator at the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Nuclear Power Plant. Masha a proud wife to a husband who was one of the first employees at the power plant since 1977 when the first reactor was completed, and now he plays a crucial part in providing power to millions of people. Alexander manages reactor 4. 

It’s 7 P.M., and Masha prepares Alexander’s lunch. Alexander works the graveyard shift from 8 P.M. to 8 A.M. 

“What a good wife you are. Pregnant and tired, but still have the energy to make me lunch,” Alexander said.

“I can’t have my husband go hungry,” Masha kissed her husband goodbye, unbeknownst to her then that it was the last kiss she’d ever give him.

*****

It’s April 25, 1986, 1 A.M.

“Prepare for the safety test,” Alexander said.

“Initializing power down sequence,” the reactor operator said. 

“Stop! Stop! Stop!”

The reactor temperature gauge rapidly climbs.

“I can’t stop it once the sequence is initialized!” 

Alexander hits the big red shutdown button, but it’s too late. The temperature is off the charts, the needle on the gauge is about to break as it passes all the limits of its design. 

Flames BURST from the reactor! Sirens BLARING!

“I have to manually shut it down from the inside,” Alexander said.

“It’s too dangerous! You Can’t! You will Die!

Alexander glances back with a very calm demeanor and opens the giant lead door that keeps all that danger away from them, but tonight he faces that danger head on. 

*****

Masha awaken by the sirens of fire trucks zooming down the street. Sweat beads formed on her forehead like morning dew on a blade of grass. She sensed something was wrong. She dialed the number that went directly to Alexander’s control room, but there was no answer.   

A loud WAILING noise erupted through the city. A KNOCK on Masha’s door!

It must be Alex. Something must have happened at the plant. 

“Who is it?” 

“It’s Katya.”

Katya is Masha’s neighbor and a close friend. Katya’s husband Dima also works at the plant as a cook, a less dangerous job than Alexander’s.

Masha opens the door as Katya bursts in frantically.

‘“Have you heard?” 

“No, what?”  

“There was an explosion. Dima just called me. He’s on his way back.”

“Where was the explosion?”

“Masha, all I know is that it was at the plant. One of the reactors exploded. Dima didn’t have too much time to explain. He told me to pack a bag and be ready to go.”

“Go? Go where?”

“I don’t know Masha, but you better do the same. I will help you.”

Where’s Alex. Why is it that Dima is calling Katya, but I can’t even reach Alex on his direct line? Thoughts were running through her mind, scary thoughts, thoughts that she could not bare. She sat down on her bed and tears started to flow down her cheek. 

“What’s wrong?” Katya said.

“I have a feeling that something went terribly wrong, and that Alex is somehow involved.” 

“Look Masha it’s snowing,” Katya pointed out the window at what looked like snowflakes.

“Let’s go outside Masha and wait for Alex there.”

They walked outside to wait and watched the commotion unfold at the plant from a distance. They weren’t alone, there were other families like Masha and Katya awaiting for news from their loved ones who worked at the plant. 

“This is not snow Katya,” Masha looks at the charred snowflakes accumulating on her arms and hands. The flakes were greyish-black with a powdery texture, unlike snowflakes that are like tiny pieces of art made up of delicate ice crystals that sparkle like diamonds when light is shone on them from varying angles. 

“You’re right Masha. They’re Ashes.” 

The whole city was blanketed by ash, it looked like a gloomy winter wonderland, with dread felt in the atmosphere. Everyones watching the massive black plume of smoke coming from the Power Plant, their city’s lifeblood withering away. 

A bus pulls up that came from the power plant, filled with workers. Dima stepped out of the bus. Katya ran to him and gave him the biggest hug that she’d ever had. The bus emptied quickly. Masha frantically looked through a sea of ash covered men who looked like soldier coming from battle.

“Alex! Alex!” Masha called out to the men on the bus, but there was no response.

Dima looked at Masha, with that look that requires no words. 

“I’m sorry Masha. The explosion occurred in Reactor 4. Nobody came out of Reactor 4,” Dima said.

“What do you mean Dima?” Masha began to cry uncontrollably.

“I’m very sorry. Katya, they said we can not stay here. They’re going to bus us all out. There’s too much radiation here.”

“When Dima?” 

“Any minute. They said to grab our belongings and wait for the buses.”

“Quicky, Masha we must go and finish packing before the buses get here,” Katya tugging on Masha’s arm.

“I cannot go,” Masha sobbing on the ashy ground. 

“We must!”

“Alex will come! I know he will!”

“He’s gone Masha! We must go! You’re pregnant! You can’t stay here!”

“Dima help me,” Katya said grabbing onto Masha and trying to lift her off the ground. Water pours out of Masha as if a dam broke.

“Dima! Stop! I think her water broke!”

Dima steps out in front of one of the ambulances that was coming from the power plant stretching his arms with palms out motioning the ambulance to stop. The ambulance almost mowed him down, but the quick reaction of the driver averts another tragedy.

“What are you doing?” The ambulance driver coming out of this ambulance as if he was about to fight Dima.

“Look,” Dima points at Masha, “she’s about to give birth.”

This pacified the driver “what do you want me to do about it? I can’t fit her on. I have casualties on board.”

“Please! You must take her,” Dima begs the driver.

The driver looks at the whole ordeal and takes pity.

“Fine, get her up and put her in the back.”

“Masha you must go now!” Katya said.

“I don’t want to. Just leave me here.”

“C’mon lets go. I don’t have the time,” the driver said.

“Please one second,” Katya said to the driver

“Masha you must. Do it for your baby if not for you. Do you think Alex would want you and the baby to die too?”

Masha snapped out of her daze, and with the help of Katya, Dima, and even the driver, they got her up and onto an open stretcher at the back of the ambulance.

*****

“It’s a boy,” the doctor said.

The doctor hands the baby boy to Masha, “do you have a name for him?”

Masha pauses for a second, “I will name him Alexander after his father.”

The boy starts to rapidly turn blue. The hospital staff rip him out of Masha’s arms, and rush him away.

“What is happening?” said Masha to an empty room surrounded only by the power plant’s victims and a few nurses tending to their wounds.

A pudgy man smoking a cigarette in a white lab coat walks towards Masha’s bed.

“What’s happening to my son?”

The man takes a puff of his cigarette, “I am Dr. Petrov,” He takes another pull of his cigarette, “you’re son isn’t able to breathe on his own.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that we had to put him on a mechanical breathing machine to help him breathe. We hope that your son will be able to breathe on his own soon.

“What happens if he doesn’t?”

Dr. Petrov takes another pull from his cigarette, “I think you know. Please try to get some sleep. We will do our best to keep your son alive.”

Masha was distraught. First it was her husband, and now there’s a possibility that her son will die too.

For months Masha watched her poor fragile son inside a glass cage with tubes coming out every which way.

“It’s time.”

Masha did not have to look back to see who it was as she was so familiar with Dr. Petrov’s pungent odor of cigarette smoke. “It’s time for what?”

“Masha it’s been three months without any progress. It’s time to take your son off the breathing machine.”

“No! Please! Another month! Just one more month! I beg you doctor!”

“One more month or six more months it will make no difference. We have to take him off the machine now. There is a small chance that he’ll start breathing on his own, a slight chance, but a chance nonetheless.”

“Fine! Can you just give me five more minutes with him?”

“Five more minutes and then we will proceed.”

Dr. Petrov left Masha by herself, alone with Alex to say her final goodbyes. Masha never prayed before and did not believe in that spiritual nonsense, but today she felt hopeless. She had nothing to lose so she got on her knees and interlaced her fingers bending at the knuckles, creating a gentle curve. “ Please god you took my husband away from me, please oh please don’t take my son away from me too.”

Dr. Petrov with a team of nurses enter the room where Masha and her son were. Dr. Petrov placed his hand on Masha’s shoulder, “It’s time.”

Dr. Petrov initiates the removal of the intubation tube that’s attached to the mechanical breathing machine. Masha’s watches in anticipation.

“Vital signs stable,” a nurse reports.

“Initiating tube removal,” Dr. Petrov stated.

“Vital signs dropping doctor.”

Alex’s vital signs drop at a rapid pace. Normal heart rate for an infant is about 120 to 160 beats per minute and respirations are about 30 to 60 breaths per minute. However, for Alex, the removal of the intubation tube causes his heart rate to plummet to 50 beats per minute and respiration down to 8 breaths per minute within one minute of the removal of the tube.

Everyone in the room glued to the vital signs monitor, as Alex struggles to breath, gasping for breath like if he was drowning.

Heart Rate 50, 40, 30, 25, 22, 15, 10…beats per minute, Respirations 8, 6, 4…breaths per minute.

Dr. Petrov knows this too well over his countless years of watching his patients make their way to the other side, they were watching a countdown to death.

And the line goes FLAT…

“No! No! No!” Masha bangs on her son’s tomb. She wraps her arms around the incubator, sobbing, “Please! Please! Help him!

The nurses try to pry Masha off the incubator, but the divine mother’s love for her son is no match for the nurses.

“There’s nothing we can do Masha,” Dr. Petrov waves off the nurses, “leave her be. Let her grieve.”

Everyone exits the room but Masha.

BEE—EEP, BEEP, BEEP…

Masha looks up at the monitor, she sees one spike, then a second spike, and a third, the heart rate on the monitor starts to climb, 5, 10, 20, 25, 30… She hears Alex gasp, respiration rate, 2,4,6,8,…

“Doctor!”

Dr. Petrov rushes back into the room. He couldn’t believe what was happening. This is the first time he’s ever seen an infant comeback to life after being pronounced clinically dead.

“This is impossible,” Dr. Petrov stared the vital signs machine, not realizing a lit cigarette in his mouth, ash falling to the ground without anyone noticing in the room. “This is a miracle. I’ve never ever seen this before.”

Vital signs stabilizing, heart rate normal, breathing normal, Alex shoots a playful smile at Masha.

“Thank You, Thank You, God!” Masha said looking up to the heavens.

The nurses in the room touch their forehead, chest, left, and right shoulders drawing a cross in prayer.

****
Five years past. Masha kept Alex close to her, protected from the outside world. She was always afraid to let Alex out of her sight, especially to play with other kids his age, in fact she wouldn’t even let him go to kindergarten when the time came. Masha treated Alex as if he was glass, but more fragile.

Masha was feeling sluggish and tired constantly, so she decided to go to the doctor’s to see what was going on with her. Her her blood work came back abnormal and after numerous visits to medical specialists who conducted multitude of tests, she was diagnosed with stage 4 Leukemia. The doctor’s gave Masha five months to live at best, it was too late for treatment.

Masha was distraught for days, weeks, and months, not because she was afraid of dying but because she had no family, nobody to take care of her little Alex once she’s gone.

One day, Alex sees his mom crying in bed unable to get up due to her weakness, “what’s wrong mom?”

“Nothing for you to worry my son. My precious little boy,” as the words left her mouth her sobs grew more intense, her entire body shaking with each sob, “you’re going to have to be a big boy. I’m not going to be here for very long.”

Alex’s eyes began to well up, “what do you mean, mom?”

“I’m sick. Very sick,” Masha turns away from Alex, so he doesn’t see her anguish.

That dreaded day had finally came.

“Mom! Wake Up! Wake Up!”

There was just silence. Alex pulled and tugged on his mom’s lifeless body, hoping to rouse her out of a dream, out of her sleep, but to no avail. He cried and tugged for hours, until finally a neighbor came who checked on them daily.

Masha asked her neighbor to come by everyday to ensure everything was fine, but today, nothing was fine. The neighbor called the authorities to dispose of the body and take Alex away.

The police pried Alex off his Mother’s corpse so that the coroners can take the body away. They took Alex to his new home, the local orphanage.