Dear Wigleaf,

It's Kharkiv, around eleven o'clock in the evening. The lights go out. Explosions keep sounding, one after another. An orange glow flares up in the sky.

I go outside. I can see the street in both directions, and there isn't a single person in sight. I've never seen our street so empty. Black without electric lights, it is lit instead by low clouds reflecting the flames of the fire.

The eerie light makes me feel as though I'm swimming in an aquarium, except that the glass walls are now the black shapes of buildings. I walk into a playground. A swing, a sandbox, and a bench. I can sit on it. From here, I can clearly see the part of the sky that reflects the explosions. Again and again, the sky flashes with bright flames, and then the rolling sound shakes the street. It becomes very quiet again—so quiet that I can hear people talking in one of the windows. A man is persuading a woman to call all their relatives and tell them to hide in the hallway immediately. Then the man throws a cigarette butt out of the window, and it slowly falls into the darkness until a new flash illuminates the entire street with a bright, deathly orange light.

Take care, and live in peace.

Sergey