Chernobyl

Author’s Note Some days don’t begin like any other—and from that moment on, nothing continues the way it used to. Chernobyl. is a story about such a day. But more than that, it is a story about a time, a feeling, and a young man—me—trying to find his place in a world that was quietly falling apart. In the spring of 1986, I was living in Moscow as a university student. I was full of questions, ambitions, and that strange sense that something was coming. We didn’t know what had happened—just heard whispers. And even those were hushed. Then one day, my roommate brought in a Western magazine with a satellite photo on the cover: the exploded reactor. Until then we had only guessed. From that moment on, we knew. This story was born from memory. It is not the official version of history—but my own. A chapter from a life lived in the shadow of silence, in a world where truth traveled slowly and often arrived too late. Chernobyl. is the third piece in a seven-part short story cycle I’ve been writing. Each story stands on its own, yet together they trace something deeper: the map of a life shaped by the quiet storms of Central and Eastern Europe’s recent past. For those who choose to follow me through these stories, I offer not just historical events—but the way they echo within one human life. My life. Alex Buday