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Run, Game Master. You've always run. You run now, not understanding that there's no escape from two things: from love and from me.

Run, Game Master. I'll catch up with you eventually...

Death

* * *

The weather was nasty, and all the signs in the sky already indicated that winter was fast approaching. The wind was blowing like it was about to blow your head off. And there was no tram, as if there wasn't one.

The Master stood at the stop, covered in a black coat with the collar turned up, his thoughts wandering through the clouds, trying to find even a shred of creative inspiration. That, too, as if there wasn't one, still isn't there.

Minutes pass, several people give up, decide to walk. He stands, lost in thought, not even realizing he's already late.

Frankly, even if he knew, he wouldn't care. This time, it's not the teacher waiting for a late student, but the punctual students for their lecturer. Correct. They're probably jumping for joy right now. And good, let them be happy. After college, life only kicks you in the ass, and you spiral downward. Life.

He coughs into his clenched fist, more out of habit than compulsion. Using such gestures during lectures is, one might say, essential to maintaining peace and the false impression of concentration in the room. So

many years have passed. Like sand, they have flowed from clenched hands, leaving only a few grains stuck to them. It's gone, it's gone.

It won't come back. Too bad, those were good times. The bad horror stories he wrote on the side, his own magical world, the movies on DVD, She...

He stopped thinking. It's not worth looking back. It's gone, it's gone. It won't come back. Never again.

He spat over his shoulder, vulgar, loud, boorish. An old woman summed him up with the word "boor," two tracksuit-wearing men standing at the bus stop just smiled crookedly. He ignored everyone. He checked his watch.

Eight-fifteen. In just fifteen minutes, a hundred idiots thirsting for theological knowledge who haven't gotten into any other program will go crazy with joy. Master, he's late. Oh, great, as he used to tell himself.

He exhaled ostentatiously through his mouth, as if it were cigarette smoke. He never smoked. And that's good. Smoking kills. Just like bad stories over anklets and mineral water.

To se ne wrati.

Around eight-thirty, the old, dingy tram finally squeezes into the stop. He boards, taking a seat by the door. He still has seven stops to go to university, but so what? Better to camp by the door, enjoying the cold but fresh air, than to push through like a complete idiot.

In life, you have to be cunning or a psychopath. You can be both, but…

The car started moving, it shook, and a teenage girl bumped into him. Despite the weather, she was dressed only in a miniskirt and a fancy, seductive T-shirt, with so much makeup it was hard to tell whether she was pretty or ugly. She smiled flirtatiously, batted her eyelashes. He smiled back, but more out of politeness, casually.

These are gone, kid, he thought. You're about fifteen years too late. I'm not supposed to be doing this anymore, you know…

He bit his tongue.

* * *

On TV, as always, only reruns. Tired of the questions from twenty-year-olds who think they know God like the neighbor across the street, he no longer so much watches as flicks through the channels, content with just pressing the button.

He drifts away. Every day he drifts away. For twenty years…

* * * "

Come, Game Master.

" "Yes, I'm speaking to you, I'm summoning you. Come to me." And look at your world…

He hesitantly approaches the edge of the balcony, clutching the railing.

The city is burning, people are screaming, injured people are running through the streets, followed by hideous monsters straight out of Lovecraftian mythology. One feels like saying, back home…

"This is your work, Game Master. Yours! And only yours!"

He leaps back, dodging the blow, and falls to the ground. The figure, who a moment ago was a beautiful woman in white, now a man in a suit with a cigarette in his mouth, looks at him, smiling cynically.

"Damn, I always wondered what I would say to you if I saw you.

" "Excuse me? I don't understand…"

"And I'm not surprised, man…"

The figure leans against the balcony railing, throws his cigarette into the yard.

"Smoking is bad for you. Just like taking drugs, Game Master." And I have a feeling you're so high right now you can't tell day from night, huh?

He just shakes his head. He doesn't know what happened in the last twenty minutes. But things from twenty years ago seem so clear, like they happened yesterday.

"Smith?" he recalls his favorite's name. The man claps his hands. "Smith, is that you?"

"Bravo, Game Master, I thought you'd never make the connection. We kicked some ass together, remember?

" "What are you doing here..."

The man reaches into the lapel of his suit, rummages for a moment, apparently in his inside pocket. He pulls out a pack of cigarettes. Blood-stained. He tosses it to him, and it lands inches from his face.

"Look at that, Game Master, I lit one before those damn things got to me. And then, you see. It got stained..."

He picks it up, examining the box carefully. Only two cigarettes are missing. Right, the last scene and the conversation with the antique dealer. How does he remember that?

-He didn't know...

"Yeah, right," he interrupts, enunciating each word with exaggerated emphasis. "I didn't know that now, and yet you ordered everyone to be murdered. Did you think we didn't have feelings here, that we just existed, and that was it? Did you think you could maintain such a world just by inserting fragments of an algorithm into our heads? And what about personality, Game Master? Why were some like this, others like that…

" "Because I wanted to…"

"You're talking nonsense, Game Master. You were just creating the outline, talking about appearances, and an idea for a—what do you call it? NPC? Anyway, whatever. Well, you were the one coming up with the ideas, and along with your thoughts, they were born, rapidly growing up, their character being formed. Their words flowed through you, Game Master, not the other way around."

The Master remains silent, unsure of how to respond. The man regards him with a look that's neither hateful nor warm.

"I picked up a bit of cynicism from you, you know?" I know you're not a cynic, but everyone has to play their part. You're doing something right as long as you seem to be doing it right. One of Murphy's Laws, did you know?

He nods. He knew.

"Then burn before you go out."

Smith smiles, waves. Then he disappears.

The Master wakes up on the couch, drenched in sweat.

He didn't take anything.

* * *

He had a strange apartment. A two-room apartment, with a kitchen, a separate bathroom, and a toilet. Both rooms were green, the kitchen yellow and brown, the bathroom blue, the toilet red. Awful decor. A woman's hand was missing, but he didn't have one next to him. In reality, of course. There were several in the class photo from twenty years ago, the last photo, in that glorious lineup.

Next to him, smiling stupidly as always, was Electrician, one of the Light Ones. Nearby, in a suit, Ogre, also a Light One, the best of the best, was playing an antiquarian. Then a short one, also dressed up, smiling like an idiot, Fyr, the Light One, the spy. In the row below, she, like a sweet idiot she was nothing like, head tilted, smiling at the camera. The whole package.

Then they parted ways, only to meet three more times and forget about each other. He contemplated the photo for a moment longer, then swept it off the shelf with a flourish onto the ground.

A day like any other…

* * *

Oh, Master, Master…

"Yes?" He leaned against the railing more confidently, looking at the world more detachedly, even accepting the reproach in Smith's voice. He didn't even care that he was talking to a figment of his own imagination.

Why the hell did you kill them? Why were you running away? "

I've always been running away. Always. For as long as I can remember.

From what?

" "From everything, failure, mistakes, flaws…

" "…love?"

He elbowed him in the side.

"You know damn well that freaks like me can't love. I'm…"

"Different? You're kidding, Master. You only think that because you've watched too many serial killer shows and movies, and then you matched the bad guys to your own, and it turns out you can only love other people's deaths.

" The expert spoke up. "You know, if I rebuilt my world, you'd be cast as a psychologist.

" Smith tugs down his suit, surveying the burning city. He curses obscenely as one of the monsters catches a man running down the street and begins to consume him. "

He dies like this every day. Day after day, night after night, the damn thing catches him in the same place, tears him apart, devours him. The city is different. It simply burns constantly..."

He trails off, his gaze wandering high up, toward the dark cloud-covered sky. He falls silent. The Game Master finally breaks the tense silence, realizing it's silence, not a showy pause.

"And why are you telling me this, Smith?" To make me feel bad? Don't count on it, I…" He bites his tongue. He was about to say he has no feelings. Bullshit. Everyone has feelings… Even the Dark Ones.

"Why am I telling you this, you're asking… I thought you'd find the answer yourself. Don't let that damned bastard get to him again.

" "Is there a way?" The Master's voice immediately begins to tremble, the question dripping with hope for a positive answer.

"There is. And you know it perfectly, Master. Don't be afraid to use it… Do it, if not for you, for this poor man, or finally for the whole world, then for Her. Call Her, you idiot.

" "You know I'm afraid of phones." The Master smiled stupidly, then turned away from the railing. He started heading towards the exit door. Only now did he notice the room he was in. Not too big, maybe two meters by two, the floor practically bare, a glaring gray concrete. On the walls were newspaper clippings, the headlines depicting an unknown killer eliminating more and more of the City's inhabitants. He smiled at his thoughts. The door to the room was old, the paint peeling, and when he tried the handle, it creaked, unoiled.

He woke up.

Out of nowhere, the flames instantly extinguished, the beast disintegrated mid-meal, the clouds parted, and the city was bathed in the golden glow of sunlight. The surroundings changed, taking on their earlier appearance, cars appeared, the Dark Ones. Smith's ears filled with the sounds of the street, the rumble of car wheels, horns, calls.

They forgot, Game Master, because you ordered them to. They forgot that they had reason to hate you. Oh, you acted like any leader…

He glanced back. The room hadn't changed a bit, it was still as it was. He died here. Oh, these memories…

He leaves the room, marches down the stairs, and finally leaves the tenement house.

The street. Alive, beautiful, as before. But this time, the city belongs only to them. The Master will never call… The Light Ones will never return. Neither will he. Never again.

He lights a cigarette, forgetting his longing to quit. Besides, so what if smoking kills? We all die someday. Sooner, or later… "

Thank you, Game Master.

It's nice to smell cigarette smoke again…"