Redhead

I felt so good that evening—my body completely relaxed, my head sparkling with happiness. In a word, a positive mood. I fell asleep in such a good mood.

An hour later, I woke up with the feeling that someone was in the room. At the time, I lived alone—I had separated from my wife, and I didn't have a cat yet. Neither friends nor any girlfriends stayed over that night. I won't lie—I don't remember what I thought then, or if I thought at all, until I saw her. And when I saw her, my mind went blank.

I live in an attic, and because of the sloping ceilings, I can't put closets or other similar furniture in the apartment. So, silk curtains covering a kind of niche in the wall serve as a wardrobe. That's where she was standing. Even in winter, I sleep with the windows open, turning the radiator up to maximum, and even more so in Indian summer, with the fan running. The curtain fluttered in its breeze, and the light from the window barely touched the edge of her hair. Her hair was a bright, fiery red, standing out in the darkness, not exactly brightly, but somehow unnaturally.

Then she started walking toward me. My bedroom is small, the double bed takes up two-thirds of the space—the distance from the corner where she stood to my pillow is four meters—but she kept coming toward me. No, she didn't stretch her arms toward me or make idiotic sounds like in B-movies. I was "unsettled," as they say—really "unsettled." I knew perfectly well that none of this was real, and at the same time, I couldn't do anything about it. And suddenly—she was still halfway to me, and already sitting next to my head, her legs tucked under her. And a chill emanated from her.

She sits and looks at me, her head bowed. Her redhead—like liquid fire. But her eyes, on the contrary, are blue, very cold and glowing. Her face is completely in shadow, only the outline is visible. She sits and watches, not breathing, not moving, nothing at all! Silence... the sounds of the street exist, but they are somehow muffled. I try to move away, at least so that she doesn't look me in the eye. You know when you try to run away from someone in a dream, but your legs won't obey you? You understand: you have to run with all your might, but your legs are weak or in some kind of quagmire, and you are almost unable to move. So I could only turn my head slightly—she tilts slightly and continues to look straight into my eyes.

I felt like if I were to go crazy, I'd be out of my mind. At that moment, she sat down on the bed next to me, put her hand on my forehead, and in a completely normal voice, even, it seemed to me, with a hint of humor, asked, "Didn't you recognize me?"

It took me a while to realize she was talking, and that I understood her meaning. And when it did, everything became frighteningly real. I felt control over my body return, and the "cotton wool" in my ears disappeared. I heard the roar of the fan and the alcoholics shouting in the yard. Finally, I said, "No, I didn't recognize you," and she vanished.

I lay there, motionless, my heart pounding, my limbs shaking, my ears buzzing, my skin covered in goosebumps, my throat dry. I don't know how long I lay there until I thought, "I need to go get a drink of water." I got up, trudged to the kitchen, hobbled to the faucet, and drank. Everything's fine, I've calmed down. I walk back, out into the hallway, and there she is, smirking, in the mirror on the far wall.

I realize I'm not afraid, and I calmly walk to the mirror, seeing my reflection from behind. I step up to the mirror so close that we're standing right next to each other, but she's looking into my eyes, not at my reflection. Now her face is clearly visible; there's something vaguely familiar about it, but I don't trust the feeling of déjà vu—it comes over me too often. She hugs my reflection and whispers in my ear, "Didn't recognize you... Oh well, maybe we'll see each other again," and disappears, just like she did from the bedroom. And I immediately felt sad and lonely, or something. A kind of sadness washed over me, like when best friends say goodbye and don't know when they'll see each other again.

And then I woke up. Smiling, as if to say, “What a dream!”, he went into the kitchen and almost shit his pants when he saw an unfinished glass of water on the table.