At first, he couldn't identify the object in the corner of the room, barely visible in the lighter's glare. The flame quivered, sucking oxygen from the stifling air. The stench in the room was unbearable. Dorian felt disgust at whatever might be waiting for him in the darkness. The stench of decay, penetrating his nostrils, made him dizzy.
As he tried to turn around, the lighter went out. He felt a cold sweat on his back, a shocking feeling of being trapped. However
, the lighter fired again on his second attempt to light it. He approached the object he'd noticed at first glance. It was several meters away, but as the object took on a regular shape as he approached, Dorian realized that the body before him was in an advanced state of decomposition. The corpse's arms were twisted unnaturally, and he lay on his back with his legs drawn up. The face resembled one large, dried scab, until a large spider hurriedly moved from his eye socket to his mouth. The corpse's position gave the impression that it had died of cold sometime, probably several months ago. But now the temperature was high, and its body had begun to rot, as had the entire room.
He glanced around, spotting other corpses. Then another. More loomed on the edge of the dim light. In the trembling light, the lighters seemed to be starting to move. Dorian turned sharply. Then again. He couldn't bear the thought of someone, or something, something alive, behind him.
The lighter went out again, falling from his hands. He searched frantically for it, his hands moving nervously across the cold floor, terrified of encountering anything other than the familiar, elongated shape.
Finally, he found it. Click. Nothing. Click. A spark appeared and disappeared, like the glaring flash of a camera flash. On the third snap, it appeared for good.
He was now sitting against a wall stretching into darkness, covered in huge, fetid patches of mold. The damp and leaking roof had turned the room into one vast, rotting garden. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another spider, leisurely parading in the glow of the lighter. Its legs lengthened unnaturally in the flickering light, its torso seemed thicker, its leisurely gait reminiscent of a death throes. Dorian stared at the spider with unseeing eyes, terrified and lost like never before. What he seemed to discover within himself was now disappearing, hidden somewhere beyond the fluid edge of light. The spider, stalking the vast tomb, symbolized everything that might yet befall the boy in the building. From the perspective of what he had already seen, death by bullet seemed the best solution. Death by his own hand.
His hand touched the bulge in his pants, the place where the gun lay. However, he couldn't decide on anything at that moment.
Perhaps I would have done better to shoot myself in the head, not them…
He saw the female in his mind, the sight of her beautiful, young body shattered on the asphalt. Then he saw the bloodshot eyes of the three males, the image of fury directed solely at him.
My delay made me responsible for this girl's death… The thought sounded more like a statement than a question in his mind.
Yet he felt no remorse. Still, despite his fear, bordering on panic, he felt a surge of excitement at what had happened in the past hour. He sensed a change, within himself and in the world he had created with his life. He wanted to taste the forbidden, to pervert all laws, and for a moment he thought he might be able to get used to living in the dark.
The spider vanished from sight.
He extinguished the lighter, not wanting to risk running out of gas.
After a few minutes in the stuffy, moldy room, his sense of smell had partially acclimated to the atmosphere inside. He could breathe normally.
What now…?
Just as he was about to decide to move on, he heard footsteps on the roof, somewhere above him. They were irregular and overlapping.
There were many of them. He guessed around ten.
The decision had to be made immediately. If the New Ones found the entrance to the building, he wouldn't stand a chance.
He stood and drew his weapon. His hand stopped trembling, tightening around the cool hilt of the handle. He was about to act again, and once again he felt his confidence returning. It was as if the darkness surrounding him were giving him an undefined, previously unattainable strength.
He had to find a way out. Lighter in hand, he moved along the wall, first one, then another. The lighter served as his sight, holding the weapon just above the line of light, aiming into the darkness.
Two walls proved empty. The footsteps on the roof grew louder, then quieter. He seemed to gather around where he had calculated the hatch to be. But these suspicions could just as easily have been driven by fear of that possibility.
On the third wall, he found a door.
The exit was as moldy as the rest of the room. The handle was covered in soft fluff that, under his hand's pressure, turned to a cool, sticky mess. To open it, he had to extinguish his lighter or holster his weapon.
He opted for the former.
Above him, he heard the creak of a hatch being lifted. A little light had already entered the room, illuminating dozens of decomposing bodies. The hatch fell with a bang. But he knew they would keep trying.
He turned the handle, his hand slipping on the damp grip. It took considerable effort, but the ancient mechanism finally gave way.
He yanked the door open. It threw him back, and he realized the tug hadn't required as much effort as he'd put into it.
The hatch began to rise again. He heard the howls and heavy breathing of the New Ones crowded on the roof, previously muffled by the thick ceiling.
He felt a renewed sense of terror. He wanted to escape as quickly as possible, anywhere.
"Do you think that boy is still alive?
" "I have no idea. It doesn't really make any difference...
" "...Yes, but you yourself said he could be useful.
" "You know how the District is... You can only count on yourself until the end.
" "If we don't help him, then what are we even doing here..."
"We deal with corpses, not the living. We operate in the gap between the world of the District and the rest of the City... That's our entire reality. You know very well...
" "There's another world outside the City.
" "Even worse than this... Don't think about it. It's no use..."
He entered another layer of darkness, as impenetrable as the last. But the atmosphere here was different. The air he breathed seemed pure, untainted. It was infinitely better here than in the tomb he'd just emerged from. He closed the door. He knew the New Ones would eventually find their way out, but he hoped their surprise at what they found in the first room would be greater than his. That would buy him time.
He lit a lighter. He was in a corridor, and by the light of the faint flame, he couldn't tell how far the space stretched before him.
But he heard movement. Ahead. Something stirred in the darkness, but it was impossible to judge the distance of a potential enemy. Dorian desperately waited for the next sound, but all he could do was aim at the darkness surrounding him.
He walked to the wall and began moving along it, forward. Each step took an incredible amount of strength; he didn't want to go there, didn't want to get close to another monster. His body desperately wanted to get as far away as possible, but on the edge of his hearing, he could hear the murmurs from the next room. Fleeing would bring him back to them. Continuing, he found himself within range of another beast. "
Cornered," flashed through his mind. "I'm cornered."
He felt tears welling in his eyes, his legs buckling beneath him. Somewhere ahead, or perhaps just in his own head, he heard the rustle of shifting feet. He tried not to think about the darkness surrounding him, but the darkness itself attacked him from all sides, choking the flame of his lighter. He passed several doors along the way, but he didn't try to enter them. He waited for what lay ahead. He had to find a way down. Get out of this damn building.
The light flickered in the darkness. It went out. Once, twice. Each time, he lit it as if it would keep him alive. Maybe it did.
The New Ones were wandering around the next room. He could hear them behind him, afraid that at any moment he would hear the door slam open. He barely resisted the urge to look back. He continued walking, dragging his feet across the corridor. On the floor, he found broken glass, some dried blood, a tuft of hair. All this fueled his imagination, fueling his fear, assaulting him with images of the carnage that must have taken place in this place. He didn't know if the blood came from the people killed here, or if the New Ones were killing each other in the dark corridors of the now-deserted building.
He felt he was already halfway down the corridor. That was when he saw the elevator. Two doors, and above them an arrow with numbers, indicating the floors. To the right of the scale was the number eighteen. That was how many floors there were. That was how many circles of hell he still had to traverse to reach the very bottom, to find a way out. He could wait, then climb out through the roof again. But he knew they'd sense his presence. And then he wouldn't stand a chance. He'd kill three, maybe four. Then they'd tear him apart with a fury he'd never experienced before. His body would rot here, turning into a crust of mold and a vermin paradise...
The elevator. Fuck, focus on the elevator!
You can't take it; it probably doesn't work anyway. There must be stairs at the end of the corridor. Why always at the other end...? Go, don't think about it. Prepare to shoot and keep moving forward.
The lighter went out again.
Then he heard footsteps, somewhere ahead of him. Faster and faster, turning into a run. The sound of feet thumping on the floor echoed through the corridor with a terrible echo, intensifying the panic that was gripping him.
He lit the lighter, almost dropping the gun.
It was over, he thought.
The running attacker was getting closer.
It went out again. He lit it again.
The flame illuminated a fragment of darkness, but the beast wasn't yet visible. It was only a few meters away now, however.
A sudden thought struck Dorian. He, too, could become invisible.
When the shadow of the attacker, the crouching figure running towards him, appeared at the edge of the light, the boy waved his hand through the air, directing it across the corridor. It looked as if he himself were dodging, leaping to the side. But he stood his ground.
The idea proved a good one. The attacker brushed past him, leaping into the darkness. The stench of unwashed flesh filled Dorian's nostrils. Then he heard the crack of shattering glass. He realized the beast had fallen into the shards he himself had just passed. But the New One made no sound; for a moment, all sounds ceased.
The boy revived his lifesaving lighter, which had proven more useful than any weapon so far. He saw a naked figure with a massive back, kneeling backwards two meters from him. Numerous scars marked its shoulders, some seemingly fresh, dancing in the flames of the lighter. The beast turned its head.
Dorian understood why it hadn't made a sound. The new creature had no mouth. Its deformed nose extended into its never-developed right eye. Only the left eye, the only healthy part of its face, glared at the boy with hatred. The figure had almost no hair on its head, only its shoulders and lower back were covered in tufts of matted fur. The enormous male appeared deformed from birth. Its gaze was dull; it seemed to be unaware of what was happening around it. But instinct didn't need reason. And the strongest instinct of this species was survival. Unnatural aggression, blind rage, was the result of mutation. This mixture spawned murderers, planet-dwelling monsters.
Dorian was unable to move. He stared in silent horror at the shadows dancing across the animal's deformed face. The boy's gaze was fixed on the hideous shell that formed the male's visage. "
He's so close to me," the boy thought. "He's from my species, this animal is almost me. Am I really so close to this beast?"
Footsteps echoed from somewhere behind the wall. The newcomers still couldn't find the exit, but they could stumble upon it at any moment.
Gun aimed, Dorian studied the deformed "corpse" as if viewing a beautiful, deadly animal in a zoo. Disgust mingled with fascination in his mind. A sincere fascination with the disfigurement, darkness, and depravity of everything he represented. The thirty years that separated them both from the plague were too short a distance to mentally distance the two species. Dorian's relative now knelt before him, wanting to kill him. To restore nature to its order, its pristine ruthlessness. So who was the greater freak of nature?
All the thoughts that had assaulted Dorian's exhausted mind vanished with the flame of the lighter. They were replaced by terror and the awareness of what was about to happen next. The beast wouldn't miss this opportunity.
Before he could pull the trigger, his fear was confirmed. A heavy impact knocked the boy off his feet. The lighter slipped from his hand, disappearing into the darkness. He still held the gun, but before he could aim, he felt another blow, this time in his chest. The darkness was illuminated by thousands of flashing lights, a devastating dizziness shook him, and he began to choke.
Another blow shattered his eyebrow, and the animal's claws slashed his forehead. But he didn't even feel the blood that spurted onto his face, only the taste of it in his mouth. He tried to draw in huge gulps of air, but only a dull snarl escaped his lungs.
The beast struck without a sound, silently. The blows came as if from nowhere; Dorian no longer felt the attacker, neither its scent nor its weight. He felt only the pain that split his lungs and skull.
Yet he, too, had an instinct for self-preservation. The last reflex of a victim defending itself against oblivion.
Instinctively, he pulled the trigger. He missed, but the flash of the gunshot momentarily illuminated the darkness.
The attacks ceased for a moment.
In the split second the bullet offered him, the boy saw a terrifying face, the muzzle of an animal, somewhere to his right.
Despite the searing pain in his chest, he managed to move his left arm toward the point of darkness surrounding him where the deformed face seemed to reside. He encountered something solid, the body of a beast. He fired.
The flame ripped into the animal's chest, ripping it apart and throwing the Newcomer backward onto the cold corridor. Another wave of warm liquid flooded Dorian's face and torso.
The Newcomers, wandering in the adjacent room, must have heard the shot.
The boy, with the roar of a wounded animal, rose to his feet. The pain in his chest seemed unbearable. Something was tearing him apart from the inside; each breath crushed his lungs as if cubic meters of compressed air were being forced into them. Dorian moved forward, not knowing exactly which way to go. Each step echoed loudly in his head, which was pounding with pain. Blood streamed down his face—mixed with that of the slain animal. Suddenly, a wave of thick vomit spewed from his mouth, splashing loudly against the floor. But he kept running. Before he could take a few more steps, another one arrived.
Finally, he hit the wall. His face pressed against the cold surface, and his hands desperately searched for any recognizable shape.
He thought he heard the sound of a doorknob falling somewhere in the distance.
Then he lost his footing. He felt himself bumping against countless hard edges.
He found the stairs.
Then darkness replaced unconsciousness.
Trees surrounded her. She stood among them in the tall grass. The intense, warm rays of the summer sun filtered through the thick branches. Several kilometers away, as if through a mist, the mighty buildings of the City loomed. In the summer sun, they looked like Roman warriors lined up, awaiting the signal to fight barbarians somewhere in the fields of Gaul.
She wore a knee-length skirt and a light red blouse. Her sandy hair gleamed in the August air, and the strands that had escaped from her short ponytail teased her forehead, quivering in the breeze. Her high forehead whipped around. She wasn't beautiful, but she was appealing. Her face was shapely, her nose perhaps a bit too large, but her full lips and deep-set, penetrating eyes made up for it. If she didn't attract men with her beauty, she did so with her gaze—the sincere, intelligent, devastating gaze of a strong, confident woman. She was uncompromising, she was herself, conquering each day according to her own rules.
She no longer wanted to hide her vulnerability. She had to do this for many years, during the dark times she spent in a place called the Suicide Quarter. Yet she always believed that beyond its walls lay another world, a place where one could not only die but also live.
Finally, they arrived there. Anya and Ona.
She looked down at her feet. Her feet were wrapped in the delicate straps of burgundy sandals, accentuating the graceful shape of her feet. Everyone always admired her feet. Back then, during long nights in the Quarter, when they made love to her one after another, she had loved it when they kissed them. The memory fueled a flame growing somewhere beneath the surface of her summer dress.
She brushed her hair back from her forehead. Standing in the grass, she touched the inside of her thigh. It was slender and warm. Its smoothness blended seamlessly with the silk of her dress. A warm breeze gently caressed her hips, enveloping her shapely, petite body, playing with her.
A smile appeared on Magenta's face. Lips that had for years pressed against those of those men's lips now regained their luster and the fullness of ripe fruit.
She plucked a large, red apple from the tree, sinking her teeth into it. The juice ran down her lip, then down her chin, forming a winding stream that continued along her slender neck. Just like then, all those years ago…
Someone was waving at her. Anya.
She stood a little way off, tall grass obscuring her legs. Her light blue dress ended below the edge of the ever-present greenery. The woman's dark skin absorbed the sun's rays like a black hole swallowing light. Every movement recreated reality. It fractured space, cutting through the August air. Her body moved gracefully as she walked confidently but lightly toward Magenta.
The girl couldn't tear her gaze away. An inner fire burned through her clenched thighs, unfazed by any wind.
The trees above her screeched with a thousand birds hidden among the branches, their long wings cutting the air.
Their dog ran toward Anya. Magenta had always wanted a dog. He disappeared into the grass for a moment.
Then he reappeared.
But it wasn't the same animal anymore. The hunched figure had no grace in its movements. It ran toward Anya, naked, filthy, like the representatives of the Indian tribes Magenta had seen on television as a child.
The wind began to blow harder, and the sky darkened. The clouds, initially gray, now held a sinister blackness.
She realized that They had returned. So they hadn't managed to escape. They hadn't managed to fight the plague.
She couldn't move, couldn't scream a warning. More figures rose as if from the ground, and the beast's eyes contradicted everything around them. Rage, unfounded resentment, destroyed the greenery, which now rotted before Magenta's eyes, transforming into a palette of repulsive colors of decay.
They were everywhere now. Hundreds, thousands of corpses swarmed in the endless meadows beyond the city.
The city. She looked in its direction.
The buildings burned with red fire. Its heat reached all the way here.
Someone had turned her over. She lay on her stomach, knowing exactly what would happen next. Her skirt suddenly vanished. She realized she was naked, yet she felt no shame or fear. She tried to get as comfortable as possible on the decaying green grass. The wind died down. The flame consuming the girl's body waited to escape. She felt a knee pushing her thighs apart.
She wondered if the New One would notice her slender, delicate feet. She wanted him to see them, though she knew it was impossible.
She felt something entering her, calming the flame that had been raging throughout her body.
She already understood that there would be no Anya, no pure world, no vast spaces beyond the City.
But she felt good.
She felt a soft pillow beneath her head. Her head rested on her left cheek. She opened her eyes. In the room was an old table with two chairs. Behind him, a window, through which a pale glow streamed – a cloudless night in the Suicide Quarter.
She felt the bitterness of disappointment, as she did every time that all-too-familiar dream ended. Every time it ended, she felt anger. Self-reproach – for constantly believing in what she saw in her mind's eye. She felt tears welling up in her eyes. But it didn't last long – her body was telling her he was doing well, getting better and better.
She wondered only one thing:
which of the boys was inside her? Caligari, Klaatu, or Gort. It didn't hurt, so it couldn't be Gort. Klaatu was very tired today; he'd gone to bed early.
"Caligari…?
" "Hi, Little One…"
She felt another wave of heat course through her veins like gasoline searching for a stray spark.
"Cali…?"
She heard his deep, rapid breathing above her. He touched her face with one hand, holding her waist with the other.
"What, Little One?"
- Harder.
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