The darkness tightened, heavy and damp, like the death throes of a beast. The air reeked of copper and something putrid, sickly-sweet and nauseating. Three. Only three remained. One's armor, once gleaming, was now mangled tin, drenched in black slime. He wheezed, leaning against a shattered column, trying to raise a shield with a jagged edge. Another, an elf, her face smeared with blood from a gashed temple, frantically reloaded a crossbow, her fingers slipping on the string. The third, a mage, muttered incoherently, his staff with a cracked crystal trembling in his hands. Before them, writhing from coils of unnatural fog, it emerged. Not a dragon, not a demon from any familiar bestiary. An amorphous thing, pulsating with dark flesh studded with dozens of eyes that flickered like rotten stars and tentacles resembling twisted entrails. It emitted a sound – a low, vibrating drone that froze the blood in their veins and rang in their bones. It moved slowly, relentlessly, like death itself taking form. There was no hope. Only fear, thick and final, flooding the mind.
And then, cutting through the oppressive drone and the death rattles, came the Click.
Sharp. Metallic. Relentless. The sound of a hammer cocked with cold certainty.
From the shadow of an archway, behind the doomed adventurers, stepped a figure. Tall, hunched, wrapped in a long, black coat singed at the edges. No face was visible under the wide, low-brimmed hat. The figure didn't hurry. Didn't shout. Showed neither fear nor fury. Only absolute, chilling calm.
Fingers tightened on the trigger.
BANG!
Moscow.
A grey city. A city where dreams choke in traffic jams on the Garden Ring* and dissolve in smog. A city of opportunities screaming from billboards, but only for those with the right connections, the right amount of money, the right luck. For the rest – it's just a concrete labyrinth where you run in circles forever, trying to catch the last metro train to your rented box. Where many achieve everything purely by luck, and where there are people who will never – never – succeed. Simply because the wheel of fortune rolled right past them, leaving them in the dirt.
"Malekai! Hey, Lazarev! You deaf or what?!"
A voice, hoarse from cheap tobacco and perpetual irritation, cut through the clamor near the metro. Kai flinched, tearing his gaze away from a crack in the dirty asphalt under his kiosk counter. His boss, Vasily Petrovich, a man with a face like boiled crawfish and temples perpetually damp with sweat, jabbed a thick finger at the limp pastries lying there.
"Look! Been sitting half the day again! Who wants your cold snot, huh? I pay you to count crows?! You gotta sell, Lazarev! Move your buns! And you stand there like a damned stump, wallowing! Last time, got it? Last time!"
Kai didn't raise his eyes. Inside, everything clenched into a familiar, tight knot. His throat constricted.
"Sorry, Vasily Petrovich," he whispered, his voice barely audible over the traffic and crowd noise. "Just... not really today..."
"Not really?!" The boss snorted, spraying saliva. "My business is not really! You'll be fired not really! Final warning, Kai! Got it? Last time!"
Kai nodded, staring at his worn-out sneakers. Got it. Yeah, he'd gotten it long ago. His life was an endless string of "last times" and "final warnings." Last hope. Last strength. Last money. He was a master at losing, a specialist in "not really." Vasily Petrovich was just background noise in this endless failure.
The psychologist's office door clicked shut softly behind him. Not the slam of fate, not a final chord – just a click. Kai lingered in the dim hallway, resting his forehead against the cool wall. The smell of disinfectant and old paper. He'd just dumped a pile of his shit in front of a strange woman in a strict suit. About his childhood. About his mother with her "friends" and syringes. About his father, who stabbed her in the kitchen ten years ago. About Vesna... God, Vesna. Her eyes when they took her to "Kashchenko**" after that evening. Eyes that no longer held her. About the orphanage. About school where they teased him as "Malekai" until his nose bled. About the lost apartment. About the hostel with perpetually drunk neighbors. About the hell that was his everyday life.
The psychologist listened. Nodded. Took notes. Then sighed. Said something about a "difficult situation," "PTSD," "depressive disorder." And ended, as always: "Malekai, I sympathize deeply. But you truly need more than just a psychologist; you need a psychotherapist. For medication. Without it..." She spread her hands. As if to say, my hands are tied. Go suffer some more, but with pills. If you find the money for them. And for the doctor.
Kai stepped outside. The evening air hit his face with a damp chill. Moscow lit its ugly, garish lights. He pulled out a crumpled pack of "Chapman," extracted the last cigarette, lit it, hiding the tremble in his fingers. Drizzle fell, turning the streetlight halos into blurry yellow smears. He watched the rivulets of water trickling down the dirty plastic of a bin. "Happiness." A word from a foreign language. Like his name. Like his life. The metro was already closed. Home – on foot. An hour's walk in this stinging rain. To the hostel. To the snoring and stench. To tomorrow's "last time" with Vasily Petrovich.
The cheap Chinese phone vibrated in his pocket. Unknown number. Kai mechanically raised it to his ear.
"Hello?"
"Malekai Lazarev?" The voice on the other end was formally flat.
"Yes."
"Doctor Martov speaking, from Kashchenko Clinic. We have news for you. Good news. Your sister, Vesna Lazareva... We've had... almost a miracle. Her condition has stabilized sharply. She... she's come to her senses. She's talking. Recognizing people."
Kai froze. The cigarette fell from his fingers, hissing as it died in a puddle. The world narrowed to the voice in the receiver.
"Wh-what?.." he whispered. "Vesna... She...?"
"Yes. She's asking for you. Can you come? Now? She's waiting very eagerly."
Something crashed inside his head. The dam held back for years collapsed. Tears streamed down his face, mingling with the rain. He didn't hear the doctor's other words. He heard only one thing: Vesna. Alive. Waiting.
"Yes!" he exhaled, his voice breaking into a squeal. "Yes, I'm coming! Right now! Thank you! Thank you!"
He dropped the phone, not listening to the rest. His heart hammered like mad. Last money? Screw it! I'll give it all! Everything! Just to see her. Just to hear her voice. Her real voice. He frantically opened the taxi app, stabbing at the screen with wet fingers. A car was found quickly – five minutes. He paced the sidewalk, not feeling the cold or the rain. Inside, he was blazing. She's alive. She came back.
The taxi raced along the nighttime MKAD ring road. Rain lashed the windshield, wipers frantically swishing back and forth, barely coping. The cab smelled of deodorant and damp fabric. Kai sat, fists clenched, staring into the darkness beyond the window but seeing nothing. Images from childhood floated before his eyes. Vesna laughing, shielding him from their mother's rage. Vesna reading him bedtime stories. Vesna... before that nightmare. He prayed to all the gods he didn't believe in. Just hold on, little sister. I'm coming. I'll be there soon.
"Some weather, huh?" the taxi driver wheezed, an old guy in a cap. "Fog's coming up too. Visibility – worst possible. You said the center? In this weather..."
Kai mumbled something incoherent in response. His thoughts were hundreds of kilometers away, in a hospital room. He didn't hear the rising engine roar somewhere to the right. Didn't see the dark SUV emerge from the fog, from the oncoming lane, out of control. It careened across the flow, making a crazy U-turn.
"FUUUUUUUUCK!" The driver's wild scream pierced Kai's consciousness.
He jerked his head around. Headlights blinding him like the eyes of a raging beast, a huge black mass was hurtling straight into the side of their car. A second? Less. A moment.
IMPACT.
Glass exploded into a million shards. Metal screeched, tore, crumpled like an accordion. The world flipped. Kai felt his body, unrestrained by a seatbelt (he was in a hurry, he was always in a hurry), thrown forward with savage force. His forehead cracked against the front seat headrest. Pain. Sharp, blinding. Then – dull, spreading in a wave. He lay on his side among shards of plastic and glass. Rain poured onto his face. The taxi driver wheezed somewhere nearby. Somewhere, brakes of other cars squealed. The hellish roar slowly faded, replaced by ringing in his ears and... an odd silence.
He couldn't move. Something heavy pressed on his legs. His chest stabbed with each agonizing breath. Red spots swam before his eyes. But the pain wasn't the main thing. The main thing was the thought piercing through the shock and pain:
Vesna.
Sorry. Didn't make it.
Sorry...
He tried to breathe in. Air whistled into his lungs, bringing a fresh wave of pain. Then – an exhale. Quiet, gurgling. Darkness thickened at the edge of his vision, washing over him in a warm, viscous wave. The last thing he felt was the cold Moscow rain mixing with something warm and salty on his face. Tears? Blood?
Didn't matter.
Then there was nothing.
Nothing.
Not darkness. Not light. Not cold. Not warmth. Just... an absence of everything. A feeling of weightlessness without a body. Thoughts without a brain. He was. And he wasn't.
And suddenly – awareness. He was thinking. So, he was. But where?
Before him (if the concept of "before" had meaning here) arose a Radiance. White, pure, dazzling. It had no clear shape – just a mass of unbearable light. And within this light appeared... a smile? Sharp, wide, unnatural. Without a face. Without eyes. Just a radiant arc stretched in soundless laughter.
"Heeeeey there, traveler!" The Voice sounded directly in his... consciousness? Soul? It was light, playful, like a guy teasing a friend. And because of that – infinitely monstrous. "Well, well! What a kerfuffle! You know, I rarely have this much fun. Especially with such... well, you know, run-of-the-mill pawns."
Kai (if this was still Kai) couldn't answer. He could only perceive.
"Alright, don't be scared!" the Voice continued, and the sharp smile in the radiance seemed to widen. "I'm here, you could say, on official business. You see, your little game on the chessboard called Earth... is over. Checkmate, king – well, meaning you. Check and mate! Ha-ha!"
Within what had been Kai, no fear or protest arose. Only icy, absolute emptiness. The end. Like everything else.
"But I'm not evil!" the Voice exclaimed with feigned indignation. "I'm a god! In a way. Well, for your little planet – definitely. So, gracious as I am, I offer you a choice! Option one: The Eternal Walk. Silence. Non-being. Well, or something like that. A bit dull, but reliable. Option two..." The Voice made a dramatic pause. "...a reboot! A new world! A new body! A chance! Happiness! Or something resembling it. Well? Interesting?"
A new world? A thought, weak as a smoldering ember, stirred in the void. A chance? Happiness? Words from childhood fairy tales. But after that hell... after Vesna, whom he never got to see... Any chance. Any.
He wanted it. Desperately, irrationally.
"Yes..." his silent agreement echoed through the nothingness. "Yes! New world!"
"Excellent!" The Voice chimed with satisfaction. "Deal! Don't thank me! Though... you couldn't anyway. Good luck out there! Or not... Who knows? Ha!"
The Radiance began to dim. The smile dissolved. The sensation of Kai's own "I" dissipated, carried away somewhere into the abyss, towards a new beginning. The last thing that faintly touched his fading consciousness was the same Voice, but now sounding not for him. Lightly, almost casually, as if tossed into the space between worlds:
"...Sorry, Vrand, for doing this without your consent..." A pause. And a quiet whisper full of cynical mirth: "...But I think it'll be fun."
The snow-white Radiance finally winked out, leaving behind only the echo of a wide, sharp smile dissolving in the endless Void. And nothing more.
*The Garden Ring in Moscow is a circular main street system in the city center.
**Kashchenko — psychiatric clinic in Moscow.