Onlayn kitobni bepul oʻqish  A little time to enjoy eternity

muallif Endy Typical

Contents

The night is dark and hides a lot from people’s eyes. If

there are no lights nearby, if the moon and stars are hidden behind clouds, then the

darkness falls so thick and

impenetrable that it begins to seem as if you are in a closed

room without windows and doors, frightening

in its obscurity. Therefore, at night it is necessary to dream, hiding

from all the fears of this world with a soft blanket. The only person who blesses

the darkness is the one who wants to be hidden, carries the tai-

nu, and wants to keep something out of sight.

This September night was particularly dark. The weather

was warm, but it was going to rain, and clouds covered the sky.

In the fields beyond the village, near the forest, there was not a light,

and in the darkness, without a lantern, it would have been impossible to distinguish whether it was a field

or a road, a forest or a clearing, and therefore no one would

have seen that the figure of a man was moving across the field.

The stiff posts of straw sticking out of the ground

made it difficult for him to walk quickly. He walked smoothly and confidently

on the ground, as if there was no impenetrable darkness around him, as if he

saw every step, every piece of the mown field.

When the man was well away from the road,

he stopped. Taking a small object out of his pocket, he said:

I squatted down, put it in front of me, and

walked quickly back. And then from a strange object with a hiss

3

a column of steam whistled out. The ground around him glowed with an

orange light, and it looked like it wasn’t just

light. The hay poles nearby began to burn and charred, everything

around them began to turn black, to sink down, and

a scaly, clawed paw appeared from the pit. As soon

as the column of steam disappeared, the man came closer. The light from the fire

pit revealed what he looked like. It was a man

in his thirties, wearing a black business suit. When he saw the paw, he

rolled his eyes and made a face of displeasure, but he didn

’t move again.

The pit stopped burning, the smoldering pieces of earth no longer

glowed so brightly. Following the paw

,the rest of the strange creature’s body appeared. It is difficult to describe what

it looked like — whether it was a baby dragon, or

an overgrown winged lizard. The thin

leather wings on the skeletal carcasses looked lifeless and hung

like rags on stakes, torn in places, cracked

and crumpled in places. The creature’s face was still more like

a dragon’s, its nostrils steaming, and its eyes glittering with fire,

silver runes with strange markings were woven into the mane

,and they tinkled melodiously as they clashed together. The creature

sighed heavily, let out a large stream of

steam from its mouth, and shook itself, saying —

«That’s it, Keijigen, you can’t even shake hands with an old

friend!

«

The man in the black suit said in a tired

voice.

«Keiji, you can greet me

normally, I’m having a hard time breathing, I need more time.»

I didn’t come for a minute. Give me permission, «the dragon

lizard croaked.

Keijigen ran a hand over his disgruntled face and

beard, closed his eyes for a moment, then took a deep breath

and said, «I’m not sure.:

4

— Arfimaino Arbaham, fiery guardian of the ninth

Wall and the sealed gate of the ninth Vale, imperishable

protector of the abyss of despair and hopelessness, knight of the black

cauldron of the 12th rank, I welcome you to this land.

Immediately after that, the dragon lizard

let out a sigh of relief and looked down at its paws. The scales

stopped glowing, and the entire body gradually took on a silvery-

bluish hue. His nostrils stopped steaming, and

a half-smile appeared on his face.

— Well, that’s better. It’s good for you, go back and forth

as you want, and we have such a burden on us…

But before he could finish, Sobesednik interrupted

him:

«I wouldn’t have done this if it wasn’t for the request from below,

which I can’t ignore. What’s wrong, why are you

here? I don’t have to go back yet, «Keijigen

put his hand to his face, mimicking a facepalm. —

After all, this is a blatant violation, what the fuck are you doing there

?he raised his voice. — Why the fuck did you get out on your own,

Arfimaino?

Then both of them started shouting.

«I wouldn’t if it wasn’t about you, you idiot,

and it wasn’t really important,» the lizardman croaked, shaking

his paws in the air, and his eyes glinted with a golden light.

5

CHAPTER 2. ESCAPE

As is often the case with teenagers, Lina

was sick of everything again. I got a school that didn’t have anything

interesting, I got a younger brother who always wanted something

,I got a mother who came home from work in the evening

and showered her with criticism and complaints. I forgot this, didn’t do that, didn’t think about it.

And so on, day after day,

really sick of it. With my friend Mara, of course, it was at-

Coldly, she couldn’t go out with her as often as

she used to. Strict parents, foreign language tutors

,music school and other «joys» of teenage

life left her too little free

time, and so Lina just went out alone in the evening

to wander around the neighborhood, to distract herself from her

thoughts, from noisy home and from endless school

lessons. Today, she decided that she would leave the house

earlier because Michael was due to arrive.

Michael was not her mother’s new husband, but he often

spent time with their family. This plump, red — faced man

with piggy eyes and a guilty smile made

Lina feel sorry for him. She couldn’t understand why her mother

had chosen such a ridiculous friend. He did not help

them materially, as he earned quite little,

and never bought them gifts or food. He was just lonely,

6

just like their mother, and maybe that’s why they enjoyed

spending time together.

Lina didn’t want to have dinner in this

company tonight. They made her feel like a ten

— year-old girl again, being poked around and lectured.

So she called out that she wouldn’t be home for dinner and would spend the night

at Mara’s, she slammed the door and stormed out of the house.

My mother wasn’t up to it — my younger brother spent half the day crying

over a B in physics, and then to top it off

,he was bitten by a wasp. When his mother came home from work, she wiped away his snot

and tears, calmed him down as best she could, prepared dinner for meeting

Michael, and was generally tired after the day’s work, so she was

even glad that there would be no youthful

maximalism and arguments about nothing at the table.

They lived almost at the very edge of the village, two houses away from the fields and the road, then a thin forest.

Lina had explored the area up and down the rivers.

She liked the small hunting lodges

that kept coming across her way as she walked along the forest.

Cool but dry inside, they seemed very cozy —

you can lie down, listen to music, dream about your own things, and no

one will bother you.

Reaching one of them, the girl easily climbed

up the wooden steps and settled on the floor. She

pulled a thin blanket out of her backpack, wrapped

herself up, put her headphones in her ears, and lost herself in thought.

Finally, the long-awaited freedom! Brief as it was,

it made her feel like the queen of the world.

She wanted to breathe in that freedom and feel like she was on her own.

strong and confident. She enjoyed the fresh

air, the gusts of wind, the sky that peeked

through a crack in the roof, the music that made you feel like you

could do anything, and her fantasies about how she

would go to the city after graduation, to a model casting, how

she would be noticed by leading fashion designers, and her life would change, everything

7

will it be cool or even cooler… Such average

dreams, but for Lina they were an outlet and the most favorite

pastime.

When it started to get dark, she dozed off. The music

was still playing in her headphones, but she couldn’t hear it anymore.

After sleeping for a few hours, she woke up

to another loud musical splash in her ears. Lina idly

scooped up the wireless headphones in her hand and emptied them

into the pocket of her backpack. She turned off the music and adjusted

her backpack under her head, making herself more comfortable so that she could sleep farther

away, but then through the cracks in the wall of the house she saw a light, some

lights about a hundred meters away, almost in the middle of a mown field.

Lina got up, crawled to the wall on her knees

,and peered through the crack. «Damn, is there a fire or something? The field is burning for ho-

do! «was her first thought. Then she looked closer

then she saw the man in black. She didn’t

even have time to get scared, it all happened so fast —

an incomprehensible creature crawled out of the burning pit and spoke to the stranger.

From this distance, she could barely hear them, and the language

seemed incomprehensible, some seething and hissing sounds,

unpleasant, blocking her ears, getting stuck in her head…

The girl stopped listening, but

she couldn’t take her eyes off it. I kept thinking, Am I dreaming? Is this movie being filmed

?The creature was half a meter taller,

thicker and more massive than a human, its tail was constantly hitting

the ground with small pellets, it was fascinating to look at, and Lina

first looked at this tail for a long time, silvery-blue,

with iridescence, but then she began to wonder what was going on there in

general. It looks like the odd couple was fighting.

Here the creature swung its heavy paw to

strike the man. The blow should have hit him on the head,

but he caught the paw in his hand and jerked it away. The

creature was supposed to swat him into a flatbread,

but he pushed it away as if it were made of cotton wool. And then

an even stranger thing happened: a shiny blue tail,

8

and the paws, and the long ears — all this began to retract

in a monster, and here he is no longer a monster, but an intelligent

middle-aged man with glasses and a gray business suit. He

straightened his jacket, smoothed his hair, and continued to say

something. The man in black responded

by gesturing violently, showing his displeasure with

everything that was happening. Then the gray suit turned and walked toward

the road, and the other man, hands down, remained standing on the

floor. The grass and ground beneath him were almost extinguished, and it was dark again

,but he couldn’t see anything around him.

Lina backed away from the wall, her heart pounding.

She sat down in the corner, pulled the blanket up to her chin, and tried

to convince herself that this was a dream. She remembered that she and co —

boy had a smartphone, and she began to blame herself for stepping

out without filming the strange couple on it. «Yes, that would solve it

my problem, she thought. «Then it would be immediately

clear whether it was a dream or not.» With these thoughts, she

calmed down a little, reached into her backpack for her smartphone — just

in case, as if she really was recording

something on it, when suddenly she was blinded by an unexpected light — someone

was standing next to the entrance.

9

CHAPTER 3. THEY

Five hours earlier, a few kilometers south

.

The light of the setting sun shone through the small

basement window. It moved to the floor and moved smoothly

along, illuminating everything in its path:

white walls, simple wooden shelves. And on them —

beauty. Lots of beauty. A lot of work. Tools, brushes

,and paints.

The workshop was a creative mess, but the work was still going on

they were laid out on shelves in

a certain sequence, depending on the stage of production and the degree

of readiness. Some were drying up, some were

at the stage of creating sketches, and some were almost finished.

A lot of boxes of materials, bottles of

special solutions and pigments were here and there,

a hundred different tiny and larger jars and

special shapes — all this gave the workshop the appearance of a

fancy alchemical laboratory with modern

trends from IKEA.

The workshop seemed to be permeated by the spirit of creativity, the energy

of inspiration invisibly bubbled in the air, thin streams

oozed up from almost finished paintings, panels,

tables and decorative dishes. Most of them were

10

they are decorated and painted with natural ornaments:

bizarre plants, animals and birds, mosses and lichens, fungi

and the berries lived their lives on them. All this energy»

lit up» the room, making it stand out from hundreds of others. It was

a feast, not for humans, of course — just for him.

A ray of sunlight touched the angel statue, reflected

off its crystalline texture, and a slight ripple of space, barely visible

to the human eye, began to spread

across the room.

The angel did many righteous things today. The angel can

rest. The invisible essence of warmth and light that he

remained floated in the workshop. He found this place

a few years ago. Well, as soon as I found it, you can see it right away.

There was little creativity or inspiration in his area

,and this kind of energy was always attractive.

Against the gray background of everyday life, this island simply shone

a bluish alluring light. This was how he saw the world,

this was how he saw this place. It gave the angel so much strength, so

much faith, that it allowed him to do things that

many of his colleagues would not have dared to do.

He was sated, blissful, and calm, but it was

too early to leave. He was waiting for her. The lock at the top clicked. A girl came into the house

,put her grocery bags on the floor, sat

down on a bench in the hallway and buried her face in the phone. She’s on-

Her hair was unruly, and her long, thin fingers

tapped on the touch screen. The new car was sold

,which was very useful, because soon the rent would be paid,

and there was only money left for food. Reana is a master, Reana is

an artist. But what doesn’t stick together in your own

life? She went into the kitchen, washed the vegetables, and made a

light salad for dinner.

Creativity has always saved. This was her life. All

the failures she «stuck» with creativity. She had it, and

he had her. And nothing else. The profit was always enough

only for the most necessary things. Reana never took out a loan

11

to buy a house. I didn’t start a family either. I met and met many people, but no one stayed long.

Only the best friend remained unchanged,

with which you could get out to hang out somewhere and still

listen to whining about how everyone around you is a bastard and how

expensive everything has become.

Such a strange life, both monotonous and completely

different every day, because every creation that came out

from under her hand was different from others, with its

own character, even copies were somewhat different. And she

liked that. And he liked it. The angel called. Inaudible.

Invisibly. Touching without touching. Today, new

workpieces are being filled in. A play of substances and forms, liquid and solid,

colorless and colored, a boundless field for

phantasms, a flight over a world frozen in its beauty for

eternity.

And she went to work, putting on a light shirt and a work

apron.

And he assisted her. I wish I could say that,

but no. He wasn’t helping, he was present. And it gave

something more. He needed her. Not that slim

and regular figure, not those hands, not that sweet

,kind face with big brown eyes. He needed

her light — that fountain of blue light of creativity,

inspiration, and fantasy. The same delicious light

that permeated the workshop, only stronger, fresher. When

she was away for a long time, or in close contact

with other people, that light faded. It weakened even when

the works sold out well and there was no need to

create new ones. Therefore, he helped as much as he could:

he took unnecessary people away from her, recognition and success. And he

made her happy, creating happiness out of nothing. The artist

must be hungry. Well, even if not quite hungry,

of course, but a certain creativity is

a certain sacrifice.

12

� So today we did both. And

they both enjoyed the process, too.

What a wonderful end to the day, an-

gel thought. He felt more powerful than ever, his light

encompassed all corners of his lands, he felt everything,

every being, every blade of grass, every good and evil, and he,

of course, with all his being, wanted every evil

to go out of this world, wanted people to be happy and quiet

life. But sometimes they themselves cause trouble to themselves and others

,create so many problems that

no one can cope with all this. He was already doing everything he could,

and more. And the angel was indulging in pleasant memories

of today’s good deeds that he had done, when

suddenly it was as if boiling water was thrown over him, as if an invisible siren

screamed in his ears, and a red flashing light, deafening

howling, sparkled before his eyes. The spirit leapt up and flew

out of the window.

13

chapter 4. TRAPPED

Lina’s heart sank with fright, and her breath caught in her throat.

This strange man in a black suit was standing in front of her

,shining a flashlight in her face.

«Well, hello,» he said in a pleasant, almost too

pleasant voice. «Who do we have here?»

Lina began to shield herself from the glare with her hands, and he

dimmed the lantern.

— So what am I supposed to do with you?»»

What is it?» the stranger asked her, his face breaking into a smile or

a grin.

Lina looked up at him. The first

thing she noticed were the eyes. Brown

eyes, the irises of which glowed with yellow-red sparks at the edges

.

Those aren’t lenses, Lina thought.»

Blah, I got it.»

When suddenly everything rang and then froze,

and it became difficult to breathe, difficult to move, difficult to speak…

A voice was heard from Sleep — ruzhi, and the man in black

came down like lightning and disappeared from sight. Li-

na exhaled, the feeling of suffocation and helplessness

gone. She scooped up her backpack and went down the

stairs. And finally, with just one glance over his shoulder

14

�At what was happening nearby, I ran

home as fast as I could.

She saw something even more incredible. It was as if an-

gel was descending from the sky, shining with divine light, holding

a silver sword, but she couldn

’t see it anymore. Fear took over her completely, the instinct of self —

preservation took up all the space that was in her head. Other capes-

Lina had no choice but to run far and fast, and in a

few moments there

were only two people left at the hunter’s cabin.

Damiel appeared in all his glory, in

all his beauty — blinding light and snow-white wings. He rarely took the form of a spirit and appeared in the human world in the form of an angel

only in exceptional cases, when the instructions required

it, and this was just such a case.

«Let the horned one tremble, he will know who will be disturbed-

he lived. They came up with me here again — on my land to play

their dirty games. Unheard of!

There hasn’t been such a blatant lack of balance

in decades. That’s why we need to scare the devil’s spawn as

it should, «the angel thought as he descended to the ground. «It’s a good thing I

brought a sword, I look great.»

The demon was really impressed.

He bent over, shielding his arms from the glare,

wobbling like a blade of grass in the wind before a helicopter came down

.

Damiel touched the ground, retracted his wings, and began his

edifying speech.

And Keijigen stood there thinking, «Arfimaino, the son of a bitch,

set me up, got out without proper permission

,and left.» The angel’s words were jarring,

and his proximity was searing, but Keijigen didn’t budge

.He was sorry — his peaceful life on Earth began

to flash before his eyes. «I’m about to be sent away

15

Down to the trial before the council, then the soul mines, the guardians…

Or maybe run away? You can’t get away from this… it’s a pain

,but they sent a tough guy to pick me up… In general, it’s strange that

the archangel came to deal with such trifles…

Wait a minute… I’m wrong… this is not an archangel. I’m an idiot!

No, it’s definitely not an archangel, but where does the supreme

glow come from…?»

Keijigen’s thoughts stopped racing

and he calmed down a bit. I even came up with something.

He straightened up, straightened his jacket, and said,

«Don’t panic, you just misunderstood, I

’ll explain everything in a moment. The charming smile was back

on his face, and his eyes glittered with devilish fire.

Suddenly-a second later-he’s flying… or falling. Opening

his eyes, Keijigen couldn’t understand what had happened. He thought

he was caught in a tornado. A hellish pain shot through his right

thigh. «Pain? What? Still not sure which

is heaven and which is earth, the demon tried to put his hand to his leg,

to the source of the pain, and felt something hard there. Gradually

,he began to distinguish objects around him. He looked down

at his hand, which was feeling his leg, and it was

covered in blood. «How? Gathering his strength, he tilted

his head and saw that his thigh was pierced

through by a black stick that looked like a piece of rebar.

Panic seized him, and he reached for the stick to pull

it out quickly, but as soon as he touched it, he screamed — the burn on his arm

burned unbearably, causing even more

pain than the injured leg. Keijigen cupped his burned

palm with his other hand and looked around.

Some kind of air current was carrying him. It was moving at an

incredible speed, constantly changing direction. It was

hard to keep track of what was spinning around him, but when

he looked closely, he could make out leaves,

branches, scraps of newspaper, and black sticks like the one

stuck in his leg. Any change in flow direction

16

it could easily cause one of them to stab him

right through. The blood began to pound in his temples, and fear came over him again,

and then he saw bodies flying in the distance, just as he was.

All of them were scratched and wounded, punctured

black sticks, large and small, seemed

lifeless and flew motionless, caught

up in the current.

Looking at the bodies, the open empty eyes, the terrible

wounds, Keijigen realized that the sticks were not rebar,

but spears and arrows and their fragments. They were such a deep

black color that it was as if the void itself had taken

shape. It was cold and hard to breathe. Was

the flow really running out of oxygen? Or maybe he didn’t notice and was

poked by another piece of black arrow? Keijigen

tried not to move, trying to figure out what he could

do to get out of the vortex, but his thoughts were slow

and nothing came to mind.

Another change in the flow direction significantly changed

the positions of flying objects. It hit him on the head

some newspaper. He decided not to take it off, because the extra

movement caused pain. But then something soft bumped into him

.

«Green Alley, find Reana,»

a low voice told him.

With his good hand, Keijigen tore the newspaper off his face

and saw the angel that Milo had been

talking to outside the hunting lodge a few minutes ago.

He smiled to himself. Yeah, compared

to what was happening right now, the conversation was very nice.

Keijigen tilted his head and looked at him.

It was difficult to call him an angel now:

a black arrow was running through his chest from right to left, and his left arm, broken

in the shoulder and forearm, hung unnaturally down. His face

was scratched and covered with blood, and his white clothes were no

longer white, covered with dirt, blood, and dirt.

17

«This is a meeting,» Keijigen said softly.

Without opening his eyes, the angel repeated in a barely audible voice, «Find

Reana.» Return stone… around your neck…

It was hard for him to speak, the black

arrow in his chest moved with every word, something gurgled, and

blood came out of his mouth. He hung up. Or died.

Keijigen struggled to think through his words. His thoughts flowed

like jelly, and he didn’t know if seconds or minutes were passing

,hours or days. «On the neck… what’s on the neck, what’s on the neck?…»

As luck would have it, the angel landed on the side of the burned

palm, and Keijigen had to roll

over to reach the unfortunate man with his good hand. A groan escaped

his mouth as he grazed a piece of black spear sticking

out of his leg, and for a second he lost consciousness. «Where am I? Who am I?»

When he came back to himself, he remembered why he had rolled over.

«Come on! he groaned, holding out his good hand

.«Got it!»

Keijigen found the chain around the angel’s neck. It was rather

thin and cold, and it slid between his fingers, and he

turned it over and over until he found a small

,rounded object in his hand.

— And what’s your activation code, light ones?».. he

sighed. «I hope you don’t

change the factory settings either…» and pressed a certain

sequence of runes located on the stone.

At the same time, a blue beam from somewhere below caught

the angel, and Keijigen wrapped his arms around him as best he could, and an unknown

force pulled them out of the stream, and everything around them flashed

like rainbow sparks, and they plopped down on the grass, wet

from the recent rain.

Keijigen fainted again from the pain, and a piece of the black

spear clattered and almost flew out of his leg. Opening his eyes at

last, he got up, took off his half-torn

jacket, wrapped it around his arm, and pulled out the hated fragment.

18

Blood immediately filled the wound. He tied it up with the same

piece of jacket and got to his feet.

It was dark and quiet. People were sleeping. Next to it was a white

two-story house, surrounded by bushes and flowers, smelling

of roses. A dim streetlamp illuminated the street. In the dark sky

there was a moon and a few stars. Keijigen took a deep

breath. Life seems to be getting better, he thought,

but then he remembered his companion, who was lying

unconscious on the bed. His chest was slightly raised,

which made him assume that he was alive, and decided to walk around the house

to see where they were.

A few meters to their left,

a gate and porch with a white wooden door appeared behind a large rose bush

.On the mailbox, Keijigen read: Green

Alley, 7, Reana Dammer. «Oh,» he said, «it looks

like we’re here.» Then there was a commotion and he hurried

back.

On the other side of the house, there was a glass-enclosed

porch and another door that Keijigen hadn

’t noticed at first. It opened and a girl ran out

He was wearing bare-footed sneakers, casual clothes, and a striped

zip-up jacket.

19

CHAPTER 5. THE FIND

Lina ran as fast as she could without stopping until

she was almost out of breath from running. «It seems to be over… Today

this is clearly the most unusual day of my life,

she thought. She’d never wanted

to be home again so badly. With your own people. It was as if she had looked at the whole picture.

your life on the other side. There was a desire

to spend time with my younger brother, help him with his lessons,

come to my mother’s shop after school, do something

useful, and in general, hug her and whisper in her ear that

she was doing great. Sit down to dinner with them, listen

to Michael’s ridiculous stories, and have a nice chat with him, too

.She switched from running to walking. It suddenly became

very important for her to tell her friends that they were wonderful and loved

.Tears welled up in her eyes. «Probably everyone

is asleep right now, and I will have to go quietly and unnoticed into the house

and wait until morning until everyone wakes up to remind

them how much I love them!» -some wave of kindness and tenderness washed

over her.

She thought of Mara, and she wanted to hug

her friend and tell her everything, all the strange things that had happened

today, but then something tinkled behind her. The girl looked around.

A few feet away from her was a broken mirror,

which reflected the moon brightly.

20

When she came closer, she was very surprised to see that it

was not a mirror at all, but a sword lying in front of her. Her heart

began to pound again, and Lina recognized it, for it was in the hands of an-

gel, who had descended from heaven. The girl looked around —

no one. She looked up at the sky and shouted:

— You’re lost here…

But her voice broke, and she didn’t repeat it.

No one responded.

Lina crouched down. She’d watched a lot of movies and decided not to touch such things with her bare hands.

With one finger, through a three-fold

handkerchief, she touched the sword — nothing happened. Then,

without letting go of her handkerchief, she took

hold of her hand with two fingers. The cloth slipped, and Lina almost dropped the sword, but

when she reached out with all her hands, she caught it — again, nothing.

«Ugh,» she breathed out in relief, and took a

more comfortable grip on the hilt, twirling the sword in the air.

It was small and very light, but it still

felt balanced. The girl felt the handle

shake, changing its shape, and now

lay as comfortably as possible in her hand. It didn’t seem cold, even though

it looked like the sword was made of a solid piece

of metal. And the metal was strange, unknown. Silvery

as a mirror, it reflected everything around it. The blade was very sharp.

The handle on top was quite

simple: a slight bend and curl to the right and left.

It ended in a curve at the bottom, a strange head

with open, empty eyes. Nothing more to note-

It was empty, and Lina hurried to put it

back in her backpack, but the sword fell out immediately, cutting a small hole in the bottom

.Then the girl wrapped it in a jacket and, having already

stuffed this bag into her backpack, went to the house.

In front of the house, Lina checked to

make sure the sword was wrapped up well, to see if there was a glint anywhere. She

didn’t want to tell anyone about the strange find just yet.

21

� Everyone was asleep at home. The girl tiptoed

into her room, kicked off her shoes, flopped down on the bed

,and fell asleep.

22

CHAPTER 6. THE AWAKENING

Inhale and exhale, inhale and exhale, then faster, faster, even

faster. Reana woke up and sat up in bed. It wasn

’t bad, but it was also restless. It seemed that something was wrong. The girl

got up, went to the kitchen and drank cold water. I lay

back down. I couldn’t sleep. Hot. Opened — cold. I rolled

over on my pillow — it was hot. I slid down to the floor — ho-

lodno. She sat up, leaning her back against the bed. Sleep was gone with

everything, I wanted to get up and run somewhere far away, right

into the night haze.

Reana threw on a long button-down shirt and

went downstairs. Turning on the TV, she quickly ran through 25