I was sitting on a rickety stool near a muddy window with an old rusty grate and sharp spiny ornament. The blurred white paint of the frame and two ragged cobwebs in the lower part gave the window an even more neglected appearance. The same old and ragged, heavy dark blue clouds carelessly let drops of rain down. The weather pressured me in my gray despondency. A fucking weatherman promised only the strong wind! I hoped that it would break the longing. Despite the waterfall and the alleged freshness, the air was hot, like in the underworld, and I exhaled with a heavy cigarette smoke. I slowly got up from the chair, leaned my hands on the window sill and threw the cigarette butt into the half-open window. I swept off the tiresome cobweb and shuddered at the sudden signaling sound. It was black Ford. Behind him I noticed a black wrapper, which slowly, very slowly was floating by the branches of bushes, through raindrops. Behind him there was a train of many small pieces of cloth resembling ashes. Ford looked like a frightened beast. Wrapper laces were flaming with scarlet fire, blood and pain. Wrapper only touched the car with the edge of its sleeve, but that was enough to scream. Wrapper swam a few more meters, then reluctantly fell on the asphalt and grew a large black puddle. Numerous black pieces of cloth flashed on the asphalt and disappeared. When the last piece was burnt, the puddle began to grow very quickly. A few minutes later the puddle took up most of the yard. All the items that fell into a puddle, bogged down in it as if in a swamp. Ford, continued to signal, went askew and almost mired in this slime. The air became noticeably denser and dirty. I wrinkled my nose and frowned. But, having neither the strength nor the desire to get out of the way, I kept standing and watching what was going on. At first I saw one rat muzzle appeared from the puddle, then the second rat, the third...and now dozens of rats run out of the puddle.
The alarm clock rang. I opened my eyes. Instead of the usual cheerfulness and lightness in my body I felt the full weight of real life. I looked around the room. There are the same dark brown wardrobe, the same desk and computer. There is no puddle or ash. I tried to get out of bed and really got up ...in about twenty minutes. I felt nauseous and frosty, my head ached and I felt dry in my mouth, but I did not drink the night before. Cursing everyone and everything, I took a few steps toward the kitchen. Then my eyes darkened, and I squatted down. A few deep breaths and I was able to get to the kitchen. The half-closed window and the dishes, which had not been washed in the evening, further overshadowed my mood. I opened the window a bit, and while the water in the kettle was heating, I thought about my dream. Tears appeared in my eyes. I poured coffee and smoked a stinking cigarette. I grabbed my neck with my left hand and slowly carried it from the top to the bottom. I put my point and middle fingers behind the collar of my shirt and pulled the neck. I froze. It does not matter what I was wearing day in and day out. In fact, I have not been taking off from myself one thing for several years. Obsessive memories, like spiders, wove an openwork intricate net in my head. A thin and poisonous web. I could feel how it strangled my throat, and the poison penetrated into my skin, my blood, into all my nature. My heart and mind were poisoned. I again felt his icy hands on my neck, I saw glass eyes ... again. I took a sip of already cooled coffee. I lit a new cigarette, made a couple of deep puffs and put it out, pressing it into the bottom of the ashtray so hard that my fingers blushed. I set my heart on very resolutely. I quickly went to the closet in the next room. A second swing and a sharply open cabinet door gave a piercing, disgusting growl. Moved apart hangers in the left corner, I saw the same black wrapper with bloody laces. They were flaming through a cheap bag for clothes. The blood rushed to my head, my cheeks flushed red. I tore off the bag from the wrapper and caught the remaining notes of the smell of the past. Carelessly I threw the wrapper on the back of the chair and took off my t-shirt. I put on this heavy wrapper on a pale, exhausted body and coughed. Can it weigh so much?
The last years flashed like one day. Similar to each other and meaningless days. I went to the mirror in the hallway, turned in front of it. I made myself smile. The smile grew into a hysterical laugh. I was covered with sweat, I had sweating hands, and goose bumps crawled on my legs. A black silhouette appeared in the mirror. It was scary - just to the point of horror. Literally for a minute I put on the jeans with sneakers and flew out of the apartment into the yard. In autumn rays of the sun, summer was still guessed. It gently touched my face and I relaxed a little. Fleeing from fear, Iquickly went to the next yard. A guy came forward to meet me, whom I did not notice, if not for the banal question, whether he had a light. I handed him the lighter. The next moment, he grabbed my hand, there was something in his eyes that I could not resist. As if someone’s will controlled my mind. I do not remember what happened next, only vaguely realized that I was being dragged into the entrance. There are some people around. Why do they look away? I whisper and ask for help, but they were left behind. A second more and we left the elevator on the last floor. Stairwell and some sickening smell. In front of me in all corners there were arms and legs, wrapped in old ragged blankets and only one pair of glass eyes. There was not enough air. I tried to take off the cold snake that wrapped around my neck. I felt how my hands went numb and there was a ringing in my ears. It all looked like a dream.
I did not breathe and seemed to dissolve in a heavy wrapper, as if mired in it. A few seconds or minutes of absolute nothing happened and I emerged from a black, sticky puddle in the middle of the yard. Ford did not signal and there was no burning pieces. Somehow I reached the end of the puddle, still breathing in the air and climbed out. My clothes were dry, but I was shaking like an autumn leaf. I did not get a tooth on my tooth. Where was I? Where was at least someone? I took out a pack of cigarettes from my back pocket jeans and took a lighter out of it. I counted the third cigarette in the row and pulled it out with my teeth. Exhaling slowly the steam – I dropped to the ground and nestled my legs to the chin. It was quiet all around, as if life itself had stopped. Gray reality in the truest sense of this word. There was not any cloud in the sky, only a gray mass. There was gray, dense air around, all the houses around and the trees were gray, as if discolored. It was so quiet around that every breath I did made a lot of noise. Most likely, I was in a kind of parallel universe. May it be an Astral? Suddenly, out of the puddle, one by one, locusts began to pop out and swarmed toward the gray high-rise building towards my entrance. There, this mass took the form of a girl for a moment and immediately dissolved. I got up off the ground and slowly went to the entrance, counting the steps. 3 ... 6 ... 7 ... 9 .... 13 .... 18 .... 24 .... 36 .... I opened the door and went inside. As usual, I got the 6th floor. No locusts, nothing strange or unusual. I opened the door with my key and then the gray shades disappeared. I was at home, really. I drank some water from under the tap and went to bed, but I could not sleep. I miraculously survived. I could not tell anyone about this, and if I could, what would I say?
Something tried to kill me, but I teleported into a black puddle? It sounded like a crazy nonsense.
I shuddered because of an unexpected doorbell. On the doorstep there stood an elderly neighbor, who was speaking about the murder in a neighboring house and about the police operating there. There were no traces about the criminal .... of course. I hurriedly took a shoe and went down the stairs, jumping some of the steps. As we approached the neighboring house, the voices grew, people were asked to part ways and stop uploading videos and photos to social networks. I came just in time. They carried the corpse on a stretcher. Strong wind tore off the sheet and exposed the dead girl with frozen horror in her eyes. I should have been there at her place. Perhaps, I thought too loudly at that moment because I felt someone’s gaze on myself. A young man in the crowd of onlookers caught my attention and gestured for me to come to him. We moved away from the crowd and he set his glasses, said that my time was running out and he would lead me out of this reality. At that moment, I saw a restrictive blue grid, piercing this world like a vein. I remembered where I was. Well, yes, it was the same vr club Cube. That’s right, I decided to test a new horror, which was connected with my personal memories.
It was cool! It seemed to me that several years had passed. But on my watch I saw only 10 pm and this meant that I played no more than 4 hours. A great Halloween night. But to tell the truth, I did not have any energy to go to the city center and join the fun of friends dressed in zombie suits. So I left all the devilry in the club, just called a taxi and went home. It was somehow uncomfortable. I was still trembling like an autumn leaf. Already at the entrance I heard a plaintive meow. A small black ball was trembling like me. Well, I could not leave him on the street, especially Halloween, especially it was a black kitten. Exactly these words I told myself that I was doing the right thing and at home I poured him a saucer of warm milk. Already in bed, wrapped up with a nose in a warm blanket, I was visited by the thought that there was something wrong with the game. Behind me I heard a rasp of claws on the sheet and I turned around, flashing with the mobile phone ... Glass eyes looked at me, through me, right into my soul.