accustomed to animal wrangling. He even checked a couple of times to see if there were any mice in the apartment. Nothing seemed to be chewed off, so it was too early to put mousetraps in.
The lamp shade did break during the night. The shards of the lamp were lying all over the room. It took a lot of effort to collect them. Now he would have to wear slippers to prevent any small splinter from sticking in his foot. Nikita was used to walking barefoot at home. Finding homemade slippers turned out to be an impossible task. His mother told him to vacuum the carpets once a week, but the vacuum cleaner was broken. One week alone has passed. At the end of the month his mother would come back and probably make a big fuss. The house had not been cleaned, everything was dusty, the walls were scratched, the new wallpaper was irreparably ruined, and the lamp plafond was broken as well. What on earth was her son doing?
Answer his mother honestly, and she would raise her son with laughter. He sat in a chat room and made contact with a dead movie star. He could be called a modern day medium. He knows how to summon the souls of dead celebrities over the Internet. Or is the pretty girl just messing with him? Let’s say she really is a celebrity who decided to trick ordinary guys. Why does a monster in red appear in a chat room at the same time as her?
There was no way to call Aneh anything other than a monster. After a short video of him, there should have been cracks on the computer screen, but there weren’t any. They couldn’t have disappeared overnight, could they? A computer isn’t a living thing; injuries don’t heal on it like they do on human skin.
Nikita ran his fingers over the smooth screen. At night he dreamed that the cracks on the computer were bleeding.
He must have thought the computer had crashed yesterday. Good thing it was working properly. The power supply and monitor came on quickly. There were no alarm warnings from the system or demands to reboot.
Nikita got on the Internet urgently. He was interested in the press. The sites of Metro, Vechernaya Moskva, and Zvezdny Boulevard flashed before his eyes. There was only yesterday’s and today’s news. Not a word about Athenais. Probably have to look at last year’s articles.
It’s a good thing he thought of it. Yes, indeed, there was such a star. He read excerpts about her in last year’s press. She had once outshone all the stars. In addition to the glamour publications, serious magazines had written about her. A year ago the star was killed in a terrorist attack. The attack took place at the Blue Lotus Cinema, where the night premiere with Athenais film was taking place. No details of the terrorist attack were available.
Nikita leafed through the Internet versions of newspapers and magazines, copying the articles he was looking for. Dozens of copied pages had accumulated in a separate folder on his computer. Nikita clicked the mouse and typed the name of the folder “Press clippings. Now he had a memo about the movie star and her demise. Athenais was not a dream or a myth. She lived. She was in the movies. She died. It’s all registered in the press. The movie star existed in reality, but now she’s dead.
So who’s chatting with him on her behalf?
Nikita should have chickened out and disconnected from chatting with a con artist or a ghost. However, he was not the cowardly type.
As soon as night fell, he logged onto the dating site and waited. Athenais was gone for a long time. From nothing to do, Nikita exchanged a few minor phrases with Dusya and Valya. He was no longer attracted to mere girls. The beautiful ghost turned out to be more attractive.
Nikita glanced from time to time at the winged photo of Athenais. She didn’t show up online until after one o’clock in the morning, and she didn’t even dignify him with a greeting. He worked up the courage and addressed her first:
“Good afternoon, are you in the middle of the night?”
The keys slid under his fingers and his fingertips were sweaty. Nikita was nervous. The beautiful photo came to life for a moment, as if it had flapped its wing.
“How are you?” Athenais asked.
Did she wonder if she was wondering how he was doing? Nikita answered sarcastically.
“I am still alive.”
“Everyone is temporarily alive.”
Is that a threat? He doesn’t think so, because she’s not exaggerating. All people are born just to live life and die. It’s a philosophy. Many people like to think that somewhere ahead there is death. Nikita had seen a picture somewhere in which death with a scythe was already standing over a baby’s grave. He couldn’t even remember which museum it was in. He’d rather talk about what’s important.
“So, are you really a movie star?”
Silence in response.
She’s dead and alive at the same time. This isn’t a prank.
“Did you somehow survive that terrorist attack?”
“It wasn’t a terrorist attack.”
“Then what was?”
There’s a long silence. He thought the text wouldn’t come through.
“It was a duel.”
“Was it a duel?”
“It was a duel with a man who was in love with a demon.”
It sounds like nonsense.
That’s how people get sucked into the whirlpool of vicious habits. He wished he could tear himself away, but he couldn’t. Athenais, or whoever was on the other side of the chat room, had completely mesmerized him. Whoever was writing on her behalf did so skillfully, as if setting a net on a simpleton. Nikita was caught in that net, and Athenais’ photo completed the job. It was so beautiful that you couldn’t take your eyes off of it. Even communicating with her photo was a pleasure. What would have happened to him if she’d been there?
“I am,” the phrase came out suddenly, like an answer to his thoughts.
“Where are you? Are you in an abandoned movie theater at the end of the world?”
“I am in your room.”
The lights suddenly went out. The computer continued to run on an uninterrupted power supply that would last for fifteen minutes, no more. Time to end the dialogue, but there was something in the room. Something hissed and crawled toward the desk. Someone’s claws scratched at his leg.
The pain was sharp, like a cut with a razor blade. In the darkness he couldn’t even see who had attacked him. Good thing the smartphone was handy. Nikita hurriedly switched on the smartphone’s flashlight. The thing crawled away with a squeal and hid behind the couch. It didn’t look like a cat or a dog, but its claws were the size of razor blades.
Nikita put his fingers to his aching foot. Immediately his fingers bled.
“What the hell!” The boy said.
Who could ever get into a locked apartment? If the balcony hadn’t been glazed, he might have thought some nimble black monkey had got in through it. But are there such things as clawed monkeys?
From the computer screen a buzzer buzzed. Could it be a video chat? Athenais
