of places!” Daniel saw from the doorway that the whole hall was empty.
“There’s only one invitation for you,” Cordelia explained to the dull.
“And what does it change? The seats are all unoccupied, and there are five minutes left before the session, no more. Usually, in cinemas, no one is acting up, if a more convenient place is free, then the audience can easily change seats on it. Apart from special screenings, the auditorium is never completely occupied at movie shows. And here there are just no guards who will expose the free rider.” Why is Cordelia hugging so tight? Is she too proud to enter without a ticket?
“Anyone else coming?” Daniel asked after all. “Or I’m the only guest.”
“Take your seat and wait for the beginning,” she nodded dryly.
“Where is my place?” he didn’t even look at the invitation. Since Cordelia is here in charge of the controller, then let him conduct it herself. But she did not step into the hall. She just explained:
“In the very center!”
And that’s it! Her chic train of butterflies rustled behind the slammed doors. Daniel felt trapped as they closed. It looks like there will be no more spectators. The whole room is empty. The screen is blank. No one is around. Only the luxurious rows of chairs upholstered in purple velvet. The hall itself is good! It’s beautiful here, like at the royal court. The velvet is clearly real! The walls are gilded. The curtains at the entrance are also velvet. More like a sophisticated theater than a movie. But the blank screen in the center spoils the impression.
An animal slipped between the rows. He nearly fell as it ran over his leg.
He did not immediately notice the seven marble winged figures, which were scattered on the sides of the auditorium and one even at the stage. Did they come here themselves? Or are they just duplicates of the statues he saw at the entrance? It seems that there is nothing surprising in the fact that such eerie decorations are present here as well. It was more fitting for them to stand in a crypt or in a cemetery. Monuments on graves are most often decorated with such sculptures. Although here they may turn out to be just papier-mâché mannequins, light decor details. The appearance of marble is probably only an illusion. He wanted to get up and touch them to check it, but for some reason he did not dare. The beautiful white faces of the angels looked so sinister, especially when combined with pointed ears and long claws on white fingers. And their smiles are too predatory. It seems that they see everything with their empty white eyes without pupils.
Daniel turned away from the figures. For some reason he immediately got sick of watching the film in their presence. This will not be a session, but hell. It feels like seven white pieces are watching him closely. And why are there exactly seven of them, as well as in front of the entrance? Does this number mean something?
He did glance at them again. The light had already started to go out. The figures at the end of the rows were indistinguishable, but the same mystical decorations suddenly appeared in the seats of the auditorium – winged statues sitting right in the chairs and made so skillfully that their hands lay flat on the armrests, and their wings surrounded the back of the chair. There were also exactly seven seated figures, and they were scattered throughout the hall at a decent distance from each other. Well, the decoration came out of them cool and mysterious, but why didn’t he notice them when he entered? All the chairs a minute ago were empty. Or did the figures become visible only in the darkness? Did some kind of lighting turn on inside them? They are slightly phosphorescent. And if they had just been dragged into place, then why did he not hear any noise. He never went deep into his thoughts so that he did not notice anything around him. And now, Daniel noted that the light went out too suddenly. Usually in the cinema it is extinguished in stages, allowing the audience to get used to the semi-darkness, and then suddenly full darkness came at once. Only the figures in the chairs shone. Their presence was very uncomfortable. They are not alive, but the feeling was that they themselves flew here.
The instinct of self-preservation actively warned that they would now attack him. Someone walked through the rows. Daniel clearly heard footsteps and the grinding of metal on the floor, but turning around, he could not make out in the darkness even just a vague silhouette of the controller. But one of the angelic figures suddenly turned its head right at him. More precisely, he did not see how it turned its head, but before all the angels looked at the screen, and not in the direction of the chairs. And now, suddenly, one of the marble faces stared straight at him. The angel was sitting right in his row, only a dozen chairs away. Has he really sat here before? When Daniel took his place, the whole row was definitely empty. The feeling was that the next moment the marble fingers would touch the arm of his chair and squeeze his hand until he fainted.
Everything could be attributed to the 3D effect, but the film has not even started yet, and Daniel himself has no glasses. Or are there special ways to impress the viewer in this privileged area?
From somewhere behind there was the mechanical rustle of a spinning reel. A golden scarab was crawling across the screen. How did he get there? No, it’s not real. Daniel looked more closely. In fact, the show has already begun. The screen lit up, as if some gates had opened from within. No commercials before the movie starts. Amazing! The credits went straight away. He had never seen a gold title before. And the letters are strange. He couldn’t read them. Or double in his eyes? The scarab crawled between credits in every frame.
Someone touched Daniel on the shoulder. He did not turn, fearing to see that one of the statues was already standing right behind him. Better not to spoil your nerves once again. All the same, the doors of the hall are now closed, there is nowhere to run. Until the session is over, it is worth enjoying the film. However, instead of enjoyment, many questions arose. At the beginning something like “Lady of the Pharaohs” flashed in the credits. Strange, but still understandable. Probably, it was about some kind of goddess. But the next line, highlighted in especially large print “And his name is Dennitsa” evoked frightening associations. Dennitsa is one of the names of the devil, it seems, the one under which he gained fame in paradise. The name of the most beautiful angel! Bible! Daniel remembered some of it. But how are the biblical devil and Ancient Egypt connected? In those days, no one had ever heard of the Bible. Therefore, no one knew about the devil either.
Daniel was confused. The feeling of being inside the screen was strong and without the 3D effect. Rapidly flashing footage of ancient palaces mixed with some kind of horror, as if sucked consciousness into a funnel. What if this feeling does not go away, but remains with him forever. Consciousness swept through the ancient Egyptian halls and pyramids, past bloody wars, witchcraft and the rituals of burying mummies, as if in search of something. Luxury mixed with horror, which only intensified the all-encompassing nightmare effect. It seems that this is not horror, and not a historical drama, and not an action movie, or a biblical story, but all together. And it all has a kind of crushing realism.
The film was about a golden creature that has conquered rulers since the beginning of time. It crept across the screen. Its claws were palpably close. Palaces, temples, pyramids remained behind it in the frame as a background. The time of action was in fact not only the Ancient Egypt, but all eternity, from the war in the heavens to the present day. But the main action, apart from numerous digressions to the twenty-fifth frame, was concentrated precisely on Egypt during the reign of Akhenaten. His commander Taor, who returned with a great victory, at the moment of honoring the hero noticed a beautiful winged creature whispering advice to the pharaoh, and fell in love with her. This creature was the biblical devil who ruled the local kings like puppets. This creature, contrary to biblical descriptions, had a girlish face and body. The creature was called Alais, and this name contained some kind of magical wording. Alais was cruel to the point of horror and sacrificed people to resurrect
