Ойкумена / Oikumena: Глава 20

Chapter 20 Morning, Noon, Evening

Camrad_RIP 23.12.23 в 17:30

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Camrad_RIP 23.12.23 в 17:30

"I'm seeking!" Kid announced loudly.

Camrad_RIP 27.12.23 в 15:01

Elena held her breath. As was usually the case when playing hide-and-seek, the hiding place suddenly didn't seem so good. And it was the moment when it was too late to change it. The girl's light feet ran behind the wall. The boards creaked, and then the sting of the old wood was suddenly cut off, as if Baby had flown away, turning into a disembodied spirit. An evil ghost, perhaps even an ogre, her imagination immediately suggested. The silence was very sudden and ominous.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 10:05

Outside the brick walls of the house, the usual city noise was beginning, but here, on the second floor, it was quiet and dusty. She wanted to sneeze, the itch in her nose slowly becoming intolerable. Elena pressed her finger forcefully against her upper lip under her nose, stifling the sneeze. It helped. She lurked behind the half-open door of the unfinished closet, feeling the cold of the wall with her shoulder. Judging by the way the weather was changing, today was the last day the house would remain unheated. Tomorrow, a large oven, like an egg-shaped tandoor with a door and chimney, would blaze with a fire of hot slate, filling the mansion with heat and the ubiquitous smell of burning.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 13:07

A creak. Quiet, quiet, barely perceptible and indefinable. So much so that Elena wondered if she was imagining things.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 13:08

She doesn't think so. It's not her imagination. Or maybe it was the other way around. The street noise was breaking through the bricks, creating an intrusive background that made it hard to listen. Silence, but at the same time...

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 13:08

A creak.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 13:09

It seems closer this time. No, definitely closer.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 13:09

Playing hide-and-seek with Kid was interesting and fun but very tiring. The girl seemed to have some supernatural sense and always found an adult rival. However, the crumb was so genuinely happy to win that Elena again and again agreed to repeat. Still, Kid had little joy in her life. In Ekumene, children grow up early.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 13:28

A creak.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 13:12

Wrong creak.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 13:28

Elena quietly placed her hand on the wooden hilt of the knife. Out of the blue, she remembered that Flessa hadn't given up the sword from her arsenal. She silently hooked the lanyard with her middle and ring fingers, just as Draftsman had shown her, and thought that she had gotten into the habit of grabbing the knife first and then thinking things through.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 13:29

A creak.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 13:12

There was something unnatural about it. Something that made the hairs all over her body stand up, electrified. It wasn't as if a girl's light feet were treading on the wooden floorboards. And if you listened, they weren't feet at all. Elena pulled the knife out of its leather sheath and gripped the hilt tighter. Her consciousness swam, moment by moment, disrupted by vague visions and images. The woman hadn't had a glitch attack in a long time, and now it would be extremely...

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 15:30

A rustle, as if a brush with long, stiff hairs had been brushed over his fur. The sound was low, somewhere at knee level or below.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 15:30

//... untimely. Elena felt like Frodo with the ring on. It was as if her supernatural perception had already detected the outline of something among the dusty furniture, but her consciousness still refused to recognize it. Something completely non-human and not even creaturely. Some entity that lived in two worlds at once, or perhaps everywhere at once, as well as nowhere. Something...

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 15:31

Elena realized she was staring into the darkness with her eyes wide open. Something was in nonstop motion, searching. It was not a living creature that was inherently distracted, taking breaks. It was more like a mechanism that, when wound up, continued the same action until the spring ran out. Elena felt the unfocused attention of the alien entity, which stung with occasional touches as if it were a touch of ice on exposed nerves. The attention was as artificial as a radar beam that ran in circles, devoid of its own will and thought, reacting to clearly defined conditions.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 15:39

The sound of rustling came again, very close. Elena squatted quietly, bringing her knife hand even higher, preparing to strike with a reverse grip with all her might. Immediately, her ankles ached, sore from yesterday's training. Her mind conjured up an image of something solid, worm-like, covered in flat armor, like...

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 15:41

Elena dizzed. It was as if she were looking at herself from the outside, a frightened animal huddled in the corner between the closet door and the wall. With a pathetic blade in her hand that could do no more damage to Rustle than an angry glare or a powerless curse. Legs failing, she leaned against the wall, again guided by the view from the outside, feeling neither the hardness of the masonry nor the chill stored in the nostril bricks from the cold night. Nothing at all, except...

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 15:44

//"Spark."

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 15:44

The word was repeatedly reflected in itself, played with hundreds of meanings and representations, crushed as in a bizarre kaleidoscope.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 15:45

//"Spark. Darkness. Foundation. Nothing."

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 15:45

Behind each concept, there was a whole universe, a macrocosm, an endless series of great knowledge. Everything had meaning, and everything dissolved, turned to dust of oblivion. It was only necessary to concentrate, to understand what was hidden behind the...

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 15:55

//"The spark. She will destroy us all."

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 15:55

The mind, searching for something definite, steady, grasped for some analogy, clutched greedily at the tips of invisible fingers. Yes, voices, words. It was as if someone had created something important, talking angrily to himself, and the angry conversation with the void was reflected in the essence of Rustle. Like noise in the background of a tape recorder.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 15:57

// "No, it will only destroy you. Because you're stupid. And I'm not."

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 16:13

Elena realized that Something was very close and was about to attack. She couldn't see the aggressor, but she understood it. She understood it as something terrifyingly strong, neither alive nor dead, purposeful and dangerous. It was close, closer than an arm's length away.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 16:14

// "I have my own plan. And it's better than yours. At least for me."

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 16:14

There was a door up ahead. Or not a door. More like the idea of a door, something having to do with an exit or transition. Something that could be used to escape to another level. The door felt like a symbol, an allegory, a veil of ignorance. All she had to do was focus. The knowledge was ready to pour into her mind like a full-flowing river. And Elena concentrated, mentally reaching out...

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 16:15

The Spark.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 16:16

The Will.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 16:17

A Schism.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 16:17

The Gathering.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 16:17

Fear.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 16:18

Destruction.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 16:18

// "It's mine. She's mine! Only mine. Not yours!"

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 16:19

The stranger's voice struck like a hammer, shattering her eardrums from the inside, crushing her skull with an anger that seemed as pure and unadulterated as the finest steel in the smelter. Anger, rage, and hope. The painful, hurried, angry hope of a destroyer. And behind the frenzied boiling of feelings, Elena saw the shadow of the man who had left the stamp of his mind on the mystical creature in the darkness. Looked into the red eyes, devoid of pupils, full of carefully controlled madness.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 16:20

//"Spark, I'm going to eat you."

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 17:35

//She recognized the person.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 17:36

She recognized the name.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 17:37

She recognized the target.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 17:38

She recognized herself, remembered her past, realized the present, and saw the future in hundreds of possible paths and outcomes. And each burned with the flames of rage slid with spilled blood, chilled with the breath of death. Elena, who was no longer Elena, saw everything she had now, who she would gain - perhaps! - in the future. And as the flip side, everything she was destined to lose. And also to take away.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 17:39

With a mad wheeze, Spark tumbled out of the dark and damp corner, striking blindly. She pulled herself out of the tangle of her self, but each pulled in its direction, tearing her apart, forcing her to walk toward darkness and destruction in her special way, her unique path. She struck as if fate could be stabbed. She felt the old wood crunching under her blade, the splinters digging into her skin, the blood bubbling hot droplets on the fresh abrasions.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 17:40

And with each step, she forgot. The veil of the past and the future, opened for an infinitely brief moment, was moving away. Three steps, ten strokes, and Elena forgot everything, unable to stem the tsunami of knowledge that crushed her mind. Unable to overcome the horror of memory and knowledge.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 17:41

"Gotcha!"

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 16:20

Two small hands grabbed her by the waist, and it was a miracle Elena didn't stab Kid. She clutched the knife handle incomprehensibly, twisting her head around. The woman felt as if she'd had a sunstroke. Her body was almost disobedient, and at every movement, Elena hit something. Her knuckles ached.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 17:34

"You jumped right on me!" said Kid out of the darkness with mild offense. "That doesn't count. You gave in!"

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 17:19

"Y-yeah..." Elena exhaled, trying to figure out what had just happened here. It was clearly something incomprehensible, but what was it? It doesn't look like starvation fainting. No sun, so se can rule out heatstroke, too. Some kind of ailment? She'd felt the same way after her rare bouts of false vision, but now, if she'd seen anything, it was nothing, not a single image. It did seem to be some sort of breakdown. A nervous breakdown, no less.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 13:14

"Help me out," she said, furtively hiding the knife. The noose clung to her fingers and would not release them. The blade seemed to demand someone else's blood.

Camrad_RIP 05.01.24 в 13:12