Звездопад / Starfall: Глава 11

Chapter 11

Camrad_RIP 30.05.23 в 19:36

* * *

Camrad_RIP 30.05.23 в 19:36

"I'm alive." She heard herself wheezing and opened her eyes.

Camrad_RIP 01.06.23 в 13:52

She was lying on the floor in the fetal position in her own bathroom. The door to the bedroom was open, revealing an untidy bed with the blankets piled up, the medicine cabinet gutted, and medicine packets scattered picturesquely on the floor.

Camrad_RIP 01.06.23 в 13:55

// It's like there was an orgy.

Camrad_RIP 01.06.23 в 17:50

Taer took her communicator out of her pocket and held the screen up to her eyes, squinting against the bright light:

Camrad_RIP 01.06.23 в 17:52

// Sixteen hours, I slept sixteen hours." She was about to put the communicator away but froze, scrutinizing her hand.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 17:11

On the sleeve of her uniform, crumpled and red with stains of gore, was a fine crumb of gray-blue stone.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 17:12

// Where did that come from?" - Taer put the comm away and began to rise cautiously, leaning on her hands, her body unresponsive, her muscles and joints aching and her head humming as if she'd had a binge.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 17:13

She shifted herself into a sitting position and froze, staring at the floor.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 17:14

On the dark blue stone slabs that covered her bathroom floor, where she lay, there was a large, deep indentation, outlined by a white web of tiny cracks and roughly following the outline of her body.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 17:14

Taer stared at the dent and the cracks for a while and then began frantically unbuttoning the collar of her uniform. Releasing the shoulder she'd been sleeping on. She carefully examined herself for bruises and abrasions - nothing.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 17:16

She could admit, of course, that she had hit the floor while hallucinating, and she had the strength to shatter the slabs, but she could no longer believe that it had been without consequence. And the uniform didn't look as if it had been beaten on the stone slabs - just crumpled and soiled.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 17:17

"It complicates things." She muttered, looking at the outline of her body on the floor.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 17:18

Normally, she would have panicked, but now Taer was so mentally devastated that she seemed incapable of feeling emotion at all.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:13

So instead of panicking, she dragged a thick, fluffy black rug from the bedroom and covered the dent with it.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:13

// It still feels like a cavity. She concluded, cautiously probing the sheltered evidence with her foot. "But you can't see it from the outside.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:14

// I'll have to stealthily call the droids to fix it." - she thought, pulling off her uniform and underwear and throwing everything into the utility unit - "Or better yet, order them to change the floors. Anyway, we have a reconstruction here. It will not cause much suspicion. This is even better. If destroy the slabs, there will be no traces. And then reset the droids - the main thing is that none of the people saw anything.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:16

Undressing, Taer took a shower. It was scalding hot, and it got rid of the aching sensation in her muscles and washed away the stale blood.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:16

She stepped out of the bathroom, trying not to look at the black rug covering the weird thing:

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:17

// I'll have time to deal with this. - Taer thought, heading for the dressing room. "There's nothing I can do about it right now, anyway.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:18

She was on her way out of the dressing room when she realized she was holding a dress. The pale purple one was a very simple cut that could have been worn as a home dress:

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:18

"Where did I even get it? Probably something Rima gave me. Her friend tried to change her closet every chance she got ignoring Taer's opinion that the dresses weren't hers and just didn't suit her.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:20

And now she took the dress quite automatically, without thinking:

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:21

// It must have been the dream; the mistress was wearing something similar. - Taer thought as she changed into her tracksuit. The events of the dream were vivid and clear in her mind as if they were real. - "I have to write it all down for analysis while my memory is fresh.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:27

She changed her clothes, put the gutted medicine cabinet back together, gathered the scattered medications from the floor, called in the droids to change the bed, and pulled out a miniature silver infoblock, which she used as a voice recorder to record her dreams.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:28

"I took a Fenote." She began to dictate, trying to make her voice sound natural. "I don't remember the exact dosage, but a lot, seven or nine capsules at a time, maybe more. After that, just like in the castle, I started hallucinating, only more vivid, and my nose started bleeding."

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:30

Taer interrupted the recording, trying to remember what else had happened before she passed out. // "Some nonsense about everything being fragile..." - She stumbled, sticking her gaze on the black rug she'd dragged into the bathroom. "No, it's better not to record..."

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:35

"I blacked out." She continued recording. "Or maybe I fell asleep. I haven't slept in five or six days in a row. The Fenoth and the sedative might have had something to do with the stimulants and... whatever." She stopped her comments, realizing she was just avoiding talking about sleep and the problem wasn't a memory. She remembered everything perfectly: better than she would have liked. But how to describe this phantasmagoria?

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:38

"In the dream, everything was white, and blood everywhere, and bodies." Finally, she continued after a noticeable pause. "And they were my bodies, murdered, torn up. And in the dream, I thought it was all me at the same time..."

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:39

With a heavy sigh, she paused the dictaphone. The more she recorded, the more she was annoyed by all this nonsense. //"It just doesn't even feel good to remember."

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:40

It took her a few minutes to convince herself: that she was working on herself and that her irritation was just a manifestation of her fear. It didn't help much.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:41

"And one of these corpses of mine attacked me." Taer forced herself to continue recording. "She and I, on my right hand, had blades instead of fingers..."

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:42

The origin of the blades, Taer understood perfectly. They were the same ones the mad twilight adept had in the holo-horror film that Rima had literally forced her to watch on the flight to the capital:

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:43

// I'd be too scared to be alone." She mocked her friend in her head. "That's a good friend, yeah.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:44

"Claws like a holo. And that other me, she was stronger, more confident, kind of better than me. Well, that's what I thought in the dream. " Taer paused again, trying to figure out what had caused that confidence. "Perhaps it's just a fear of responsibility, that I'm not competent enough for my position." She added after a moment's reflection. She grimaced, so hurt by her own words. // "Well, yes, obviously, I'm nowhere near qualified to command the troops of an entire domain. I've never been trained for that, and I have no experience."

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:47

She spent a few minutes self-deprecating on the subject of her worthlessness but was surprised to find that it didn't bother her at all. Some residual clarity of consciousness after the phenom kept her from getting upset over such trifles and going deeper into the abyss of self-deprecation:

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:48

// Still, I feel much better with the Fenoth. Taer admitted to herself. "The hallucinations only started after large doses. I took more than seven capsules in the castle, and now I take a lot, too. What if I take two or three capsules a day? Maybe five..."

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:53

She put the recorder aside and opened the medicine cabinet, which was lying next to her, and finding a jar of Fenoth there, Taer began to study the instructions:

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:53

//I should have started with that." Taer snorted, plunging into the maze of medical vocabulary: "Nootropic neuromodulator. It has a moderate stimulatory effect, indicated in the treatment of amnesia, accelerates the deployment of induced reactions of the complementary type..."

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:56

// As it should have been. It was prescribed to the lord for the treatment of amnesia. But why did it make me hallucinate? Was the dosage too high?"

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:58

It was strange; at certain moments she felt as if the lord were literally feeding on the "Fenote," eating it almost by the handfuls. But he didn't seem to be hallucinating at all.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 18:59

She flipped over the jar looking for side effects, it was all pretty innocent there too -insomnia, psychomotor agitation, feelings of heat or cold, could raise blood pressure:

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 19:01

// The limit dose is not defined. The maximum is sixteen capsules per day for adults. And no hallucinations." - Taer sighed and collapsed on the bed, staring at the ceiling again. The ceiling, to her secret joy, was perfectly fine. - "I haven't even exceeded the dosage.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 19:02

She lay there for a while, wondering what could be the cause of her strange hallucinations. She didn't have amnesia, but Fenote could have been used as a stimulant. She has a guider and a huge one. But its deployment had been finished a long time ago, several years ago. There was also the possibility that the producer might not be telling everything.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 19:04

// It's worth checking out." - She got out of bed, took the jar of Fenote with her, and went to the study.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 20:38

"Do a search: side effects of this drug." She demonstrated the color code on the jar to the eyepiece cluster built into her desk. "Pay special attention to cases of hallucinations."

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 20:39

The cluster came to life and gave out a melodious "Fulfilled" while Taer reluctantly staggered back.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 20:41

Hallucination or not, the slabs on the bathroom floor were quite real. And there could only be one explanation:

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 20:41

// "Well, I'm not an adept..." She flopped down on the bed and took the recorder in her hands. She didn't even want to think about her potential psionic talent. "I am not an adept." She repeated, squinting disgruntledly through the open bathroom door at the black rug that covered the obvious evidence to the contrary.

Camrad_RIP 02.06.23 в 20:53