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 toВ 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 aВ buzzer buzzed. Could it be aВ video chat? Athenais was calling him? She herself! Nikita, without thinking, answered. Now she could see him and he could see her. AВ winged girl flashed through the unfolding window. Just like inВ the picture! Just like inВ the movie!
And what if this is aВ frame from the movie?
No, it wasn’t. Athenais stared at him point-blank. Behind her, he could see the wall, littered with hieroglyphics. Maybe it was some kind of fancy wallpaper, obviously custom-made.
Nikita shuddered when he noticed the razor blade in Athenais’ hand, dipped in blood. She held it close to the screen and smiled for some reason.
And then the continuous power source hummed nervously. The power supply was running low and the computer went down.
Angel inВ the chatВ room
One razor did disappear from the bathroom cabinet. It was the sharpest. It wasn’t found on the floor. But there were deep scratches on the tiles, like some kind of animal had been in here. This animal was definitely not hiding in the apartment. Nikita searched the place. There were scratches everywhere, but no animals.
But the atmosphere inВ the apartment became ominous, as if aВ horror movie was about toВ start on the screen ofВ aВ long-broken TV set inВ the living room.
For the first time inВ his life, Nikita felt as if he were living not inВ an apartment, but inВ aВ funeral home. Loneliness probably had aВ bad effect on him. He needed toВ go toВ class regularly, not just sit inside the four walls. The emptiness ofВ home was beginning toВ frighten him. Clawed monsters seemed toВ lurk even on the coat racks inВ the hallway.
Before, when his parents came home from work in the evenings, he didn’t feel isolated. Plates clattered in the kitchen, his mother’s phone was ringing off the hook. Chatting with girlfriends and going to the theater were her favorite pastimes. Then my parents divorced. My father left me for a younger woman, and my mother became nervous and hysterical, but she remained an incorrigible theatergoer. While she was at home, the phone was bursting with calls from her girlfriends, with whom she discussed dress rehearsals and rehearsals before the premieres. No one was calling now. Everyone knew his mother was on a business trip. The phone bill for the month could be considered paid for nothing. Probably his mother forgot to pay it. Nikita himself never used the old-fashioned phone in his mother’s room. A cell phone was enough for him, but a vintage phone with a roll of numbers instead of buttons was worthy of a museum display case. A stray thought flashed through his mind that Athenaïs would have liked it. It wasn’t hard to imagine her putting the old-fashioned curved handset to her ear, pulling the golden curl away from her lobe to hear better.
As the monster’s black claws stretched from the telephone receiver, caressing her ear…
Stop! That’s not his thought anymore! This is a frame from some horror movie. Nikita suddenly regretted his childhood fascination with horror movies. Athenais was provoking him to return to his former fascination with horror.
He was looking toВ meet aВ nice girl, and he found aВ sinister hobby. Now you can chat about horror for aВ long time. He really wanted toВ meet her. What aВ miracle it would be if she were there, if he could touch her, give her signs ofВ attention, invite her toВ tea. InВ the modest surroundings ofВ the city apartment, the beautiful Athenais would have looked like aВ fairy from aВ fairy tale.
It was chilly outside now. It was already cold in Moscow in the fall. You couldn’t go outside without a warm jacket. Nikita tried to imagine what Athenais would look like in a half-coat or quilted jacket. For some reason Athenais’ image did not fit with his thoughts of casual clothing. It was hard to imagine her without wings, a top that exposed her shoulders, and massive Egyptian jewelry.
Athenais had the role ofВ an angel. There was nothing toВ be done about it. Nikita spent aВ long time surfing the Internet looking for pictures ofВ Athenais inВ plain clothes. Everywhere there were only pictures ofВ her inВ the role ofВ an angel. Most likely, they were not even pictures, but pictures from the movie.
Athenais only played angels and only the fallen. It wasn’t hard to click the link again and review the movie with her in it. Nikita acted like an investigator – adding up the details of the mosaic. That’s how his life became a detective. If you watch the movie several times, you start to understand more of the meaning behind it.
Athenais played the most beautiful angel in heaven, who once, at the dawn of time, rebelled against God. The angel’s name was Dennitsa, which meant dawn.
It seems that in Slavic mythology there was also a goddess of the morning dawn with the same name – Dennitsa. He had studied mythology, just as he had studied history. Now that knowledge of history would come in handy for him now. After all, from the fires of the Battle of Heaven, the action took him to the deserts of Egypt, and then to the palaces of the pharaohs. Athenais became a personal angel under the Egyptian kings. At all the ceremonies she was present near their thrones and whispered her advice to them.
It seems that the advice of an angel is goodness. The pharaohs were lucky. Nevertheless, Athenais’ advice awakened evil. All sorts of horrible things began to happen around them. The dead rose from their graves, monsters went to war with people, crops rotted in the fields, poisonous black rye grew on the cold fields of battle and gave birth to evil spirits. The terrible epidemics began. The Pharaohs’ power grew stronger thanks to Athénaïs, but it cost the people their blood.
Athenais, in the footage, drank the blood of the condemned, like a vampire. She didn’t need blood to survive, unlike vampires. He guessed drinking blood from precious goblets is purely symbolic and means victory over her enemies.
ByВ the way, Athenais had an unusual name inВ the movies, consonant with her own acting pseudonym. For some reason she was not called Dennitsa, as she was supposed toВ be, but the goddess Alais.
Nikita had toВ rewind the film toВ the beginning toВ understand where the second name came from. It turns out that Alais had given it toВ herself. Under her first name, Dennitsa, she had lost the war inВ heaven, so the name was considered tainted.
“The name you lost by once will bring you further defeat,” whispered one of her supporters. “Change it! You can only win with a new name. The name is your banner.”
The main character heeded this advice and wrote the letters of the first names of her fallen standard-bearers in the sand. It was a new name – Alais. It had to become a magical talisman, because the power of the dead heroes lay in it.
Somehow, after the fall, Alais herself remained beautiful, but her armies became burnt monsters. Instead ofВ tearing her apart for leading them toВ defeat, they continued toВ serve her. Indeed, Alais is aВ goddess, since she knew how toВ keep them all inВ subjection.
Nikita paused on the film. He thought he heard someone call his name.
“Nikita Goncharov!”
That was how his professors usually shouted at him at lectures if they noticed he was looking sleepy. But now they were not around. Who could call him? He was probably just imagining things.
Perhaps his conscience should have been awakened inВ him. After all, he was skipping lectures and seminars again. He should be commended this time. He is self-educating.
Nikita goes back toВ watching the movie. The play icon suddenly froze. The movie switched from moment toВ moment on itsВ own.
The desert, where legions ofВ monsters dwelt among the golden sands, had disappeared. Alais negotiated something with the first pharaoh ofВ Egypt. It seems that both he and all his descendants were obliged toВ obey her for helping him win some battle.
“You are helping him in vain,” whispered one of the monstrous legionnaires to Alais. “Men should be exterminated. They are no longer useful on earth. It should be just us. Men will never appreciate us.”
So what are they all? They were a race of fallen angels? Nikita watched and couldn’t get into the plot. Yes, the horror special effects in the film were amazing, but what was the point?
How hard for a two-year old to grasp the wisdom of cinema! He used to just watch movies, not really thinking about the content. Well, flashing around on the screen, and let it go. The pleasure of watching is purely visual. Now he was interested in the meaning embedded in the frames. It was as if Athenais was trying to tell him something through this film. It was not for nothing that she had left a link to a free file for him to watch. Surely you can’t watch such a gorgeous movie on pay sites in a standard subscription. A gorgeous spectacle always comes at a price.
Or did Athénaïs just want to show off? Like, she’s a star and he’s just a guy and should respect her.
Nikita’s father had lost all respect for his mother when he accepted the fact that his wife would never cook or do housework. Instead of cooking lunches and dinners, his mother bought tickets to the theaters and spent all her free time attending operas, operettas, and ballets. Eventually the marriage broke down. Many men are only able to respect women who are good cooks. Only a few are able to get along with female bohemians.
Perhaps Nikita did not go toВ his father, because he admired Athenais career. She played the angel beautifully. Who would have thought ofВ the soulless winged creatures from the frescoes that they can behave with such regal dignity and they give advice toВ rulers. Athenais made the fallen angel look like aВ hero. The image ofВ Dennitsa, deeply worried about his defeated army, captured the heart.
That’s what’s wrong with this movie! All sympathy is on the side of the devil. It is he who is the hero.
“And who told you what was really wrong?”
Nikita turned around in a whisper. There’s no one in the room. Why would anyone be here? Even if his mother returned unexpectedly from a business trip early, he locked the door with a bolt. No one would come in without calling. No uninvited guests to worry about. But for some reason it feels like uninvited guests are already here. He probably couldn’t even call them uninvited, because it was as if he himself was calling them, surfing the Internet.
Nikita has a strong feeling that he is looking for something or someone on the Internet. He just doesn’t know who yet…
Or does he know? He quickly ran the name of the goddess Alais through a Google search engine. The Internet didn’t respond immediately. He had to sweat, twisting the query and searching the sites. The inscriptions remained in some places, but the descriptions were removed. There were no pictures of the statues or images of the goddesses, either. Instead, as if they were icons, beautiful, ominous photos of Athenais as an angel peeked through the sites. The actress was very closely associated with the goddess. As if the goddess existed only on the screen. But was she in history?
After an hour ofВ scrolling through websites, Nikita drew aВ disappointing conclusion.
Alais is the goddess ofВ Ancient Egypt, who did not exist or who, for whatever reason, they chose toВ forget about. The second is more likely. If the deity is too evil, it is best forgotten. But how beautiful itВ is!
Nikita could hardly tear his gaze away from another photo ofВ Athenais, which looked like aВ golden engraving.
If all angels were as beautiful as she was, he wouldn’t leave theirs temples. It was a pleasure to look at the picture of Athenais.
Suddenly a key clicked under his finger. Nikita did not realize what he had pressed. The Internet reacted instantly, opening an unsolicited window, in which all kinds of horror flashed: torture studios, mutation of people and destruction of temples. Nikita’s eyes began to glaze over. What did all this have to do with Athenais? He was only looking for information about a goddess or a movie star. The creepy information was somehow connected specifically to the star.
Sects, madness, terrorist attacks, mass psychosis, suicides, psychiatric syndrome in movies. Is this really all about her? He must have the wrong website. Those newspapers and magazines he’d recently browsed online didn’t have it all. So where did it come from now? Maybe he was seeing double?
Or maybe it’s all just a clever promotion for the movies? Like: don’t go to a horror movie, it’s so scary it will drive you crazy. After reading such a warning, the audience will come running like a house on fire. It’s all cleverly planned. All you have to do is applaud.
It was getting dark outside the windows. AВ track ofВ lanterns lit up on the highway, reminiscent ofВ the Milky Way. The car headlights glittered like stars below.
The panorama from Nikita’s window was miserable. There had once been a square below the windows, but it had been gutted to create a playground and parking lot. The rosebushes had been ripped out to make room for the basketball court, which was always empty. Only the highway behind it was lit with electric lights in the evenings.
Evening Moscow glittered with neon signs and lanterns as if they were stars. At night, they made the simplest ofВ neighborhoods seem appealing. Athenais, too, appeared only as darkness fell. Chat came alive as if aВ night star had flashed.
“Hello!”
She started again with aВ familiar word. Nikita clicked the keys irritably, issuing an accusatory tirade:
“You’re like a vampire, you sleep in a coffin during the day, and you wake up only at night? Only you feed on energy, not blood. You’re an energy vampire who catches gullible guys in a chat room and drives them crazy.”
The wound on his leg suddenly ached. It was absurd toВ claim that the creature inВ the chat room was feeding off his energy and not his blood. The razor was missing somewhere, after all, and aВ lot ofВ blood had gushed out ofВ the wound. Instead ofВ being absorbed into the carpet, the blood disappeared, too. Or was he just imagining itВ all?
“Are you so angry that I don’t talk to you during the day?” Athenais had accurately noted the reason for his anger. Apparently, she’d already fooled a lot of guys.
“I’m angry that I can’t meet you,” Nikita admitted honestly.
“Maybe it’s for the best.”
“Why it is not? Are you really a vampire?”
“Not a vampire. And even in the movies I did not play vampires.”
“Then what are you? Are you an actress?
“I wouldn’t call myself an actress.”
“But you are a movie star, aren’t you? Or are you not?”
“A movie star, yes! But I am not an actress.”
“It’s a strange combination. How could it be?”
“I wasn’t acting,” Athenais explained.
Did she really think she was a real angel? If you look at her picture, you wouldn’t call her crazy. With her looks, you could consider yourself a goddess. Probably every perfect actress gets so caught up in the role of her characters that she stops to think of it as acting. Let her imagine what she wants.
For Nikita, the most important thing was that Athenais was not a vampire, and therefore would not jump on him to drink blood. He was probably a dreamer, because he still hadn’t given up hope of a date with Athenais.
“Are you Russian or a foreigner?” it occurred to him to ask. On the one hand the question was naive. Athenais knows Russian very well. On the other hand she is marked on Wikipedia as a foreign movie star. It’s possible, of course, that Russians have become accustomed to foreign cinema. And that happens. After all, art is international. Wherever a creative person finds work, that’s where she works. Foreigners were often invited to work in Russian cinema, too.
“And what nationality are the angels?” Athenais, as usual, answered a little arrogantly.
“Don’t fool my head with angels again. You’re alive, you’re real.”
“All angels are alive and real.”
“Do you count the myths alone?”
“You don’t believe in angels?”
“I believe in you, because I see you. By the way, how do I get you to video chat again? Are you in the mood to show yourself to me again? And what did you use the razor for? Don’t tell me the razor is a prop to make a movie.”
“Sometimes a razor is enough to commit suicide,” Athenais replied cryptically.
“You’re not going to kill yourself, are you?”
“No, but others have done it.”
“Who are the others?”
There was aВ brief silence. Then the chat window was filled with dots. It meant that Athenais was typing aВ reply.
“Did you know that angels are creepy, cold-blooded, emotionless creatures?”
Communicating with Athenais began toВ resemble puzzles and riddles. Nikita felt like he was doing aВ crossword puzzle, not typing the answer.
“You’re an angel yourself.”
“It doesn’t matter?”
“You blacken your own kind.”
“There are exceptions everywhere.”
She’s got a point. Nikita also believed that no one should be labeled or tagged. The quality of people is not determined by gender, age, or nationality. In any category there are both bad and good people. Can the same criteria be applied to the angelic race?
