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 was calling him? She herself! Nikita, without thinking, answered. Now she could see him and he could see her. A winged girl flashed through the unfolding window. Just like in the picture! Just like in the movie!
And what if this is a 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 in the chat 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 in the apartment became ominous, as if a horror movie was about to start on the screen of a long-broken TV set in the living room.
For the first time in his life, Nikita felt as if he were living not in an apartment, but in a funeral home. Loneliness probably had a bad effect on him. He needed to go to class regularly, not just sit inside the four walls. The emptiness of home was beginning to frighten him. Clawed monsters seemed to lurk even on the coat racks in 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 to meet a nice girl, and he found a sinister hobby. Now you can chat about horror for a long time. He really wanted to meet her. What a miracle it would be if she were there, if he could touch her, give her signs of attention, invite her to tea. In the modest surroundings of the city apartment, the beautiful Athenais would have looked like a fairy from a 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