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THE MYSTERY CITY PROLOGUE
« Welcome to Nightingale City!The perfect place to start over!A quiet provincial town out of time and the hardships of the outside world, which is surrounded by a ring of high mountains, creates a unique atmosphere of a secluded closed world.For entertainment, you can visit the cinema, sports stadium or the Circus on the outskirts of the city. Historical streets are decorated with shops, eateries and a real Italian restaurant. The large library contains a rich collection of books for every taste.Friendly people live their simple happy lives here. No one will ever hear quarrels and scandals on the streets.For a simple and comfortable life, everything you need is here.In the evening, fog spreads over the city, giving it a fabulous and mysterious appearance until dawn. On cloudy days, the haze makes one believe that the heavens themselves have come down to earth.The level of crime on the streets of the city is zero, as is the level of noise raised by animals and children...There
THE MYSTERY CITY CHAPTER 1
Small provincial town. Every day is like the previous one. Simple, moderately boring, but such towns are loved for this stability. The weather is always pleasant, no sudden temperature changes, no storms, no cataclysms. The town is perfect…was perfect. Thomas couldn't even remember exactly at what point a worm of doubt had sapped his confidence in a good life in a nice suburb. Each day was similar to the one before, but he always liked it, bringing a smile to his face at sunrise and sunset. Accurately calculated days. Waking up, running through the sleeping streets with a friendly greeting from the same "larks", breakfast, maintaining a neat appearance, checking all the books and shelves, and then it's the opening of the library. For Thomas, the library was never silent, it rang with silence, which gently directed his thoughts to reading the next book. Another world in which he will plunge headlong, but in no case to the detriment of his work! The library should be in perfect order:
THE MYSTERY CITY CHAPTER 2
I don't know how much I actually remember myself, but how much they remember.People don't read new books. Only those that were read the day before. I think I'm starting to go crazy. I have already seen letters written with suspicion in my own hand, but I do not remember how I wrote them. I don't remember how I hid it. What else did I remember and forget?!There are no animals.No children.There are no holidays.There are no seasons.No friends.No memories.There are no changes.There is no truth.Everything in this city is false!I'm scared. At night I have nightmares. In these nightmares, someone haunts me, calling me by name, but it was not the name that I remember, but in a dream I knew that the call was meant for me. But when I wake up, I can't remember my name.Who am I?How did I get here?How did we all get here?What's wrong with this city?!Tonight, local herbalist Hope promised to come and help me sort things out over a cup of tea. I think she shares my doubts.I'll leave
THE MYSTERY CITY CHAPTER 3
He was afraid of the city. I was afraid of the nightfall. He was afraid of the younger witch Hope. I was afraid to make a wrong move and be pulverized. He was afraid that, without doing anything, he, like a banderlog, would helplessly approach his own death under the bewitchingly frightening dance of Kaa. Who will play the role of Kaa himself in this case, Thomas did not want to decide. Each of the applicants did not suit at all.The day invariably ended at night. And at night the nightmares came again. Heavy, suffocating, throwing a trembling and frightened librarian like a helpless fish onto the fog-covered streets of the night city. Each time further and further away from the saving library. And getting closer to an abandoned part of the city, from where it will be extremely difficult to return at night, especially after a sticky nightmare, especially in fog, especially when monsters are sneaking around.Thomas tried to tie himself by the arm or leg to the furniture of the library,
THE MYSTERY CITY CHAPTER 4
In the flashback, Fox and Zoey are playing chess while the guys are sitting side by side looking for new places to visit. The room is light, and there are no old gramophones, music flows from modern speakers. The guys themselves look for information on their handheld computers, communications and entertainment sources called smartphones. Wherever they lived, this place was much more advanced in technical equipment than Nightmare City. Zoey is a regional chess champion, the guys don't even try to start a game with her, only the Fox always keeps her company. The leader always wins, but the funny Fox never gets upset because of this, saying that she likes the process of the game more than the result. Although even her amateurish strategy with hints of madness sometimes makes Zoe sweat to successfully defeat the king of her friend.New memory. Scorching sun. The Burning Man festival, they're all dressed up in alcoholic cowboy costumes, hung with garlands and bottles, like upright holiday
THE MYSTERY CITY CHAPTER 5
“ To know the boundaries of the city - the city is much larger than I thought. Because of the fog, the outlying areas seem to not exist, but apart from the center and the abandoned Brantford, there are at least two more areas. Thus, plus or minus the population of this city can exceed 10-20 thousand. Typical for the province, but I expected that there would be a lot less people. Find a way out of the city - I don't know if it's possible. I managed to catch only visiting people who literally entered the city hours ago. However, despite the fact that they were still aware of themselves and remembered their past, they could not tell how exactly they entered the city and which road they were moving along, since they had forgotten. To know the exact date, apparently, is impossible. There are no newspapers after 1996, and every week is an exact copy of the previous one. How long the city has already existed, do not know. I was looking for some photographs of residents to determine how much
THE MYSTERY CITY CHAPTER 6
“ Sorry, the library is closed today !” - he hung a sign on the door as soon as he got to work, and went to wash. The day promised to be long.The mirror reflected a man even more haggard and tormented than Thomas had been before he remembered everything. He looked like a scrawny, disheveled sparrow, just as pitiful and weak in appearance.Quick change of clothes, quick breakfast. Saying aloud everything he remembered to check that all the memories were in place, he reminded himself of a city madman. Crazy look, crazy look... but today he will ask the younger witch everything.A glass of strong coffee, a sweet donut bought at the earliest-opening confectionery, and Alex quietly walked towards the Tea Shop. The girl should be taken by surprise so that she does not have time to come up with a plausible explanation or grab her tea. There was only one street to cross before the shop when a girl in a sky-blue dress jumped out into the street and skipped across the park area towards the for
THE MYSTERY CITY CHAPTER 7
“Does the Tea Witch remember everything, too?” Alex clarified, receiving an affirmative nod.“Nor does she seem to have nightmares, but I never saw her after sunset. She's weird, that's for sure. And he knows everything about the city, as if he has been living here since the day it was founded. Maybe it is, but I don’t want to think about it at all, I still work for her. So we laid out our trembling lives before her, and she offered us a deal on behalf of the city.— Deal? With the devil?!“Almost,” the Fox chuckled, “with the city. We remain to live in this city and never leave it, we also give our memories and our names to the city. All who and what we were before our arrival no longer belongs to us. We won't try to get it back. In return, the city provides us with protection.“Hmm, what?!” Protection from what?“Protection from our past and everything that haunts us from this past. Considering Zoe's fate, the exchange is quite worthy. They were already breathing down our backs , so