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UNDERGROUND 140
Surrounded by whirlwinds, a short, three-car electric train thundered and flew away in a silent cloud, turning into a caterpillar hastily cutting through the snowy desert.Staring after her intently, Yakov entered the stinging cloud, cracking crisply at us with his heavy boots. Taking off his hood, he took out a wide smartphone with a working navigator from the pocket of the parka, looked, squinting from the sun. A blue dot on a single thread reflected the reality of the bewitching emptiness around - the boundless field ran beyond the horizon in all directions, merging with the blue of the sky. With rare copses covered with snow cobwebs, A-shaped pillars and blackening felts of forest strips, or rivers, or rotten Russian huts. For scanty trifles, arising, as if from the void, Yakov clung to his gaze, enduring frost and evil gusts of wind in his face. He walked for the third hour, but the hardy organism still had a lot of reserves of strength. But there was almost no time left.Jacob w
UNDERGROUND 141
He flew. But it was not at all about such flights that he dreamed of in childhood. It was not like a breathtaking unhurried soaring to the admiring cries and glances of people who suddenly became ridiculous in their earthly bustle. It was like a sophisticated torture by a giant centrifuge gone berserk.A monstrous force knocked him face down, awakening an animal fear of death from a collision with any solid object, but he felt only air resistance. It was as if someone tied him by the legs and spun him around like a ball. And unlike dreams, the sensations were quite natural - inside everything twisted, responding with fiery pain, escaping with a silent scream along with the insides.However, somehow, despite the "cosmic" speed, he managed to notice the fiery hemispheres around, breathing and shooting fiery threads. The hemispheres were exaggeratedly huge, and he saw them very well, as if they were rotating with him. Hemispheres with a barely perceptible curvature could be mistaken for
UNDERGROUND 142
He began to descend to the nearest hemisphere. It has monstrously increased, but has not approached. A terrible monkey emerged from its depths, but it was immediately swallowed up by lava and the monkey only had time to wave its hairy paws, surprisingly similar to human hands. Those hairy palms, clenched into fists at the last moment of life, were clearly imprinted in his head. Even when the blue Boston Terrier replaced the monkey. It revolved, as in childhood on a swing in the sun, and every second this blue dog wrapped in a blanket flew before my eyes. Unlike the monkey, she looked businesslike. She ruled here. In the wide-set eyes, one could read the stern condescension of an army commander looking at a negligent, far from the best soldier. He wanted to talk to the blue dog, close that distance, but he suddenly fell into some kind of viscous substance, and the dog and hemispheres disappeared. Everything is gone. Only a well-placed, lulling voice remained.When did catapults appear?
UNDERGROUND 143
“Go ahead,” the old man said, closing the door, but noticing that Yakov was not moving actively enough on the floor, he turned to him. Yakov got up and disappeared, and Boris again fell into a dream, but not for long.The old man woke him up and, looking at him with unblinking watery eyes, said, as they usually say about something bad:“We can’t wait any longer,” he handed Boris something smoking, “you start the main thing, I’ll do the rest myself.”- What? - Only Boris managed to say, feeling a pungent smell. In the next instant, his throat ignited with hellish pain, and before losing consciousness, he managed to understand that it was not hot lava that was tearing his throat, but dry, sizzling ice.Eighteen hours later he woke up. It was he who woke up and immediately jumped up, feeling an unprecedented surge of health and vigor. Yes, he obviously lost weight, but how much strength. I wanted to jump up to the ceiling in this wooden hut. And then he noticed Yakov at the table, lookin
UNDERGROUND 144
She considered this room in the attic a toy room, primarily because of the small round window through which she could look out like an adult without climbing onto the windowsill. Despite the thick layer of dust and mountains of rubbish, it was very comfortable here. True, she did not quite understand why her mother, who looked here for a minute, called the treasures stored here rubbish. Take this china rabbit and the German compass in the little wooden case she found under a stack of dusty newspapers in a box. A rabbit with a broken ear was clearly a Christmas toy at one time. There were many oddities in the world, but at the age of six you take these oddities for granted. For example, a tear-off calendar on the door showed the exact date - the thirtieth of July, one thousand nine hundred and fifty-six, Monday. She knew it well because, unlike most of her peers, she already knew how to read, and every day she herself tore off a sheet of the calendar from her bed. So someone came in he
UNDERGROUND 145
“She'll put us on the windowsill,” he whispered.She became frightened, but the real horror was driven by the monstrous creak that followed, which became drawn out, like a cow’s lowing, reminiscent of a metallic gnash and thousands of heart-rending screams, such terrible as she had never heard in her life.She wanted to call her mother, completely forgetting that she was at work, but she felt a hand on her shoulder, the smell of milk and cookies, and warm breath. A hoarse childish voice whispered in my ear:- Save us. This time. Save...She looked at him, expecting to see something terrible, but all she saw was a frightened child. She took a deep breath and...***Exhaling, Dasha opened her eyes - she was met by the usual dull pain in her neck from a metal collar with a heavy lock. The eyes had a hard time adjusting to the gloom. She could see only the thick bars, like those in the cage of a traveling menagerie of large animals. The metal screech was getting closer. He already stunned
UNDERGROUND 146
– On hold?- Yes, yes, I have recorded that you were found in the subway only on the third or fourth day after everything happened. Where have you been hiding all this time?Dasha shrugged.We were just looking for a way out.– And you never even encountered volunteers?- Volunteers?“Okay, okay,” the doctor smiled, “don’t talk about it. Let's talk about something nice.Why am I here?- You need help.“And can you help me?”- I am sure about that. Moreover, you are young and your body is already helping itself, I see it.- What is your help?– As always: small psychological exercises. If you're ready, we can start right now.- Well I do not know. Will it help?- One hundred percent.- OK then…- Lean back in your chair.Dasha obeyed and felt how the chair began to slowly fall back, and a comfortable shelf appeared under her feet. Now she seemed to be reclining. After tea, it was just wonderful. In addition, her gaze rested on the swaying treetops and a strip of gloomy sky above them.
UNDERGROUND 147
Desperation seized her, without realizing herself, she crawled forward to hide under the table.“Please…” she heard her pitiful voice.She understood that she had become her former self - cowardly and pathetic, like all people, under the power of fear. Her crawling under the high sewing table is nothing more than an instinct, an attempt to hide away from danger that has nothing to do with real salvation.Dirty stains from years of unwashed floor blackened before my eyes. She was afraid to look back.- Are you crying already? It's from an overabundance of imagination. Tears usually start later.She really cried and sobbed like a little girl, unable to cope with fear and stupor.- Don't touch me, please...She was ashamed of herself, and disgusted that she could not keep herself in front of the one she was afraid of. The power of the hated man was disgusting to her, but now she was weak. The shadow behind him vanished for a moment, and something familiar flickered in the dirt on the flo