Mystics

There was a night. She ran, stumbling. Her purple bruises under her eyes well lit by the lights embarrassed all passers-by in the street. But the girl ran and didn’t notice anyone, but only said to herself, “Faster, faster.” She used all her last forces and flew another street. She finally stopped, turned around, saw her shadow and went forward quietly. A car was waiting for her ahead. The girl sat in it and looked at what was left of her: all the same white hands, scars on them, thin legs, torn apart stockings, short skirt, dirty top and head with long chestnut hair.

“Everything is in place,” the girl thought.

The car brought her to the house. This house was abandoned, old, the steps she climbed were broken and squeaked.

“Well, I’m home.”

This girl you haven’t met is a murderer constantly losing her shadow and gradually losing her memory of the past, she is called Mary Bloody. She’s been living in this house since birth. There was a time when she was afraid to die, and therefore she was afraid to live. Then all fears disappeared, and Mary started searching for the truth, both in life and in herself.

This house is her legacy, all that’s left of her parents. Once they disappeared and Mary was left alone.

The diary hidden in the house is the only one keeps all her interests, desires and goals, and most importantly, all her memories. It was once a regular pink notebook with orange sheets, and now it’s the little unmarked black book.

Mary had her last dialogue in her head.

“Your vocation will be connected with help to people,” someone told her.

“But how? Because I never helped people,” Mary answered him.

“You’ll get the hang of everything else easily, therefore there will be no sense for your new life in it.”

Upon returning home, Mary immediately addressed to the diary, it only could help her with an answer. She decided to review briefly her life to realize the reasons for its new beginning, and the merits of such an unusual goal.

Mary used to live in another city. She lived in the same house, it was only located on the sunny street of the sleeping district of Astiod. Mary had the lightest and sunniest room on the second floor. She stood up with the sun and lay down when it was setting. Therefore, the onset of darkness for her was only a time to go for a sleep.

Nothing strange or unexpected ever happened in Astiod. Mary attended regular high school, and was fond of history and drawing. She had many friends, they were always joyful and did not allow frustration and sadness. Mary always tried to be like them. The only thing was preventing her from doing that was one unpleasant fact from her life. One day she was destined to see death.

Once, walking with her parents, Mary saw a falling bird. She fell to the ground, then trembled in a pool of blood, beat her wings, tried to take off, and then froze. While it was happening, everyone was smiling, as always. Parents told Mary there should be no such thing, she wouldn’t see it again. The bird must have just been lost while she was flying and has weakened on her way here.

They didn’t say this because they wanted to scare the little girl, but because in their city, really, it shouldn’t be. No one forcibly instilled the ideology of a happy carefree life, no one did not clean people’s consciousness from wrong thoughts, just any mismatch with the stated sentiments - everything that interfered with the happiness and joy of man, was denied. Death had been happened in their city before, and people had been gone missing, but all this had been remained invisible to citizens, as if they did not want to believe that such happens.

Mary, watching the torment of the bird, felt everything inside of her compresses. She had some new feeling at that moment that no one in Astiod have ever felt - the fear. She did not want to experience such a thing anymore, but still the fear of death settled in her soul. Since then, she has become less trusting, more looked around, was very cautious.

It took a long time, Mary grew up, went to high school, nothing like that, as promised by her parents, happened anymore. Despite the fact that the fear of death has lived in her so far, she continued to smile at everyone around her and tried to seem happy not to attract unnecessary attention. Apart from fear, she has had another feeling, not yet clear for her, that prevented her from fully accepting the world she was in. Also, the age made her more conscious, so she began to reflect more. It seemed strange to her that in Astiod some certain things are denied, and agree with some.

Being once on a history lesson, Mary thought it was being taught strangely, as if teachers silence some facts, correct the details. There was no war, there was no revolution, there was no death. Have people in Astiod always lived like this?

If you take history of the city foundation, usually two legends were told. The first was a love story. It assumed the city was founded by one count in 1666 in honor of his beloved. There was an even more ancient legend of a soldier left a service and found a rest on the land where their city was built. No war he was on was indicated.

Mary knew, asking someone about the past, no one would tell about it. That’s why she tried to figure it out on her own. There were few hopes for the library; it is likely the books storing reliable information have long been destroyed. But still Mary decided to try her luck there.

Being already inside and having passed several racks marked “History”, she saw many books, but the only one of them attracted Mary’s attention for some inexplicable reason, with the fabulous title “History of the Seven Kingdoms”.

Mary took the book and read it before sunset, and so for a few days in a row. One section took her very much, it was called “Sad Country”. It described the country where something tragic has always happened. One day, an influential man killed his wife, whom he loved very much, but was afraid to lose, and it happened in 1666. Another story happened with a soldier. He was at war, and after return with peace, he was afraid to live and scared of every rustling, therefore he died of fear. He was buried away from residential neighborhoods. There was a belief that he was returning to people to cause to quarrel them, only then he feels calm.

These two stories echoed those legends were given in the lessons of history, were only set out from the unhappy, reverse, side. The first Mary’s thought was to learn as much about this side as possible. At the same time, she realized what a new feeling she have had - the feeling of false reality. She realized she always wanted to be in some other place, and lived in Astiod, trying to be like all the people around her, only because she didn’t know that it was possible to live differently.

Mary turned the diary page, remembering that book in the library was not found by chance. Thanks to her recently conscious desire, she had other mysterious finds later.

The entry on the following page was as such:

“Everyone in our city loves each other. There are no pain or fear. There are no evil or betrayal. We don’t even know the meaning of those words. In fact, everything about these topics is simply forbidden so as not to arouse unnecessary interest or doubt in people, or, worse, fear. We must live in a state of serenity and happiness; our world is perfect.

Now I finally realized, Astiod and everyone living here exist to prevent the fear. After all, if it shows up, this whole perfect world will be destroyed.

I remember my parents forbade me to remember that case with the bird, besides that, they also forbade me go to the attic.”

Written this, Mary realized what she had to do. She decided to open the door to the attic to understand what was stored there. To do that, she had to break the lock. But to her surprise, nothing was there, apart from the swollen nests of birds and hives of bees. However, mysteries were just beginning.

Once while at home alone, Mary sat in her room and made recordings in an orange notebook, suddenly she heard a sound over her head, similar to steps. It couldn’t be anywhere else except in the attic. Mary went upstairs. Birds and bees were there as always. But Mary noticed a strange thing.

She saw a painting in an expensive gold frame, it was attached to the wall opposite the opened window, but a piece was ripped out from its center. A female face would must be depicted on it, judging by the dress at the bottom of the painting, flowing long black hair and the medallion on the neck in the form of a rhombus.

The first thought turned out, “What was it and how to explain it?” Mary decided to go to the library to learn more about such movements. She read in one book that things cannot move out of nowhere, meaning that the very specific physical world contacts with the attic of Mary’s home. It alerted Mary, but it seemed interesting.

After returning from the library, Mary rose again to the attic, but already with a different interest. Why doesn’t the painting have a face? What could have been the reason to hide it? What kind of man was that? Mary left those questions unanswered.

A few days later, she decided to visit the attic again, her willingness to see something unusual there justified itself. This time, she noticed a sheet lying on the floor. It was all black, as if in blood, a poem was drawn on it in red letters, Mary read it.

...The red sun came down in a silence,

The earth was left by the fall.

Somewhere far away in shady silos

Beauty weeping asks God,

“God, give us light, happiness and peace.

This whole world is too poor and diseased.

We need to find a cure for him,

While he does not fall in a deep dream.

Who will take care about him if not us,

We are the cause of the worldwide pox.

God, give us the strength to erase all the mistakes,

Give another chance to save the Soul from its breaks.”

Beauty finished the prayer and waits

The voice that will come to explain what did yet,

Punched all the clouds so quickly to luff,

God gave the answer from the heaven above,

“Doubt is sensed in the sky,

And now there’s coming an eclipse time.

I’m not offended, I’m upset

That the world has been doomed since that.

All that should to be created will be,

All that should to be forgiven will be,

All that should to be removed will be,

But that should be forgotten, will not be.

All that was called the end from now on

Will be the beginning in a ruined world.

The ice Moon will be main source of light,

And your life now will be just at night.

Everything you kept in secret at once,

That will be in a closed world the lost,

But will be in nightmares of the conceited,

Scare the simpletons, arouse the excited.

When the last stronghold for fight will be unable,

The war in the world will be inevitable:

All that depends with all that free-stands,

They will release evil that’s long held.

Victory in the war will be common passion,

Your world will not be the same as it was,

And remember, mortals, there’s no time.

Life is a paradox, and for you it’s just a ban.

And the heavens will flow instead of the tears

The innate instinct will make you to fear,

In the west the shadows will crush the east,

Now you can’t find the Beginning, you’re freezed.

And just the unrelated to your dark world

Will remove the Chaos and will set the Order,

Will solve all your mysteries and find the seed of Doubt,

And will return the sun light that so long had been out.

You who are asking, wherever you are,

Forget all you heard here, live as before,

And forget who you are, and forget who’s the hero,

You’ll just write and remember the time all was clear.

All people’s acts were only mistaken,

Their fear is empty, as efforts are unhelpful,

And all that remains of them is the Vanity,

But now’s just the Night, Degradation, Insanity.

Everything’s changed now and you must get used to it.

The new time is silently slinking off,

The red sunset has ended the world,

From the first moon night it’ll begin over…”

After reading, Mary believed even more that another world exists, it was full of even more mysteries than she might have expected. Mary felt like that world entailed her, but she didn’t know how to get there yet.

The last case of the attic was when someday Mary returned from school. She went upstairs and she was like colliding with someone in the doors closing the passage to the attic. Mary was wary, but she went forward. When she was already in the attic, she closed the door behind her. Looked around – there was nobody, in general nobody, there was nothing, but the picture. It also stood attached to the wall and glanced at Mary with its “faceless” side.

The window was open; a cold wind was blowing. Suddenly there was a draft, though the door was closed. The window opened as far as it could widely and dramatically have slammed. Mary heard its knock and then someone’s steps walking straight at her. Stepping aside, to the left of the window, Mary looked at the picture as suddenly... it disappeared.

Having experienced a clear presence on herself of another world, Mary was scared. But it wasn’t the fear of death anymore, it was the fear of ignorance.

After this occasion, Mary wanted to get into the world that in parts comes into her life. She remembered death, she didn’t know exactly how it was happening, she didn’t know where those who once died in Astiod were. The only one thing came to her mind. If she knew the essence of death and somehow deprived herself of her vital powers, she could get into that very desired world.

She came to the bank of a river running under an elegant wrought bridge. It was probably deep as nothing was visible at the bottom.

Mary had already prepared to jump there, as suddenly she heard a lovely voice, “So you will just finish your existence, but you will not know what death is. You need to see it from the outside.”

She was approached by a green-eyed girl with short white hair and small puffy lips. Mary had never seen her before, it means she was not from Astiod, because all the citizens know each other.

Mary answered her with full confidence, moving by only the solving of her mysteries, “Nobody follows other people’s deaths in our city, it will be difficult for me to detect it myself.”

“But that is what will make it easier for you,” the girl continued to tempt her. “If no one follows, no one will know that death of one of the residents of your city was the result of a murder.”

“But who has to do it?” Mary asked.

The girl smiled satisfactorily and said, “You.”

Mary didn’t know what it meant. The girl found something to convince her, “You will have access to solve all mysteries, if you trust me.”

Mary did not consider the life in her city real, nor did the lives of the people living there. She hasn’t had anything here since she was born and nothing was more expensive than mysteries. It allowed her to believe that there was another life worthy of attention. Therefore, she was ready for everything for its solving. The murder was also a mystery, because it did not happen in Astiod. The thirst for cognition took over her, and since then the knowledge has been her only value in life.

The girl, having read the consent on Mary’s face, also added the following, “If you want to live in our city, you must know that the cases of murder there are constant and even normal, and no one denies death or fear.”

Mary believed the girl was preparing her for a new life, so she decided to get to know her better. Turns out the girl’s name is Alice. She came, following Mary’s call, specifically from a parallel world. Mary found out from her about all the things she found in Astiod.

It turned out that Alice put the very first find in the form of the book to attract Mary’s attention. The described in that poem on the black sheet was real, and this happened in the world where Alice came from. Nothing has ever changed, she said. The poem itself was written as early as the nineteenth century by one famous poet of the time. Alice said that strange painting just accidentally moved to the attic of Mary’s house from the attic of the one house in her world.

Alice also told Mary how to get into her city, and why no one from their cities never cross the border to get into a parallel to their usual reality world, “The one road is between our cities. From your city this road leads to our world, from our city accordingly - to yours. But it is common for your citizens to believe that we do not exist, and for our - that you are fools who do not see the truth of life, and therefore people do not see the reason to go from one world to another.

Things have come and gone in your attic might have been in other people’s attics, but only the others have left it out. Having discovered things that have appeared or have disappeared, you will say, “There can be no such thing,” and we will say, “They will not understand anything anyway.” So far, the inhabitants of our cities are not ready to understand each other, nor to coexist together.”

Alice went on to tell Mary what she had to do for their deal to take effect. She needed to take turns to deprive the life of a child, a teenager and an adult. Alice said that in this way their worlds would be able to touch, and people in Astiod would be able to understand what their beloved city was keeping from them.

Mary agreed with Alice’s thought and therefore performed everything without a shadow of doubt. Her first victims were nothing significant to her. She didn’t even have to lie to them to trap them. These people, who never knew the vile, could not wait for it from the resident of their city. So they just went with Mary to a specially prepared place. She had no other weapon apart from the knife, so she had to strike them several times in the stomach. After implementation of all three murders, Mary and Alice dragged and seated corpses in the main square to attract attention.

As expected, no one suspected the murder. Mary specifically decided to walk around the city to look at the faces of people passing by her. It was noticeable how they pull smiles on their faces, but there was also a noticeable appearance of fear. Alice and Mary were happy.

After reading the page detailing what was happened, Mary had a doubt about whether she did the right thing then. After all, that people were innocent who could also live, perhaps they could realize the wrong nature of their life priorities and change their lives. May be the new life goal for her was set because of such misselected victims to be able to answer for everything she once did.

Before allowing Mary to travel to the parallel world, Alice gave her instructions, “The main thing that you need to know about our city - there will be a lot that you want to change in it, but nothing will change.”

Then Alice fell out of sight. This phrase, said by her at last, further convinced Mary that she should get into the world where Alice lived.

Mary remembered the day of the transition, but decided to make sure by referring to the records.

She found then a secret road leading somewhere forward and passing through a thick forest, and followed it. It was starting to go dark, and Mary never got out. After going a little further, she felt how she began to dissolve. She allowed the unknown to absorb herself completely and ended up in a new world.

That world was absolutely amazing to her. For the first time she saw a black night like here, with a huge white moon not bringing light to the night. There was a narrow dark street at the place where she ended up. Somewhere far ahead there was a non-bright light, but here it was black.

Mary walked down the street and barely saw some black entrances, windows are boarded up. There were dumpsters everywhere, and there was a clear smell of swill coming from them. Mary wanted to get out of here faster, she tried looking at the moon to light up her path, but the moon seemed to laugh at her and wasn’t going to help her. But Mary was not going to go back and forth in this street looking for a way out like crazy, and it’s not trouble that it is really dark. The darkness is designed to scare, confuse, panic, but it’s the only part of its existence. Especially Mary was not afraid of darkness, on the contrary it was closer to her now, as Mary was already tired of the light.

She ran out, finally, onto the illuminated empty road. The blackening forest stood near the road. Checking the air for the weight, Mary inhaled it calmly to avoid getting herself excited. Somewhere deep inside her, some warm feeling was born, and also a fear and a state of strangeness. Mary walked in the middle of this road, somehow shaking, thinking about nothing, forgetting everything she saw and knew, but she wanted to see something new, a new city for which she left the city of “happiness”.

On the way, she went on the cobbles. And again there was anybody. The black city was opened by her attention: large and abandoned. Mary decided to go straight without turning, and whatever she saw and was surprised by, to go only straight, then at any moment it will be possible to go back and not get lost. She certainly hoped to see something amazing, but it was too dark to see anything. “A black stony city written in a completely promiscuous handwriting and supplemented by a huge oath all over the perimeter of the canvas”, was the first Mary’s thought when she saw this city which completely neglectful to its visitors. She was obviously walking towards something or someone, before that someone or something confronted her. Mary looked in the darkness and saw a familiar face.

“Alice?” asked Mary.

“Mary, you managed to get out yourself?” Alice said it a little strange.

“Yes, Alice, of course, I followed the only possible path,” Mary said distrustfully. “This is the city you told about, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is our Petransus (Painthransus),” Alice for a moment, while talking, became unusually sad, but then, having finished, became again independent from the feelings. “I will show you and tell everything that all residents know about it. And remember that I told you “There will be a lot that you want to change, but nothing will change”.

The fact is that our city is eternal darkness, and the concepts of “morning” and “day” as such do not exist here. And call it as you like but not by those words. You will see what will be at the so-called “dawn”: it will be a little brighter and “blackness” will replaced by “gray”. There will be the same monotony of things and your feelings will not change: the same longing, desire to see more, and therefore every 24 hours we are enslaved by the invisibility and gray deeper and deeper, because there will never be any development in this city.”

They had already passed a few empty streets, and went to the next one. As suddenly, it was imperceptibly filled with crowd, a noise, a conversations mixing and not dealt with. Also imperceptibly, the people in the crowd were filled with joy, their faces were bright, their eyes were brilliant, then all this was replaced by threats, fights, their eyes were covered with tears and at the same time with rage and anger. But also imperceptibly, the crowd gone, as if there was no one. It became quiet again, and the black street was no longer different from others by its extraordinary nature. The street ended by a square, apparently the main one.

Alice continued “the excursion”, “This is, Mary, the center of our city is the Square of Pain. Tell me, it’s a pointless name. There are a lot of similar here, a lot of shallow people, and thoughts like them. Is it possible to live in a city where meaningless is valuable? Half of what is said in our Petransus is not true, and if true that is sealed under hundreds of symbols like riddles. As if everyone has to unravel what the other said, though for one and the other it doesn’t make no sense.

I can’t accept these days or these secrets. I always say the truth. Although no one really listens to anyone for a long time, and whether the truth is told or not, they heed - but do not understand. You’re the only one who can make sense of everything I say and offer me something in response. But why are you silent, Mary?”

Mary was really silent all the way, and didn’t even try to insert a word into Alice’s speech. And what could she say? She didn’t want to talk at all. She listened very carefully to her friend and at the same time looked at the Square where they stopped.

They sat on a bench opposite some club, Alice told there are solved the issues of professions, the so-called “personnel department”, “The fact that the city is divided into areas of knowledge, and people who understand one type of activity better than others, are defined for some mandatory work related to this type, and tied to a certain area. People that belonged to one of the areas are made up in a clans or orders, as they prefer call it.”

It was still dark. But the sky was starting to become a gray. The moon, that is strange to it, was slowly approaching the ground. Mary thought to herself, “What does it need here if the night ends?” Really, “dawn” was coming nearer. Cars pulled into from the streets adjacent to the Square, people left the houses and clubs.

And they, Mary and Alice, would sit like this and look at everything around them, but Mary suddenly came to her senses and entered into a conversation, “And why don’t you try to change anything, to fill the darkness with something, to dream?”

“After what happened in our city, nobody does anything. For everyone, darkness is the way out (just where?) Everyone accepted what they have, although, in fact, they have nothing. People think they can’t see their riches behind the dark, which are just hidden. But in fact, under the darkness, they have nothing. They lose themselves somewhere in hopes, but in hopes for the past, because everyone who lives here has no the future. Everyone lives here some personal mystery and stores it carefully.”

“And you won’t tell me what happened?” Mary asked her with a hope.

“No, even me, I don’t want to remember about it either,” Alice answered very cold. “Sorry. After what has happened, there are still some oddities happening, but they no longer have much power and influence on us.”

Alice sat frowning, and it was evident that the thought of that accident intimidated her and made her angry at the same time. Mary realized that she would have to solve that Mystery herself.

Alice spoke again, spoke with despair in her voice, “You don’t feel sadness in Petransus absolutely. If you feel bad and hard, your condition does not turn into sadness, can turn into anger, irritation, fear, but not into sadness. And it’s even harder. And it’s all probably because of gray.

Gray is the average between black and white, but is neither. Therefore, perfect uncertainty, predictability, inaction, inertia is here. It’s very hard. You haven’t normal emotions, all of them are some sort of mediation between one and the second, but nothing is chosen. Everything’s here a kind of gray. But nobody changes anything.”

Alice silenced. Mary also looked around, at the passing people, at huge gray buildings in the Square, but looked with a sort of pointless. Perhaps, what Alice said went through Mary’s soul, and she saw this city in all its truth and knew the meaning of its existence, the interests of its inhabitants, and that did not cause any special sensations in her. She was silent and unwilling to interrupt the formed silence. Alice broke it.

At the same time, her voice was very irritated and her condition was extremely depressed, “You can silence as much as you like, continuity of the silence here does not change anything, as well as a sudden conversation.

I think I’d better go home, and it’ll be a lot easier for you to figure it out alone. You can find anything you want in this city. It keeps numerous mysteries and secrets. I’m sorry if I said something wrong.”

The sudden cold engulfed Mary, and she was left completely alone. And it’s strange that she was abandoned at a moment when she had nothing and nowhere to go, when nothing was clear, and there was no way to look for a way out, and what could be sought in a state of uncertainty. And, having just arrived in this city and not yet learned anything about it, she was already in total darkness and, in addition, alone.

Mary looked at the gray Square, and if there would be someone else in her place, weaker than her, he would crash in place or jump into the black water flowing alongside the bridge. But she just was looking: something similar to stars was falling down from a gray sky, its silent emptiness was reflecting in water, something was vanishing in air, the air was becoming a little, and it was rarefying, there were some gases, and Mary, inhaling them, was choking for a second, but then oxygen was returning again, and her breath was becoming normalized.

The whole landscape wouldn’t attach a normal person, but Mary watched it because she was here for the first time. She rose from the bench and approached the water. Looked down and found in black muddy water strange, completely different and not memorable faces in addition to her reflection, although no one stood next to Mary.

Mary looked into the water and thought, “How could nothing change at all? Once in this city something has happened, that people do not remember, something can happen again, but it will already be scarier, more cunning, longer, will have even more influence on them. And they will want to remember that past “horror”, what they thought was just a small massacre of them, will want to return it, instead of coming suffering.

So something still changes: happened and will happen, but changed not by people, but by someone else. But next time they won’t change anything, that’ll be too strong. Therefore, for nothing else to happen, they have to do something now, change something. But will they agree? But if someone starts acting, perhaps they will support him, agree with him, and everything will change? But who will decide to change something here, who, besides me?”

Mary’s thought did not come from nobility, but again from a desire to solve a mystery. The water under the bridge foamed, tried to rise to the banks of Petransus, but only slowly flowed somewhere down, in the direction of Mary’s eyes, and, falling, hit on the stones under the black city.

Suddenly Mary felt like someone’s part, maybe even in someone’s addiction, as if she was being followed (it was a completely new feeling for her), she turned around and saw a woman. Mary didn’t hear anyone approach her, and that’s why that surprise scared her somewhat. She asked a woman, “Did you want something?”

The woman’s voice was unpleasant, “Yes, you stole my shadow, and I would like to get it back.”

“But, what shadow?” having looked down, under her feet, Mary understood about what exactly it is, this shadow was some fuss and located uneven under Mary. “How could your shadow be mine?”

“In our city living without the shadows is impossible. Therefore, everyone has their own shadow, but you don’t have it, so mine went to you, leaving me. If I don’t return it, then I will have to move to Astiod,” she said, laughing slightly, and laughing at herself, at the same time, annoying and being red, “which I really don’t want. Return me the shadow.”

There was no one in the Square at this time. They stood: Mary and this woman, the two of them, near the bridge. Mary didn’t quite understand yet what was going on, how could her shadow go missing and then appear again, and how this woman knows that it’s her shadow. The woman fell into Mary’s eyes and did not let them look anywhere past her own, and although her speech was short, and the tone of the conversation was almost calm, her words made Mary to depend on that woman and obey her. Her eyes were sharp, small, almost black, the look is straight and there was a light glumsy smile on her face, almost invisible, but combined with her eyes, it expressed something terrible.

The woman repeated her wish, “I want you to return my shadow. Immediately.”

“But how?” Mary was perplexed by the request.

“There is the only one way.”

The woman approached Mary, still looking closely in her eyes. Mary was trying to figure out what that woman was going to do. Two more steps back and there will be a bridge with burrowing water, around - the gray empty Square, ahead - an incomprehensible individual. The woman was thinking about the intended goal, she was no longer smiling, just hypnotizing Mary with a look. She took her to the railing, grabbed her hand and tried to push her over the bridge, into the water.

Mary had time to realize and, to having grabbed a free hand on the railing, she kicked the woman with in the thigh, grabbed the second hand, and grabbed by both the neck of her abuser. That woman tried to say something, moved her hands, wriggled in Mary’s hands, but for a few more minutes her body became heavy, her eyes filled with horror, her mouth opened, and her heart stopped beating.

Mary closed her eyes, relaxed the grip on her neck, let her body fall on the railing head down, and spread her legs over the railing into the water. The lower Abyss absorbed the breathless flesh into its subsoil without hesitation.

Mary realized she committed the murder again, but now it’s for defense. Apparently Alice didn’t lie that the murders in Petransus were the usual thing. Because of some shadow, people are ready to take each other’s lives.

She looked at the one that caused all was happen. The shadow was laying quietly in Mary’s feet without moving, just watching the moon’s movements. Mary grinned at herself and, also quietly, was waiting for something, facing the Square.

As suddenly, the shadow began to move, Mary felt something grows inside her, something alien, she tried to cough it, it didn’t come out. Then suddenly everything became normal again. Mary shook off her skirt, accidentally looking under her feet. The shadow was gone. Mary looked round. The light of the moon was bright, it illuminated the entire Square. The restless shadow moved bustling, from home to home. Mary looked at this and decided to go after her, still she had nowhere else to go.

They walked through the streets, the shadow was throwing, as if looking for something, she merged with the shadows of the houses, then went back to light, then went into darkness, hid behind cars. Mary started running because she didn’t have time to catch up with her companion. People looked after them. Soon they went out to the woods. Mary and the shadow made their way through the forest bunch, there was a crunch of broken branches, the singing of birds far away. Among these sounds, Mary heard barely discernible music. She thought there must be someone where the sounds were, so she went for them. Mary soon realized the shadow was moving in the same direction.

The music was getting stronger, it was very beautiful, at the same time very sad, like it was the last music in the world, and it hurt her. Then everything died down: no music, no birds, no trees. Mary and the shadow are out on the wasteland. The old two-storey house stood on it, four roads led from the wasteland, one of which Mary came through the forest. She did not immediately decide to go inside the house, which cannot be said about the shadow, she quickly pushed through the slit under the door.

Mary went up the screeching stairs, tried to open the door, it was not locked. When she went inside, she saw a lot of shadows and a web. She discovered her shadow, too, she was also throwing. The moon’s light, breaking through the board-clogged windows, illuminated this throwing dance. Mary was moving inside, tearing up the web. Went up the stairs to the second floor, the shadow followed her. Entering some room, a wooden table stood near the barred window, carrying a pink notebook similar to that Mary had. She opened it and discovered her records.

After each turning the viewed sheets became dark, flipping through the entire notebook, Mary saw that she had a black book in her hands. She remembered the last time she left her notebook, it was in Mary’s room, the notebook lying on her bed. Could the notebook have moved by itself? Mary looked at her last recording, it said of her desire to leave Astiod for the new city. She still didn’t understand. Moonlight was breaking through the boards on the window so hard that it began to annoy Mary, she decided to free it. Found an axe in a pile of stuff nearby and cut a new window, the boards flew down, the moon blinded Mary. It was as bright as the sun was when Mary lived in Astiod. Can be said that this room in the old house is the mooniest. Suddenly it dawned on Mary. This house is the same as it used to be, only in parallel reality. The road leading from Astiod to Petransus ends where Petransus begins. Thinking she was walking forward on Petransus, she was actually walking backwards if you consider it in Astiod’s reality. That’s why she found her house, it was not lost anywhere. The notebook did not miss because there are hidden Mary’s secrets, her soul. The new thing that appeared at her, there was only the fuss shadow, which finally placed exactly under Mary.

This is how Mary became a murderer and found peace in the most disliked area of Petransus citizens - the Dark Quarter, the quarter that started all the accidents and mysteries of the city.

After that, Mary and Alice began dating frequently. They became best friends. Alice always came up with some sort of plan, and Mary had to put it into practice.

Mary turned out to be so submissive that Alice never had to talk her into anything. It was enough to give her some secrets or mysteries, and Mary was ready to fulfill any assignment, never opposing anything and agreeing with everything. Since she became a murderer, she has lost all soul torment and has been willing to commit any immoral act.

Alice always covered acts of Mary in Petransus, because personal freedom of action in this city was very strictly monitored, even more than violation of someone else’s freedom. Knowing Mary kept records, Alice asked her to sketch plans for their actions, in case someone wanted to steal her diary.

Mary understood the life in Petransus would be much more difficult than in Astiod. But she had a huge desire to take risks, so she tried to draw as much attention to herself as possible, especially she liked to visit all kinds of closed places in order to absorb new different knowledge, frightening other people and prohibited by those who know its value.

After reaching blank pages in the diary, Mary never understood the reason opened a new life for her. Apparently, it was a new mystery for her that needed to be resolved.