Igor jerked as if from a blow, but not physical.

She slowly sank into a chair in the hallway. Her hands lay motionless in her lap, as if they belonged to someone else. There was no emptiness inside—on the contrary, everything was filled to the brim: with his gaze, his “Will I come?”, that strange confession about a strange boy who suddenly became more important than all their usual grievances.

Outside, October still clung to the glass like wet leaves. But now a barely noticeable crack appeared in this gray, lingering day—as if a different light was beginning to shine through.

Vera closed her eyes for just a second.

And when I opened it, I already knew what to do next.

She didn’t rise immediately. Slowly at first, like someone rising after sitting in silence for a long time, when the body isn’t yet sure it’s being called back into motion. The hallway seemed different: not hostile, not cold—just alien, like a room in which too much had happened in one evening.

The clock continued to tick. Its pendulum swung the air with stubborn regularity, as if insisting that everything has its rhythm, even what seems like a breakdown.

Vera walked into the kitchen. The kettle stood on the stove, cold, with a thin layer of limescale around the spout. She turned on the water and rested her forehead against the cold windowpane for a moment. Out there in the courtyard, there were no cars or people—only wet asphalt, reflecting the streetlight, blurring like a watercolor forgotten in the rain.

“There’s a boy there. He’s worse off than me.”

The phrase resonated inside her like an echo, unanswered but unyielding. She tried to imagine this other man—faceless, nameless, with only the vague outline of the misfortune that Igor had deemed sufficient reason to cross the line. And suddenly she realized: it wasn’t what he had done. It was that he couldn’t do otherwise.

The kettle clicked. The sound was unexpectedly loud, almost harsh. Vera poured water but didn’t drink. Hot steam touched her face, and she felt like she was standing at that door again, hesitating to knock.

She put the cup back abruptly.

No.

You can’t stand now.

She returned to the hallway, throwing on her coat as she went. Her fingers moved quickly, almost automatically—fastening clasps, scarf, keys. But inside, there was no fuss. Only a precise feeling: to be late was to lose not time, but something far more fragile.

She stopped just outside the door. Her gaze slid across the floor, the tracks left by her wet boots, and the dark spot by the wall. And suddenly—almost by accident—she noticed Igor’s phone on the nightstand.

He lay face down, as if he had been dropped and never picked up. Vera froze.

It’s strange. He never parted with it.

She stepped closer. She picked it up. The screen lit up immediately—no password. For a moment, she was confused, as if she’d found herself standing in front of an open door she shouldn’t have been looking behind.

But then she opened it.

Messages.

The names were unfamiliar, short, truncated, as if they had been deliberately stripped of their fullness. She scrolled down quickly, without reading carefully. And then suddenly stopped.

One message.

No name.

Just the number.

“If you don’t bring it by Friday, he’ll be transferred. You know where.”

Vera felt something inside her go cold—not from fear, but from the understanding that came without explanation, immediately, completely.

They will translate.

Where—wasn’t written. But this “where” was empty enough to accommodate any outcome.

She exhaled slowly.