Should I climb into the vent or something? Although… I can just ask Mita, can't I? Though with the cartridges, she got angry… well, she knows best anyway.
Having made up my mind, I left the room and asked the girl, who had gotten up from the sofa, about neighbors or the source of the noise. I, naturally, tried to appear unperturbed and calm.
"There's nothing like that here… You just imagined it. Don't make things up," she said distractedly, looking away and biting her lip.
I listened and started walking around the apartment, trying to pinpoint the source of the noise. I needed to make sure I hadn't imagined it.
Bam!
The sound came from the vent, but it seemed quiet there, and… closer to the bedroom?
I pushed the door inward and entered.
Mita, from behind, as if something had flustered her, suddenly rushed forward.
"What are you looking for?"
"I told you, a sound," I answered her, turning around. "Like someone hitting a wall or a pipe."
"There's nothing like that here, can you… can you just ignore it?"
I looked at her, bewildered. I can accept a lot, like miracles of the rabbit-out-of-a-hat variety and divine power capable of changing the laws of physics, but some unsettling thuds that she even refuses to talk about… no.
I listened in the bedroom; the sound seemed to be coming from the wardrobe. I think, earlier, in one of the game sessions, I helped move it.
I turned to the girl, looking her over with suspicion. Trying to understand what was on her mind.
'Spill it!' my gaze read. You can't be hiding a dead skeleton in there, can you?
'I furnished this apartment myself, there shouldn't be anything strange here,' I thought, and decided to open the door, taking a step towards it.
She got nervous and ran to the wardrobe, blocking it with her body.
"Why do you want to leave me? Don't you like it here?" she asked in a plaintive voice, in which I heard sadness.
But I just want to know what's in there. It's not about leaving – just finding out what the hell is going on, especially given her reluctance to talk.
And I am adamant about this. I need to know the truth. This is my world too, I have a right to it.
"Mita, who am I to you, anyway? Do you trust me? If so, tell me what's in there. What are you hiding?"
She just looked away.
"You… are very important to me, because you…" she shook her head. "I don't want to reveal this, please... please, just tell me you believe me, okay? Tell me you'll stay with me forever," she placed her palm on my cheek, stroking it and smiling gently.
I saw a gleam in her eyes, and there was a plea on her face. But you could have told me, couldn't you? But you won't…
"Mita, I don't like secrets," I said and gently pushed her aside, then opened the doors and saw… a staircase leading down.
Just as I was wondering where this had even come from, a sharp pain flared up on my right side, in the stomach area. Sudden, unbearable.
Glancing down, I saw a vicious snarl on Mita's face. In her hand was a knife, which was now resting somewhere in my liver, and red blood began to drip onto the floor.
"All you had to do was be obedient… why all these unnecessary questions? What, don't you know the saying? Curiosity killed the cat!"
I collapsed to the floor. My eyes were closing on their own.
Through the haze of semi-darkness, I heard her monologue as she leaned over me.
Now she seemed like a completely different girl…
"You would have left me too…"
"Well, of course, you only gave me: 7 minutes 14 seconds, 8 minutes 17 seconds, and 6 minutes 2 seconds a day. For three whole days! Who am I to you anyway – a doll? You think I like this?"
"And yet you were so… unusual. Gray-haired! I thought… I thought…" her voice faded as she spoke, and then a strange, quiet, broken laugh sounded. "Never mind, I'll have plenty of time to play with you… now you won't get away from me!"
But, even hearing all this, I didn't feel anger. Only a strange indifference. And resignation. As if I had known for a long time that everything would end in a similar way. Not specifically here and with her, but in reality… a little later... and more pathetically. The fate of the doomed.
This state… This lightness… As if I were drifting into nothingness.
I had long suspected I would die. After all, with my condition, I couldn't count on long and happy years.
So, you could say she didn't kill me, but only brought closer what was bound to happen anyway, just made it less painful than it might have been naturally.
At least I wouldn't die alone. You could say she was my guiding angel in these last moments, however that sounds…
I smiled at her reassuringly and extended my barely felt, bloodied hand to stroke her cheek. I wanted something… but what?.. I couldn't say right away.
She trembled all over, her eyes widened, and her face even showed some kind of… regret?
Mita took my hand with her trembling ones, and her fingers convulsively squeezed my palm.
"Maybe I was wrong after all…" she looked at me silently, but with nervously darting eyes. "I'm sorry… I promise, I'll cherish you. You'll be mine alone, my little white kitten… I need you…" she said with a strange tenderness.
After these words, my eyes finally closed, and my thoughts flew somewhere far away, into the boundless cosmos.
The next moment, I felt myself awaken in some damp, dark basement.
I didn't die? Why? I looked at my hands and stomach – all intact.
Wait, why is the floor wet...
I shifted my gaze to my surroundings – I was behind bars in some basement, and next to me lay the corpse of a girl who looked somewhat like Mita. Except her hair was disheveled, and her head… it lay nearby, severed.
Naturally, like any normal person in such a situation, I screamed.
"Aaaaaah!"
A minute later… Mita came down. With a knife in her hand.
"You're awake, kitty?"
Then, without further words, I died.
Or so it seemed. Because I woke up again in the same basement, and she again… killed me?
And so it continued, more than once.
I was unarmed, and my body felt sluggish, so I couldn't put up any resistance against a combat-ready maniac.
Her face, however, showed some agitation, as if she didn't want to cut, but she had some purpose behind it, however insane and absurd that sounded.
Each time she did it, she would stroke me soothingly, as if it would soon be over, as if everything would be alright.
And then… then I stopped feeling anything.
At some point, I simply ceased to exist as Ilya Izmailov. The body disappeared. I don't even know how to describe it. And is it even necessary?
My thinking also became somewhat… fragmented. Thoughts stopped flowing freely, as if someone had turned off a tap.
At some point, in complete darkness, as if in a cryo-chamber, I realized that I was no longer Ilya, that guy was gone, and I was called… what was I called in the orphanage?.. I don't remember. Ah, yes… something is surfacing in my memory… simply put, I wasn't named.
No, not like that.
I couldn't allow myself a name.
I am "Nameless."
Time passed, and sometimes something inside me changed. This something seemed strange and frightening. I felt my memory slipping through my fingers, which I didn't even have. How to put it… I don't remember what I forgot. But I remember that I forgot about the gaps between what I remember. That's all my knowledge in this madness.
I only occasionally heard some barely reaching me scraps of phrases, and the voice came to me muffled and distorted.
"Didn't work… again…" a disappointed female voice.
…
"But why…" the same voice, but with somewhat hysterical notes.
…
"Why… can't I… finish…" it seems there was some kind of… despair in that voice?
…