Rina’s world was painted in fifty shades of gray. Literally. The television — a plasma panel from the previous decade, tired of its own existence — muttered something about new carbon emission quotas. Outside the window, a drizzle blurred the already faded colors of the concrete apartment blocks. The air in the room was stale and unmoving, smelling of dust and yesterday’s instant noodles. An ordinary evening. Ordinary boredom. Pressing, all-consuming, forcing her to count the patterns on the ceiling tiles.

  Rina had already reached for the remote to silence the television chatter when suddenly — a flash.

  Not from the screen. From the side. Bright, blinding, white — as if someone had shoved a giant welding torch right into her face and snapped it on. There was no sound. Only light, burning into her retinas.

  And then — darkness. Absolute, impenetrable, terrifying in its density. And silence that rang in her ears louder than any thunder.

  She couldn’t feel her body. Couldn’t feel the floor beneath her feet, her hands, her face. Only an all-consuming, animal terror squeezing what must once have been her heart into an icy knot. And — someone’s presence. It was everywhere and nowhere, heavy, indifferent, watching. Not with eyes. Not with ears. It was simply there — ancient, cold, and utterly alien. That was worse than the darkness itself.

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  Driven by an instinct buried far deeper than reason, whatever remained of Rina began to crawl. Not with legs, not with hands — but by sheer force of will. Where? Unknown. Away. Just away. And in that pitch-black void she saw it — a tiny, dim, gray light. Like a hole torn in the sheet draped over the world. Salvation. An exit. With the last of her strength she reached toward it — mentally, physically, with her entire being…

  …and fell.

  A sharp, unpleasant smell of dust, dampness, and something sour rushed into her nostrils. A distant ringing echoed in her ears, and her head throbbed as if an asphalt roller had driven over it. Rina convulsively dragged air into her lungs and immediately burst into coughing — the air was thick and stale.

  She was lying down. Not in her own bed with its soft orthopedic mattress, but on something hard and sagging. She slowly opened her eyes, and the world swayed beneath her.

  A room. Strange, unfamiliar, treacherous. Wallpaper with faded roses bubbled and peeled at the corners, exposing dirty gray plaster beneath. On the floor — piles of rags, broken dishes, shards of glass. A table lay overturned on its side; one chair rested upside down, its legs sticking out like splayed fingers, another hung from the only remaining shelf, threatening to crash down at any moment. It looked as though a hurricane had swept through, spat on everything, and left.

  Rina tried to rise, and her hand, pressing against the mattress, responded with an unfamiliar, rough strength. She froze and slowly lifted it before her face.

  It was not her hand.

  The palm was broader, the fingers longer and more knotted, tendons clearly defined, knuckles bruised and hardened. The skin seemed rougher, and on the forearm there was a scar — long, white, and old — one she had never had.

  She was still a girl — that much was obvious from the silhouette beneath the coarse, worn dress made of simple fabric. But this was not the body of a teenager. Rather… a young woman who knew labor. A body accustomed to work, not to lying in front of a television. A body completely unfamiliar.

  And it was now trembling with silent, all-consuming terror.