That trip to the forest to pick berries hung over me from the very beginning, like a heavy premonition. Summer, heat, mosquitoes, and company: me, my wife Katya, her mother Irina Vitalyevna, and my brother-in-law, her younger brother Andrei. My mother-in-law always treated me... peculiarly. Not hostile, no. Too intently. Her dark eyes seemed to probe me, and her smile was always slightly ambiguous. At forty-five, she looked her best, but in a good way: a curvy figure that she didn't particularly hide, thick chestnut hair pulled back into a casual bun, and that way of dressing—summer dresses a little too tight, a little too short. We arrived at the edge of the forest and parked the car. The air smelled of pine needles, rotting leaves, and freedom. Katya, my sweet, naive Katya, immediately became captivated by blueberry picking. She'd always loved it. "Pash, let's split up, it's faster!" she suggested, handing us each a plastic container. "I'll go over... continue reading

My name is Daniil, I'm 21. Summers at our father's dacha were always a strange mix of boredom and tension. Especially after he married Irina two years ago, and she burst into my life—Maya, my now half-sister. She was 19, and she was the embodiment of everything that both drove me crazy and terrified me. Not the kind of beauty you see on magazine covers, but a real, natural beauty. Bright red hair that she always wore in a messy ponytail, freckles on her nose, and gray eyes that could see right through you. We lived in the same house, our rooms separated by a thin wall, and I could hear her tossing and turning at night. We constantly bickered over trivial things—who washed the dishes, what movie to watch—but beneath this game of "evil brother and sister," something else smoldered. Something forbidden, something sharp, something that took our breath away when our hands accidentally touched at the dinner table. We both felt it. The estate stood on the edge of an old, de... continue reading

The forest air was already cooling, smelling of pine needles, damp earth, and the smoke from the fire I'd long ago extinguished. I crawled into my sleeping bag, buried my nose in the cool nylon of the tent, and tried to read on my phone. Silence. Only the wind in the pine treetops and some distant, unfamiliar sounds. I felt like such a brave traveler, so independent. Alone in the forest. Independent, no fucking way. The first thing that alerted me was the creak of a branch. Not a natural sound, but a loud, cracking one. I froze and listened. My heart suddenly responded with a dull thump in my temples. "An elk," I immediately reassured myself, "or a boar. They don't attack first." Then I heard voices. Men's. Rough, slightly hoarse, interrupting each other. They were getting closer. And through the thin tent awning, I saw three dark figures, illuminated by the moon. They were walking straight toward me. "Oh God, no. No-no-no..." I pressed myself aga... continue reading

She woke up alone in the forest. There was an unusual silence around and it was warm. Alice lay on the soft grass and looked up at the strange purple sky, covered with white feathers of clouds. She knew for sure that the sky shouldn't be like this, but she couldn't remember why. It was also strange that she was not dressed.

"That's right, everyone has to wear clothes... everyone... who's everyone?" - painfully flashed through my head. Alice sat down on a hillock and began to look around.

She was in a clearing, surrounded by a wall of strange, unfamiliar trees.

Gradually, the memory cleared up, and the most important thing that she realized was that the state of affairs was extremely abnormal. Alice lived in the city, there were a lot of people, she worked in a hotel, a maid... Yes, that's it - it happened while cleaning one of the rooms. Suddenly, the memory abruptly returned everything to its place, but it did not make it any easier. On the contrary, in the light of the epiphany... continue reading