“Oh no!” Acted the musician startled. “I thought because we now have a market economy we could barter a bit. I didn’t know that there was a difference in…”
A few minutes later Sasha and Leonid were thrown into a small room with tiled walls. The musician’s clothes were tousled, he had a scratch on his cheek and was bleeding from his noose.
The iron door closed.
It got dark.
CHAPTER 16
In the Cell
When you can no longer see anything but darkness your other senses sharpen. Smell gets more intensive and sounds louder. In the cell next to them you could hear that something was scraping on the ground and it stank unbearable of piss.
Leonid seemed to still be drunk and didn’t seem to feel any pain. For a small amount of time he was mumbling something and then he turned silent and started to breath heavily. He didn’t care that their pursuers would now definitely catch up to them and he didn’t care what would happen to Sasha.
She had tried to cross the border of Hanza without any explanation and papers. Not to mention the fate of the
“I hate you.” Said Sasha silently.
No reaction.
Little bit later she saw a small hole in the door: A peephole out of glass. Everything else remained invisible but that small point was enough for Sasha who was feeling her way and slowly crawled to the door. Then she started to hammer her small fists against it. The door answered with loud thunder and as soon as she stopped it was a absolutely silent again. The guards didn’t react to the noise nor to the screams. Time passed slowly. How long would they keep them imprisoned? Maybe Leonid had led her here. To separate her from the old man and Hunter. To get her out of the book and into a trap. And all just because…”
Sasha started to cry. The sleeve of her coat sucked in the tears and the sobbing.
“Have you ever seen the stars?” She suddenly heard his still drunken voice.
She didn’t answer “I only on pictures.” He continued. “Not even the sun can penetrate all that dust and clouds, how should the stars do it? But when you started crying, I think I saw a real star”
She swallowed her tears before she answered.
“That’s a peephole.”
“I know. But I am interest in…” Leonid cleared his throat. “Who was that who had stared at the sky with his eyes? And why did he turn away?”
Sasha shook her head. “There was nobody.”
“I always wanted to believe that.” Said the musician sunken in thoughts.
“Nobody cares what will happen to us in this cell!”
She started to cry again. “You had planned this all along, or not? So that there would be no chance that I could do it?” Again she hammered against the door.
“If you believe that there is no one the other side why are you hammering at the door?” Asked Leonid.
“You don’t give a shit if the sick die!”
He sighed. “So that’s your opinion of me, yes? That isn’t fair. You don’t care about the sick either. You’re just afraid that your lover is going to massacre all gets sick to and then you would have a cure…”
“It’s not true!” Sasha was almost ready to start hammering her fist at Leonid.
“It is true!” Said Leonid. “What do think is so great about him?”
She didn’t want to explain it to him. She would have liked to not say a single word to him. But she said it anyways: “He needs me! He really needs me. Without me he’s falling down further into darkness. You don’t need me… You just don’t have anybody who is playing with you!”
“Ok, let’s say he needs you. >To need< seems to be farfetched, but let’s leave it at that… Why do you need him? That pest control? You like dark guys? Or do you like rescuing fallen souls?”
Sasha was silent. It got to her how easy it was for Leonid to guess her feelings. Maybe there weren’t that special to begin with? Or was it because she couldn’t hide them? All the soft and escaping thoughts that she couldn’t turn into words. Out of his mouth they sounded so routinely, yes even banal.
“I hate you.” She said after some time.
“Doesn’t matter. I don’t like me that much as well.”
Sasha sat on the ground. Again she was crying, at first because of anger and then because she felt like she would pass out. As long as she could change something she wouldn’t give up. But while she was sitting here in this dark dungeon with this emotionless human she couldn’t convince anybody to stop.
Everything had been in vain.
And then she had the picture in front of her, the high houses, the green sky, the flying clouds, laughing humans. The hot drops on her cheeks were the ones of the summer rain of which the old man had told her. After one second the illusion had passed, only a slight, wonderful mood was in the air.
Sasha bit on her lip and said to herself: “I want a miracle.”
In the next moment somebody switched on the light in the hallway in front of the door an unbearable bright light flooded into the cell.
They weren’t far from the entrance to the holy capitol of the metro; the marble fortress of civilization with its white shine of the mercury lamps that were spreading an holy aura of rest and prosperity.
At polis they didn’t have save light because they thought it had a magical influence on people.
The overflow of light reminded the people that in distant time’s humanity hadn’t been a creature of the night. No nocturnal predator.
Even the barbarians that got from the
The border patrols weren’t as large as at other stations and the border station reminded Homer of the waiting room of the soviet minister: One desk, one chair, two next to the door officers in clean uniforms.
Controlling papers and searching bags. Homer took his passport out of his pocket. There were no more visas so he didn’t have to worry. He put the green book into the hand of the officer and looked at the brigadier.
He was standing next to him and didn’t seem to hear the orders of the officer. The officer’s hand was slowly moving to the clean grip of his pistol, “Show me your papers or leave the territory of polis immediately!”
Homer was sure: the brigadier hadn’t realized what they wanted of him. He only reacted to where the fingers of the officer were going. After a short moment he reacted and lightning fast his open hand punched the guard in his throat.
He turned blue, croaked and fell with his chair to the ground. The other one ran away and Homer knew that he wouldn’t make it. Like a trickster who had an ace up his sleeve, hunter brought the henchmen’s pistol to light and…
“Wait!”
The brigadier hesitated one second. The fleeing soldier used it and climbed the platform, rolled around the corner and disappear.
“Let them in peace! We need to get to the
“To the
“Yes, better wait till the
He put the heavy pistol next to him and lowered his head.
Homer used that moment, raised his arms and ran ahead to the guards who were jumping forth from behind the pillars.
“Don’t shoot! He gives up! Don’t shoot! By the heavens…”
