The sunshine was barely visible through the overcast sky. A light breeze fluttered Belyana's thin dress, now pale blue colored, and her dirty bandage was replaced by an eye patch with a floral ornament. No birds could be heard, no rustling of leaves. They were not even visible - one and two-story buildings, arranged in a checkerboard pattern, occupied all the streets. Wherever you look, not a single green island was there.

  People, instead of walking, jumped on one leg. One of them caught up with Karina, but instead of jumping past, he stopped. He raised his hands up, clenched his hands into fists three times, let out an inarticulate yell and stared at her. Realizing that he would not get the same from her, with disgust on his face, he spat at her feet and only after that he jumped away. When this happened again, Karina decided to ask the first old woman she came across “what, in fact, was the matter.”

  “Youth are completely brazen,” she muttered under her breath and with a loud sound, collecting all the saliva and mucus from her throat into her mouth, spat in Karina’s face.

  This time Belyana could not stand it anymore and laughed.

  “And what's so funny about it?” Karina asked, grimacing and wiping her cheek with a handkerchief.

  “Nothing,” Belyana replied, narrowing her eyes. “Do you want to ask me why I'm narrow-eyed?”

  “What does this have to do with it?”

  “Well, you pester anyone if something seems strange to you.”

  “They spit on me!” she exclaimed.

  “And the bonobo would have tried to have sex with you,” Belyana answered.

  “Nice try,” Karina said irritably. “Monkeys are monkeys. They are dumb and can't talk.”

  “And who told you that?”

  The deafening ringing of a bell interrupted their conversation. People began to come out, or rather, jump out of the buildings doors, disappearing into the crowd. Karina and Belyana decided to join the flow, heading to the center of a small town.

  A fair number of people had already gathered in the round square. In the center, on a raised platform where one would have expected some kind of monument, sat someone tied to a chair. His eyes were closed, and his mouth was half open - if not for the loud ringing, you could hear him snoring lightly. From the very same platform stretched a lot of ropes, which turned out to be leashes with cats.

  The ringing has stopped. The last to come were the people in gray robes, lined up. Each of them, taking a cat, sat down on the ground. Someone stroked the cats, someone scratched behind the ears. One of these people went up to the pedestal - apparently, there was a ladder behind, which was not visible from this side. There was deathly silence.

  “At this hour and this day,” he spoke loudly enough for his voice to be heard in any part of the square, “We are gathered to mark the end of the old world and the beginning of a new one! Exactly one year ago, God died, and his army was defeated! And a new God has come to replace him!”

  He put his hand on the head of the man sleeping on the chair.

  “And, although, our Lord left us because of our sins, he still guides us! He sees everything and hears everything! Let us cleanse ourselves so that he forgives us and returns to us!”

  “Let's cleansed!” the crowd yelled in unison.

  Hundreds of people in gray robes raised above their heads cats, completely unhappy with such treatment. To the accompaniment of rhythmic cries, they lowered the little animals to chest level, pulled out knives from their belts and cut open the squealing cats, from neck to crotch.

  “What the fu…” the stunned Karina even began to speak out loud, but the clatter and screams completely swallowed her voice.

  People, pushing each other, rushed forward, falling to their knees and licking blood from the ground. Those who were in robes joined the feast, but they preferred to eat the insides of the cats.

  “We won’t get through,” Belyana said unhappily, looking with disgust at the raging crowd. “Try it from here, we're close enough.”

  Pale Karina, with her hand on her mouth, turned her back to the square and began to breathe deeply through her nose, probably trying to suppress nausea. Only this made it even worse - a distinct smell of blood was added to the mournful meow, muffled by the champing of people.

  "It's impossible," she answered, trying to breathe and speak through her palms. “I can't take my mind off.”

  “All right,” Belyana answered with understanding, “Plan ‘B’.”

  She cleared her throat softly before yelling at the top of her voice.

  “People! Your moms are dirty sluts who spread their legs for cookies! How do you even live with congenital syphilis?!”

  Although it seemed unbelievable, the crowd turned away from their meal, and with faces full of hatred, roaring loudly, they galloped on one leg after Belyana, who was running away from the square with insane cackle.

  Only the dying cats remained, wheezing rather than meowing. Karina, trying not to look under her feet, went up upstairs to the pedestal. Estimated the height of the chair by eye, she realized that she would not reach it that way. Helping herself with her teeth, she loosened the strong knots of ropes, after which, puffing, she removed the wizard and laid him on the surface. She herself lay down next to him, because this time there would be no one to catch her - if she started to fall, a broken head would be provided. She closed her eyes and habitually touched the wizard's forehead with her finger.

  A ticking sound broke the silence of the darkness. Karina saw a long glass corridor, in which many gears were spinning behind each wall. It ended with a large round crossroad, diverging into dozens of other paths, to which the puzzled Karina approached in turn. She listened, peered and even sniffed, but did not see any difference between them. So she did what any other adult would have done in her place.

  “A crescent came out of the fog, he took a knife out of his gob,” at each word, pointing her finger at one of the passages, she began to read a rhyme, “I will cut you, I will whale - either way, you must to play.”

  Although the counting rhyme was not even enough to cover even a quarter, Karina did not care about this - nodding to herself, she set off along the road chosen by chance.

  At the exit a village appeared, full of life and greenery. Children jumped on the rake, getting hit on the forehead with the hilt, laughing, repeating it over and over. There were grown-ups outside some houses, endlessly hammering nails into doorframes. Each hammered nail caused the previous one to pop out of the wood, resulting in people having to re-hammer the same nails. At other houses, people, with whole families, hung bizarre decorations. In the process, they uttered various spells, some fragments of which, reaching Karina, made it possible to understand that they were talking about protection from all sorts of disasters. Dogs and livestock walked in circles, looking piteously at their owners, when they came into their line of sight. Those whom the owners endowed with attention ran away to eat contentedly, and the rest, barely seeing this, began to make senseless circles with even greater frenzy.

  One old man, with deep, deep wrinkles, noticed Karina and went to her. Each step created his sand copy behind him, but only for a second, after which it crumbled, turning into a sandy path. In his hand he held a hammer, the same as that used by the local population. Approached, he explicitly invited her to join the others, holding out the hammer to her.

  “No, tha…” she wanted to politely refuse, but everything around her immediately fell silent, and people and animals glared at her angrily. “Seriously?”

  The old man shrugged his shoulders, and the world around Karina spun like a carousel. Before she even realized what had happened, her whole body began to shake rhythmically, as if she was inside a pan, on which someone was banging with a ladle. From the blows, between which not even a second passed, she seemed to explode from the inside. She tried to see or hear anything, but she couldn't even distract herself from the vibrating thunder.