“Found you,” a huge shadow shielded her from the black light. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Karina fell to the floor. The voice that came out was familiar to her, but the memory simply eluded her.

  A small piece separated from the shadow, and climbed into Karina's ear. She screamed and wanted to swear, but almost immediately her memory returned to her.

  “What is this nonsense around? And I called you, actually.”

  “Huh?” Belyana was surprised. “I started looking for you when you started to burn. And what do I find? There is a fool, drooling, allowed herself to be almost completely swallowed up, even without really leaving the entrance.”

  “It’s all kind of strange here,” Karina tried to justify herself.

  “Of course it is. It's not a human. And you, instead of being more careful, I have no idea what you were doing.”

  “What do you mean by not a human?”

  “Exactly the way it sounds. Humans don't turn into eggs,” Belyana sighed. “Talk less, work more. Break the door. Just don't look at the ceiling anymore.”

  When Karina and Belyana's shadow approached the center of the room, the floor turned into a door. The same semi-liquid as everything around, but at the same time strong enough to create a feeling of stone underfoot.

  “And how to break it?”

  “Same as usual. The principle never changed.”

  Sighing, Karina began to look around and listen, wincing at the volume. Noticing something, she went to one of the crouching bodies. It looked plaintively at her with disintegrating eyes, but Karina only tore out of it a bone that was peeling off the body with viscous threads of pinkish mucus. Then she went to the piano and plucked a string from it, to which she tied the bone.

  Returning to the center, she spun the bone like a sling, getting heavier with each turn, and then released it to the floor.

  With a rumble that even drowned out the screams, the door shattered into pieces, and Karina fell down. The shadow arbitrarily controlled her movement, obviously not obeying the laws of this world.

  The screams had already completely subsided, but the flight continued. Over time, the widely separated walls began to slightly luminesce with appearance is somewhat reminiscent of the entrails. Sometimes the semblance of letters shone through them. But still no surface.

  Belyana flew from wall to wall, it was not clear what she was doing. She simply ignored Karina's questions, fully concentrating on her doings.

  Karina has long lost track of time, but still, finally, the surface was under her feet. She did not even notice it right away, because the sensation of falling had not gone away, and her legs did not feel anything either.

  Right in the center of the vast room stood a huge vertical stone plate, painted with the same inscriptions as the walls.

  Belyana loudly uttered some kind of speech in an unknown language, echoing everywhere. To the questioning expression on Karina's face, she only replied that she had read it on the walls.

  The plate creaked open with two doors, revealing liquid blackness behind it. They went inside.

  There was another room, this time a small one. Through semidarkness it was possible to see that even it was built from meat carcasses, however, now inhuman. Nor were they like any other animal that had ever roamed the Earth. The room was moving almost imperceptibly and making a quiet sound, like measured breathing.

  “Who you are?” a multi-layered voice asked, as if it were a choir speaking.

  “It doesn't matter,” answered Belyana. “What are you?”

  The room vanished, replaced by darkness. An army of white shadows appeared in the empty space, in the form of human silhouettes, twisting in a huge spiral.

  “We are all and all is I,” answered the voice. “We are many, but we are all one.”

  “And which one exactly are you?”

  They returned to the breathing room again. A translucent cloud looked at them with blue eyes.

  “I don't know,” the child's voice replied.

  “The music told me who I was,” a male voice replied.

  “The music told me what to do,” the woman answered.

  “I can't hear it anymore,” the chorus replied again. “Why can't I hear it? I have always followed it, I have always repeated it.”

  “Is there supposed to be a reason for that? Today it is, tomorrow it is not - such is life.”

  “It is always there!” a monstrous scream, reflected from the walls, returned back, sticking into the ears with needles.

  “But you don’t hear it,” Belyana replied imperturbably. “Even if it is, it is not for you. And who said that its importance is not exaggerated by you?”

  “It is the very meaning!”

  “You make it meaningful. Why are you making meaning out of what is no more?”

  “What will be left of me if it doesn't mean anything? I was born to be it, I was born to follow it. Why can't I even remember it?”

  “You are you. Music is music. Even if it was forced on you, it didn’t become you. There is no music, but you are. What does it say?”

  “I'm an abomination. I am filth. My existence is unacceptable! For this it left me, for this it stopped talking to me. I must die, I must disappear, but I'm scared. Where does this fear come from?”

  The cloud turned red, drawing in the surface of the walls. It built up matter and condensed until it turned into a little girl.

  “You are aware of yourself. A consequence of life itself. Free will. The music took everything away from you, but now you are you. You are one, separated from the rest by those boundaries that you can raise yourself. You don't owe anyone or anything. Even to yourself. You are also free to choose. Now tell me, do you want to die or get out of here?”

  The girl hesitated, as if embarrassed. And then she spoke in a whisper, looking around, afraid that someone might hear her.

  “Get out.”

  In the same second, a bright flash of reality marked that they had returned. From the clouds that until now were the red sky, it began to rain. There were no more screams or waves. The mummies, however, clearly reminded them exactly where they were.

  The egg stirred. One at a time, it opened its four huge wings. Before them stood the same girl, only her entire naked body was covered with luminous blue eyes.

  “Who would have thought that none of the six-winged freaks would come to this, but an ordinary soldier...” the thunderous stomping drowned out Belyana's voice.

  Fox ran towards them. Her sarafan fluttered, and clouds of dust rose behind her. As soon as she got close enough, she simply jumped, intending to immediately finish the child.

  “Stop!” shouted Belyana, but too late.

  The girl dodged two blows, but she had to catch the third.

  From the explosion, the earth took off like a wall.

  When the dirt and dust subsided, a very surprised face of the Fox appeared.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Quite. She has free will.”

  “Maybe you are just delusional? I myself saw how these motherfuckers pulled out people's tongues with their bare hands simply because humans ‘did not speak respectfully enough’.”

  “Just check it yourself,” Belyan shrugged.

  “Sure I will,” she said incredulously, turning to a girl. “God is a fucker.”

  “Lady, are you stupid?” the girl asked in a thin voice. “Your dad is a fucker, because he literally fucked any animal he met.”

  Fox even recoiled in surprise, and Belyana began to cackle wildly.

  “You even managed to corrupt an angel,” she said displeasedly to Belyana. “I give up. Nothing similar with these dolls, except that she looks like vomit.”

  “For that matter, were you holding back?”

  “Nope,” Fox was surprised, having examined the winged child. “Really, there isn’t even a single scratch on her? Ugh, fuck, don't blink those sick eyes.”

  “I see,” Belyana turned to the girl. “Although I recognize your freedom, your independent actions are too dangerous at the moment. Do you agree?”

  The girl looked around thoughtfully.

  “I do,” she replied. “Pretty obvious.”

  “Then there will be no problems,” Belyana breathed a little with relief. “Just stay with me for now.”

  She whispered something unintelligible, and the girl crumbled into blue cubes that flew away under Belyana's dress.

  “I don’t even want to know,” Fox said, putting two fingers to her mouth, in imitation of vomiting.

  Belyana simply pulled up her dress, showing naked half of the body. A silver snake, studded with dimly glowing blue eyes, was wrapped around her thin left thigh, up to the knee.

  “And what did you expect?”

  “Who knows?” Fox shrugged. “I’m still guessing because of the ax.”

  “Sorry,” Belyana said, turning to Karina, whose face was covered in blisters from burns. “You did everything right. If you had been careful, the end would have been much sadder.”

  Karina, who had been sitting on the ground in thought before, sighed and got up.

  “It would be better if you climbed into such cloacas without me at all. Anyway I was useless.”

  “But this is your power! I just parasitized it a little,” Belyana answered encouragingly. “Better let’s take care of your burns. We don't want your face to end up like Fox's eye.”

  “Hey!” she was indignant.