Anima Sola

Kyle couldn't tell exactly when the idea came to his inflamed mind.

Perhaps, it was ripening in him, taking root as he lay awake in a cold bed, watching the shadows galloping on the ceiling. The sheets beneath him smelled like frozen loneliness, time ticked silently, and the whole room turned into a dark, silent crypt. The walls were moving forward on him, crushing him with a load of memories, and the young man slowly but surely lost his mind, drowning in his pain.

Adam is gone…When did it happen? Kyle didn't remember exactly. The space around him turned into a thick jelly, enveloping, preventing him from taking a breath, and Kyle suffocated. He was out of breath, lost in that space. It seemed to him that life was divided into "before" and "after" and now lay in a shapeless heap of iron, like Adam's crumpled "Dodge", useless and ugly.

Sometimes it seemed that Kyle was starting to lose his lover, unable to keep his dead husband in broken memory. The pain did not disappear, but the memories erased, escaping from his fingers like smoke. Even the stuff in the house, which kept the scent of a man until the very last moment, turned gray now, colored in autumn twilight, warmth flowed out of them, taking with them parts of the life. Kyle did not recognize the things, holding them in his hands, going through the old photos in which he and Adam were so happy. Were so alive. Even husband's favorite mug stood alone in the cupboard, turning into a broken piece of gone happiness. All those left Kyle alone. Even the ginger cat named Lord abandoned the owner, who buried himself alive inside four walls. Adam found Lord in the street, and now the cat, just like Kyle, did not forgive him for leaving. A couple of times Kyle saw the pet came, looking uncertainly into the windows, but as soon as the young guy came up, the cat sparkled with green eyes and hissed irreconcilably in its cat’s language: "You lost everything". And Kyle agreed with him.

He could hardly see himself in the mirror now; a pale stranger with sunken eyes, the color of a restless sea gazed at him from there. The temples were grey. Adam left and took everything that made sense to him. Without him, the world around Kyle became just ... a world.

“I will find you even on another planet,” Adam once said, gently touching Kyle’s strands of hair. "I will never hurt you."

“You just died, ” Kyle whispered into the open window to the floating words. It blew with late, dank autumn and the rotten smell of dead leaves.

And when it seemed to him that this smell had extended into his skin, saturating all the corners, then he remembered the half-dark hall of the Harlem jazz club "Branch". Where he and Adam enjoyed the incredible sounds of the saxophone floating in a blue mist of muted light.

Adam was so handsome ... so alive and not disfigured by the windshield of the damned Dodge. And Kyle was still inspired by the freshness of his love, he looked more at his lover than listened to the husky voice of the singer. Under the scanty light of the spotlights, Adam's hair shone with an almost unreal silver, giving the man a mysterious image. Adam’s blue eyes looked at the stage as if absorbing an invisible glow, and Kyle looked at him.

They listen to the song of immortal Ella Fitzgerald.

“Jazz is not just music,” the man said, gently intertwining their fingers. "This is the voice of sadness. You can't just hear it, you can only be born with jazz."

“Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high

There's a land that I heard of

Once in a lullaby”… now Madame Fitzgerald continued to sing, as they slowly walked through the night Harlem. Adam hummed softly to the beat of the music pouring out of him, gently stroking Kyle's knuckles. The district did not sleep, the very unique atmosphere of coffee and a distant cornet, unobtrusively reaching from behind the closed doors of the past, hovered in the fresh air. Everything inherited only in the districts of Harlem, which Kyle fell in love with as recklessly as with Adam wearing his black cashmere coat. It was quite obvious that the guy was ready to fly up to the very clouds that his husband was whistling about.

"Husband!" Kyle furtively felt the smooth surface of the ring and tried that strange, so unusual, and sweet word. Husband, lover, friend ... The best thing that happened in the life of an ordinary boy from the block of the Big Apple, whose biggest dream was simply to move away from alcoholic parents. He wanted to tell Adam about it. Right then, while they still believed in the inevitability of their dreams.

“You know…” Kyle started but was interrupted.

“Mister! Hey, mister!"

A skinny, black teenager in an eye-gouging wide T-shirt was hanging around them. His dark hair stuck out in all directions, making the boy even younger than his years. He deftly slipped the white square into Adam's hand.

“What is it?” Kyle glanced over his shoulder with interest.

On the cheap paper was printed black letters:

“Mama Aded. Spiritualistic séances”.

“Seriously?” Adam raised an eyebrow. “In Harlem?”

“We own the record store,” the boy proudly retorted and ran away, as if they could find out some other top-secret information from him.

Adam stared at the business card with a little confusion, and Kyle immediately grabbed it, looking at it cheerfully.

“Spiritualistic séances. Sounds like a ventriloquist show.”

“Ghosts, candles, and an Ouija board.” Adam made a comical face, making the guy burst out laughing.

"Do you think she accepts checks?"

Kyle put the card into the pocket of his thin coat and forgot about it.

And a week later, Adam died.

Now Kyle saw that scene so clearly as if he was standing there, right around the corner, watching the happy strangers. He even felt the roughness of the paper surface with the dark, careless monogram, as if he were holding a business card right now.

“Mama Aded. Spiritualistic séances”.

An extravagant thought threw Kyle out of the bed, biting into his brain with a prickly splinter: "Why not?" Why doesn't he have the right to hope, try? If this is the only chance to see Adam, he, Kyle, was ready to sell his soul. To see Adam again, the very last time, and tell him how sorry he was. Endlessly, bitterly, like the noose around the neck.

The guy rushed into the hallway, where his coat was huddled in the closet. Trembling fingers frantically searched the pockets until they stumbled upon the soft paper. Kyle stopped breathing and pulled the card out. He eagerly ran his eyes along the stingy line, clutching the business card like a lifeline. But apart from a laconic address, there was nothing else on it: no phone number, nothing. Kyle turned the card over, hoping to see at least something else.

“You're going crazy,” he heard Adam's calm voice. “She’s a charlatan!”

The guy stubbornly pursed his lips, closing his eyes.

“Don't stop me. It is not for you to judge me, it’s not you who have lost the sense of life ...”

An unusually thick fog enveloped the lonely, dark figure, smearing it with gray watercolors against the background of bulky buildings. The fall sickness took its toll, pushing rare passers-by into warm and light shelters with a hot latte and amber whiskey in square glasses. A strange silence reigned in the Memorial Park, the angular silhouettes of trees pulled twisted branches into the gloomy sky, looking like sleeping monsters.

The smallest droplets of moisture brought her voice to him, she sang to him, about the sadness and inevitability, but Kyle was not ready to say goodbye. Tearing himself to pieces from reality, he did not want to say goodbye. Something must be there, beyond the invisible line of the hateful rain. And the young man fled from her, from her timbre, either keeping him in the backwater of the past or throwing him to suffocate on the shores of the cruel present.

Kyle didn't notice when he ended up on 116. Through a veil of fog, a sign in the shape of a cross was dimly shining at him, on which, like a mockery, burned: "Time to pray." Someone dashed into the church, not paying attention to the chilled young man. Kyle checked the address again and headed towards the market. On Sunday, there were a lot of people there, small in size Malcolm Shabazz could amaze any tourist who looked into Harlem in search of African exotic. But on this dull day, even here it was half empty. A small street huddled towards the market, turning into a lane, on which six-story houses with small shops and souvenir shops with rare editions of studio albums stood in orderly rows.

Among these motley shop windows, mixed with bright street graffiti and real examples of the Victorian era, Kyle finally saw the necessary plaque with the house number. At the very corner, a large vinyl record swayed in the wind. It had some pretentious title "In A Mellow Tone". Adam loved places like this.

"Where else can you feel the whole spirit of Creole expansion?" He used to say, walking among the numerous recordings of legendary jazz performers. Lester Young, Art Blakey, Marshal Checker, Duke Ellington, the inimitable Lady Day, and, of course, the everlasting Ella Fitzgerald looked at them from the era of their time from black and white envelopes. You could hear and find the whole history of jazz: from New Orleans style to acid jazz. And Kyle stood motionless for a moment in front of the glass door, decorated with characteristic stickers as if he was afraid to open it. As if on the other side he could see Adam, as before, looking at him among the shelves. Kyle came to the address: "Record Store, 15A".

His heart was beating somewhere deep inside, thumping dully in the chest, his fingers froze, and with the cold sarcastic doubt arose. The guy gritted his teeth, stepping on the throat of his uncertainty, and pulled the doorknob.

A bell tinkled subtly, announcing the new visitor. It was light and warm inside, a completely different world that Kyle left behind his back. There was no one else except him, and he cast a fleeting glance at the record racks. Bright lamps seemed alien and unusual to him, and only standing in the middle of the room, illuminated from all sides, Kyle suddenly realized how long he had not seen an ordinary electric light.

His apartment, his and Adam's, plunged into darkness and was still in it. Kyle blinked, letting himself get used to the lighting properly, and looked around again.

“Somebody is here?” he called. No one was in a hurry to meet the late visitor. Somewhere, multicolored beads rustled, softly bumping into each other, and a tall African woman, whose age was not easy to determine, appeared from behind a curtain. She could be either thirty-five or forty-five. A colorful blouse and the same skirt were full of white magnolias, an African headscarf-turban and a thread of wide coffee beads complemented this riot of colors. For a minute, Kyle even thought that she was a revived version of Marie Laveau, came from the pages of books and legends. The woman gave him an unfriendly look.

“We’re not working today.” She didn’t come close, “It says on the door: "Closed."

If it was, he did not see.

“I need Mama Aded.” His voice didn’t tremble, but a chill deep inside made him feel as if Kyle was sick.

The woman again looked at the guy: noting, though rumpled, but undoubtedly expensive clothes.

“I’m Aded and I don’t work today.”

Kyle gripped the edge of the counter, staring almost pleadingly into dark slanted eyes.

“Please,” he whispered hoarsely, feeling that he was close to his goal. “I will pay...”

Aded shook her head, and the earrings painted a small semicircle.

“Leave them to yourself. And go away. You don't belong here.”

She turned to hide in the doorway again, but Kyle suddenly grabbed her wrist, squeezing it with such force that the woman involuntarily flinched. Her black eyes stared at him with an unreadable expression, and the young man felt crazier than ever before. But he did not want to retreat.

“ I ... I beg you ... I have nowhere else to go! Why are you refusing me ?!”

She did not even attempt to escape or move. Instead, Aded stared at Kyle, burning with her obsidian gaze.

“Get out of here.”

Kyle jerked as he felt a wave of something incomprehensible emanating from her. For a moment, he wanted to run away from the damned store, but only an empty apartment was waiting for him, where his dying animal's howl echoed. The thought of that rolled down, hanging on his feet with unbearable weights and nailed to the spot.

“I forget him ...” The guy suddenly whispered, with furious despair continuing to hold Aded’s hand. “I forget everything about him ... I beg you, I beg you! I just want to see him again ... and ... and say goodbye. What should I do? Where should I go?”

The woman didn't answer, her lips compressed into a pinstripe. She looked at the hunched guy standing in front of her, who was crushed by the weight of his grief. And Kyle could feel the drizzling rain pouring inside, icy drops settling in his lungs. If she refused him, if Mama Aded refused, he had another way, less sophisticated, but just as effective. It is better to leave after a loved one than to turn into a semblance of a shadow and forget everything that still holds him here. His doomed determination must have been written on his face, for Aded suddenly nodded:

“Okay. I'll help you, silly white man. Come tomorrow at midnight and bring some of your belongings and the belongings of the one you want to see.”

Kyle let out a breath, only now realizing that he barely breathed. The woman shivered as if from cold and finally freed her hand. The guy lowered his eyes and saw a bright mark from his fingers, burning burgundy even on the dark skin.

"Sorry ..." he muttered. “ I do not…”

“ Go away,” she shook her head. “ Come back tomorrow.”

“Thank you ... Thank you.” Kyle backed towards the door, followed by an unfriendly silence. The street met him even worse, hitting him in the back with a gusty wind. He did not remember how he got home, winding through endless alleys. A couple of times he began to think that he was lost, but in the end, he found himself in his apartment. Kyle leaned exhaustedly against the wall, wrapping his arms around his chilled shoulders.

His coat was still hanging in the closet.

It was hard to say if he managed to sleep. Kyle had nightmares. They were vicious and dim, like misted glass through which he could not make out anything. Voices and faces floating in a haze of hot fever, bright lights behind a wall of rain. And from somewhere came a song, accompanied by the sounds of a saxophone.

He woke up in a cold, unhealthy sweat, shivering from the wind. The window was always wide open, and the light curtains fluttered like clipped wings. Kyle got up, closed it, and stood for a long time, breathing icy steam into his reflection. The song from the dream slowly faded away, dying in the corners of the half-empty apartment, and he almost immediately forgot about it, again wrapping himself in a cocoon of blankets.

Kyle arrived exactly at the appointed hour. Aded was dressed the same as yesterday, and greeted him with the same hostility. He didn't understand why. Kyle was one of her many clients, so what's wrong?

“Do whatever I tell you.” Aded led him through the curtained side door. “This ritual is special. Everything has to be done according to the rules, perfectly. You white people always break the rules.”

Kyle listened and nodded silently as he followed her. The rest of the day was hard, the guy wandered around the apartment until the silence began to choke. Then he fled to the street, but it was not easier there either. Everything seemed abandoned, drowning in fog, clinging to clothes in thin scraps.

He was released only in front of the familiar door, when the road was illuminated only by street lamps and the last chords of the day had already died down in the dense night. Kyle was afraid that Aded would refuse again, he had no more strength to ask, and he thought he would just collapse in front of a black woman on his knees.

They went into an adjoining room, lit by only a few candles. A bizarre figure was drawn on the bare floor, and Kyle did not immediately realize that it represented the cross. There were candles at its four ends, and another at a strange long line, meaning either a cane or a pole. Something was fumbling in a wicker basket nearby, and Kyle suddenly thought about the sacrifice. There was an unpleasant prick inside, but he did not move. On a spread-out mat, under an earthenware cup, lay a wide knife.

“Did you bring what I asked for?”

The young man, without saying a word, held out to the woman two buttons in his palm.

“Sit opposite. And remember my words: do not call him by name, do not try to hold back, do not ask questions. Tell him what you want and that's it. But most importantly, don't mention his name.”

Kyle breathed in the indistinct scent of coffee beans.

“I understood.”

He knelt in front of Aded, separated only by the inscribed cross and the flames from the candles dancing in fantastical shadows on the walls.

The woman threw the buttons into the cup and whispered something in her melodious language, turning over either grains or small stones with her fingers. Then she turned the contents down and Kyle saw it were kinds of wheat. Several elongated seeds jumped up and fell beside him, the rest inside the chalk figure, and with them Kyle's buttons. It seemed to him that thin ice crunched under his feet.

Kyle was born in a small mining town in southern Cincinnati. In winter, they often went to the local river, and one day, ten-year-old Kyle fell through the ice. The flow immediately caught the boy, dragging him down, and in those endless minutes, while he was being rescued, Kyle was sure that this was the end. The cold seemed so wild that it burned skin, eyes, and lungs. Through the thickness of the ice, he could barely make out the rushing figures of people and their voices. After being saved Kyle was in shock, but he remembered only one thing for sure - how the ice cracked under his feet.

Now he felt the same, something like a bad omen, a premonition of an impending storm. With a quickening pulse, Kyle watched Aded, whose movements began soft and fluid. She threw back the lid of the basket and took out a white rooster with tied wings and legs. The poor bird was blinking stupidly with round eyes, and Kyle involuntarily wondered if it could feel its ice cracking?

The woman grabbed the rooster by the head, twisting it, not ceasing to whisper, but now it looked more like a long song, and deftly slashed the bird’s neck. Dark blood spurted out in a thin fountain, beading staining the scattered grains. The living creature began to beat in agony, pushing the pulsating liquid out of the vessels. Kyle suppressed the feeling of disgust looking at the agonizing body. He glanced at Aded and almost staggered back. She swayed back and forth, her mouth was unnaturally wide open. The woman’s eyes rolled back, the whites of her eyes gleamed like blind holes on her dark face. Aded shook with a small shiver, and everything in Kyle rebelled, twisting into a tight spring of fear and squeamishness.

He had to cling to the edges of the mat so as not to rush to the door. The yellow flame on the wicks trembled in rhythm with the woman, somewhere on the falsetto glass rattled, squealing disgustingly. And if at first, the guy wanted to run without looking back, then a minute later he was shackled by real horror. Something was wrong, causing unaccountable fear, but at that moment he could not even say what exactly happened. A sudden rush flew into the room, blowing out several candles, but Aded continued to be in trance. Kyle was shaking no less, he could have sworn that he heard footsteps, heard the creaking of floorboards. He covered his head with hands, defending against an invisible threat and covering himself from something or someone slowly approaching.

It all stopped suddenly. As if the power had been turned off. Even the howl of the wind died down, stumbling on the go. Kyle opened his eyes, listening. There was a dead silence, tanned and heavy. He looked at Aded and the jolt of electricity ran through his spine. She froze in a tense position, still with the same distorted face, but now it was turned towards the door. The guy licked his dry lips convulsively, unable to make himself look in that direction. But he almost physically felt that someone was standing there. The short hairs on the body stood on end, the skin was covered with small pimples, and Kyle felt a faint breath on the back of his head as if someone was breathing behind him ...

“Kyle?”

A familiar voice pierced him through, pouring a hot wave of disbelief and joy. The guy turned around slowly, like in slow motion. Adam stood in the doorway. For a moment, Kyle thought he was completely insane, but it was his Adam! It was as if it had come from an old photograph or a faulty film with noise, but it was him. Wearing his favorite dark green sweater, so homey…He looked at Kyle with incredible blue eyes full of disbelief.

“Kyle, is that really you?”

"Yes! Yes!" Silently shouted the young man, but the words never left his lips. The tongue was stiff and refused to obey him. The unbending legs could hardly hold when he rose slowly, afraid to frighten off the figure in front of him, and when step by step he approached the person whom he loved more than anything in the world, more than his own life. How he longed to touch Adam! Feel the warmth of his skin again, the smell of his hair, the softness of his sweater ... To remember him all and to possess again ...

“Adam,” he whispered. Just a few centimeters and his fingers will touch the man’s face. “Adam ...”

From somewhere in the bowels of the house, thunderous footsteps were heard, shaking, probably, the whole street. The walls shook under the powerful blows, and Kyle flinched, feeling someone's hungry hatred on him.

He looked frightened at Adam and saw how the vague silhouette of his husband began to blur. With each blow, it became more and more blurry, until the outline of the room began to be seen through it. Adam was saying something, Kyle could see his lips move, but he didn't hear a word. He rushed forward desperately, hoping to capture the fading vision.

“Adam! Adam, no! Please! Don’t go away!”

But his hands were blindly grasping empty air. Kyle howled, rushing about like a blind man. Adam had just been here, very close, and again something divided them.

“Adam!”

Madness, which took possession of the mind, obscured the view. He could not, could not lose his husband again.

“You are a fool!”

Mama Aded stood in front of him, her eyes sparkling in anger. In a surprise, Kyle jerked back, hitting the wall.

“What have you done?!” The woman hissed. “Didn't I warn you ?! What have you done?!”

Kyle blinked, realizing that everything was quiet. It smelled of paraffin and all the same coffee beans, but there was complete silence around.

“Adam ... I saw him!”

Aded shrugged a shoulder angrily.

“Of course you did! But you don't know a damn thing what's going on. Did I say not to call him by name?”

And Kyle remembered, but it was too late.

“Please…”

“No” The medium interrupted him. A miasma of incomprehensible odors emanated from her, it was a deafening mixture of tobacco, coffee, paraffin, and mold. Kyle had not noticed it before, but at the moment he was gasping for breath from lack of air. He tried to say something, but an unimaginable stench filled his lungs.

"Get out of here," Aded's voice sounded calm, but Kyle dared not disobey. He would have been lying on his knees, begging her to call Adam again, but his feet themselves carried him to the exit.

"Aded ..." he croaked, but she was relentless.

“White people have never understood our magic. I don’t know why you so angered HIM and why you are so tormented. But don't come here again,” and the door slammed shut, leaving Kyle alone with the night.

He still could not fully comprehend what had happened inside. All stories and tales about witchcraft turned out to be absolutely true! Adam was there and looked at Kyle with his unbearable eyes as if he saw the greatest miracle of his life. He always looked like that. As if it was Kyle who pulled him out of the cesspool.

The young man stood in front of the closed door for a long time. He was still shaking a little from the experience, but the coolness of the night quickly refreshed his burning head. His attempts to reach Aded had come to nothing, the store was dark.

“Only once,” he whispered to himself incessantly. “One more time ... “ Kyle was beating in a fever, he kept looking around - he heard unintelligible voices. So, devastated and exhausted, he fell asleep right at the door, or rather, fell into another unconsciousness.

“Hey, Mister! Mister, wake up!"

A familiar voice yanked him out of his usual nightmares, and Kyle barely opened his eyes. He saw a low silhouette, vaguely reminiscent of someone.

“Get up, you have to leave. Otherwise, Aded's mom will get very angry.”

Finally, Kyle is fully awake. Somewhere between the houses, the sun was rising, dispelling the heavy and thick darkness. It was the same boy who gave them the business card. Still the skinny and awkward, he stood over Kyle, examining him with childish sympathy.

“Get up. Mama Aded is very angry with you.”

"Adam ..." Kyle remembered last night. “There was Adam! I must see him again!”

But the boy blocked his path.

“You can't go there! She will no longer help you.”

Kyle froze, he understood that he couldn’t force Aded to help him. But he also could not return just the way like that.

“What should I do?” He groaned, leaning his hot forehead against the door. “What should I do?!”

The teen looked at him with a mixture of pity and confusion. More than once he had to see people like Kyle, lost, heartbroken, like strangers, wandering the streets, and sooner or later they all came to Mama Aded. The boy hesitated. Aded forbade him to interfere in such matters, but at his age, he saw and understood much more than any of his peers.

And looking at the young guy standing in front of him with the eyes of an old man, the boy worried with all his still childish heart, feeling someone else's pain. After all, no one was to blame for what happened.

“Wait here,” he suddenly said resolutely, coming to a definite opinion in an argument with himself. “Don't go anywhere!”

The boy disappeared around the corner of the house. Kyle sat down against the wall, obediently waiting for his new acquaintance. Something had changed in the air, perhaps it was in the brightening sky, for the first time in these days without a single cloud. Kyle had already forgotten how blue and beautiful it can be in the predawn spray of the rising sun.

The boy was gone for quite a long time and Kyle decided that he would not come when the thin figure again emerged from the corner. The boy was holding a basket, hastily tied with twine.

“Here. Take it. Everything you need for the ritual is here. And these,” he handed to the surprised guy a folded sheet of paper, “these are words. Have you seen how she did it?”

Kyle nodded slowly. He was not sure if he could do everything properly. Most likely, his emotions were written on his face, because the boy smiled encouragingly, although the smile looked awkward.

“HE will hear you, just do everything as I wrote. And do not call by name. If you don’t want the loa to get angry again. Everything must be done according to the rules, remember? Everything should be ...”

“Perfectly,” Kyle finished hoarsely, and the boy nodded.

“Loa loves it when everything is according to the rules.”

“Who is the loa?” The young man hugged the basket in himself, feeling the quiet swarming in it.

“Spirit-intermediary,” the boy explained and looked around furtively. “Mama Aded woke up. Go away, mister!”

Kyle hurried away, but then he remembered that he had not thanked the teenager. However, when he turned around, there was no one else.

The last stars were extinguished in the sky.

The apartment was silent and empty. But something was different, Kyle now felt the same as before at the door of the store. As if the missing thread that connected them to Adam reappeared. Still invisible and fragile, but it was. Kyle felt it as he walked around the house. Sometimes it seemed to him that he hears his husband, the sound of a mug on the table, the aroma of fresh coffee ...

In these moments, Kyle shouted Adam’s name, but the visions melted like smoke in the rays of the sun. It warmed him, who was frozen to the bone, and for the first time, he felt the blood running through his veins, felt ... being alive.

Barely waiting for the right time, Kyle dragged the basket into the living room. Following instructions in gnarled childish handwriting, he painstakingly drew an ornate cross on the floor. For several minutes he silently moved his dry lips, memorizing complex words, then repeating them, mixed the wheat grains and the buttons from the coat. They crumbled with a thud and stood still while Kyle took out the young cockerel. Unlike its first relative, this one did not even flutter, freezing in doom and human hands.

“Sorry,” Kyle whispered, trying not to look in the bird’s eyes. The knife sank too deep, severing the arteries. The little body twitched a couple of times, giving itself to the slaughter, allowing blood to flow out of it. The guy tried to ignore the little death in his fingers, pronouncing the words of the spell, but he still felt the cock went quiet, how the tiny heart stopped beating.

And then darkness fell. The candles went out, plunging the room into the gloom.

Kyle did not move, afraid to make a move and continuing to grip the kitchen knife. Something whispered nearby him, making him flinch, then again, and again. The young man flinched to the side, pushing something with his back and resting his hand on a convex smooth surface. With belated horror, Kyle understood that it was a boot, and the young man jumped to his feet as if stung. He rushed back, again bumping into an invisible barrier, bounced back, and again hit something. The guy froze, not daring to move again. Time passed indefinitely, he did not know how long he had already stood like that, maybe two hours, maybe a couple of seconds, but then lights began to appear in the distance. At first, they looked like dancing lights in the fog, but they were getting closer and clearer. Kyle blinked. They were approaching from all directions, appearing out of nowhere, and only now he realized what it was. Lanterns carried by people. Unfamiliar women, men, old people, and children, all walked with lanterns in an unknown direction. The light illuminated their path, and they did not stop for a moment, not noticing Kyle. There were others, those who wandered in the dark, not making out the path. For them, only darkness existed, and they, hunched over their shoulders, walked in a circle in absolute darkness, without a goal, desires, and aspirations. At the sight of them, frost ran down Kyle's veins. He tried to make out their faces, and a sickening lump of guessing stuck somewhere in his throat. Their eyes were closed, like those of the blind or sleeping, but Kyle was sure that they were neither blind nor sleeping. He took a step back, then another, wanting only one thing - to get out of this crowd of the dead. But Adam ... could Adam have been among them? Kyle looked around in confusion, but only strangers surrounded him. What to do? Call? But Kyle remembered the boy's words and how it had ended the last time. But how to find Adam?

“Where are you?” Kyle whispered, looking into calm, detached faces. “Where are you?”

Despair launched its claws, gripping the ribcage with an iron grip. He must, must find him! Even if he had to spend eternity among the dead.

“Where are you?!” His bitter cry made everyone stop for a moment. They froze like terrifying wax figures, turning their heads in his direction, listening.

“Kyle?” A new voice cut through the silence with the whistle of an ax. People turned their heads without moving.

“Adam ...” The young man opened his eyes in disbelief, looking around. “Adam!”

“Kyle! Where are you?”

“Here! I'm here!” He threw himself on the voice, pushing aside the frozen crowd. “I'm here, Adam!”

"Just do not leave! Kyle prayed. "Don't disappear!"

“I'm coming, I'm coming to you!”

There was a heavy downpour on that fateful night. But Kyle didn't remember that. He forgot it just like he forgot everything. For a long time, the sky accumulated autumn moisture to finally bring it down with all its might on the heads of the people. Clouds hung over the city like dirty, swollen sheets, piling up in layers and clinging to the peaks of skyscrapers. Kyle was in his hometown, his father died of a heart attack, and Kyle had to come to settle the matter with the funeral and the remaining ramshackle house. He did not even go there, not wanting to meet the ghosts of the past, and after three days he was going back to NY.

“Maybe you shouldn't go in this weather?” Adam disagreed, but Kyle, sitting in a hotel room, wanted only one thing: to return home to his husband and never come back here.

“You have no idea what this place is,” the guy threw his shirt into his bag and zipped in with a lightning bolt. “I’m not staying here for a minute. At least I'll go on foot.”

Silence hung on the other wire.

“I know, really,” The man spoke more softly. “Just be careful, okay?”

His heart grew warmer and Kyle smiled.

“Ok.”

He jumped out into the street, hurrying to come back home, threw his bag into the back seat, and started the engine. The dark blue Dodge cut through the rain as it slowly leaving the hotel parking lot.

Kyle opened his eyes. How could he forget? How could he forget that night?! A downpour, a wet track, and a Renault cargo truck driving towards it… It was not Adam who hit his head on the windshield and broke the entire body, pushing the hood of the car into the rear bumper. Not Adam was taken out in pieces for an hour and a half. Because it wasn’t his car and it wasn’t him driving, it was Kyle.

“Don’t cry.”

He shuddered. His husband lay next to Kyle. Adam’s blue eyes were a little sad, but still gentle and full of light.

"What have I done ..." Kyle whispered. Dreams ceased to be dreams, turning into memories, even the voice humming an indistinct song was now familiar to him.

“Don’t think about it.” The man gently wiped the tears off his young beloved’s cheeks and Kyle caught his hand. There was a deep cut on Adam's wrist in a curved line.

“It will soon disappear.” Adam smiled, and Kyle's heart sank. How could he be so blind and deaf?

“Forgive me,” he buried himself in her husband’s palm with all the tenderness he felt, his lips touching the ugly scar. “God… forgive me, Adam!”

The man ran his fingers into his lover's soft hair, stroking and consoling.

“I heard you, your call. Do you really think I could live a normal life without you?”

He pulled the guy closer, letting him burst into tears. Guilt choked Kyle, but Adam knew it would go. It all goes. The main thing is that now they are together, and it does not matter in which of the worlds.

Somewhere in the depths of the apartment, the hands on the clock finally froze. Everything fell into place.