Tatyana Shuklina
© Tatyana Shuklina, 2022
ISBN 978-5-0056-2558-8
Created with Ridero smart publishing system
The Final
All I can hear now is my own uneven breathing and a deafening heartbeat in my chest. I seem to be suffocating, but it is not a lack of oxygen. Never in my life have I had to experience such deep and woeful despair. I want to hide in a corner, cover my face with hands and sob. Unleash the tears of unspoken pain, guilt and loss – everything I have experienced in the last week. But they stand like a lump in the throat, strangle and tear apart.
«Please let it be a dream! Bad, nightmarish, realistic. Let me wake up in my ordinary life, smell the Sunday pancakes that my mother has been cooking in a frying pan for twenty years…»
But I know for sure that I am not sleeping and everything that happens around is a nightmarish reality. Right now, a choice must be made. Do I really have it? I can still save those who survived, atone for my guilt for those who left. Still able to help those I love. But, God, what a monstrous cost! Do I have a choice? Will I be able to live peacefully with my hands stained with blood?
Each of us is to blame for what happened in this damned place, each made his own contribution: did not think anything over, underestimated, and did not prevent anything. I cannot live with guilt. To see their faces in nightmares, to relive repeatedly their tragedies, their losses and this destructive feeling of complete helplessness. Close my eyes and see their suffering, plug my ears and hear their cries, close my heart and feel their pain. Do I have a choice? THEY claim I do. However, I know better. For the first time in all this time, I know better. The point is I have no choice.
A countdown starts:
«Ten… nine… eight…»
I know what to do. THEY expect this from me.
«Seven… six… five…»
Suddenly the decision is there. The thoughts in my head stop getting confused. I feel confident and calm.
«Four… three… two…»
The last look at those who have become so precious to me during this time.
«Goodbye,» I whisper with my lips alone.
«One…»
I manage to catch my breath and begin to speak in a calm voice, while tears finally find their way out and run unhindered down my cheeks in streams. These are tears of relief. Rivers of deep sorrow and endless anguish.
«My name is Larina Victoria, age 25. Game name Lavina. And I’m ready to tell you the answer to this damn quest game…»
The Game begins
I wake up, but my heart is still pounding furiously in the chest. Wet sweat is on my forehead. It has been just a bad dream! At first I feel a deep relief, then a strange joy, the same that I feel every time I wake up from a nightmare. It’s so good to know that it was just a dream. The adrenaline rush got into the blood, and I definitely like it.
«Tea or coffee?» A flight attendant impatiently interrupts my train of thought with a consistently professional smile. «Oh, I’m sorry, I woke you up,» she adds absolutely without regret and with the same cold smile.
«Eh, nothing. I’d like some tea, please. China is famous for its tea. I could start getting involved in its culture right now. After all, we are already flying in the Chinese sky?» I am trying to joke.
«We are on board a Russian airliner, tea is also Russian,» the stewardess calmly answers, «you like to have one?»
«Yes, thank you,» I sigh.
With a cup of hot tea in my hands, I press my forehead against the cold glass and look out the window. In my dream, I ran along the tangled paths of the labyrinth and did not see who was chasing me, but I felt the chilling fear of pursuit and the uncontrolled terror in front of an unknown enemy. The coldness and darkness of the labyrinth pressed on me. The further I ran, the sooner I got closer to this Something, to the danger that awaited me at every branch of the path. And at that moment, when I had no doubts that IT was waiting for the next turn, the flight attendant with a far from friendly smile offered me far from Chinese tea.
The blue sky, the bright sun overboard and the anticipation of the upcoming adventure are dizzy. By the way, I am afraid to fly, although I am not to blame for weakness of character. Since the age of thirteen I have been mountaineering. I have two parachute jumps behind my shoulders. The roller coasters or bungees are simply breathtaking for me. No, what really bothers me is the realization of my own helplessness. After all, nothing depends on me: one mistake of a pilot or failure of equipment – and there is an end of my precious life, filled with youth that spills like a fountain! My hands are sweating and I feel a little dizzy again. Stop! I drive away bad thoughts and switch to what is really important. My name is Larina Victoria, I am from Russia, and I got into the Game of the Century – «Antakarana. Quest in reality».
My real passion are quest games. The most diverse: computer, book and real ones. I am a frequenter of the interactive quest community. When the announcement of the upcoming game appeared on the network, this event immediately became the main topic of the forum. Like many participants, I filled out questionnaires and passed all imaginable and inconceivable tests: from logical problems and quite understandable puzzles to completely incomprehensible and even more illogical questions, such as:
«Imagine that you have little people in your ear. What color are they:
a) Yellow – the color of earwax.
b) Red – periodically you have a bleeding ear.
c) Green – the result of tests of alien creatures.
d) Little people cannot live in the human ear cavity due to the lack of atmosphere.
e) Your own option».
I thought then that this might be a test of my sense of humor, so I answered: «f) They are actually purple. I was recently lucky to see one of them on a pillow at night.»
However, among such stupid and harmless questions, there were also frankly frightening ones, which were, to put it mildly, creepy to answer. I doubt that in this way the organizers set out to test our erudition: the answers could be easily found on the Internet.
«How long did it take to kill people in the gas chamber in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp since the spraying of the Zyklon-B gas?
a) 10 minutes
b) 15 minutes
c) 30 minutes
d) Your own option.»
Or another one:
«Which of the famous killer maniacs had the nickname «Killer Clown», as he lured victims under the guise of a disguised clown, tortured and brutally killed them:
a) Dennis Rader
b) Gehry Regguey
c) John Wayne Gacy
d) Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer
e) Your own option».
Howbait, I was sincerely surprised when two weeks later I received the coveted invitation to the game.
In addition to my trip to China, more precisely Tibet, there is one more thing that I am incredibly happy about. A young man from Russia with the playing name Alex will take part in the quest. He is also a member of our quest community. Once we played an online game in pairs. The guy even sent me a picture, but I still don’t know his real name. All our communication was limited to discussing strategies for finding objects or solving the next puzzle.
The idea that I will not be the only participant from Russia encourages me. It’s not about worrying about the language barrier – after all, I’ve been