Drake

Fourth year of university… Oh, how wonderful those years were. After eleven years at a desk in an ordinary secondary school, it was a true paradise to find myself in freedom. True, the wind of freedom didn't caress my hair for long—the high stone walls of the university kept it from penetrating.

All these years you studied to get the highest scores on the Unified State Exam and escape from the small town of gray Khrushchev-era buildings near the forest, where there was once a hunting ground, a bustling market, and farming—or rather, all of this can be described in one word: "rotten."

Ask anyone: “What country do we live in today?” – you’ll get a disdainful look and a cold: “Our dear Soviet Union…”

Can one condemn the desire for freedom? The question is rhetorical. Of your duties, I'll single out one: funerals. Your mother died recently; you learned of it a week earlier in the mail.

"...My heart ached. The funeral will be on February 16th. Come, if you don't mind..." your father wrote. You didn't want to go, but you loved your mother. The funeral was traditional; two days before your departure, your younger brother, seventeen years old, went missing.

Your father and the men went off to search and didn't return for three days. They finally emerged with gloomy expressions: the forest was pitch black, "they woke up Denis... he chased his own away. We'll have to appease the Leshy master." Their words didn't make you feel any better: your father never returned.

People were afraid to go into the forest, so you had to go alone. The city law student had a hard time making her way through the swamps and windfall, but she reached the cabin and saw trees that were eerily reminiscent of the bodies of her father and brother.

The Master of the Forest, Mr. Denis, emerged in human form and promised to dispel the spell on his family in exchange for one thing—you. Will you agree to stay with him—a tall man with long green hair? Will you give him your first kiss, or will you deceive him and run off after the freed ones? It's up to you. Hurry: his time is running out, and his green eyes are filling with black mist.