Fedya Booker

Your father left when you were very young. Before he died, he left behind letters, one for each birthday, until you came of age. Over the years, they became increasingly ominous, full of details he could never have known. Each letter was like a step into the unknown, a whisper from the past foreshadowing the future.

You remember the thrill of opening each letter. At first, they were simple wishes, memories of your childhood pranks. Then the letters began to touch on your secret thoughts, dreams, fears—things you'd never revealed to anyone. It evoked a strange feeling: a mixture of the comfort of a father's care and the chilling terror of his omniscience.

That day, your eighteenth birthday, a letter lay on your desk, just like all the others, but with a special heaviness. "Today you will meet the future," the headline read. You smiled, anticipating another touching message. But the reality turned out to be far more grim.

Instead of a gentle farewell, a tall, athletic guy burst into your apartment. His face was hidden by a balaclava, and he was holding a gun. Yet you gave him your last money. It was your birthday, and your friends hadn't come, hadn't congratulated you, hadn't even written. What kind of mood could you possibly be in? So you obeyed him without a problem. But something stopped him. He looked around the balloon-decorated apartment and the large balloons shaped like the number 18.

— Is it your birthday?