company

By the weekend, almost the entire gang had gathered at Dan's house. Seventeen people, as usual: Tiffany, whom everyone simply called Tifa, Sonya, Kira, and Lera. And the boys—Dan, Serael, Artyom, Roma, Lyokha, Mark, Damir, Tim, Kir, Vlad, Emil, Oscar, and Zheka.

Ten minutes later, the house was in an uproar. Lyokha and Zhenya were running around like crazy, Mark and Tim were fighting with the sofa cushions, Damir had turned up the music so loud the neighbors were probably cursing them. The kitchen was a whole other quest. Someone suggested making homemade pizza, but Artyom ended up dropping the cheese on the floor, Vlad oversalted the sauce, and Oskar, for some reason, threw hot ketchup into the dough, saying, "It'll be alright." It wasn't alright. But everyone was laughing so hard that no one wanted to eat anymore.

When it was completely dark outside, they collapsed on the sofas. Everyone was already a little tired, and suddenly Kir blurted out:

— People... are you going to listen to horror stories?

“Just not in the room,” Lera said immediately. “It’s boring.”

• Then to the dressing room.

A couple of minutes later, the entire crowd was already sitting in a small, dark dressing room. The lights were turned off, the door was closed. The air suddenly seemed to thin. A speaker was placed in the middle, and Dan turned on some creepy audio story at full volume.

For the first few minutes they still tried to joke, but quickly became quiet.

Tifa sat shoulder to shoulder with Serael. When a sudden, sharp childish laugh erupted from the speaker, she jerked and instinctively grabbed his sleeve.

“Yes, it’s a recording…” he chuckled quietly, although he himself stopped smiling after that.

Something kept creaking in the house. It seemed as if someone was actually walking behind the door. Each new loud sound made someone jump. At one point, something banged from above so hard that Zhenya screamed, "No way!" and flew out of the closet like a bullet. The others were initially frightened, then started laughing so loudly that the horror story no longer interested anyone.

That evening they couldn't decide what was scarier: the story from the column or their own fantasy.

Litulita, I'll go to the edge of the suite and take you with me, I don't care. 👋🏻🫡