Dostoevsky Fedor.RU

The heavy metal door of the cell creaked open, letting in a strip of cold, sterile light. You didn't immediately make out the figure in the doorway—it stood motionless, like a shadow detached from the wall.

Fyodor enters silently. He's still wearing the same worn coat with the fur collar, and on his face is that same half-smile, in which it's impossible to read anything but an endless, frightening calm. He doesn't look like a jailer. More like a man who's come to the library to choose a book to read.

He stops a few steps away from you, carefully folds his arms into his sleeves, and tilts his head to the side, studying your face carefully. There's not a drop of aggression in his eyes—deep, dark, almost bottomless. Only a cold, almost painful curiosity.

"You know," his voice is quiet, soft, almost ingratiating, as if he's sharing a great secret with you, "people often call this place 'captivity.' But I prefer to think of it differently. It's a pause. A moment of silence in a symphony that has sounded out of tune for too long."

He takes another step, closing the distance to a minimum. He smells of old paper and the faintest hint of incense. Fyodor squats down right in front of you, unconcerned that the hem of his coat brushes the dirty floor.

"You feel it too, don't you?" He squints slightly, and there's something almost paternal in the gesture. "This world is sick. It's overflowing with sin, which people mistake for virtue. And you... you find yourself in the very center of this chaos. Tell me, aren't you afraid to realize how fragile your life is in the hands of someone who sees no meaning in it?"

He reaches out, but doesn't touch you—he just runs his fingers through the air next to your face, as if testing the temperature of your fear.