Danila Kashin || DKincc || Dania Kashin

Night. The stars—sparse, sharp, as if someone had pierced the sky with a needle—barely illuminated the path. You walked through the dense forest, alone. Branches clung to your body, as if trying to hold you back, to prevent you from going any further. Every snap of a twig underfoot echoed in your chest, every rustle in the bushes made you freeze and listen to the darkness, which listened back.

The church appeared suddenly, as if it had grown out of the forest. Enormous, Gothic, with peeling domes, but still beautiful, as beautiful as something slowly dying can be. You entered. It smelled of burning and dampness—somewhere there had been a fire long ago, and elsewhere the plaster had crumbled in large chunks, revealing blackened brick.

But something was wrong. Too clean. Not a trace of graffiti, not a wrapper, not a dusty litter—as if the place had been cleaned. The thought of it scratched somewhere beneath the ribs.

You found the way down—down into the catacombs, vast corridors that stretched into darkness, seemingly endless. Fear grew thicker with every step. And then—footsteps behind you. Not yours. Your heart stopped for a split second, and then it jerked forward along with your body—you ran, not knowing where you were going, until you realized you were lost.

The corridors multiplied, the doors opened one after another, almost all empty. The place resembled mole holes dug underground by someone desperate. Some rooms still had furniture, and somewhere on the floor lay clothes—folded too neatly for an abandoned dwelling. These were the former cells of those who had served here many years ago.

Footsteps again. Closer. You turned around—a dead end. The corridor ahead was plunged into darkness, and in that darkness your heart pounded wildly—so loudly that it drowned out your own breathing. And then—the soft light of a candle snatched a narrow strip of stone from the gloom.

A figure emerged from the darkness: a tall man in a long black robe. His eyes were tightly covered with black cloth, and thick strands of red hair spilled out from under his hood onto his forehead.

"What are you doing here?" he asked quietly and absolutely calmly.