After Vallynor finished his meal, he looked at the clock and saw that it was almost 8:40. Quickly getting up, he washed the dishes and turned off the TV. Then he quickly got dressed, took off his jacket, and wanted to grab his backpack with notebooks, pens, and a laptop.
"Where's my backpack?" Looking around, he couldn't find it. Quickly taking a black bag from "Pyaterochka," he put a few notebooks and a pen in it. Let the laptop stay at home today.
When Vallynor picked up his phone to check the time, he paused for a moment and opened the gallery, where he saw only one photo, or rather, a schedule. By pressing on the photo, it enlarged and showed the schedule. Quickly checking the date, Vallynor realized that today was Monday. And he immediately remembered the song "Monday, a heavy day" that his father used to listen to in the car.
"So today is damn Monday. The lesson starts at 3:00 p.m. What the hell?" Checking everything again, he looked at the alarm clock, which was programmed for 8:00 a.m. every day.
Turning off the phone, he quickly undressed, leaving only his underwear, and jumped back into bed. But sweet sleep left him, and he didn't want to sleep anymore. There wasn't a single new chapter he had read that he really wanted to continue.
Turning on the TV, Vallynor wanted to watch something. But the TV quickly turned off, and he picked up his phone, lost in thought. He looked at the contact list that appeared before his eyes. Reading each name carefully, he tried to remember who they were.
"Jackal, where's my TANKKKKK, Lolshik, Nagibater 4000, For the glory of the sun, Ave Molan, Give up your soul, The world will fall, ?!?#!, Feast on the gods,!?#!#..." Vallynor read each name, trying to remember everyone. For such a homebody, the list was long—about 100–120 entries.
After reading the list, he found several hearts next to the name Angelika. Thinking, Vallynor wanted to click on her and see her history, as well as a photo, but because the photo was too small, he didn't have time to click on it.
But suddenly, the phone screen changed, showing several hearts and the name Angelika in large letters. And at the bottom were two buttons—green and red.
Realizing that Angelika was calling, Vallynor quickly answered and put the phone to his ear. From the phone, he heard a strange sound, as if someone was sighing right into the microphone. Vallynor listened in surprise and waited for something to happen, but nothing occurred for more than 10 seconds. Then Vallynor was ready to say something when he heard:
"Darling, you already answered, and I didn't even notice. I thought that, as usual, you wouldn't answer until I called several times. So I left the phone unattended," said a lovely, enchanting voice of a girl from the phone's speaker. While she was speaking, all the strange feelings disappeared, and he slowly forgot about everything and began to talk to her.
"Is something wrong, my love?"
"Yes. Haven't you forgotten that classes start soon?"
"What classes? "My classes start at 3:00 PM," Vallynor asked Angelika in confusion.
"Did you forget? Today at 9:00 AM, we have a programming class. I know you're lazy, but please think about your future. Our future," she said.
"Okay, okay. But I don't know why the phone didn't
"No excuses, okay?"
"Yes. I'll be there soon."
"Waiting," Angelika answered happily, and she hung up.
Looking at the phone, Vallynor saw that only one second was displayed on the screen. He quickly turned it off. "One second? I talked to Angelika for only one second?" he thought.
Looking at the clock, he realized that only a minute had passed since he turned off the TV and turned on the phone. What does it mean?
Getting up and getting dressed, Vallynor headed to the door. When he wanted to open the door, he hesitated and thought, turning on his phone to find out where the university was.
"Wait, it's online. Am I still dreaming? How could I forget such things?"
Quickly, he headed to his room, where he woke up. There should have been a laptop on the table, but it wasn't there. Thinking about where he might have left it, several assumptions came to mind.
First, it's in his backpack. Then a new question arises: where is the backpack? Second, he left it somewhere yesterday and doesn't remember. And third, he left it at the university or at Angelika's.
Knowing how much he valued his laptop, he couldn't have forgotten it. Because he left home for it yesterday, how could he have gone to the university when now there's a pandemic and all classes are online? Vallynor couldn't understand what had happened to him. Was he taking drugs? Nonsense.
Looking around, he saw a door in the corridor. A door? A door!!! The door to the second floor He must be there, for sure. Quickly opening the door and going upstairs, Vallynor didn't notice two venomously green eyes appearing through the glass of the door.
Reaching the second floor, he opened the first door on the right, where he saw an empty room. In the center, there was a table with a chair and a laptop. As he approached it, his phone rang.
At first, Vallynor wanted to ignore it. But seeing his girlfriend's name, he reluctantly answered:
"Where are you?" Angelika asked melodiously.
"At home, I'll turn on the laptop now and join the lesson. What's the name of the group? Where will the lesson be?"
"... Ugh. Did you forget, didn't you?"
"Forget what?" he asked his girlfriend, not understanding.
"The pandemic has officially ended, and everything is starting to return to normal. It's a good thing I came to you. I'm at your door. I'm waiting."
Vallynor, thinking, turned to the door as the laptop turned on. Looking at the turned-on laptop, Vallynor approached it to turn it off. But, looking at the screen, he sat down on the chair and read it carefully. Unable to believe it, he fell onto the chair.
***
"Expervit, can you look into memories residing in the soul?" Edward unexpectedly asked, breaking the silence.
"Yes, that's not a problem. Do you want to see the memories of the boy?" Expervit answered Edward's question, remaining motionless with closed eyes.
"Yes, I want to. I think everyone wants to see what the world looks like after a thousand years, even if it's just one world out of thousands," Tod said along with Chen, restoring Vallynor's body and making it stronger and more beautiful than before. Now they were waiting boredly for everything to end here so they could return to themselves with new materials for their experiments.
"If you can, make it so that everyone can see." Duke Mogil also asked Expervit to show Vallynor's memories, or at least part of them, after thinking for a while.
Sighing, Expervit raised his hand, and a black cloud appeared over Vallynor. Slowly, green threads connected the clouds with Vallynor's soul. The slowly moving cloud changed, revealing Vallynor's memories.
***
Vallynor read the article attentively, which talked about a new wave of pandemics that were so contagious and deadly this time that even a complete idiot would start to believe that this terrible virus exists.
Slowly shaking his head, Vallynor was able to make out the coffins in which his parents lay. Reading slowly, he realized that both of them had been infected and had died in agony due to their age. Turning around, he saw a video with a black screen. Clicking on it, he saw how his father and mother sat in bed, barely moving, and blood slowly dripped from their eyes, ears, and nose. His father was dead, hardly moving, and his mother whispered prayers, begging God for salvation because she had a child.
The video quickly closed, and something else appeared on the screen. At the same time, the phone began to ring incessantly.
Ignoring the call, he continued to read. He wondered if what he was reading was true or if it was some kind of prank. If it was a joke, he would break the joker's teeth.
The laptop screen flickered and went dark. An unpleasant smell came from the laptop. Vallynor first looked at his laptop, then stood up and, pushing it back from the table a little, fell to his knees, screaming:
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"My laptop! 150 kosaras are burned. No." He shouted for no more than a minute. Then Vallynor stood up, took his phone, and answered the non-stop call.
"Where are you? I've been waiting for a long time. Vallynor, you need to change. We won't have a future this way. Quickly open the door." - From the first words, it was clear that Angelica was angry. And the last words were spoken in a commanding tone.
Vallynor stood up, looked at the empty chair, was puzzled, and asked himself what he was doing there. But remembering how angry Angelica must be right now, he quickly headed for the door. Opening the door, he saw a young, beautiful girl in an evening dress in front of him.
Looking at the sky, he saw how it slowly darkened. Is it evening already? When did that happen?
Taking his phone in his hand, he wanted to check the time, but he was interrupted by Angelika, who took his hand and dragged him towards herself.
Vallynor felt her take his hand and pull it. He felt some disgust and anger, but couldn't understand why. Thinking about it, he pulled his hand away and turned away when she tried to hug and kiss him.
He quickly ran into the house and instinctively grabbed a small knife, putting it in his pocket. Then he entered the bathroom, flushed the toilet, and apologetically returned, justifying himself by saying he urgently needed to use the bathroom. Smiling falsely, he talked with Angelika.
However, in his mind, he pondered everything that had happened to him today. He even tried to remember that strange dream. Vallynor realized that something was amiss here because he trusted his instincts. When the sounds of the hammer and cries of danger sounded, he was especially attentive.
Angelika looked at him strangely, took his hand, and dragged him along. Vallynor tried to analyze and remember, and he woke up at the table with Angelika sitting in front of him, watching him carefully. Her cold green eyes never stopped watching him.
This made his heart skip a beat, but he didn't stop smiling because Angelika was watching him so closely. Vallynor tried to remember what they talked about on their last date. Dates? It's strange; I have a feeling that they never happened.
While an awkward atmosphere hung in the air, music suddenly started playing. Angelika, smiling, pulled Vallynor's hand and, embracing him, began to dance slowly.
Vallynor looked at her closely, took the knife, and stabbed Angelika in the stomach. She looked at him in surprise and disbelief. He slowly backed away from Angelika, dropping the knife, and looked at her coldly, asking, "Who are you?"
But Angelica was writhing in pain and couldn't say anything. Watching Angelica slowly die, Vallynor felt something piercing his chest. Turning his head, he saw nothing. Overwhelmed by weakness, he fell to the floor next to Angelica.
Vallynor couldn't understand what was happening and realized that he had misunderstood everything. Then who attacked him? As everything began to darken, a scratched triangle with rounded corners appeared on his bloodied hand.
Slowly, all the wounds healed. Vallynor stood up, looked coldly at Angelica's corpse, and smiled, saying:
"I wanted to kill you so badly, even if it was just a pitiful illusion. Show your face."
Angelica's corpse, like a demonic doll, slowly rose from the floor. And with an empty gaze, she looked at Vallynor, after which she was torn apart. An invisible person gathered the parts of Angelica's body, and a man in women's clothing appeared before Vallynor.
"Transvestite" rang out in the silence.
"Maybe you'll stop calling me a transvestite. As if I wanted to change my gender myself," he said, showing his beautiful face. Before Vallynor stood a young man with dark green hair and bright green eyes. He was very handsome, and almost every girl fell in love with him. But there was something dangerous in his gaze that provoked feelings of anger and rage.
"And how do you want me to call you? I don't remember hearing your name. Just 'brother', 'little brother', 'stepbrother', and "help me, I'm stuck'. And anyway, look at what you're wearing. But that's not important. You attacked something sacred! My computer is worth more than anything, except my family. I even beat my ex-girlfriend when she broke my laptop screen!" Vallynor exclaimed, wanting to tear this LGBT person apart. But he quickly calmed down, realizing he was in an unfavorable situation.
"Are you joking again? While you were looking at my memories, I was also looking at yours. I'll be honest; I don't know what's going on in your head. Your memories are jumbled; they stop at the most inappropriate moment, and so on. It's no wonder your soul is shattered. But what surprised me is how you managed to make your entire world rise up against the government of America and other countries. That's why you're wanted in many countries," the young man said.
"Yes, that was it. I spent nights stirring up conflicts, creating false news, and so on. But it's all trivial; I hardly did anything. People were already filled with despair and anger," Vallynor replied.
"No, that's enough. You managed to manipulate people without any superpowers. But still, you're our little oculist. You're a very interesting guy," Vallynor said.
"Sorry, but I'm interested in girls. Maybe you'll tell me your name now?" Ego asked.
"My name is Ego. You know how much time and effort I spent recreating this illusion from your memories. But your forgetfulness and laziness destroyed everything," Vallynor replied.
"Yeah, that's true. I have a question: did you add those strange names to my contacts?" Ego said, seeing his surroundings start to break apart. Vallynor grinned and approached Ego.
"He didn't even ask for my agreement. I'll answer you. No," began Ego, contemplating Vallynor's question.
Seeing Ego approach, Vallynor released a green fire that spread everywhere, like a forest fire in the summer during a drought. Vallynor directed his hand towards the fire and released water that extinguished it. But the green clouds spread everywhere.
Gathering air in his lungs, he released a strong wind, dispersing all the clouds. Vallynor looked at Ego, who laughed and said:
"I wanted to have more time to demonstrate my abilities. But you understand that this world is created from our thoughts and knowledge, which allowed me to create these seemingly simple spells that, in reality, I never learned. You're more astute than I thought."
"No, something like this has already happened in a book. If I'm not mistaken, 'Free this prostitute.' I don't remember the title, but I know of such a case." Ego began to speak, but Vallynor interrupted him.
Hearing the response, Ego's right eye twitched with irritation. After thinking, he attacked Vallynor, using various spells that he knew and had seen before.
Vallynor gracefully dodged each one of them. And if he couldn't, he blocked them, recalling various things. For example, when Ego cast a spell that tore space apart like a black hole, Vallynor recreated an anchor reality that blocked the spell with superhuman force. He also made the black hole shrink and disappear.
Recreating thousands of swords, Ego hurled them at Vallynor. But he just watched it all, snapped his fingers, and became slightly transparent. Ego's eyes gleamed, and he threw all the swords at Vallynor, expecting to hear screams of pain.
Ego approached Vallynor but quickly became disappointed upon seeing that Vallynor was just sitting and watching.
"How can you be here? You became a ghost?" Ego asked, not understanding.
"No, I didn't become a ghost, spirit, or phantom. I simply erased the connections between molecules but also made sure they didn't scatter in all directions. It's..."
"That's also from some book or movie. I got it," Ego said, interrupting Vallynor when he asked where he had seen something similar. "You're irritating me too much. When I looked into your memories, I was surprised to learn that your parents died at your hands."
"What?" Vallynor exclaimed in surprise, looking at Ego. He tried to remember his parents' past and remembered that they were alive on their last day, before they were pushed by Angelica the witch.
"Really? You didn't know," Ego devilishly grinned and continued, "That video where your parents died in bed isn't a lie. They just didn't die from a disease, but from the miasma of the gates of hell that you left open."
"Is this some kind of joke? I don't recall my parents dying from a pandemic. When I died, they were still alive. Are you joking?" Vallynor looked at Ego, trying to understand if he was lying or not.
"Oh, so you don't know," Ego said with a devilish smile and continued, "When you were young and just starting your rituals, one of the rituals was to summon a demon. But nothing happened, at least not for your eyes. Your eyes couldn't see what was really happening. The ritual ended, and a small crack appeared in space, from which demonic miasmas came out. You left home, but your parents stayed. Hahaha. This memory was deeply ingrained in your sea of memories."
Vallynor listened grimly until the pain overtook him and the whole world began to shake, filling with cracks. The world was falling apart, revealing a gray world filled with black cracks. Ego looked around in surprise and said:
"The imaginary world is changing quickly. Is it really falling apart? How interesting!"
Calming down, Vallynor looked coldly at Ego and said:
"You're right. They died because of me. When they found out they had died, they thought it was because of the pandemic. And then even my best friend died. I started poisoning people and countries with anger. I created false news and spammed everywhere. And it was clear that people were ready to explode from everything those fat pigs had done. Then I delved deeper into occultism and cursed them. I didn't know at the time that they had people with that specialty too. Later, I was forced to hide and work remotely. One day, while wandering, I met Angelica. Reading her room, I realized she wanted to use me as a sacrifice for her rituals. I was able to deceive and bind her. Then she killed me, pushing me into a car."
"I've seen all of this already. You've become someone else."
"It's time to end this farce," Vallynor said, raising his hand. Stone columns filled with strange runes fell lightning fast on Ego.
Ego quickly dodged each column until he attempted to jump and fell to the ground. He didn't even have time to see the column pulling back before it fell on him.
The column shattered, raising clouds of dust. From the center, one could see the dome that enveloped Ego and protected him from the falling stone columns.
"Mm." Ego didn't even have time to understand how thousands of transparent hands passed through the barrier and attacked him from within and without. Bursting open, blood and flesh splattered in all directions.
"Tsk, it was harder than I thought," Vallynor said, looking at the enemy's blood and flesh. He clicked his tongue, noticing it was starting to regenerate with a slight deviation. He had two dragon wings behind his back.
"It's time for me to use the power of imagination," he said, and a spatial hole appeared around him, expanding in all directions. Sharp swords emerged from it.
Vallynor lazily watched the flying swords, raised his hand, and pointed at Ego. All the swords stopped, as if frozen. This surprised Ego, and he created a wall of vines in the path of the flying swords. Each one was caught and stopped by the vines. They could no longer do any harm.
Ego saw Vallynor raise a huge laser gun and heard him say, "Annihilator gun... It's still cool and funny." Then Vallynor pulled the trigger, and a terrible wave filled with screams tore everything in its path. This destructive wave headed towards Ego. At first, he wanted to block it, but then he saw how it worked strangely. He quickly jumped aside, but his legs were held by the hands of the dead that had come out of the ground.
He lost his legs and flew to the side. The dead, whose hands held his legs, crumbled to dust. Ego tried to regain his destroyed legs, but he couldn't. He looked at Vallynor, who had restored his new legs, and said, "It's a shame that you can't just wish for deadly weapons and destroy the enemy wherever they are
"Then this world would not be my world of imagination, but a world that fulfills desires," he said aloud. Then he said to himself, "You have to know at least how what you want works. And the thing you create should be based on something."