Morning greeted Mark with a headache and a strange premonition. He woke up in his small apartment, where the first rays of the sun pierced through the curtains. However, instead of the usual feeling of vigor, he felt a heaviness in his temples and a vague anxiety, as if something important was slipping away from his understanding.
All night, he had been dreaming convoluted dreams that left behind a sense of unease and mystery. In these dreams, he wandered through endless underground corridors, their walls covered with ancient symbols and mysterious signs. The dim light of old photographs hung on the walls illuminated his path, but their images were blurred and indistinct, as if someone were trying to erase them from memory.
In these dreams, Kismet's silver ring kept appearing. It was unusual, with an intricate pattern, and it seemed to possess some kind of magical power. At one point, the ring began to slowly transform into a snake. The snake was graceful and dangerous, its scales shimmering in the half-light, and its eyes burned with a green fire. It coiled around his heart, and Mark felt a cold fear envelop him.
Upon waking, he couldn't shake the feeling that this dream was not just a figment of his imagination. Mark decided that today he would take the time to understand what lay behind these strange visions.
His trusty Nikon F3 film camera, a companion in many investigations, habitually settled into his bag. This camera had been with him for many years, capturing the most important moments of his career. He remembered using it for the first time in his first major case and had not parted with it since.
Mark paused for a moment before a small home safe, pondering whether to take his voice recorder with him. This was an old habit he had acquired early in his career when he realized how important it was to record every word at meetings. The recorder was small, almost inconspicuous, but an invaluable tool. In the end, he decided it was better to be safe and carefully placed it in the inner pocket of his coat.
Before leaving home, Mark recalled the strange message he had received the night before from an unknown number. He hadn’t had time to open it, but in the moment the notification popped up, he quickly grasped its motive: warning and threatening. Deciding to ask Kismet about it when they met, he gathered everything he needed, took one last look around the room to check if he had forgotten anything, and left the house.
Yaroslavsky Station buzzed like a disturbed hive. People rushed in different directions, creating the noise and bustle typical of the morning rush hour. The trip seemed to be the focus of everyone present, and there was something both exhilarating and exhausting in this chaos.
Kismet was waiting for him by the old clock that towered over the crowd like a silent witness to past eras. She looked majestic and mysterious, like a noir film heroine come to life. Her dark coat billowed in the wind, giving her the appearance of a mysterious stranger. Mark slowed his pace as he spotted her from afar. He couldn’t help but admire how the morning sun played in her hair, giving it a golden hue. The light created an aura around her, setting her apart from the crowd and making her image even more alluring and enigmatic.
Mark approached closer and noticed a shadow of worry in Kismet’s eyes that seemed to reflect his own feelings. They greeted each other curtly and headed to the platform.
The train swayed gently as it glided along the tracks, carrying them away from the hustle and bustle of Moscow. Mark and Kismet sat across from each other by the window, behind which unfolded a monotonous, blurred picture of the suburbs—green carpets of fields and forests creating the illusion of limitless space. The morning mist, not yet lifted, framed the occasionally flickering houses in a ghostly haze.
"Tell me more about Vorontsov," Mark broke the silence, pulling out his worn notepad. "What else do you know about him?"
Kismet momentarily diverted her gaze from the landscape outside.
"Mikhail Vorontsov," she said thoughtfully and almost in a whisper, "worked in the construction department from 1982 to 1991. He held the position of senior engineer for the reconstruction of basement spaces. After the collapse of the USSR, he retired." She pulled a folder with documents from her bag. "But what’s interesting is this. Before leaving, he requested copies of all the plans for the underground communications in the Maroseika area. Officially—for the archive. But the copies never returned to the department."
"And you think he discovered something?" Mark quickly jotted down the information in his notebook.
"I'm sure. When I contacted him, he initially didn’t want to talk. But then..." she lowered her voice again, even though the carriage was nearly empty, "He said he had information that could change the understanding of the city's history. And that now was the time to reveal it." Mark looked intently at Kismet. In the morning light, her face seemed especially pale, and her eyes unusually bright.
"And why now? Why has he been silent all these years?"
"He said he was waiting for the right moment. And for people he could trust with this information." Kismet took out her phone and showed Mark a map. "His house is here, on the outskirts of Pushkino. An old area, private construction." Mark nodded, and the rest of the trip passed in silence, each lost in their thoughts.
An hour later, they were walking down a quiet street, where old apple trees hung over the crooked fences like guardians, keepers of elusive secrets. Vorontsov's house appeared before them, much like its owner—a cozy old man, it was a small one-story building with a green cap of moss on the roof and old window frames. Mark noticed that the gate was unlocked.
"Strange," he muttered. His journalist instincts sent a signal of alarm. They climbed the porch, and Kismet knocked on the door. No one answered. She knocked again, harder. Silence.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
"Maybe we’re early?" Mark suggested, but Kismet shook her head.
"We agreed on this time. He insisted on an early visit."
Mark cautiously pushed the door—it was unlocked and creaked open. Inside, the house was dim. The smell of old books mingled with something else.
"Mikhail?" Kismet called, stepping inside. "We arranged to meet..."
They entered a small living room that resembled a forgotten museum, where time had frozen in anticipation of a magical touch. The first thing that caught the eye was the scattered papers everywhere. Old blueprints, maps, and photographs, already lost their original form, sprawled across the floor like chalk lines on a blackboard.
On the table stood an untouched cup of cold tea. And next to it...
"Oh my God," Kismet gasped. Next to her on the floor lay an open leather briefcase, from which some documents spilled out. Above the table, a large map of Moscow was pinned to the wall, marked with red annotations. In the center of the map gaped a hole, as if someone had hurriedly torn out an important fragment.
"He's not here," Mark said slowly, surveying the room with his professional eye. "And it seems he left the house in a hurry."
Kismet picked up one of the worn diaries from the floor, and something fell out. It was an old photograph—a group of people in construction uniforms standing at the entrance to some tunnel. On the back was a pencil inscription: 1985, Entrance No. 7, Maroseika. Depth 27 meters. Strange signs discovered.
"Mark," her voice trembled, "look at this." Kismet handed him the photograph, flipping through the pages filled with tiny handwriting, among which sketches of strange symbols were visible. "Here are the coordinates. And the entry scheme through the basement of an old apartment building. We need to get there. Today." Kismet quickly photographed the pages with her phone.
Mark, seemingly ignoring Kismet's words, carefully examined the scattered documents. The room looked as if someone had been hastily searching for something specific. There were notes everywhere about some artifacts and symbols.
Kismet quickly gathered the papers, putting them into her bag. Her movements were too confident for someone encountering such a situation for the first time.
"We need to leave," she said, stopping for a moment to glance at her watch, as if it were a trap ready to snap shut. "The main thing now is to get to that basement."
"Why the rush?" Mark asked, his gaze filled with concern. He noticed how she skillfully hid something in her jacket pocket that resembled secrets that must not be left on the surface. "And why today?"
"Today, there will be planned work in that area. Tomorrow it might be too late," she replied, avoiding his gaze.
They silently left the house and called a taxi on the way. Kismet kept checking her phone, comparing it to the photographs and documents. Mark noticed how her hands trembled slightly, the hidden fears showing through the fabric of her coat. This trembling reminded him of the fluttering wings of a butterfly caught in a tight grip, ready to break free.
Two hours later, they stood before an inconspicuous door to a basement, modestly hidden in a narrow alley between houses. The old building on Maroseika kept its secrets behind peeling plaster and a rusty lock.
"Are you sure we can get in?" Mark pointed at the lock.
Kismet silently produced a set of keys, their metallic gleam illuminating the murky air slightly. "I prepared in advance," she said, slowing her speech as if realizing that in this hushed place, the air was filled with unspoken questions that had their place. "I have... connections in the construction department. These are duplicates."
As they opened the door, they felt the cold air rushing into the basement, heavy with dampness. Their footsteps echoed in the emptiness of the basement. The beam of the flashlight revealed the outlines of old pipes, fragments of bricks covered with a layer of dust, and cobwebs in the corners.
"According to the records, the passage should be..." Kismet whispered, checking the image on her phone screen, "behind this wall."
She began to examine the masonry, each brick frozen in the flow of time. Suddenly, Mark noticed barely discernible symbols scratched into one of the bricks. "Look, Kismet! Just like in the diary," he exclaimed, unable to hide his excitement.
Kismet, like a doctor checking the pulse of antiquity, ran her delicate fingers over the mysterious signs. There was a quiet click, and part of the wall slowly gave way inward.
"Incredible," Mark whispered. The air around him filled with tension. The story itself began to come alive, offering a glimpse behind the veil.
They moved deeper into the narrow tunnel, which seemed not just a passage but a living artery pulsating in the bowels of the earth. The damp walls recalled old wounds, tears of time streaming down the cold stone, and the entire atmosphere intensified the feeling that they had ventured into the very soul of a forgotten world. The tunnel sloped down at a slight angle. After about fifty meters, Mark caught the first alarming sound—a faint crackling overhead. Kismet stopped as well.
"We need to..." he began, but his words dissolved in the air as everything suddenly collapsed upon them.
It all happened in a matter of seconds. First, a fine dust began to fall, as if an invisible feverish underground beast stirred. Then there was a deafening roar. Mark instinctively pulled Kismet to him, pressing her against the wall. A cloud of dust enveloped them, and when it cleared, they saw that the passage through which they had entered was blocked by fallen stones.
"Damn!" Mark cursed, rushing to the rubble. "Are we trapped?"
"Calm down," Kismet said, her voice tense but sounding confident. "There should be another exit. The records mention a whole network of tunnels."
And at that very moment, something metallic slipped from her pocket. Mark caught a glimpse of an ancient medallion shining in the dim light of their flashlight, covered with the same mysterious symbols that decorated the walls before she hastily picked it up.
At that moment, everything fell into place—her knowledge of the dungeons, her confident actions, the urgency, the strange behavior in Vorontsov’s house. It was the beginning of a dangerous dance with mystery. She was clearly searching for something specific.
"Why are you really here?" his question echoed through the cold tunnel. Mark looked her straight in the eyes. "What are you looking for?"
In the half-light, he saw her face change. The mask of confidence she had worn so carefully fell away, revealing something deep, personal, and painful beneath, meant for no one else. Kismet sighed, and in that silent, high space, her face, barely illuminated by the dim light of the flashlight, became particularly vulnerable. She slowly sank to the cold, stony floor of the tunnel, leaning against the wall. "My uncle... He disappeared here three months ago," she began. "He was an archaeologist, researching ancient underground structures in Moscow. In his last letter, he wrote that he had discovered something incredible. Something related to these symbols and ancient artifacts."
"And you’re trying to find him?" Mark asked, bewildered by the reality unfolding before him.
"Yes. But that’s not all..." she showed him the fallen medallion. "This is the only thing I have left of him. An ancient medallion with the same symbols."
Mark looked at her closely. In the dim light of the flashlight, he saw her not as a mysterious stranger but as a person immersed in the deep darkness of losing a loved one, desperately navigating the labyrinth of her grief in search of answers.
"Tell me everything," he gently urged. "From the very beginning."
And in the unchanging darkness of the underground tunnel, surrounded by ancient mysteries and the whispers of bygone eras, they began a long conversation that would change both of them...