Anastasia's Chronicles

Part one: The Fan

The fan hummed softly, blowing something that was supposed to resemble cool air into my face. The heat was so palpable, so heavy, that it was as if it had its own body, which was crushing me at the moment. And it didn't help my headache in any way.

Coffee. I needed coffee and a cigarette. They were unlikely to help my general health, but I had some hope for my strained nerves. So I just closed the piles of folders in front of me and got up from my desk, staggering toward the coffee machine.

I was tired. I hadn't been home for too long, I spent the evening in the office, it was dusty, it was warm, I wanted to take a shower, I wanted to lose my tight pants. My shoes weren't comfortable, my hair didn't fit properly and, damn it, the damn headache. I took my cup from the coffee machine and let one or two icicles in, the cracking startled me, made me blink stupidly.

People were disappearing. Tired or not, those were the facts. I had traced the thread until three months ago, and the victims were now 6. At first glance, they didn't have much in common, and frankly, I wasn't convinced of my theory myself until I started rummaging through their files. A few liters of coffee later and almost a week of sleepless nights, and I found out the truth - everyone, one way or another, had been involved in the big heist 20 years ago. There was one man left who was still at large. And he was either the next victim or the culprit. In any case, I had to find it before the next folder hit my desk.