Seconds tick by as he patiently waits for the minute hand to touch 4. It is four o'clock in the morning and the darkness of night is only beginning to diminish under the light of dawn.
New day.
Same old filth to deal with.
Restless, he pockets his phone and exits his apartment. He rides the elevator down to the ground floor, a bounce in his step because he does not need to put on a mask to convince anyone of his innocence.
The city, just like his morals, is lost in a blissful state of slumber. Residents sleep, unsuspecting of the evil that walks down their street at this blue hour. Freshly fallen snow crunches under his boots as he heads around the corner in search of Anna's book.
It was likely someone had already nicked it. Three days later, he stupidly hopes otherwise.
The air is still and everything is tinted blue. His search has only started when the shrill ring of his phone bounces off concrete and amplifies against metal bins. He quickly attends the call and checks his wristwatch.
4:20 am.
There's static as the screen switches to video call. He is mindful of turning his front camera off and plugging in his earphones.
'Here's your proof,' a female voice says. It sounds shaky and thick- like someone with a cold. Or someone who has been crying for too long.
A pair of pink sneakers appears on the screen. Beyond the tip of her feet lies an endless space of white. She's on top of a building, he can tell. Standing on the very edge and looking down at a car park blanketed in snow.
'Sit down,' he orders. Heights were dizzying even for an admin of misery. 'What do you feel?'
The screen turns pitch black. 'It's strange.'
It wasn't the answer he had been expecting. 'How so?'
'I feel--' she pauses. 'Free. Liberated.' She sighs. The sound sends strange sensations down his spine. 'Like the quickest way up is my way down.'
'Today you're only going to familiarise yourself with the surroundings. Two days more and you'll get that freedom.' He suppresses a grin. 'I'll make sure you do.'
There's a flash of pink sneakers dangling above cars and snow. 'I can't wait any longer.'
A face appears on his phone. Tear-stained and blotchy. He slams into a wall as shock sends him reeling backward. He recognizes her split lip from a task given days ago. He knows doornail3.
She had offered him hot chocolate not so many days ago.
'I can see her down there,' she says. It is hard to imagine those tormented eyes had once looked up at him with overwhelming warmth.
Too stunned to stand, he drops down by the trashcans. 'See who?'
'That woman from the videos. She's calling me.'
He's stuttering. Not because of the chilly wind that has suddenly picked up. 'Listen to me,' he says, 'Listen.'
'I have, m12. All these days, I have done nothing but listen to you.'
'Step away from that edge.' He is trying so hard to get that assertiveness back in his voice. 'You will jump one day but that day is not today.'
'Can I tell you something?'
His throat has clamped tight. 'Yes.'
'I know this is none of your business.' The view switches from her face to her pink feet swinging dangerously. Just a push away from death. 'But when no one would offer me a shoulder, you lent me your attention and time. Thank you.'
She has suffered in the storm long enough to call thunder her friend.
'Step away.' He struggles to remember her name. 'Yulia, just listen to me.'
'I have,' Yulia repeats, sounding unnervingly calm. 'Please listen to me now.' Her feet walk on solid ground after she hauls herself away from the edge.
'I know this girl,' Yulia begins, 'She was the only one whose cracks aligned with mine. Once, I even shared a task with her.'
'Which one?' he asks. Anger and fear begin to punch his voice hollow. 'You broke the rules. Nobody should know about this, Yulia.'
'You say my name like you've known me all your life. I like that.'
The truth in that sentence only rings in his ears. 'What happened to the girl?'
'I didn't let her cut herself. She was too fragile; too young; too sad for that.'
Tears sting in his eyes. He tries not to shout into the darkness as everything around him shatters. Realisation crashes down like a boulder. 'The blue whale documentary.'
'She loved it,' Yulia chuckles sadly. 'I let her have my book, too. So even she could learn how injured whales strand themselves on a shore when their instinct to survive gives up long before they do.'
Another pair of feet enters the view. Right beside Yulia's pink ones. Clad in white boots, and even though it wasn't visible, he knows they have brown fur around the ankles.
'Then my brother threw it away and kept me from meeting the one person that mattered,' Anna says. 'He thinks I cried for the book. When, really, I was crying because I wanted him to ask me what was wrong.'
'Don't!' he's begging now. It doesn't matter his tears are leaving behind numb trails on his cheeks. It doesn't matter that he is on his knees, holding his phone like it was his own life that was slipping through his fingers. 'Please.'
'I don't know who you are,' Anna says. 'But you helped my friend find her way and she helped me find mine.' Her voice is thick and shaky
Like someone who has been crying for too long.
His little sister's face appears on the screen. He thinks of the things he would do to wipe the same tears he had considered weak last night. She reminds him of every single time he took her emotions, her tantrums and her feelings for granted.
Anna sets the phone on a surface; now her hands are by her sides. Her friend from next door, Yulia, wraps an arm around his little sister. 'For us, the game ends here,' she says.
It's like she is looking straight at him.
He begs for them to come back, to stop and turn around. But Anna and Yulia have climbed the edge of the building. All his cries and pleas fall on ears that have already sealed their own fates.
He switches his front camera on for Anna to recognize him and Yulia to reconsider that hot chocolate. The girls show him their backs as they exchange pained smiles, then let their bodies fall over the edge.
As his screams pierce through the morning calm, Yulia's body crashes onto the metal bins behind him while Anna's falls right before his eyes- broken and bent at all the wrong angles.
Just like his conscience.
