Book of Fates ✔

A daitya

Nikk could not imagine a more luxurious place than the apartment he was sitting in-expensive oak furniture, extravagant paintings and elegant wide windows that had a breathtaking view of the city center.

Yet, the apartment looked somewhat rumpled. It lacked the spirit of a home. There were neither family photos displayed nor any other personal belongings on bare shelves. There were no flowers in a vase on the table, no clothes in a closet, no food in a refrigerator. There was no refrigerator actually. Nikk and his friends never bothered much about food while working.

And there was another thing about the place that would make a guest feel uneasy.

Books. Old, worn out volumes with sallow pages that didn't match the modern interior at all. Atlases and dictionaries written in different languages, scientific papers and religious doctrines with occult sketches-covered with a thick layer dust, they were pilled along the walls, on a couch and scattered all over the floor, flipped open on a random page. The whole room looked as if several library stacks were accidently dumped out in here.

But nobody cleaned up the mess-if there was a book in one's way, the person would simply step over it and go on about the business.

Nikk shifted in an uncomfortably hard armchair, wondering who would want to spend a fortune on a piece of furniture that made your very bones ache. A rock was softer that this wooden throne. Supposedly, the landlord was feverish when decided to buy it. Or naturally half-crazed.

Nonetheless, the comfort was what Nikk dwelled on the least now. His eyes were sore at staring at a laptop screen for over an hour. Nikk couldn't shove aside a thought occupying his mind last few days. A mystery, leaving him sleepless at night. Is it possible to meet someone who your imagination created?

There was no trouble finding her Instagram page. Anya Luster. Fond of taking pictures of school books, pizza slices and deserted streets. Not much of a photographer was this girl.

Ordinary photos. An ordinary girl.

Then again, how could she crawl into Nikk's night vision? The vision he was thoroughly building and had total control over? What fatal coincidence brought Leir and Charna to the theatre the same day he went there looking for Anya? Nikk rapped his knuckles against the arm of his chair, calculating the possibilities. Could she be a spy working for Leir? A trap set up to catch Nikk? A ploy to lead him astray?

Needless to say, Nikk was always good at riddles, but this one was incomprehensible for him. An irritating urge to seek out for Anya and solve the puzzle before he went mad made Nikk sick in his stomach.

Daphne silently walked across the room and stopped by the window, holding a cup a hot coffee in her hands. Pale sunlight was peeping out of the clouds, merging the apartment and the rest of the world into its depressing grayness. The avenue down below, still wet after the rain, was already crowded with people.

"Why are they always in rush?" Daphne asked quietly.

"That's what people call life, Daph," Nikk said, not interrupting his scheming. If Anya slipped into his consciousness intentionally, what was she looking for? Nikk's dream of a forest was no special. Maybe she was a bad spy? Oh, and what street was that on her photo?.. Not the one a few blocks away Nikk passed yesterday?..

"No, people fail to live a life," Daphne went on. "They waste their time, searching for the meaning of it."

And what if Anya wasn't a spy, but an assassin of some sort? Then she could break something in Nikk's brain to drive him insane. The idea startled him a little. Yes, he was already obsessed with figuring it out. He was already going insane.