A totally blue sky — pure cyan mixed with magenta! — hung overhead. A bright spotlight, apparently the local sun, flooded the landscape with aniline rays of bottomless beauty — vivid, bold, painted in every color. Emerald grass up to my knees, flowers in every color and shade imaginable, palm trees, rhododendrons, cypresses, and other flora I’d only ever seen on a travel documentary show, blooming, growing thick, sprouting up lavishly, carelessly, with no regard for topography or soil science, wherever it could and couldn’t. Beyond the wild greenery rose mountains with sugar-white peaks, waterfalls sparkling, big, small, tiny. The air rang with purity.
My head spun at the sight of it. I nearly toppled back down into the purple gloom. Caught my breath, gathering my strength, and climbed out of the hatch.
Looked around.
Unearthly beauty!
I headed toward the mountains, not as far off as they’d first seemed. A kilometer and a half to walk, maybe.
Two minutes later I was standing by a waterfall, the spitting image of the one on my aunt’s tapestry at the dacha. The murmur of the water put me in a practical frame of mind. I cupped my palms under the stream and drank, gulped, choked… couldn’t get my fill. The water splashed into my stomach, but didn’t quench the thirst. I wanted a drink so bad it was unbearable. I splashed some water on my face and looked around. What good was a spring that didn’t quench thirst or refresh? Maybe this whole landscape was good for nothing but pleasing the eye. I collapsed onto the grass. Ah, that’s better. The grass felt real — green and thick. Softer than silk, gentler than down, it cradled my body.
Hm. Strange.
The grass, real to the touch, had no smell at all. I drew a breath into my chest. My sense of smell picked up nothing. Fine, whatever. I’d just lie here, gather my strength.
Lay there a minute, two, three.
The thirst faded, but the exhaustion didn’t go away, my body still felt off. The grass sagged all the way to the ground, and I found myself sprawled on cold, hard earth. Unpleasant.
I got up, took a couple steps, collapsed onto the grass again. A minute later, again, and again. I wanted to drift off into oblivion on that grass.
Didn’t work.
I kept sinking toward the ground, banging my knees, elbows, face, everything else painfully, freezing instantly, and, fighting the exhaustion, getting up, walking, only to fail again.
About thirty meters on, each step got harder, like I was climbing a mountain.
I looked back and froze. Under the weight of everything piled on it, the floor’s structure was warping. The far section, behind me, was tilting and crumbling downward. The section I stood on was rising up. A gust of hot, stifling air hit me. Below wasn’t a purple floor anymore… below, an orange wave was raging. Below, a fire was burning.
I ran.
Running got harder, the climb got steeper. I didn’t understand why I was running, or where. The slope’s incline exceeded forty-five degrees. I wasn’t running anymore, I was scrambling forward on all fours. There was no fear. What gripped me was amazement mixed with a kind of ferocity. The mountains, which had just been beckoning with their peaks, had tipped sideways. The waterfalls tipped too, flowing diagonally. Damn it! The water fell at an angle, from top right to bottom left! Everything looked painted on. I could see it, understood it, couldn’t comprehend how it was possible, but kept climbing forward and upward anyway, as if salvation waited up there.
A crack sounded. A chunk of surface had collapsed, right nearby.
I looked around. Two-thirds of the space was ablaze, melting like plastic. I pushed on with everything I had, scrambling now up a sheer wall. Stop! I saw, on the ground — or was it a wall by now? — a door. An actual wooden one, with a brass handle. I pushed it open and tumbled into a white corridor with a white carpet runner and a couple dozen doorways. What was this?
Hospital wards, sterile, colorless?
Didn’t matter. In there!
The door slammed shut behind me.
I covered a third of the corridor faster than my own shriek could travel, calmed down, caught my breath, and wandered wherever I ended up. No curiosity left in me.
I’d had it! I wanted to eat and sleep, sick of all these attractions!
Muttering to myself, I trudged down the corridor. Reaching the middle, I stopped, spotting a perpendicular corridor, its marble floor bare of carpet. Turn, or go straight? Straight, obviously! Keep going straight!
I took a step, and at that exact moment, off to the left, at the end of the perpendicular corridor, something flashed by and a roar rang out.
My hair stood on end. My nerve endings shuddered.
The animal roar came again. Angrier than the first time, like a jolt of electricity. Without turning my head toward the creature, I bolted. Behind me came the four-beat clatter of claws on marble. I ran forward with everything I had, no idea if there was even an exit ahead. The eerie, soul-splitting clatter faded, turned into a dull, heavy thudding. Made sense — the beast had reached the carpet. That was right behind me now! Ay-ay-ay!
Aaaaaaaah!!!
Screaming bloody murder as I ran — easier to run that way! — I reached the end of the corridor. Slammed into the wall with my forehead, ready to smash through it, gnaw through it, claw through it… caught a metal staircase out of the corner of my eye. Threw myself toward it in one leap and, falling about three meters, landed on loose ground. What was this? I wasn’t inside the sphere anymore, and not outside in the sands either, but in a long cellar. I ran headlong past empty cells with steel bars. Behind me came a roar, the slap of paws on the ground — the beast had jumped down after me! — and rapid footfalls. My strength was fading. My muscles were screaming at my brain: «Five more steps and that’s it! Your legs are going to give out! Your whole body’s about to turn into a sack of fear and helplessness!»
Whatever happens, happens! I pushed into a cell, the bars gave way, opened. I jumped inside, slammed the gate shut, and rammed the bolt home, to seal myself off, to save myself from the beast behind thick steel bars.
— Phew! — I exhaled, and yanked at the bars. Their strength left no doubt, no matter how powerful the beast chasing me was. The bolt seemed solid too.
«Take that!» I leaned against the wall, satisfied, stretched my legs out, and, gripped by curiosity, waited for the beast. Patted my pockets, felt the grenade, and felt encouraged. The furious roar grew louder, closer, more terrible and monstrous by the second. Just as the pressure of it started splitting my temples, the roar swept past, entirely bodiless, and soon faded away.
I’d been scared of a sound. Could it even have hurt me?
I walked up to the bars and yanked the bolt. It didn’t budge. Yanked again. The handle snapped off in my hand, the bolt stayed put.
Oh, no! I shook the bars. No use. Rattled the bolt. Nothing. I started punching and kicking the steel bars, and only bruised my fists and knees.
Well, would you look at that! I’d walled myself in!
