Weeks blurred into a sticky, gray haze where time lost all structure. It was the most terrifying kind of captivity—domestic. Viktor no longer tried to “educate” her or bring her books. He simply let routine take over the basement, and it began to eat away what was left of Anya’s will, slowly, like mold.
Every evening at seven, the lock clanged. Viktor came down, set a tray of food on the table in silence, and sat on the couch. He put on some meaningless sitcom—one of those where the laugh track kicked in more often than the characters spoke. In the bluish glow of the screen, his face looked like a mask.
He pulled Anya against him, an arm around her shoulders. His hands were dry, cold, and somehow… indifferent. He didn’t squeeze her in a vise, didn’t caress her—he simply laid a hand on her the way you put a book on a shelf. Anya sat motionless, afraid to even breathe too deeply. In those minutes she felt she was no longer a person to him. She had become part of the décor. A convenient pillow. A floor lamp. An object that made his evening feel “cozy.”
Her world had narrowed to the smell of his cologne—bitter, with notes of cedar—which had now soaked into her hair and skin.
Hidden-volume note:
I’m broken.
Frankl wrote that meaning helps you survive even in hell. But he wrote about consciousness, and he was wrong about something: consciousness can build barricades, invent plans, quote wise men—but you can’t fool the subconscious. My subconscious was waiting for a quick ending. It was preparing for a lunge—either an escape through those tunnels, or a bullet in the back of the head. It was stretched tight, like a string.
And now the string has snapped. It’s been three months. The subconscious understood: there will be no lunge. There will only be this sitcom, this cologne, and this concrete. And it gave up. It turned the lights off and went underground, leaving an empty shell in my place.
I’m like this couch now. An object Viktor likes to have in the house. When he pulls me to him, I’m not disgusted—I’m nothing. His hands feel like a stranger’s, like tree branches tapping a window during a storm. They’re just there. I look at the screen, where people in their scripted little lives imitate passion, laugh, cry over nonsense... and I don’t understand who they are. Aliens. My reality is four walls, a damp stain in the corner, and the weight of his palm on my shoulder.
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Mom… how badly I want to just sit next to you. Not talk, not explain anything—just feel the smell of your home, the smell of flour and old books. Eat one of your pies, even if it’s burnt. Forgive me, Mom. I cry every night, my face buried in the pillow, biting the fabric until my lips hurt. I’m afraid he’ll hear my sobs. He’s a monster with a brilliant mind, and I’m just dust under his feet.
Yesterday I stared at the charging cable for a long time. It’s so long, black, obedient. There’s an iron hook in the ceiling where a lamp used to hang. It’s so easy. One step off the table—and silence. Eternal, real silence, where there’s no laugh track and no cedar smell. I can become another skeleton behind bricks. Would that make it easier? Or would I just confirm his theory that I was only an ‘instrument’ that wore out?
Mom, I don’t know what to do. My will has drained out of me, leaving only gray emptiness.
But…
You’re looking for me right now, aren’t you? Standing in some detective’s office, yelling at him, pounding your fist on the table? You know me, Mom. You know every mole on my body, every fear. You know I couldn’t have just left a note and vanished. I would never have left you alone like that. You can feel it in your heart that I didn’t ‘go away,’ that I fell into hell.
Maybe the police are already checking cameras? You can’t just take someone from the city center and not get caught on a single camera. We live in a digital world, and right now that’s my only hope. My phone, my transit card, random witnesses… Artem! He saw Viktor when he stepped into the house! Maybe he remembers that strange, glassy look. Maybe something felt suspicious to him…
It can’t be that I just dissolved. I’m a person. I exist. Please, don’t let me vanish. Find the inconsistencies. Save me…
Anya closed the laptop. The screen went dark, leaving her in complete darkness. She lay down, feeling the concrete floor pull the last warmth out of her body.
Before, she trained. Before, she counted steps. Before, she studied the walls. Now she simply waited for evening. Waited for his hands. Waited for the stupid sitcom.
She began to forget what her own voice sounded like. Viktor barely spoke to her, and she was afraid to disturb this dead little ‘family’ fantasy. She was broken not by pain, but by the fact that nothing ever happened.