Several days passed. The house returned to its familiar, sterile rhythm: food, silence, her footsteps on the stairs, his even voice. Outside, nothing changed, and that was what made it feel like mockery—as if the night with the gap in the recording had never happened at all.
Anya went to the store once more and stopped by the pharmacy as well, to buy something to calm her nerves. She understood that the first time, she had only barely managed it. The second time, she would have to be more precise. Calmer.
That evening, she placed the box on the kitchen table.
“I bought this for myself,” she said. “It will… make it easier for me to sleep.”
Viktor picked up the box, read the name, turned it over, and scanned the ingredients and dosage.
“Why?” he asked.
“So I don’t wake up in a panic.” It was true enough not to sound like a cover story. “I don’t want… a repeat.”
Viktor was silent for a couple of seconds, then nodded.
“All right. But only as written. No improvising.”
He looked at the box again and unexpectedly added:
“Do you have the receipt?”
Anya froze for a second, then took the crumpled receipt from her pocket and placed it beside the box. Viktor picked it up, smoothed it with his fingers, ran his eyes over the lines, folded it neatly, and handed it back.
“All right.”
Before bed, she took the sedative to muffle the trembling in her fingers and keep her body from betraying her before her voice could. The medicine did not bring complete relief, but her thoughts grew duller, and the fear grew quieter.
At exactly three, she opened her eyes. She lay still for a minute, listening to the blood beating somewhere in her ears. Then she slowly sat up. The movement was deliberately unhurried—Anya was not getting out of bed, she was setting a mechanism in motion.
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The corridor met her with a darkness that seemed to be trying to squeeze the soul out of her. She walked evenly, carefully, without any sudden movements. The closer she came to Viktor’s door, the more frightened she became—she was opening again what should have been left untouched.
Anya stopped right in front of the door. Shoulders straight. Head lowered.
Thud.
Her forehead touched the door softly, carefully.
Thud.
The silence between the thuds was so dense it seemed the house was listening to her rhythm.
“Da…ddy…” she breathed.
The word still would not settle on her tongue. It was foreign, borrowed.
Thud.
Thud.
“Da…ddy…”
This time, there was no drip. No answering sound, no hint that the darkness was breathing with her. Only the thud and her whisper.
The door opened a crack again. A narrow strip of light spilled out from his room, and Viktor’s face appeared behind it.
This time, he seemed collected, attentive, tense. That same “architect” flickered in him: caution, assessment, an attempt to put what was happening back into place.
He remained silent and looked at her, checking: an episode? a game? a provocation?
Anya did not blink. She stood straight, with that empty, motionless expression, and whispered:
“Da…ddy…”
Viktor swallowed.
“Anya?..” he said in a whisper, and in her name there was an attempt to return to reality.
She took one small step closer. The strip of light from his bedroom touched her face.
“Da…ddy…” she said, just as brokenly. “When are we… going… to the embankment?”
Viktor froze. Something inside him snapped. He should not have heard that. Not from her. Not like this. Not at three in the morning, in the dark, from another woman’s mouth.
His lips parted. He looked at her and through her at the same time, trying to see another face.
“You…” he breathed. His fingers gripped the edge of the door so hard they turned white. “You… remember?..”
Anya did not answer. She simply stood there. That was the most frightening thing in her stillness: she was not asking or demanding, not playing at conversation. She was like a symbol.
“To the embankment…” he repeated, almost soundlessly. “To… to the old… streetlamp…”
He cut himself off. As if he had heard himself say too much.
“Yes,” he whispered at last. His voice had grown softer, weaker. “Tomorrow… my little girl. Tomorrow. I promise.”
The last word was no longer spoken to her. He spoke it into the emptiness he was trying to close with that “tomorrow.”
Anya tilted her head by the faintest degree, accepting the answer—then slowly turned and walked back down the corridor with the same even, unnatural step. Her nightdress whispered softly against her legs. She was disappearing into the darkness as if the night itself were carrying her away.
Viktor remained in the doorway.
The door was still ajar, and he held on to it as if for support. He did not call out to Anya, did not follow her—only stood there, staring at the place where no one was there anymore.
After several seconds, he slowly pushed the door nearly shut, leaving only a thin crack. It seemed he was waiting for the thud to come again.