Her phone lay on the table beside the mug. The room was quiet; only the kettle clicked now and then as the plastic cooled. Anya looked at the screen with apprehension. Artem did not ask anything—he simply sat beside her.
She knew: she had to do this now. Before she came up with a way to put it off. While she could still force the words out.
Her fingers chose her mother’s contact by themselves. She pressed the call button—and immediately regretted it, as if she had stepped out onto thin ice.
The phone rang again and again. For a long time. Too long. Her mother was clearly still asleep.
“Hello…” her mother finally answered, sleepy, with soft irritation. “Anya, why are you calling so early?”
That “Anya” sounded so ordinary and familiar that Anya’s eyes stung at once.
“Mom…” Anya tried to smile with her voice, but failed. “Mom, it’s me.”
“Well, who else would it be?” her mother yawned, not even trying to hide it. “What is it, another work trip or something?”
And then Anya’s chin trembled faintly. She tried to hold herself together the way she had before: with an even tone, with lists of facts.
“Mom…” Her voice broke. “I need to tell you…”
“Well, what?” Her mother still did not understand and was irritated in the usual morning way.
Anya breathed in—and instead of breath, a short sob came out. She had not expected it to happen like that. The tears came at once—her body had been waiting for that very word, “Mom,” all year.
“Mom, I… I’m not in the capital.”
A pause on the other end.
“What do you mean, ‘not in the capital’?” her mother asked. “You… you called me recently.”
Anya closed her eyes.
“That wasn’t me calling,” she forced out. “Mom… that wasn’t me.”
“Anya, what are you talking about?” Her mother was fully awake now, but still resisting what she had heard. “I heard your voice. I talked to you.”
Anya pressed her palm over her mouth for a second so no louder sound would escape. Tears were running down her face, and that made everything humiliatingly human.
“That wasn’t me. It was someone else,” she said, stumbling over every word. “It wasn’t me speaking. It wasn’t me posting. It wasn’t me writing. Not me…”
“What do you mean, not you?” Her voice sharpened. “Then who?”
Anya tried to put the sequence together. Forced herself to. The simplest thing first. Then the rest.
“Viktor,” Anya said. “Mom… that man… He kidnapped me.”
Silence hung on the other end.
“What?” her mother whispered. “Anya… what did you just say?”
Anya’s tears kept running on their own, and she was ashamed of it, but she could not stop.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“I was kidnapped, Mom. I was… held. For a long time.”
“Wait…” Her mother inhaled sharply. “How? You… you called me. You wrote to me. I saw you.”
“That wasn’t me.” Anya pronounced each word separately, and each one cut her. “He ran my social media. He answered for me. He called you with my voice. That’s why you thought everything was all right with me.”
“Anya…” Her mother’s voice shook; she was losing the ground under her feet. “I… I don’t understand. How is that possible? Where are you now? Is he near you?”
“No,” Anya exhaled, sobbing. “Not near me. I… I’m safe. But I couldn’t call. He threatened me.”
“Threatened you with what?” her mother asked sharply, grabbing onto something concrete so she would not drown.
Anya wiped her face with her sleeve, tried to breathe through her nose, and couldn’t.
“To kill,” she breathed. “Me. You. My friends. He said it… directly. And once…” She swallowed and suddenly felt herself swaying again. “He showed me a video. A real one. Actual footage. You, with him nearby. He knew where you lived. I… I was afraid.”
“Wait… But… but I talked to you. I heard… Anya, how… how is that possible?”
“That’s how!” Anya broke. “I… I heard you talking to me… but you… you were talking to him…”
In that second, that was exactly what broke her the most. Someone else had taken her place in the world and lived there so carefully and convincingly that no one had even been able to doubt it.
Beside her, Artem tightened his fingers on his knee. He stared at the tabletop as if afraid to raise his eyes and see her tears—because then it would finally become real. When she had told him in the kitchen “to the point,” he had felt uneasy. Now he wanted to disappear: for the first time, what he felt was not the horror of the story, but her pain.
“Mom…” Anya choked and tried to gather her voice. “I… I’m alive. I’m safe now. That’s the main thing. I just… I had to tell you. So you would… know.”
“I…” her mother began, then stopped. “I don’t understand… Anya…”
Anya drew in air.
“Mom, there’s… a computer program. A modern one. It can make a voice.” She stumbled, sobbed, forced herself to continue. “Not ‘similar.’ Exact. Like mine. That’s why you heard me.”
“Wait…” Her mother was lost again. “How can…”
“You weren’t talking to me,” Anya said, and could not hold herself together: the tears flowed harder, her voice became tight. “He used it instead of me. And the social media… photos… videos… those can be made too. With the same kind of thing. Do you understand? That’s why the capital… the work… all of it… none of it was true.”
The other end went quiet. Not a pause of “I don’t believe you”—a pause of the mind trying to accept this.
“Dear God…” her mother finally breathed. “Anya…”
“I was held, Mom,” Anya added, now in a whisper. “I couldn’t leave.”
Her mother inhaled as if something had squeezed her chest.
“Are you… are you all right now?” she asked sharply, and her voice finally became that voice—the mother’s voice, checking, gripping. “Where are you? Are you alone? Is he near?”
“I’m not alone.” Anya swallowed. “I’m at Artem’s. I’m safe. Viktor is gone.”
“The police…” her mother said the word as if remembering that the world was still capable of doing something besides panic. “Anya, you need to call the police…”
“I will,” Anya said quickly, grabbing onto that concrete thing. “Soon. I just… I had to tell you first.”
“Dear God…” her mother exhaled, and then there was silence. Only rare, uneven breathing could be heard through the phone.
“Mom?” Anya sniffed and wiped her cheek with her sleeve. “Mom, are you there?”
“Yes… Yes, I’m here…”
Anya forced herself to speak more evenly.
“Mom, I’m safe. I’m all right. I’ll come to you soon, okay? For now… for now you don’t need to do anything. Don’t run anywhere. Just… please, don’t worry.”
On the other end came a faint sound. Her mother had nodded, forgetting that Anya could not see it over the phone.
“I’ll call you again,” Anya went on quickly. “At lunch. And in the evening. I’ll be in touch. I won’t disappear again, I promise.”
The silence lasted a little longer. At last, her mother forced out:
“Yes…” and that “yes” sounded strained. “All right… yes…”
A pause.
“Bye, Mom. Bye,” Anya said softly.
“Yes… bye,” her mother answered. “Bye…”
Anya pressed “end” and stared at the screen for another couple of seconds.
Then the air left her in a jerk. She bent forward, almost to her knees, and covered her face with her hands. The sobs were muffled, as if she were trying to hide the sound inside herself.
Artem sat there for a moment, then carefully moved closer and placed a hand on her shoulder. She did not push him away. Then he gently put his arms around her. He stayed silent for a little while and then said:
“It’s all right… It’s all right. You’re here.”
Anya did not answer. She only sobbed once more and, for a second, allowed herself to hang in that embrace, understanding that warmth could be real too.