Mutilated. Crypt of the Seven Angels. Natalie Yacobson

was a dream in reality. She never smoked in life, did not drink alcohol and did not take drugs, so where then such hallucinations.

      She pumped into the sink in front of the mirror so as not to fall down. The fallen knife lay on the tiled floor and as if waiting. Claire lacked the strength to raise it and again encounter doubts.

      One moment she looked into the sink to calm down. The remnants of water at the bottom in the semidarkness seemed mixed with blood. But Claire did not shed a drop. She did not have enough courage to cut herself. Nevertheless, she opened the faucet so that clean filtered water washed off something brown and thick from the edge of the sink.

      When Claire raised her eyes on the mirror, there was no other reflection in it. Only her own frightened face was in the background of a dense mirror gloom. Here you go. She was just imagined. She reluctantly surprised, the most realistic can be simple hallucination. The same tangible and real as the blade knife on the skin.

      Bloodstained rose

      The face on the numerous TV screens in the electronics store showcase attracted the attention of Claire. She saw it before. And this face, and this blockbuster. The actor was familiar to her for many films, only she did not remember his name. These American superstars divorced so much that everyone would not remember, and generous to the praise of the press everything puts forward new names and creates regular idols, as if already existingis not enough. Claire never fond of stars that were so willingly encouraged with languishing from loneliness or idleness people. She herself was a star for everyone who saw her. She did not need to be filmed into a movie or bribe journalists to become interesting to people. After all, she had her appearance, which shone as a star without the help of a pawn articles and without a drop of makeup. But such advantages did not let everyone boast.

      A strongly applied actor smiled with dozens of screens, depicting some kind of supernatural creature. It was impossible to say about him that he was handsome as often called him in magazines and newspapers. Claire would rather call him pleasant in appearance than beautiful. Previously, she liked to look at him, but now she shuddered. The feeling was like it just broke not only the showcase, but also the screen of one of the working TVs and was touched against bare wires.

      How strange! The creature from the screen as if stood near and was one of the raised passers-by, and not another standard product of Hollywood. It seemed even more unusual that one of his appearance hurt her.

      Prior to that, she had something similar to her only at the sight of living people. But how such feelings could provoke just a picture on the screen, maybe even live and charming?

      Claire could not understand herself. What exactly did she feel when looking at the screens? What is wrong with this person? What does he look at her that the dead man out of the grave?

      Evening street suddenly seemed gloomy and unattractive. Feet refused to go on. Consciousness muttered. Nearby, there was not even a single bench to sit down.

      For the first time in a long time, Claire descended into the subway, and as if it turned out to be in some cosmic world of studied walls and floors, escalators and rails. People moving along the schedule of trains, like stupid somnambula. In the subway everything seemed technical and abstract, as in some microcosmos. Hollowing on the escalator, Claire was so fascinated by looking at the bright advertising posters on the walls, which did not immediately pay attention to someone standing ahead. He had very beautiful blond hair on the shoulders. Wheat strands were scattered by fan on a standing collar. They attached his appearance something aristocratic. Somewhere she has already seen him. Claire felt such a sharp desire to see his face that it seemed to charge everything around magnetism. And the man suddenly turned on her, as if hearing the call.

      Yes, she has already seen him. But not so close, not so distinct. From amazement, Claire almost released the handrail of the escalator. The heart pounded in a mad rhythm.

      This face! The face of a young man from the crowd, which appeared every time some accidents occurred with people. How he was still beautiful. Claire did not remember to see something more beautiful and correct in her life than these features. That would draw it. She wanted to catch up with him and delay or at least call, but she understood that he was unlikely to stop. From him she had some terrifying unavailability, as from ice block. And still, she wanted to watch and look at him, not taking off. Although something in it scarecrow and very much. Claire could not explain it.

      She just knew that she would go after him, even if they were not on the way. Only he did not go down, although he stood far ahead of her. But at the very end of the way, he suddenly disappeared. Claire managed to notice him on the escalator, rising up. A beautiful face flashed directly opposite her of the handrails. Claire turned to trace an escalator lifting view. Will his face become ugly, as for the first time she watched him. But the moving steps were carried out forward so quickly that nothing had not to see.

      It’s time to go from the escalator. What if now to transfer to another and go upstairs after an amazingly beautiful stranger. Will she catch him up? What if not? Then she will have to buy a new pass to go back to the subway. Claire reluctantly moved down in the waiting room.

      The crowd of people in trains was not thick. In the evening, the metro is silent by passengers, but not today. With luminous posts of information, Clair noted a couple of sloppy dressed young people. The guy in black leather and with long blond hair with something like her beautiful stranger, but only remotely. He had a coarse face, and three-day bristles pierced on the cheeks. The girl who kept his hand was a thin brunette with clearly defined cheekbones and in the same cheap clothes as her friend. A couple carefully looked at the pointers, as if they did not know where exactly they were to go. Where did this feeling of the burning solar strike, as if Claire crushed the fingers into the included socket and received a blow to the current.

      How unpleasant! This has already happened to her before completely unfamiliar people. Other people. Not these. Those people who were already dead or are crippled.

      Claire was hardly sinking on the bench in the very edge of the platform. She loved to sit right into the first car driven by train, so the place was just suitable for her. Scarce lighting dropped glare on rails, marble wall cladding and boarding bench. Claire did not immediately notice a bright scarlet spot on the seat right near herself. An unexpected sweet fragrance hit the nostrils, a little mixed with metal smells, reigning here.

      A rose in the subway. How strange! Someone threw it right on the bench. Of course, it was merciful than to throw it to someone under the feet. Its extreme petals just started to fade. Rose’s sourced sweet aroma is particularly pleasant in the plunge of the subway and as if someone was waiting. Maybe someone just forgot her here. Maybe to take it will be theft, and yet Clair involuntarily took it. The rose lay here as a gift.

      For some reason it seemed Claire that it would be a crime this gift not to accept. She carefully took the stem with her fingers and began to consider bright red petals. The bud just began to bloom, and was already doomed to die. And all just because the rose was left too long in a hot room without water. Claire fell sorry for the torn plant, as if it was a living being.

      She did not even notice how the next train came up and moved away, although she was sitting just at the edge of the platform. Claire raised her head just when the train was already driving away. The windows of the cars flashed at high speeds of the cars reflected her frightened face. Maybe this is just a shooting game attached it to such a frightened and discouraged expression. As if something was happening.

      Claire felt pain in the fingers. This is all rose. Its spikes turned out to be unexpectedly sharp. Probably, Claire made a mistake that she raised it. Now she looked at her own bloody fingers and thought where to take a scarf to wipe them. In the pockets of her jacket was nothing left. And her handbag she did not take with her today. Claire with an easy misunderstanding looked at her own fingers in the blood, then again looked at her reflection in the flashed windows. It suddenly strangely transformed. Someone else looked at her from the window. From all windows. Initially, it seemed to her that this very beautiful