The house is now lonely and empty. Parents died long ago, and the only living sister Leah, the twin of Annette herself, left for excavations in Egypt six months ago. You shouldn’t wait home any time soon. Leah might not have returned from her archaeological trips for years. Who would have liked the first film with Athenais, because Ancient Egypt and the demons who settled in it were shown there in all its splendor. When demons appear, archaeological secrets no longer remain. Their appearance explains everything.
Annette herself was stuck in the era of Nero’s reign. It was so strange for a frivolous person who did not appreciate history that it was worth laughing. History books and films used to make her sick. She went to this film only because she was in a confusion of feelings. For depression you don’t think about what to treat. Athenais completely healed her and led her into a world from which there is no way out. Because demons live here and the essence of the whole universe is revealed.
“Came again!” a voice called her from behind. Together with him, this time strange sounds were heard, as if a reel was spinning and a film was rustling. Hasn’t the cinema already switched to new display technologies? Although it is old, you can expect anything here. There was also something archaic in the voice behind her, as if he were calling from a tomb in the deserts of Egypt where Leah was now stuck.
“Everyone comes back, but no one breaks out!”
What could this mean? Annette was no longer going to enter into discussions. She was captivated by the film. She wanted to see only dazzling footage, and not listen to an ominous stranger.
Titles flashed across the screen like crawling insects. Scarabs! Leah had a variety of scarab ornaments. The letters glittered like precious beetles crawling out of the box. Strangely, except for the name Atenais, Annette did not remember anyone from the credits. Who is the director of her films? Who are the producers? Who are the production designers and cameramen? Who are the make-up and costume designers? It was as if they weren’t all there. The titles themselves resembled the ligature of hieroglyphs. It seems that they, like an Arabic letter, should be read not from left to right, but from right to left. No matter how hard she tried to read, Annette did not recognize the names of Atenais’ assistants who played all the other roles. Who, for example, is that dark-haired handsome man who played Nero? As soon as Annette tried to find him with a glance in the credits, a severe pain hit her head. She had to close her eyes for a moment.
The film, oddly enough, turned out to be different. She remembered exactly that she had bought a ticket for a repeat session. However, a new film with Athenais was on the screen. It seems “Waters over Atlantis”. The tape showed an ancient fantastic civilization, which was inhabited not by people, but by terrible mythical creatures: winged, terrestrial, underwater. Many of them crawled straight out of the waves to bow to the golden throne of the deity played by Athenais. The deity’s name was Alais. How consonant with the name of the actress. Alais was winged and all-powerful. Once she was the very archangel Dennitsa who raised a rebellion in the heavens and fell. Now her army of angels, turned into monsters, built their frightening civilization on the bones of humanity. All went well until a mirror appeared in the throne room. Where it came from, Annette overlooked.
Alais’s reflection came to life and emerged from the mirror as her double. Such a double could be left to rule in his place. Alais was profitable. After all, she secretly flew away from her monstrous people on business. But her double imagines himself to be her and decided to seize power for herself, as she once tried to take power from the Almighty herself. A fight was brewing.
The view of Atlantis somehow reminded Annette of an old visit to Leah’s dig. Then she met a disfigured madman in the sands. He shouted something about the fact that some sight of magic would ruin her.
Annette did not regret that she came to the cinema, although it was the path to death. The film sucked her in like a whirlpool vortex. From the viewing, there was a painful sensation, as if someone had inserted red-hot needles into her pupils. The session had barely begun, and blood was already flowing from her eyes. She hasn’t looked for ten minutes yet, and there is no way to look further. Everything around is darkening, there are some whispers in her ears.
“When you leave the hall, look around and see how many spectators have already committed violence against themselves and others after they were here before you!”
The disfigured man in the sands was right. The spectacle of magic has driven her to the point that now maddening voices sound in her brain. The red and sticky substance ran down her cheeks, turning into tears of blood. The sands underneath the pyramids at the excavations also cried in human blood, according to Leah.
The film was on. It was difficult to see behind the bloody veil. But the blood from the eyes is still a small price to pay for the fact that you want to see the real biography of the devil himself on the screen.
The cinema is full of creepy creatures, and a minute ago the chairs were empty.
Now all around was a sarcastic giggle, claw scratching and the sound of black leathery wings. Annette wiped her eyes and looked at the row in front of her. Beasts with fur-covered faces, twisted horns and spiked foreheads gazed at her. And all these animals behaved like a civilized public. This is hell!
“Go away, everyone!” Annette stepped on someone’s claws that crawled out from under the floorboards and scratched her ankle. Oddly enough it was worth breaking into a cry, as the hall was empty. Only a few heads of some spectators in front looked at her in bewilderment. These are ordinary people with simple human faces; no membranes, no horns, no claws!
The blood from the eyes stopped flowing, but there were red marks on the fingers. The eyes hurt. Annette had no handkerchief with her, and she stained her skirt and blouse with blood.
The tempting voice of Alais, who won, sounded from the screen. Her double was so severely crippled that he himself turned into a monster, consisting entirely of gold plates. The golden creature was crawling across the screen, overgrown with thorns and tentacles of solid gold. It opened many pairs of multi-colored eyes at once and stared at the audience.
Annette shuddered. It feels like it looked into her soul. Could some demon see her from the screen? Or is it the nerves are naughty? Even a nosebleed is usually enough to make even the most persistent person panic. And her blood was just pouring out of her eyes. She could have gone blind! But she didn’t go blind just to look into the hypnotizing eyes of the creature, which rearranged the letters of the name Alais and called itself Cialas. Mirror copy Alais became a monster of gold. With its golden limbs, it killed as easily as with knives. It was moving fast, like a centipede, and it seemed that it was about to slide off the screen.
The feeling that the demon from the movie was about to invade the hall was so real that Annette jumped up from her seat. And that’s it! The film ended abruptly. There were no end credits on the screen. The seats in the front rows were empty. Was Annette the only spectator for the entire session? Of course, it’s very late now, but there is always someone in the theater, at least three or four people. For a single viewer, the film is unlikely to be rolled out. But that’s how it happened. No one around. The screen is dark and empty, and the golden creature, as if slipping from it, is already standing next to her in the empty hall. How did it get here? Did it really come off the screen? Immediately, many clawed hands reached out to her face.
“The same!” dozens of pairs of sparkling, like precious stones, rainbow eyes stared at Annette’s face. “One face, but two of you! What you need!”
These claws are like knives. And they all reached out to caress her face. She seemed to be caught in a ball of sharp razors, but managed to recoil. Cialas’s claws slid only along her elbow, and oddly enough did not cut, but only burned. And then a light suddenly came on in the hall. There are only empty rows of chairs around. The golden being is no longer among them.
Many-armed deity of gold
On the asphalt, a man was drawing a pentagram with his own blood. He cut his veins with a shard of a bottle. It seems that Anette saw this guy at the last show in the cinema. Unless she was wrong. Someone was laughing from around the corner.
Several passers-by assured that the young people who came out of the cinema had such a fight a couple of hours ago that they even knocked down a lamp post. On the opposite corner, after the session, there was a terrorist attack. The victims were killed, the criminals were not captured. So many people talked about the suicides that happened under the cinema that they buzzed in their ears. Annette found herself able to hear the dialogues of people standing many meters away. She probably didn’t get enough sleep, since her perceptions were so aggravated.
The world around suddenly turned into a place of fear and madness. There were always people around, either attacking others for no reason, or performing rituals, or on the verge of suicide. Some teenager tried to hang himself from a lantern, some cute young guy was tracing the name “Atenais” with his blood on the concrete wall.
Are all her fans going nuts? This is what a great success is worth! Create one bright star, and it will pull the whole world to destruction. Although the feeling after the sessions is as if the film industry this time did not create a star, but a real demon itself.
Annette rubbed her wrist, which was burned by the talons of the golden creature. 3D effects do not burn. How did it happen that she fell asleep and was burned by something in the cinema? What can you get burned there? She didn’t even have a lighter with her. And no one was sitting next to her.
Films don’t bite or burn! At least until now there have not been such films that come to life. Nor were there those films that drive the masses of people crazy.
Everything happens for the first time ever! Leah loved to say that. Every time, leaving for excavations, she hoped to find something that would become a great discovery. And it doesn’t matter that even before her birth, archaeologists had already dug everything around. Every young archaeologist still hoped to become a pioneer. Leah was the most striking example of this. Suddenly, generations of archaeologists before her overlooked something. And this is something very significant she will certainly unearth! Leah had many ambitions and dreams. Annette loved to make fun of her that someday, like in old horror films about mummies, she would dig up a real living demon instead of a weak-willed artifact.
Who would have thought that instead of Leah, she would find the demon, Annette. And not on excavations in Egypt, but in a provincial cinema. Digging up an ancient deity requires a decent education, archaeological skills, and many years of experience. Annette did not have all these qualities. But she saw the ancient deity with her own eyes. But she could not prove that she had made a discovery. In addition to her, the film must have been watched by millions of people. Many were left under such a strong impression that they would harm themselves and others.
“You want to return to the realm of fairies to take a sip of their magic like a drug,” the children were still humming an ominous countdown. Don’t they sleep at all? Or are they ghosts of children?
Annette walked past the alleyway from which the song was coming. She was no longer drawn to the land of magic, because Cialas was waiting there. It is worth looking at the beautiful angels and fairies, and the claws of the monster will claw in the eyes. The payment for the sessions is blood from your own eyes and phase shifts. Enough for her! The vague image of Atenais beckoned, but the pain in the eyes and in the brain was stronger. She seemed to be burned all over from the inside. Annette staggered home. She noticed that a vaguely familiar girl in an elegant olive-colored dress was walking under the entrance of the skyscraper. It seems she saw this girl in the cinema. Then she was cheerful, flirting with some young man, now she staggered like a drunk, leaning on the base of buildings, leaving bloody handprints on the concrete. Who hurt her? Is she herself or her partner who is no longer around? Annette was not interested in this. But the wounds, like the prints of a dozen razors, were alarming. The girl’s palms seemed to be passed through a meat grinder. Are these the consequences of touching Cialas?
Well! She began to believe that the image from the film could leave the screen! This is absurd! She just fell asleep in the cinema. Stagnation in her career upset her, and her consciousness began to draw her a fantastic world of demons, distracting from the wretched reality.
She and Leah had an apartment on the top floor of a skyscraper. Someone who has not seen how it gets cluttered after Leah’s return from expeditions would call it a penthouse. The only fancy things there were potted palm trees and a small pool with jacuzzi. The antique imitations that Leah adored were not considered luxury by Annette. And the upholstered furniture and carpets had a dilapidated look. Someone pulled the blinds from the windows and scattered a deck of tarot cards on the floor. Perhaps the wind. When she left, she forgot to close the windows.
She was too tired now to clean up the mess. Need to look for pajamas and slippers. As luck would have it, there was neither one nor the other. Maybe she is looking in the wrong place? She no longer remembered where and what she had put. The time spent in the cinema unsettled her. Annette looked at the usual cabinets and shelves, at the fish in a large, wall-mounted aquarium, and saw the heartbreaking scenes of the torture of fallen angels. The frames were spinning in her head. They sucked in consciousness like a funnel.
What to distract yourself with? Can bungle yourself a dinner, forgetting about diet and indispensable fasting before bedtime. There were few items in the fridge: lasagna, a package of frozen patties, a can of caviar and spinach. Well, some more yogurt. You cannot make a feast out of this, as in Nero’s palace. Annette, as luck would have it, was drawn back into the movie. I wanted to get everything that Acte had: feasts, orgies, treasures, power.
“And the screams of fallen angels in their ears, who are being tortured for rebellion,” added the obliging voice of conscience. “You can rule the world and hear them forever!”
Annette turned around, expecting to see someone in red again. The door of the half-empty refrigerator slammed shut itself.
There was no one in the kitchen. The phone was silent. Leah will definitely not call from the excavation site and report on her progress. It seems like there is no one to talk to. Several of Annette’s boyfriends disappeared by themselves, realizing that their pretty girlfriend was not interested in anything but a career. There was no one else to bring home for the night. But there was definitely someone in the living room. Annette felt more of someone’s presence than she saw. In one of the chairs was what looked like a heap of gleaming metal.
Annette didn’t even take a kitchen knife for self-defense. I probably realized that it would be useless.
The silent guest sat in an armchair between the floor lamp and large floor vases. Immediately many short and long limbs entwined the armrests and the carpet. A multitude of pairs of multi-colored eyes sparkled at Annette. If their gaze had not hypnotized, then a feeling of acute panic would have arisen. And so the fear dulled.
It was as if Annette had gone back inside the movie, rather than come home. Or on the contrary, a piece of the film showed up to her.
Cialas sat in her apartment on the top floor of a skyscraper, her eerie clawed paws thrown over one another. It sat in a chair so royally that it began to resemble a throne. Long claws knocked the frames and amphorae off the table. Flowers mixed on the carpet with shards.
The feeling was that it was not able to keep its limbs in a motionless state. Its claws scraped at everything like golden insects. A moment, and they reached for Annette’s face, accidentally touched a tightly curled lock, and it slipped cut off on her sleeve. Anette shook him off in disgust. Wow, the claws of Cialas are really sharper than well-sharpened knives. And it itself is so luxurious that the apartment from his presence began to seem like a royal pyramid.
For some reason, next to him it was difficult to breathe, and there was a feeling of heat, as if from an open oven, where something was burnt.
“The time has come!” the voice of Cialas rang like metal.
“For the film?” she noticed that the TV turned on itself, showing the already familiar footage of the uprising and fall of the angels.
“For embodiment!”
“What?” Annette did not understand, and the claws of Cialas were already playing with her earrings. What if they ripped them out of their ears now, tearing the earlobes? Resisting them is the same as putting your hands in a meat grinder. Annette prepared to endure the pain, but the creature suddenly insinuatingly suggested:
