1
That night he had a strange dream. Like a low, frightening thunder rumble, and the heavy, gloomy sky seems to be torn at the seams by lightning flashes. An ominous shadow creeps stealthily over the sleeping city. People are trying to escape, hiding wherever possible, rushing from side to side. You can hear lost children crying, cars honking at the exit, and everything quickly descends into chaos. And it goes against the flow of people. The animal horror of the maddened crowd is transmitted to him, he is pushed, knocked down, someone even pulls him into the shelter. A strong wind blows in your face, making it difficult to see. But he stubbornly goes forward to meet the unknown...Like a torch in the night, illuminating the way of a walking man, suddenly a sword lights up in his hand and, raising it high above his head, he accelerates his pace and longs for battle. My heart is beating hard in my chest. With a cold rapture, he realizes that this is his last battle, that he is the last of the last, and no one else can stop this something. And something already feels him, making him stand out from the crowd, and howls and growls, preparing to jump. Already the glass in the window frames is breaking, the last tile is being torn off by a whirlwind, the trees are bending to the ground, and the terrible creeping darkness looks at him with thousands of wolfish eyes.
Sasha swam slowly to the edge of the pool. There, on the wet tile, was a half-finished glass of wine waiting for him. After taking a small sip, he swam again, this time on his back, trying not to think about anything else. He thought he saw the pool lights blink, but he didn’t think much of it. Possibly a power surge. You never know. The water really calmed him down, relieved tension and fatigue after a long journey. Being in a depressed mood all these days, and even under the impression of sleep, he knew that there is nothing better than to swim in the deserted pool of a previously unknown hotel in an atmosphere of complete silence and mystery. He’d been dreaming about this for a long time.
Ten minutes ago, he was still noiselessly walking down the drizzly stairs with a glass of wine. Dinner with the owner of the hotel, a good-natured elderly woman, was a great success. Whether it inspired him, or he believed in his own strength, but the writer’s face, covered with three days of stubble, shone with joy, the subjects for the new book were drawn in his mind, the movements, despite the slight dizziness from the wine he drank at dinner, were confident and clear.
It was a good thing he’d come to this particular hotel. Here were all the conditions for a wonderful holiday. Sasha didn’t want to waste a minute, having decided long ago that he would take a dip in the pool at the first opportunity. Moreover, the owner of the hotel allowed to use it at any time, and even at night. She was so pleased with the rare guest that she gave him a delicious quail soup and a jug of fairly good home-made wine to pay for his arrival.
Now all the windows of the hotel were out, except for a flashlight in the courtyard. In its dim glow, you could see a heavy wrought-iron swing, a similar wrought-iron grill with soaked coals, clay figures of fairy-tale gnomes at the steps of the main entrance, and several decorative plants still unopened in tubs. In summer, it should have been very nice and cozy. Sasha skirted the puddle that had formed on the tile plinth and cautiously entered the atrium of the pool. He didn’t want to disturb the good-natured hostess with unnecessary troubles, so he turned on only the underwater lights. The entire atrium lit up with magical reflections.
Condensation trickled down the fogged windows. One of the windows was ajar, and fresh air came in freely from the street.
Almost like the sea, he thought.
The water beckoned the guest with a gentle azure glow and murmured softly. In a recess on the other side of the pool was a bas-relief of a dolphin jumping out of the water. Several plastic chairs were huddled together against the white columns that supported the atrium’s vaults, along the unglazed wall. There were also empty circles thrown in a chaotic order, inflatable children’s elbow pads for swimming and mattresses. The wide, patterned tiles in the room were heated, and it was pleasant to stand on them barefoot. After walking around it for a while, as if warming up for a swim, Sasha undressed and, finding himself in only his swimming trunks, thoughtfully put a glass of wine on the edge of the water. For a moment, he even admired the high-quality and skillful decoration, not without aesthetics, and thought, not without reason, that the hostess had invested a lot of money to make the guests happy. He especially liked the gentle lighting along the winding contour of the pool bowl itself, which gave the impression that the water surface has no border and merges with the tile.
The depth for Sasha started from the first step. He didn’t dare jump right away, but stood in the water up to his ankles, getting used to it in a puzzled way, peering into the alluring azure depths. The thermometer read only seventeen degrees. It was necessary to turn on the heating and wait until morning for the water to warm up, there were probably switches somewhere near the window, but the desire to quickly plunge headlong into this heavenly lake was stronger, and the guest crossed himself, still dived.
After making a couple of laps to the dolphin and back, Sasha felt that he was freezing with unaccustomed cold, and reached for a life-saving sip. What was his surprise when he found that the glass was already empty. Someone else, who must have entered the pool area through an unlocked door, drank it without the guest noticing. There was no other explanation.
Although Sasha’s creative nature was inclined to mysticism, he still looked around for reasonable explanations for this phenomenon. Due to the low light, he couldn’t view the entire atrium space. Was the joker hiding somewhere behind a pillar?
«Hey, who’s there?» — Stop it! «he shouted, but when there was no answer, he plunged headfirst into the water to wash away the delusion.
He didn’t like anyone laughing at him. The owner of the hotel promised him complete peace, that no one would disturb him unnecessarily. He will rightly demand an explanation. After all, this is a solid hotel, serious people rest here, and the reputation suffers. After holding on for as long as possible under the water, Sasha surfaced, greedily gulping air. The lights flashed again. All this was alarming and frightening with the unknown. The glass was already full to the brim.
«What the hell…» — flashed through the intoxicated head, and Sasha went back into the water.
There, under the water, he even thought that he heard a playful giggle above him, and when he surfaced, he saw a neat girl’s leg in front of him. The visitor looked up. Towering over him was a young, very beautiful girl wrapped in a white towel. Then she playfully wiggled her toes right in front of the man’s embarrassed nose, and he couldn’t help noticing the elaborate scarlet pedicure.
«Is the water cold?» — What is it? «the stranger asked him, as if nothing had happened, and shook her head like a wild mare.
A cloud of her black hair, loose almost to the water’s edge, covered him. Sasha had never seen such gorgeous long hair before. He wanted to wrap them around him, inhale their intoxicating smell.
«How did I not notice her earlier? Besides, the owner of the hotel assured me that I was the only guest here.»
He still couldn’t come up with a reasonable explanation for this mystical phenomenon in the pool and was silent, as if suddenly speechless. The towel suddenly slid to the floor, whether by accident or not, but it didn’t matter when her pubic hair, soft as a juicy peach, flashed before the guest’s eyes in a kind of slow-motion delusion. It was only when there was a splash of water behind his shoulders that he realized that he was awake, that this was real, that this naked beauty had just jumped right over him like a fish and gone under the water, disappearing in the azure glow of the backlight.
