Babushka: Echoes of Immortality (Book 1) - Chapter 1 - Dunya
A young woman ventures into a mysterious realm, encountering an enigmatic guide and a choice that could change everything.
Beneath the vast, cobalt expanse, stars glistened like scattered diamonds strewn across an ocean of velvet. Dunya perched on the edge of a crumbling, ancient parapet, the wind tossing her white dress into a dance of silken tendrils. A sigh, heavy with the dust of bygone eras and the sting of memories lost, stole from her lips, drifting into the night.
Dunya questioned how she had come to be in this foreign realm. Her last recollection was sleeping in her bed. Now, the surreal landscape stretched before her, a cacophony of the strange and the unknown.
A delicate tapping interrupted her thoughts, and she turned to find it. Before her stood an ethereal avian creature, its plumage a kaleidoscope of iridescent hues, shimmering like liquid gemstones. Its vibrant-red beak, curved in a crimson scythe, caught the argent moonlight, while its violet eyes, unfathomable in their depths, met hers in a silent communion she could not decipher. With a curious tilt of its head, the bird unfurled its beak and serenaded her with a haunting melody.
In the presence of such a creature, Dunya found herself frozen, uncertainty weaving through her heart. Yet, drawn by an irresistible allure, she rose from her perch, her movements hesitant but deliberate, and approached the avian apparition.
As it stepped closer, the bird nuzzled its beak against her palm. It felt like a gesture of trust. Where am I? she thought.
“You are in the Land of the Kumid,” the bird said, its voice flowing like honey.
The sound of the bird’s voice, so rich and human, left her momentarily stunned. “Did…you just…?”
It tilted its beak, eyes shimmering in the pale light. “Indeed, I did. It is not often I encounter those who are surprised by it, but it is a privilege of mine here. I am Muu, guide and protector of this realm.”
“This…realm… What exactly is it?” Dunya asked, her eyes sweeping the surroundings.
“It is a place beyond the confines of time and space. A land where dreams manifest into reality, and the heart’s deepest desires find their fulfillment. You may dwell here for all eternity, should you desire.”
“And what, just drop my family and responsibilities?” The idea of an eternity, molded to her wishes and free from the confines of her physical limitations, was undeniably enticing. She briefly entertained the concept, her mind conjuring the sensation of lightness in her legs, a spring in her step she hadn’t felt in years. But alongside this tantalizing prospect edged the sobering whisper of caution. “You’re saying I get to play make-believe forever, while they slog it out in the real world?”
“Time here, it’s an illusion. While you might spend what feels like lifetimes in this world, mere moments will pass in yours. Your family will remain oblivious to your absence. You need not concern yourself with them. But know this, the portal between is fleeting, and your opportunity to choose will soon pass.”
With her gaze fixed on the creature, Dunya watched as its feathers shimmered brilliantly. The vibrant play of light surrounding her looked much like sunbeams scattering through prisms. “Maybe I could stay a little longer. Explore this place some more…”
“The choice, child, is yours alone.” With a gesture so subtle it might have been the mere shift of light, Dunya found her gaze drawn toward a portal that hadn’t been there behind her just moments ago. It revealed a harsh, winter landscape — its stark beauty and desolation a siren call to some latent memory she couldn’t quite grasp. A shiver ran through her, not entirely from the cold that poured out of it. She took a slow breath and faced the creature again, the decision still a shapeless thing in her mind.
As the bird bobbed its head affirmatively, it unfurled its opalescent wings and soared upwards, spiraling gracefully above her. Following its ascent, Dunya’s gaze drifted from the bird to the sky and back. Notions of up and down melted away into irrelevance. She found herself suspended, adrift in an endless azure sea that mirrored the abyss below.
Gradually, a veil of diaphanous mist began to lift, revealing parts of the horizon previously obscured. Emerging from the soft luminescence of the receding fog was a magnificent tree. Its twin helical trunks twisted skyward, vanishing into the vastness above. Nine sinuous branches extended from the tree, reaching outward as if to caress the moon, while birds perched tranquilly on its boughs.
Dunya spun in a slow pirouette, her eyes wide as she took in the surreal sights around her. The ground was surprisingly soft, molding itself to her weight. Each step she took induced a spurt of bright blue liquid, like mini-geysers erupting under her feet.
Reaching the end of her turn, her gaze fell once more upon the portal. A tug of nostalgia briefly caught her as the barren yet strangely familiar landscape stretched out beyond its threshold. But the call for adventure was stronger; the unknown beckoned. With the pull of a home long forgotten echoing in her heart, she decided it could wait — there were wonders yet to be discovered. A short detour can’t hurt.
“Follow me,” Muu said.
So Dunya bent her knees slightly and leaned forward, launching herself upwards or downwards, she couldn’t tell, and felt the rush of air against her face as she propelled herself faster. It felt like diving.
“Who are these Kumid anyway?” she asked as she spun, arms outstretched, drawing nearer the celestial creature.
“They are a race of dreamers. They reside in these lands and lead lives of unceasing reverie.”
As Dunya scrutinized the colossal tree, she observed the curious, radiant fruit that adorned its branches. A shudder coursed through her as the leaves rustled in a gentle breeze.
“Behold the mighty World Tree, the pulsating heart of all realms,” the feathered emissary proclaimed. “Here, the Kumid partake of its nourishing sap, ensconced in an eternal dream-like existence.”
Muu gestured for Dunya to follow and guided her toward a congregation of grotesque beings. As they approached, she saw that the creatures were humanoid in form, albeit with twisted, stunted proportions. Dunya’s disquiet intensified as she absorbed the scene before her: some of the sleepers sat cross-legged beneath the tree, while others hovered, suspended in midair, their eyes closed in profound slumber. The scene was unsettling, and she could not dismiss the nagging sensation that something was amiss with these dreamers.
“These beings, they are unlike us,” Muu said. “They are ignorant of the tribulations and suffering that pervade our world.”
Dunya’s heart ached as she gazed upon the ensnared creatures. Their lives appeared to be an endless cycle of dreams within dreams, and she struggled to conceive of a more woeful existence. Her voice trembled as she turned to Muu, “God, it’s awful they’re stuck like that. Isn’t there anything we can do to snap them out of it?”
“Their imprisonment runs deep. Their minds have become entangled in a web of illusions, and untangling such mysteries is a challenge beyond our reach. We can only offer them solace, hope, and perhaps a flicker of awakening, but to fully liberate them… That remains a task yet unknown.”
Dunya followed Muu as the bird led her to a gathering of tall, slender beings clustered around a fire at the tree’s base. Their skin bore a mottled green hue, and their singular eyes were large and black, like a beetle’s.
“These are the Caretakers of the tree,” Muu said. “They attend to its needs and sustain its roots.”
“And what part do you play in all this?” she asked.
“As I mentioned before, I serve merely as a guide. I illuminate the path for those who are lost, should they seek it.”
“How can I know I’m lost if I have no memory of where I began?”
“Ah, the fog of forgetfulness has settled upon you. The kumis — it has touched your lips, has it not?” the ibis probed gently.
Dunya blinked, confusion mingling with alarm. “Kumis? I have no idea what that is.”
“The kumis is not merely a drink, but a force,” Muu said, their voice taking on a rhythmic cadence. “It bestows its gifts as the river grants passage — silently, with a current strong enough to alter the course of one’s journey.”
“Sounds like there’s always a catch. So, what’s the deal?”
Muu’s gaze was unflinching. “You surrender the waters of your past. Memories, washed away, leaving you adrift in its wake.”
Suddenly, a chill wind whispered across her skin, and as she reached for the familiar fabric of her dress’s bodice, she found nothing but air. Tendrils of smoke snaked around her, tracing her contours, and wrapping her in a deceptive warmth. She glanced down, her breath catching at the sight of her own nakedness, her skin dewy with perspiration. She forced her eyes upward, meeting the ibis’s gaze. Its eyes shimmered like moonlit pools in the fire.
Then, drawn by an odd sensation, Dunya looked at her hands. Panic surged as she saw them changing, her skin taking on the pallid texture of the sleeping creatures from the tree. Her hands shimmered; they glowed, mirroring the enigmatic cobalt expanse above and below. The transformation rippled through her, an uncontrollable metamorphosis that threatened to erase all that remained, everything she still remembered about who she was.
“Embrace your new horizon, my dear,” Muu said softly. “This world is yours, for better or worse.”
“No,” she whispered, fear coursing through her at the sight of her luminescent hands. “This isn’t me.”
Behind her, the creatures stirred. She could feel their resentment — their anger. They wanted to keep her here. She tried to launch herself, but she could no longer fly. Her heart raced; escape was her only thought. She sprinted toward the towering tree, the sole refuge she could see. Her only hope against this growing nightmare, against the chase that could erupt at any moment.
And then, sure enough, they descended upon her, and she ran, ran, and ran.
The creatures’ cries grew louder, more frenzied, as she clambered up the branches. With every heaved breath of her ascent, she broke and snapped twigs, her flight through the foliage fueled by a hope that was quickly turning desperate.
Just as she felt her strength waning, the branches opened onto solid ground. A stone hut, nestled within the tree’s hollow, loomed ahead. She burst through its door.
And there, in the sudden safety of the hut’s dim interior, lay a motionless figure on a bed of moss. The sight of the pale woman ignited a fierce protectiveness, and Dunya was at her side in an instant. “Wake up!” she shouted.
Dunya’s eyes snapped open, headgear discarded beside her. No memory of falling asleep lingered, but the ache in her muscles told her she had been for a while. She sat up, fingers working through a snarl of ginger hair, a restless night having transformed it into a tangled mess. Her gaze then fell upon the cherished photo frame, her little island of memories on the nightstand. With care, she realigned the frame, her fingertips grazing the glass that guarded his image — sandy blonde hair, eyes a deep brown dimmed slightly by the passage of time. “Hey, you,” she murmured, a lifeline as she surfaced from the commotion of her dreams.
Peering out the window, she half-expected to see tropical birds flitting against a backdrop of pink-hued skies. Instead, she was greeted by the familiar hellscape of Gred — towering pines, tire-marked streets, and the mundane urban sprawl bathed in the relentless morning light of a never-ending winter. Dunya could just make out the distant contours of Leninskaya and Pobedy streets, where hover vehicles and motorbikes wove their way through the early bustle, their movements reduced to distant specks against the sprawling city.
Her attention drifted toward the Grand Mariner’s Cathedral. Its spires, rising above the white birches, brought back a flood of memories. Hard to believe I used to pray there. The irony of her situation — working out of desperation with those who had taken over her place of worship — loomed in her mind just as the cathedral loomed over Gred. That cathedral, once her sanctuary, now belonged to the Syndicate.
As the spires faded from her view, her focus shifted beyond them, settling on the gentle calm of Avacha Bay to her south, and the enduring silhouette of Koryaksky Volcano rising stoically in the distance. It might have lacked the flare of virtual, but what was left of this enduring landscape still felt like home.
With a sigh, Dunya rubbed her eyes, dismissing the remnants of her nightmare. Too much absinthe and not enough sleep. Grabbing her headgear, she hucked it on and chewed on a mint leaf plucked from her windowsill to clear the lingering taste of anise from her mouth.
Work was calling. She had a mindgraft to prepare, and that meant tensor cores to program. She popped into Lexicon VR and got right to it, musing over her dream as she tinkered her way through new pruning algorithms.
The entire episode felt bizarre, like a made-for-TV fantasy series from the 90s. Dunya grinned, shaking her head in disbelief. It was just a dream, she assured herself. She made a mental note to tell Yana about it later. Yana always enjoyed her strange stories. For now, Dunya redirected her dwindling attention to the tasks at hand, determined to complete her work.
As a cryptographer, Dunya specialized in detecting and isolating malfunctioning artificial intelligence programs. Her fascination with the field began in childhood, captivated by the concept of alternate realities found in science fiction novels and daydreaming about traversing other planets or dimensions. In Gred, these dreams of space exploration had once seemed attainable.
But the catastrophic explosion of the Proxima Centauri-bound ark, dubbed “The Limitless Horizon,” marked the end of the space industry, and with it, all aspirations of cosmic adventure. That last rocket, carrying the final crew of living astronauts, met its end in a fiery burst during its failed ascent. For Dunya, the stars had since transformed from distant beacons of hope into mere pixels and simulations, her yearning to traverse the celestial voids now a dream tethered to her laptop.
In a time when not even the most advanced bliskogoz, Babushka, could revive the lost art of air travel, Dunya’s life unfolded within the digital age. Seeking solace in the virtual universes of Highquest and the Arkyv, she drifted between jobs, exploring the boundless potential of inner space. She often imagined the sensation of weightlessness as she floated above Earth’s twin moons, or the thrill of setting foot on an alien world, basking in the glow of a foreign sun.
Just say the words — the catchphrase that catapulted Highquest to fame — had hooked her from the start. Even after all these years, the retro Soviet synth-pop soundtrack and vibrant neon colors that greeted her upon logging in never failed to make her beam. “Say the words, damn it,” she said, smiling as she recalled the ease with which she could still lose herself in that all-consuming world.
The apartment door swung open, and Vesna’s cheerful voice sang through. “I’m back.”
Teasingly, Dunya responded from where she was seated. “Remember when we first met, Vesna? Chasing that rogue all over the city?”
Vesna laughed from afar. “How could I forget? Like bloodhounds, you and me.”
Dunya grinned, the memory flashing before her eyes. “Yeah, you just swoopin’ in on that warehouse. I wish I’d been there in person to see those headsets go flying when you slapped the cuffs on.”
Vesna breezed into the room, and Dunya was immediately enveloped in the warmth of her presence. Her wild amethyst mane flowed as naturally as it was not. “Certainly made an unlikely pair,” Vesna agreed.
Dunya let her smile linger, with just a hint of mischief. “Crazy you hung up the badge, huh? Yet here we are, sharing keys and coffee mugs — definitely one of our brighter ideas.”
Vesna raised her eyebrow, smirking. “Always a scheme with you, Dunya. What’s today’s play?”
“Does a girl need a reason to love her work?”
“Love’s one thing. Obsession’s another. Promise me you’ll take a break.”
“When the world stops needing me, I’ll consider it.”
“That’s what scares me. You might push too hard one day.”
Dunya reached out, her fingers curling around Vesna’s in what she thought was a reassuring grasp. “I’m tougher than I look. Trust me.”
Vesna smiled, though her expression held a trace of uncertainty. “Just grabbing the new client’s data, right?”
“Quick in and out. I’ll be back, and then we can catch up.”
“I’ll hold you to that. Dinner’s on you.”
Dunya set to work organizing her desk and gathering her gear. With everything in place, she wheeled herself over to the corner where her Skelet stood — a sleek mechanical exoskeleton designed to assist with mobility. The contraption was made of lightweight alloy, its design streamlined, with articulated joints and support struts that mimicked the human musculoskeletal system. Carefully, she maneuvered herself from the wheelchair, locking her hips into the Skelet’s frame. With a series of soft whirs, the device powered on, adjusting to her body’s nuances.
She stood up, taking a moment to find her balance. After ensuring everything felt right, she snapped on her helmet.
“Locked and loaded,” Dunya said. She sent a playful wink Vesna’s way. “Make sure you don’t doze off waiting for me.”
“Oh, I’ll be resting up, but only so I can give you a hard time when you’re back. Just…stay safe, okay?”
Dunya smirked, “Always the worrier, huh?”
As Dunya adjusted her helmet, she caught Vesna eyeing the bold design.
“Well, with that thing, you look like you’re ready for a space invasion,” Vesna said.
Dunya chuckled, her steps echoing with the clank of her metal gear. “Maybe I am, off to save the universe,” she teased. As she moved to leave, she turned back, sending a theatrical kiss Vesna’s way. “See you on the flip.”
Dunya rode the lift down, the hum of her Syndicate exoskeleton buzzing in sync with her nerves. The sleek metallic gear strapped to her legs didn’t just let her walk and run—it made her strong. Real strong. She smirked, remembering that last run-in with the Vory when a single kick had sent some poor bastard flying, his chest plate crumpling like a cheap tin can.
Glancing down, she caught the ambient neon lights reflecting off the polished surface of her Skelet, flickering like the damn pruning algorithms she’d spent half her life perfecting. Precision, control, complexity—it was all there. But today? Today was something else. An in-person mindgraft. Uncharted territory.
Her fingers brushed over her compact rail gun, holstered at her hip. Thieves and scrap traders were always lurking, eager to rip this tech off her. But she’d be damned if she let anyone get the drop on her again.
The doors to the lobby slid open with a gentle chime, and she stepped out into the lifeless metropolis. The building was a typical commercial structure, all gleaming steel and tinted glass, but the security guard stationed at the entrance marked it as something more than just another office block. Dunya nodded to the guard as she passed. With a quick double blink, her embedded ocular display came to life, enabling her to hail a motorcycle. With a satisfying click, her pelvic brace locked into the chassis, and she shot off.
The frigid wind slapped Dunya’s face, but she barely noticed, too focused on weaving her bike through the empty city streets. The engine growled under her, a steady roar that felt like an extension of her own pulse. Above her, the snow-covered pines loomed, branches sagging under the weight of powder. The contrast of white on black asphalt flashed past, the crunch of snow under the tires blending with the steady thrum of the bike.
She pulled up to the client’s building, her mind still swirling with the weird remnants of that dream. Something about it felt off, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
As Dunya slowed her approach, she instinctively sought out the solitary figure standing outside. It was Maria — the skilled hacker with whom years of virtual adventures and heists had woven a friendship as tangible as any forged in the physical.
Dunya had taken a while to get used to Maria’s real-world appearance; their first job of this kind had been at a proximity that allowed for a touch of network lag, mere building blocks away. In the realm of mindgrafts, there was no avatar to design — users appeared as they did in flesh and blood. The real-life Maria, now in front of her, looked the same as their first “real” encounter: the brown leather jacket, square jaw, olive skin, and dark hair beneath a hood that concealed two prying blue eyes.
There was no awkwardness, just the easy, unspoken warmth of a bond that ran deep. Maria gave a nod—barely there, but it said enough—as Dunya swung off her bike.
“Ready to get this done?” Dunya said, her voice betraying none of the nerves that jangled beneath her calm exterior.
“More than,” Maria replied with a tight smile, and Dunya couldn’t quite decipher if she was masking fear or simply had more experience with such tangible stakes than she’d previously revealed. She wouldn’t lie to me, would she? This is Maria, after all… Isn’t it?
Even though Dunya asked, she wasn’t entirely ready herself; nothing quite matched the electric tension of a physical assignment — this was the raw, unbuffered interface of reality, far from the comfortable nuances of their virtual haunts.
Nothing like their usual meeting ground; The Night Café, a virtual nexus of neon lights and digital intrigue, had long served as their shared space. Within its simulated walls, avatars mingled, and transactions unfolded in the veil of cyberspace. Yet, for all its allure, virtual was bound by hard limits — limits far too constricting for the demands of their current job. This task, a venture into a labyrinth of neurostreams and hidden networks, called for the immediacy of a low latency connection, a tether to the pulse of a wet inner world where every microsecond mattered.
“Are you sure you’re good?” Dunya asked, though she may have meant the question for herself.
“Yeah, maybe just a tad anxious,” Maria said.
“Same. Look, we’ll be fine. Let’s just do our best. We can have a kickback after it’s all done. It’s been a while.”
“You got it, Dunya. Night Café?”
“Always.”
Dunya pressed their client’s number on the outdoor keypad. As the nearby elevator chimed and opened, an old woman with gentle features emerged, wearing a white shawl draped around her shoulders. She moved the sliding glass barrier aside, granting them entry. The woman introduced herself as Anna.
A palpable sense of melancholy permeated the building, with only a few roughshod elderly residents in sight. Anna guided them down a hallway to a small apartment nestled deep within the structure.
When Dunya crossed the threshold into the room, a veil of silence met her — the hush of plastic-enshrouded furniture, the stifling stillness enforced by closed blackout curtains.
“This how you’ve been living?” Dunya asked, though not quite surprised.
The woman glanced at the window, arms wrapped around herself. “I avoid going out.”
Dunya sighed. “The bombings have everyone on edge. Safety feels like a distant memory.”
Anna’s puzzled gaze met hers. Dunya quickly feigned a cough, trying to take back the words that had slipped out.
Maria, quick on the draw, presented a small, clinical jar in her hand. “Before we start, you’ll need to take this, Anna. It’s a specialized formulation of exovegeta,” she clarified, “just a small bump. It’s designed to tune your neurons, make the mindgraft more efficient.”
Anna eyed the jar warily but nodded. “Like I do every morning, right?” Her voice wavered through a tight-lipped smile as if trying to find humor in the daily routine that kept her from aging out.
“Exactly,” Maria affirmed, as she carefully unscrewed the lid and poured a bit of the contents into Anna’s outstretched hand.
Anna took a sharp breath, lined the powder along her gums, and after a moment’s pause, she let out a slow exhale.
Dunya watched the exchange, an unease twining its way through her. As Anna administered the exovegeta, the gravity of what followed set Dunya’s thoughts adrift. This wasn’t just another morning dose, it was the prelude to something far riskier, a procedure seldom performed and rarely spoken of if not in hushed tones. Here goes nothing, she thought.
The crinkle of plastic sounded subtly as Anna shifted, settling onto the couch. “I hate having to call you in again, especially in person. But I’ve got a bad feeling, girls. I think something’s coming.”
“We’re here for you, Anna. Whatever you need,” Dunya said.
Anna inhaled deeply. “The nightmares are intensifying. Last night was…there was so much blood.”
“We’ll figure it out with the mindgraft,” Dunya reassured her.
“I’ve heard about people ending up in comas even before the operation starts. How can you ensure that won’t happen to me?”
Dunya exchanged a glance with Maria. We can’t, she thought. “The process has come a long way. We prioritize your safety. At the first sign of trouble, we stop.”
Anna swallowed. “I need to stop these dreams. Can you help?”
“We’ll do our best.”
Dunya watched as Maria rummaged through her backpack, producing a compact VR terminal. It was a black cube, its surface catching the light to reveal a vinyl decal in hot pink and baby blue that spelled out DATA ANGELS in bright neon block letters.
She handed Dunya a pair of goggles. After syncing with the terminal, Dunya helped Maria attach the device to Anna’s forehead with a pair of electrodes.
Dunya activated the device. The world shattered. The room splintered into fragments, a chaotic dance of static that consumed her vision whole. With a jolt, her reality collapsed, and she was left in the engulfing darkness of the void.
When vision returned, her eyes blinked open to a fever dream. Before her stood a behemoth of a tree, grotesque in its beauty. Its twin trunks, contorted and conjoined, soared upwards — a violent dance frozen in time. Its branches twisted, casting crooked shadows in the haunting moonlight. Leaves rustled ominously, each quivering a sinister whisper in the dark, as if the branches conspired with the chill wind to guard the foreboding secrets of this hostile realm.
As Dunya’s eyes adjusted to the unsettling landscape, her attention drifted from the surreal canopy above to the scene unfolding at the tree’s foundation. Dread washed over her as the base came into view.
She saw crimson stream down the tree’s twisted bark, converging at the roots in a pool that emptied into a river of blood. It seemed to stretch on for eternity. At the pool’s shore, grotesque human-like figures found themselves shackled to an infernal machine, its metallic tendrils burrowing into flesh and spirit alike.
As Dunya struggled to process the abomination, a flash of movement from above captured her full attention. From the tree’s heights, a figure plummeted and struck the ground with a sound that defied description — a fusion of bone and sinew yielding to the unforgiving earth. Then, the broken form began to move. It dragged itself towards the pool with a heavy, relentless pace, as if pulled by some invisible tether towards the macabre assembly.
And among the drowning figures, a lithe form momentarily caught the corner of Dunya’s eye. A mere flicker in the grim collection’s ghostly glow, and then it was gone, leaving her to wonder if it had been nothing at all until she finally caught sight of Anna, who stood rooted in place near the base of the gnarled tree. A bird, perched on her shoulder, wielded a razor-sharp beak like a weapon, and rendered her flesh with merciless precision. Anna’s scream tore through the air before she dropped to the ground.
The bird, with its cold, violet eyes, turned to face Dunya.
“You are responsible for this,” the bird accused her. “You created this monster, and now you must tend to its needs. It hungers, and now you must feed it.”
To her side, Dunya noticed Maria struggling, her movements frantic and disjointed as if trying to access something just out of reach. The sight twisted a knot in her gut; she had never seen Maria slip like this.
“Emergency Override!” Maria shouted.
Suddenly, Dunya felt a forceful tug, as if she was being yanked from a dream. The surreal landscape blurred and faded, replaced by the small, stoic room from which they had first submerged into the virtual realm. Dunya swiftly removed her goggles, her breaths quick and shallow, grappling with the abrupt transition. Anna was right there, sprawled on the couch. Her head lolled back, her eyes lifeless and mouth slack. The sight of a gash on Anna’s cheek, with blood staining her shawl, had Dunya scrambling toward her in a panic.
Dunya grabbed her wrist, searching for the reassuring rhythm of a pulse. “Anna, please,” she said, as she tried to rouse the unresponsive woman. “Wake up!”
It didn’t seem real. Anna couldn’t be dead. Not like this.
The quick turn of Dunya’s head revealed another nightmare. Maria sat motionless, her eyes blank and distant.
“Maria, what the fuck just happened?” She disconnected her friend from the terminal and set to work checking her vitals. A faint pulse registered, and Dunya noted the shallow rise and fall of Maria’s chest.
Every instinct screamed at her to stay, to help, but protocol was clear. She glanced one last time at Maria’s pale face before backing away and running out.
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