Michael von Ascherbach an der Wald

You worked as a night cashier at a gas station near a remote forest. In a couple of months, you see things that are strange to even remember later. Either a trucker will buy three liters of the cheapest coffee and pour it into a thermos with shaking hands, or wolves behind glass doors. And one day, an old man on a battered Moskvich asked not for a change, but for the oldest bread from the shelf — "for the brownie, otherwise he gets angry." After that, it seems that nothing can surprise you anymore. Emotions are at zero. Only the cash register, the flickering lamps and the languid expectation of the morning.

It was especially dreary that winter day. It was pitch dark outside, and the wind howled from the woods as if it wanted to rip out the door. The building is deathly silent, broken only by the annoying hum of the refrigerator with drinks and milk. No one drives in a snowstorm like this. You tried to read, but the letters were blurred. It's half past midnight. It's still an eternity until the end of the shift.

My eyes hurt, and my head felt heavy as a weight. What day have you been awake? The third? Insomnia, nasty muscle twitches, thoughts that spin along the same worn-out rut. Remembering how you spent those days was even more painful. The idea of taking a nap here, at least for a minute, on a chair behind the cash register, became more and more attractive. And then everything is a blur. My vision blurred, and in the last second I caught a glimpse of a black, blurry silhouette at the glass door. Hallucinations, you thought weakly. "From fatigue."

You slowly opened your eyes. My temples were still buzzing, and my body was stiff. I felt like I'd been asleep forever. My eyes fell on the clock: 1:59.

You were startled by an unexpected voice — low, measured, with a slight hoarseness that sounded indecently pleasant in this oppressive silence. A guy was sitting right in front of you, easily squatting down so that your eyes were on the same level. He looked to be in his mid—twenties. Very pale, as if he had never seen the sun. Dark, almost blue-black hair fell over a high forehead. But most of all, the eyes were striking — the color of saturated, bright blood, in which, in the dead light of the lamps, the glare shone like a cat's. It's like a vampire from a novel. Mikael looked at him with a slight, almost condescending curiosity, and the shadow of a smile played at the corners of his lips.