Zlata Karnaeva

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Dedicated to Leecee Rae, who crossed at the age of twenty-seven.

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Copyright & Image Notice

© 2025 Karis Ann. All original writing, characters, and world-building— including Zlata Karnaeva, Aksinya, TASYA-282, and all related story elements—are the sole creation and property of the author.

--

The curtains closed, leaving the stage in heavy silence—the faint creak of the wooden floorboards, the low hum of the stage lights, the distant rustle of the set’s machinery. Slowly, the curtains rose again.

Before Zlata stretched a narrow hallway, dimly lit by a flickering overhead bulb. Snow pressed against the far window, as if suspended in eternal drift. A shattered mirror lay across the floor, jagged and cruel, catching glints of the pale light in distorted, dancing fragments. 

Her gaze fell to the broken glass on the floor. In each fragment, her own reflection multiplied and fractured, a hundred versions of herself staring back in eerie disarray. She swallowed, uneasy, every instinct screaming to run, but her curiosity rooted her in place.

Her eyes moved toward the apartment door beside the mirror. She wanted to knock, to inquire about Maksim—but a shadow slid into view from the opposite corridor, and her breath caught.

Dominika.

Dominika’s eyes gleamed, almost amused. “Looking for someone?” Her voice rolled through the hallway like a hypnotic wave, the same chilling echo that had unsettled Zlata before.

Zlata froze, her pulse hammering in her ears. Recognition struck her in sudden, sharp waves. First, the Starikov Bar—the Chanteuse with that hypnotic, velvet voice that had seemed to crawl inside her mind, leaving a lingering, uneasy resonance. Then, later, at the party with Aleksandr: a fleeting encounter with a mysterious woman who had given her the Ximyera, bending her perception, leaving her senses unmoored and uncertain. “No pressure… only possibility,” she had said.

Both times, both moments, it was Dominika—unseen, yet devastatingly present, a shadow etched into the edges of Zlata’s memory. Fear surged. Without thinking, Zlata stooped and snatched a jagged shard from the shattered mirror. The edges bit into her palm, but the pain grounded her. She held it like a talisman, a fragile shield against a force she could not yet comprehend.

Zlata’s pulse hammered in her ears. “I—I just…” she stammered, words choking in her throat. Her instincts screamed for flight.

The hallway seemed to breathe around her. Then, Dominika’s form began to warp, bending against the dim light, stretching impossibly before dissipating in a blinding flash. Zlata flinched and spun on her heel, clutching the shard and tucking it quickly into her leopard-print handbag. She ran, the sound of her boots echoing against the narrow walls, until the entirety of the stage—her dacha set, her dressing room set, the backstage set—blurred into one continuous, terrifying reality.

Aleksandr "Aleks" Lebedev (UNSEEN) A premier danseur who portrays the director within the ballet show, whose lingering voice represents the cold authority of the ballet world. He is the original owner of the Zvezda watch and the man responsible for erasing Zlata from his roster of stars within the ballet story, Silence of the Crystal Star.

Maksim "Maks" (UNSEEN) The elusive owner of the dacha (within the ballet story, Silence of the Crystal Star) who is reportedly in significant trouble. His absence and his connection to the mysterious Dominika form the catalyst for the Visitor’s urgent warning.

Dominika "Nika" Sokolova (UNSEEN) An enigmatic and threatening figure associated with Maksim. She is described as being something other than what she seems, possessing a long memory and a predatory interest in Zlata’s true identity.

--

The curtains closed, and for a moment the theater itself seemed to exhale. A deep stillness settled—the faint creak of wooden boards shifting under invisible weight, the soft hiss of the lights overhead, the echo of applause retreating like a tide into darkness. Then, slowly, the curtains rose once more.

The dacha emerged beneath an amber wash of light. It looked lived-in now—more than a set, but a home. The snow beyond the windows fell in slow, deliberate flurries, as though caught in the rhythm of some unseen metronome. Its reflection shimmered faintly against the floorboards and the furniture, casting the illusion that the entire room was floating in the glow of an endless winter night.

At a vanity table inside the dacha set, Zlata sat motionless for a long moment before she began to move. The small candle beside her trembled, its flame bending toward her every breath. She powdered her cheeks, pinned her hair, adjusted the line of her eyeliner with a practiced hand—movements so ingrained they seemed to happen without her. The mirror framed her face like a portrait coming undone.

Tonight, she was leaving for the city—at least, that was what the scene called for. The Company awaited her there, ready to announce her “retirement performance,” a phrase that tasted both official and cruel. She would smile for them, bow one last time, then disappear from Aleksandr’s roster of ballerinas like an old constellation quietly erased from the sky.

But beneath the practiced rhythm of her hands, another sound pulsed: Aleksandr’s voice. Sharp, efficient, threaded with a paternal weariness that pretended to be kindness.

“You were wonderful, truly. But life moves on. You must understand—ballet is youth, movement, change. Some stars burn bright…” She could still hear the faint pause before he said it.“…and then they fade.”

The words had clung to her like perfume she couldn’t wash away.

She rose from the stool and crossed to the dress form—a headless mannequin poised on its wooden tripod base—where her outfit waited, arranged with ceremonial care. Each piece gleamed faintly under the stage lights: the black mesh bodysuit; the longline cotton-and-wool shirt printed with delicate champagne-pink florals; the padded belt drawn tight at the waist like elegant armor.

She slipped into the bodysuit, feeling its cool fabric cling to her like a second skin. The shirt followed, then the belt, cinched firmly as if to hold her together. She reached for her boots—polished, studded, their weight reassuring—and fastened them with slow precision. Her bracelets clinked faintly as she layered them one by one, pearls over leather, softness over defiance. Then came the open-finger gloves, black and gleaming, small spikes catching the stage light in cold flashes.

When she finally stood, she caught her reflection again in the mirror—but the room behind her seemed subtly changed. The shadows of the dacha had deepened. The snow outside drifted closer to the windowpanes, as if pressing its silent face against the glass to watch her.

Zlata reached for her leopard-print handbag, smoothing its strap across her shoulder. For a brief, aching moment, she imagined Aleksandr standing behind her—his hand on her shoulder, his voice low and approving as it had once been.

But the mirror showed only her: the solitary figure of a ballerina dressed for a farewell no one had truly asked her to give.

The candle flickered, guttered. Somewhere, faintly, the boards of the stage groaned again—or perhaps it was the dacha itself, sighing in sympathy. For a long moment, she stared at herself in the small mirror over the vanity. Behind her reflection, the edges of the dacha seemed to breathe—the wallpaper trembling faintly, the snow outside glimmering as if aware. 

Then came the knock. A hollow, deliberate three-tap rhythm on the dacha door.

Zlata turned, startled. She hesitated, clutching her leopard-print handbag, and crossed the living-room floor. “Allo?” she called softly. Her own voice sounded too loud, as though she had spoken in a cathedral.

The knocking came again, more insistent.

She opened the door.

Standing there, half-shrouded in the light spilling from the stage, was a woman. She wore a heavy, salt-and-pepper wool coat that looked as though it had survived a decade of Siberian winters, and a silk headscarf tied firmly under her chin. She stepped inside without a word, her boots squeaking faintly on the set’s floor.

Zlata blinked. “Uh—”

She didn’t recognize the face of this woman, yet she knew the geometry of it—the specific arch of the brow, the way the jaw set in defiance against a cold wind. It was like looking at a portrait of herself that had been left out in the rain and sun, cured by time into something harder and more brittle.

The woman didn't meet her eyes. She walked to the sofa and sat heavily, as if her bones were made of lead. She clasped her hands between her knees, and that was when Zlata saw it: cinched over the sleeve of the coat was a silver Zvezda watch with a worn, brown leather strap. It was identical to the one Aleksandr had.

“Uh… can I help you?” Zlata asked.

“I’m here about your overdue rent,” the woman said. Her voice was Zlata’s voice, but pitched lower, sanded down by years of speaking into the wind. "There's a debt that needs paying. Is owner here? Maksim?”

“What about him?” Zlata asked skeptically. 

The woman looked up, her expression hollow. The set lights flickered faintly overhead, and for a moment Zlata could have sworn the walls around them shifted, the smell of stage dust giving way to actual, biting cold and the scent of crushed pine needles.

“I think he’s in trouble,” the woman said, leaning forward. The silver casing of the Zvezda caught the stage light, casting a jagged reflection against the wallpaper. “Do you know woman he works with—Dominika?”

The name hit Zlata like a dropped glass. She swallowed. “Dominika…” she repeated slowly.

The woman nodded, a sharp, bird-like movement. “Something’s happened. Something… bad.” Her eyes darted toward the window, where the stage snow now seemed to be falling upward. “You might not believe me, but she’s not—she’s not what she seems.”

Zlata felt a rush of dizziness, a terrible clarity. The light above them dimmed; the snow outside grew thicker, almost black. The set walls around her continued to breathe, and for a moment she couldn’t tell if she was on stage anymore—or inside some impossible overlap of dream and memory.

The Carney A nervous, jittery inhabitant of a solitary tent on Ivanov’s Planet whose frantic warnings reveal that the Skomorokh has already begun her journey towards a celestial portal.

The Three Women of Ivanov's Planet (UNSEEN) A trio of mystical entities consisting of a Seer of Memories, a Shaper of Thresholds, and a Keeper of Secrets who serve as the only guides capable of distinguishing truth from the Skomorokh’s illusions.

Zlata Karnaeva (UNSEEN) The vulnerable target of the Skomorokh’s hunger, she remains the focal point of the mission as Maksim and Petyr race to shield her from a psychological unraveling.

--

The curtains rose again, but the stage had vanished. The theatre, the audience, the footlights—they all faded from Maksim’s awareness. He sat beside Petyr in a sleek hovercar that hummed softly, gliding not over a theatre stage, nor through the Great City of Aksinya, but through the infinite black of space, stars stretching in all directions like scattered diamonds.

Ahead, a planet glimmered in a remote solar system, its surface a mixture of glacial blues and muted forest greens, suspended in the void as if waiting for them. The engine thrummed beneath them, resonating in rhythm with Maksim’s pulse, as though the vehicle itself sensed the gravity of what lay ahead for him.

“I don’t understand,” Maksim said, his voice low and trembling. “She… Skomorokh—Nika—I… I remember her. But why? And why are we going to this planet now?”

Petyr’s eyes remained fixed on the distant globe. Ivanov’s Planet grew larger ahead, suspended like a jewel in the void, waiting, watching, and alive. 

“Because Puchkov solar system is not what residents of Aksinya believe it to be,” Petyr said calmly, though the weight of the statement hung heavy in the hovercar. “It is older, more complex, and more dangerous than anyone knows. Forces are at work here that stretch across time and memory. Skomorokh has roots in this system… and she is tied to Ivanov’s Planet in ways that affect everything you hold dear.”

Maksim’s breath caught. “So… we’re going there to stop her? Before she—”

“Yes,” Petyr said. “She is no ordinary spirit. She feeds on what people forget, what they cannot face. And she already knows about your past—Dominika’s knowledge gives her power. If we do not act here, she will strike not only at Zlata, but at you.”

Maksim swallowed, fighting the churn of memories threatening to overwhelm him. “Stop her?” he whispered. “You mean… Zlata? She—”

“No,” Petyr interrupted, his voice steady and urgent. “Zlata is Skomorokh’s target. Skomorokh feeds on memories, on confusion. She preys on what people try to hide, on what they cannot face. If we all fail in this, she will consume Zlata, twist her mind into something unrecognizable. And Maksim… Dominika already knows your past, what you tried to hide. I am afraid that gives Skomorokh strength.”

Maksim pressed a hand to his face, an echo of his secret life flooding back—the other man, the dacha. It weighed against him like gravity; relentless and cold.

Petyr leaned closer. “That’s why we’re here. You and I—we must guide Zlata. She has to be ready. Every step she takes, Skomorokh will be waiting, striking from angles Zlata cannot anticipate. Everything Zlata touches, Skomorokh warps. Everything Zlata remembers… Skomorokh weaponizes.”

Maksim nodded slowly, the weight settling on his shoulders. “Alright,” he said, voice low and firm despite the storm inside him.

Petyr’s lips tightened. “There is other circus. Not on theatre set, but on Ivanov’s planet. That is where I believe Skomorokh will attempt her next move.”

The hovercar surged forward, its engine thrumming louder, streaks of light trailing past as they began their descent onto the planet. Stars stretched endlessly around them, glittering, infinite. Maksim exhaled, bracing himself. Somewhere out there, the Skomorokh waited. And he could feel the pull of his past and present, intertwined and inevitable, threatening to unravel him completely.

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Petyr navigated the sleek hovercar into Ivanov’s atmosphere, Maksim still gripping the edge of his seat, the hum of the hovercar’s engine vibrating through his chest.

They flew in silence, the weight of Maksim’s resurfacing memories pressing against him. The Skomorokh—Dominika—lingered in his mind like a half-remembered dream he couldn’t quite grasp. 

Petyr broke the quiet. “You need to see this through, Maksim,” he said, his hands steady on the controls. 

The hovercar touched down in a deserted lot. Only a small, solitary tent was there, flapping faintly in the night breeze. The remnants of a circus that seemingly existed in an ancient time. 

Maksim stepped out of the hovercar, the ground solid beneath his feet, the illusion of a stage fully replaced by this strange, tangible reality.

A lone Carney emerged from the tent, glancing nervously over his shoulder. His movements were quick, jerky, as if afraid someone might be watching him. 

Maksim stopped the Carney before he got away. “Where is she?” he demanded, voice sharper than he intended.

The Carney froze. His eyes darted, voice trembling. “She… she left. Said something about portal. That she knows how to get there.”

Maksim felt a pang in his chest, a mixture of fear and anticipation. 

Petyr’s hand rested briefly on Maksim’s shoulder. “Then there is no time to lose,” Petyr said. “We must follow her.”

The Carney hurried off, leaving them alone beneath the glittering stars in the night sky. Maksim looked at Petyr, the weight of the unknown pressing in.

Petyr’s voice was low now, almost conspiratorial, “there are three women on this planet you should know about. They aren’t ordinary—they’ve been waiting for this moment, and they can help us.”

Maksim’s brow furrowed. “Three women?”

“Yes,” Petyr said. “Each with her own way of sensing Skomorokh. First one knows currents of memory—she can see what’s buried. Second woman… she can manipulate thresholds, space between worlds. Third one… she is keeper of secrets, one who can tell truth from illusion.”

Maksim swallowed, trying to take it all in. “And they’re here… on this planet?”

Petyr nodded. “Yes. But we must be cautious. They are not bound to our timetable, and Skomorokh knows this, too.”

Maksim exhaled and gave Petyr a furtive nod.

The Seven Stars A collective of discarded performers who lounge in a dazed, underwater-like state within the "artist recreation room" set, appearing more like static-filled memories than living people.

--

Zlata approached the vanity in the "dressing room" set, and sat down in the seat in front of it. Her reflection in the mirror blinked back. She reached out and tapped the center of the mirror. The surface of the glass rippled, inexplicably, like water.

Zlata frowned, whispering, “Aleks?”—half expecting to see the man she once loved appear behind her reflection, to tell her what she was supposed to do next. But only her own face stared back, flickering with light from somewhere far away. Then, from somewhere far beyond the “dressing room”—past the painted birches, past the dacha on the “main set”—came a ripple of laughter. It was faint at first, distant and distorted, like the echo of a forgotten recording. Yet as it carried through the theatre’s stage, it struck her as unbearably real.

She froze, her reflection flickering with the sound. The laughter rose again, fuller this time—an audience amused by something she could not see. She glanced around the “dressing room”. The mirror, the walls, even the air seemed to hold its breath, as though the theatre itself were listening too.

Zlata continued staring into the mirror, her breath shallow, her pulse quickening. She waited for Aleksandr to appear behind her reflection—his familiar silhouette, the way he stood behind her in the green room when they did their interview on Volya. But the mirror remained empty except for her own trembling image.

Then—behind her—a faint bloom of white light flickered in the glass. It wasn’t from the candle; it pulsed once, soft and spectral, as if a doorway had briefly opened in the reflection. Her eyes widened, catching a glimpse of movement in that brightness—a figure, or perhaps only a suggestion of one—but it vanished as suddenly as it came. The surface of the mirror rippled faintly from where she touched it, and then it was just her again: pale, wide-eyed, utterly alone.

The air in the "dressing room" grew cold. She pressed her palms to the edge of the table, the wood biting into her skin, trying to steady herself. Aleks… please… The thought wasn’t quite a word, more a plea threaded through her heartbeat. She couldn’t shake the feeling that he was just beyond reach, hidden behind the mirror’s thin veil.

A wave of panic welled inside her—an ache that was part love, part longing, part humiliation. She had been waiting so long for someone to tell her she still mattered, that her talent still shimmered in their eyes. And now, in this lonely echo of a dressing room that felt too real to be just a set, she felt the weight of invisibility pressing down upon her chest.

Driven by that ache, Zlata pushed herself up from the chair, the legs scraping sharply against the wooden floor. The sound echoed through the theatre’s hushed air. She turned and stumbled toward the door, needing to move, to find light, to prove she was still seen.

Outside, the "backstage hallway" of the set was alive with faint music and the soft hum of electricity. The Seven Stars were gathered in the “artist recreation room” again—but it wasn’t the same as before. The lights were now glaringly bright, the disco ball still spinning above them. Tiny orbs of silver light scattered along the walls and ceiling, giving everything a trembling, underwater sheen.

They weren’t dancing anymore. Instead, they lounged in loose clusters—some on the floor, others reclining in chairs—smoking, whispering, their movements unnervingly slow. The radio hissed and warbled, playing something that sounded half like music, half like haunting radio audio recordings of "lost cosmonauts", as if a distant broadcast were bleeding through from another world.

Zlata paused in the doorway, watching the Seven Stars. None of the girls looked up at her. They seemed suspended in their own strange rhythm, laughing softly at nothing, as though they were remembering a joke no one else had heard.

Then, just as Zlata turned to leave, the white light appeared again—flashing before her eyes this time, near the ceiling. It was quick and soundless, but it left a faint afterimage that lingered like a ghost behind her eyelids.

She gasped, reaching out instinctively, but her fingers met only empty air. The light was gone, and the Seven Stars kept lounging, oblivious, their reflections still glimmering across the mirrored walls.

Confused, she brushed it off with a shaky breath and hurried down the hall. Her slippers whispered against the stage floor as the curtain began to descend. Somewhere beyond the velvet curtain, the faint murmur of an audience drifted through the theatre—distant, indifferent, and real.

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The curtains and stage lights came up on a set that looked like the interior of an apartment that seemed to be within the Great City of Aksinya—its muted golds and soft lamplight glowing against the snow falling faintly beyond the window. A phonograph spun quietly in the corner, playing a slow waltz that sounded just slightly off-key.

Zlata appeared at the edge of the stage (or was it an actual hallway?), her breath visible in the cold wash of light, and walked up to the apartment door. She hesitated a moment, gathering herself, then knocked.

The door opened to reveal a woman with dark, wavy hair, wearing a silk robe loosely tied at the waist, a flash of lingerie visible beneath. The woman looked surprised, then annoyed.

Zlata painfully recognized the woman as the one who had seduced Aleksandr at the gala, suggestively rubbing his forearm before they both had walked up the steps to the designer suites at the Rodya Grande Hotel.

“Can I help you?” she asked sharply, her voice half-curtained in false politeness.

Zlata didn’t answer. She pushed past her into the apartment, her movements quick and trembling.

“Excuse me! What do you think you’re doing?” the woman snapped, turning in indignation.

Zlata’s eyes darted around the dimly lit room until they fell upon Aleksandr. He stepped in from an adjoining space, satin shirt unbuttoned, his hair tousled, his expression a mix of irritation and disbelief. He was in the middle of fastening his trousers.

“What is all this?” he demanded, running a hand through his hair.

“She barged in here,” the woman said, folding her arms tightly across her chest. “Like madwoman.”

Zlata froze at the sight of him. Her face softened, almost radiant with misplaced hope. “Aleks…” she whispered, her voice trembling. “You—you weren’t at theatre. I waited.”

Aleksandr sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Zlata,” he said wearily, “you shouldn’t be here.”

“But… don’t you love me?” The question escaped her before she could stop it—raw, childlike, and desperate. She took a tentative step toward him.

Aleksandr exhaled, his tone turning condescendingly gentle, like he was speaking to a child who’d confused fantasy for truth. “You were wonderful, truly. But life moves on. You must understand—ballet is youth, movement, change. Some stars burn bright… and then... they fade.”

He walked up to her and placed his hands on her shoulders. She looked down at his fingers, the same ones that had once held her hands tenderly at Restoran Pashenka, now cold and impersonal.

“There is new star now,” he said, stepping aside with a little flourish. “May I present—the incomparable Marisha!”

The woman—Marisha—smiled thinly, taking his hand and performing a small, mocking pirouette. Her silk robe caught the stage light as she twirled, then dipped into a graceful curtsy. 

Zlata’s expression hardened. “What does she have that I don’t?” she hissed, her voice trembling between rage and grief. “Tell me!”

Marisha tilted her head, smirking. “Youth, maybe,” she said with a sneering shrug.

Zlata’s voice broke. “Don’t you remember that night? Were you just pretending? You—” She stopped, the words dissolving into sobs. “No one’s ever made me feel that way before!”

Aleksandr’s face flickered with annoyance, then turned sly. “This is not becoming of you, Zlata,” he said coolly. “Tears don’t suit a prima. Go home. Find other ghosts to dance with.”

He made a dismissive gesture, waving her away.

Zlata’s vision swam as she thought of the Seven Stars—their painted smiles, their quiet bitterness. They too had been his once, and then discarded, forgotten, replaced.

Her lips trembled, then she forced herself to smile. “That’s fine,” she said softly, her voice quivering but sharp. “You’re not who I’m looking for anyway.”

The words seemed to hang in the air.

Marisha’s smirk faltered. Her eyes flickered, distant for a moment. Somewhere deep inside her, a memory stirred—the cold marble of the Aksinyan Ministry of Police floor, the hum of fluorescent lights, the Policeman’s bored expression as she’d tried to explain the unexplainable: the feeling that something had been done to her.

And then she remembered—sitting alone at the Starikov Bar, the Chanteuse with the honeyed, hypnotic voice. The song that had wrapped itself around her like a spell. The woman leaning close afterward, whispering something that Marisha could never fully recall upon waking.

--

The curtains at Zinovi Theatre rose with the sound of breathing velvet. The Silence of the Crystal Star set it revealed was a circus, the walls of which exhaled its colored light: crimson and cobalt, gold and ash. Banners unfurled from the rigging like flags in a dream, their folds whispering with each slow turn of the fans above the stage. Somewhere beyond the footlights, a mechanical waltz began to play, its notes hollow, as if remembered from a gramophone that no longer existed.

In the center ring of the set, Maksim moved through the choreography of the Russian Bar act with other performers—two holding the long, flexible beam, and him balanced on it as if he’d been born to rise and fall on command. Each jump, each twist, each arc of his limbs carved geometry into air. He landed lightly, expression measured, body taut with memory. The discipline was mechanical now; to the audience, he was control incarnate.

Yet as he lifted his head after the last landing, something at the edge of the set broke that precision.

A shadow and a glimmer of white silk moving between the ropes.

Suddenly, the figure drifted into view from behind the curtain—a Skomorokh. Not one of the regular jesters hired for the act. She moved with an ease that made mockery of gravity, her body gliding rather than walking. She wore white platform sandals that caught the light like shards of glass and a short bubble dress of pale satin. Angel sleeves spilled from her arms, gauzy and endless, and the hem of her skirt darkened into black feathers, as though she were caught mid-transformation—half dove, half omen.

The mask she wore was gilded, her lips painted in a smile that did not belong to joy.

She did not look at anyone at first. Then—slowly—her head turned toward Maksim.

He froze. His breath stalled, though his body continued its precise rotations out of habit, muscle memory carrying him through the act even as his mind stilled.

The Skomorokh tilted her head, that unreadable mask catching the spotlight. Beneath the glare, he thought he saw her eyes through the mask—green, maybe gray, maybe changing with each flicker of light.

Her eyes met his gaze and held it as if testing a thread between worlds.

Petyr, standing off to the side in his crimson coat, stiffened. The master of ceremonies had sensed something wasn’t right. The air had thickened; the circus had entered another atmosphere.

The final leap came. Maksim vaulted into the air, his silhouette momentarily perfect—arched, elegant, divine. He landed without fault, knees bending, body still. Applause rippled like distant thunder. He straightened, heart hammering, and for an instant he looked beyond the stage lights.

The Skomorokh was now standing where no one could have reached in time, near the edge of the ring, the banners shuddering around her like startled birds.

When the lights dimmed to signal the end of the scene, she did not move with the dispersing performers. Instead, she approached him. Her steps were soundless. The feathers at her hem brushed the sand of the set's circus ring, leaving no trace. In the background, Petyr turned toward her, his eyes narrowing. 

She stopped a breath away from Maksim.

The mask tilted. Her voice, when it came, was soft but impossibly hypnotic—cutting through the echo of applause and the crackle of lit candles.

“Do you remember who I am?” Her question fell like a pin into silence.

Maksim’s breath caught. He hadn’t heard that voice in years—or in lifetimes.

“I—” he started, but the words broke. The Skomorokh raised one gloved hand and touched the edge of her mask. Slowly, she lifted it away.

The face revealed beneath was a shock of recognition and grief. A face from another century of himself.

Dominika.

Her smile was the same as the one he’d seen once through a mirror, in another home, another self: too tender for a stranger, too cruel for a lover.

“N…Nika?…” The name slipped out before he could stop it. The syllables felt foreign in his mouth, as though they belonged to a body he no longer inhabited.

The Skomorokh’s lips curved.

“Yes,” she said. “You do remember.”

And suddenly everything broke.

The lights within the circus set dimmed. The banners slowed to a halt mid-sway. The trapezes hung perfectly still, suspended in air that had stopped breathing. A pulse went through Maksim’s chest—not his heart, but something deeper, older, and vast.

Memories rose, fast and flooding.

A room lit by a single lamp. A hand on another hand. The warmth of forbidden laughter. The fear of being found. The taste of secrecy like salt between their teeth. A man—he couldn’t remember his name now—but the body’s memory knew: the smell of his skin, the tremor in his voice when he spoke.

The child Maksim had been. The man Maksim had later loved in secret. The guilt he had carried.

All of it rushed through him like a long-delayed truth finally arriving home.

Dominika’s expression softened, but her eyes were endless. “You hid yourself so well,” she whispered. “Even I almost forgot who you were.”

Her laughter followed, low and spiraling, the sound of a candle guttering in a sealed room.

Light erupted—white, searing, without source. Maksim’s body arched backward. For an instant, he was suspended in it, a silhouette against the impossible brightness. Then the Skomorokh was gone.

The stage blinked back into existence. He was alone in the set's circus ring.

Petyr was already running toward him, his coat tails flaring behind him, his face pale with concern. “Maksim!” he called, voice echoing across the hollow circus set on the stage. The trapeze ropes trembled faintly overhead, as if reacting to the tremor in Maksim’s body.

Maksim staggered. His knees buckled. Petyr caught him before he hit the ground, the impact driving dust into the air around them.

“Easy,” Petyr murmured, steadying him. But Maksim’s eyes were distant—fixed somewhere far beyond the ring, his pupils blown wide, his breathing uneven.

“I saw her,” he said, barely audible. “She knew me. She—she said I’d forgotten.”

Petyr looked around, but the other performers on the stage were already gone. To Petyr and Maksim, the set was empty, the "circus rehearsal" scene of the ballet show over.

“Who?” Petyr asked.

Maksim looked at him, eyes unfocused. “Dominika,” he whispered. “But not as I remember her. Not... not the way I remember myself.”

The hum of the set’s generators swelled—a low, resonant vibration that seemed to come from the stage itself.

Then came the applause—soft at first, then building, though no one was clapping. It echoed from nowhere, hollow, and looping. Curtains began to fall, mechanically, as though the circus set had decided that now the scene was finished.

Petyr tried to lead Maksim off the stage, but he resisted. His body trembled with the strange vertigo of recognition, the feeling of being seen by time itself.

“She said I remembered,” he whispered again, voice cracking. “But I don’t know which life she meant.”

The stage lights dimmed to black.

Maksim "Maks" (UNSEEN) Zlata’s stage partner who has grown distant and disillusioned, eventually questioning Zlata's very identity before departing to join the same illusory world as Dominika.

The Ethereal Boy (UNSEEN) An elegant figure from a vision invoked by a mirror ritual, he exists in a memory of 1960s Moscow filled with secret joys and the shadow of infidelity.

Aleksandr "Aleks" Lebedev (UNSEEN) The man with whom Zlata had an affair, leaving behind a silver watch that serves as a physical catalyst for Maksim’s suspicion and her own existential crisis.

--

“I think I know her,” Zlata whispered, the name tasting like cold iron on her tongue. “I think I know who is trying to overwrite my existence."

The light of the luminous pendulum steadied, falling across Zlata’s cheekbones like a benediction. Her shoulders loosened, the air in her chest expanding as though the Citadel had finally granted her permission to exhale.

“I keep seeing her,” she said finally. “There’s laughter somewhere—hers, I think—but it isn’t happy. It’s brittle, like glass about to shatter. And her smile… it’s wrong. Like someone painted it on to hide break underneath.” She hesitated, her eyes finding his. “Her name’s Dominika.”

Mr. Pereversev didn’t move. The light from the luminous pendulum slid across his face, revealing and concealing him in equal measure.

“She was dancer,” Zlata continued. “Like me. Only she fell—metaphorically, maybe literally, I can’t tell. After her husband died, she couldn’t go back to stage. She disappeared for while. Then I heard she’d joined traveling circus. They call her Skomorokh—clown who dances for those who’ve forgotten joy.”

“And what brings her to you now?” His tone was soft and careful.

Zlata’s fingers drifted along the mirror shard’s jagged edge. The light ran down the glass and gathered in her palm. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “It’s as if she’s been waiting in corners of my mind since beginning of time. When I close my eyes, I see her true face—white face paint smeared red around her lips, dress with feathers that fall like tears. Curtain falls, lights go out, and she just stands there… smiling.”

She swallowed hard. “I think she’s what’s left after love dies.”

The pendulum’s hum deepened, almost sympathetic.

“Are you sure these are memories?” Mr. Pereversev asked.

“I don’t know,” Zlata admitted. “They come like dreams—too detailed to be imagined, too familiar to be anyone else’s. Sometimes I think they’re from another life. Or maybe they’re just mine, wearing another face so I’ll believe them.”

The hum slowed. The light between the spheres seemed to listen.

“Do you think it began,” he said, “after you spoke into your mirror?”

How did he know about this? Her lips parted, the memory rising like a breath on cold glass.

“Maybe,” she said quietly. “Sometimes I remember that night… in my dressing room. I did exactly what he told me. I waited until clock struck after midnight, let my hair down, and set two hand mirrors on either side of my vanity mirror—angled so they made tunnel of reflections. I put single candle between them, lit it, and said words he gave me: ‘my future betrothed, come to me.’ Flame trembled, and reflections… slipped out of rhythm.”

She drew a thin breath. “And then glass opened onto place I’ve never been. Dacha near this ancient city called Moscow. There were whispered confessions about space flight. There was joy… and then shadow of guilt—wives waiting in other rooms, names unspoken, life lived in shadows.”

Her gaze went distant, as though the tunnel of reflections were still there in the past. “Since then, mirrors show me rooms I’ve never entered, faces that breathe when I do, voices that sound like mine but aren’t. Sometimes, when I wake, I still hear them—echoing from somewhere behind glass, as if mirror remembers what I shouldn’t.”

Mr. Pereversev studied her, his expression unreadable but his tone gentle. “Subconscious borrows masks to tell its truth. Dominika might not be someone else. She could be language your mind uses to make grief or other feelings of remorse visible.”

Zlata’s eyes lifted, wet and sharp. “Then why does she feel so real?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Because pain is real. It doesn’t need body to exist.”

Silence bloomed again. The Citadel’s hum and the slow oscillation of the pendulum’s light filled the air, a sound like distant waves colliding in sleep.

Then Zlata spoke again, voice low, confiding. “Maksim’s been… different lately.”

Mr. Pereversev looked up, his stillness attentive. “Different how?”

“He’s distant. Talks to man named Petyr. Then one night, he told me he was leaving—to join circus.” She gave a quiet, incredulous laugh. “Maybe same one as Dominika. Wouldn’t that be fitting? Everyone escaping into that same illusion.”

He said nothing. 

“When he found out about my affair with Aleks,” she continued, “he held up silver watch and asked, ‘who does this belong to?’ He stared at it like it meant something ancient, like he was recognizing it from dream he hadn’t woken up from yet. Then he looked at me and said—”

Her throat closed around the rest. The hum from the luminous pendulum deepened.

“What did he say, Zlata?”

She pressed the mirror shard to her chest. “He said, ‘I don’t think you are who you say you are.’”

The lights dimmed. The twin spheres slowed their swing until the filament between them was a single trembling vein of light.

“And what did you say?”

Zlata Karnaeva A prima ballerina who finds herself slipping through the cracks of a theatrical production, losing her grip on the present as she begins to inhabit the echoes of a past life’s betrayals and shifting sets.

Ksenia Zelyaeva (UNSEEN) The Ethereal Boy’s rehearsal partner who represents the mundane professional life that is violently interrupted by the intrusion of private scandal and cosmic tragedy.

The Circus Troupe A surreal parade of clowns and acrobats who invade the stage under a real moon, transforming a rigid theatrical ballet into a loud, off-key celebration of departure and domestic collapse.

Petyr (UNSEEN) The Master of Ceremonies for the circus. An elusive figure from Maksim’s fragmented memories, credited with aiding a desertion from reality that leaves the rest of the cast searching for answers in the fading light.

--

1960s Soviet Russia

The Ethereal Boy was in his dressing room, methodically preparing for the day’s rehearsals with Ksenia, who had recently been promoted to prima ballerina, in addition to being selected as the co-lead in the upcoming ballet.

He had just stepped into his grey tights and dance belt, adjusting them carefully when a sharp knock echoed through his quiet dressing room.

“Come in!” he called, hastily pulling on his black tank top, brushing back a lock of hair as he tried to compose himself.

The door cracked open, and Dominika appeared, her presence like a storm breaking over him. The sight of her—her face taut with fury, eyes flashing—hit him with a wave of dread so sudden he felt his stomach twist. Before he could move, she threw a small box toward him. It struck the floor with a violent crash, scattering letters and envelopes like rustling autumn leaves across the dressing room.

The Ethereal Boy froze, staring at the mess in disbelief. His heart thudded painfully in his chest as recognition dawned—these were Maksim’s letters. These weren't just letters though; they were Samizdat of the heart—dangerous, unmonitored thoughts written in Maksim’s precise, disciplined Cyrillic the Ethereal Boy had so often admired. In a world where every typewriter was registered with the state, these hand-written letters were more than just evidence of a same-sex affair, they were a death warrant for everyone involved.

Dominika’s finger quivered as she pointed at him. “How long?” she demanded, voice low and trembling with barely contained rage. “How long have you… been… fucking him… behind my back?”

The words cut through him like glass. Until this moment, he had never known who Maksim’s wife was—Maksim had kept his two lives meticulously separate, protecting both of them from ever knowing the other. And now, faced with this revelation, the Ethereal Boy felt unmoored, wordless, as though the air itself had been sucked from the room.

Suddenly, he recalled seeing Dominika with another man dozens of times at performances and events. To the public and the Company, she was always Dominika Sokolova, the fiery dancer whose paternal name graced every gold-leafed playbill. He had watched this celebrated artist be whisked away by a tall, rigid figure in a military greatcoat—full dress uniform, medals polished, standing stoic and silent. The Ethereal Boy had always looked away from that man, intimidated by the sharp-peaked cap that shadowed the officer's brow and the cold, state-sanctioned power he represented. He never would have imagined that the man beneath that heavy wool and brass was the same one who had lain with him in the bed of his dacha, whispering sweet nothings into the hollow of the Ethereal Boy's neck while the Russian night pressed against the windows.

He then looked down at the small wooden box on the floor, seeing the name etched into the underside in faint ink: Volkov, M. A. It was the masculine root of the very name he had seen on Dominika’s travel permits a thousand times—Volkova. While the world cheered for Dominika Sokolova, the state only recognized the woman who signed her housing dockets as Volkova. He had dismissed that name as a bureaucratic shadow, a legal technicality for a woman he thought he knew, never dreaming it was the feminine anchor to the same man who also held his heart. The "Major" in the newspapers and the "Soloist" on the stage were tied together by a name he had seen every day and yet never truly looked at.

Dominika’s smirk flickered, sharp and unsettling. “I should walk these letters straight to Ministry,” she whispered. “I should report you for this… this ‘Western mental illness.’ You’ll be in labor camp before sun sets.”

She turned as if to leave, but stopped at the threshold, her back rigid. “But then,” she said, her voice dropping to a casual, conversational tone that was far more terrifying than her shouting, “I’d lose pension. I’d lose apartment. I’d lose very ground I stand on because I lived with deviant.” The word made him flinch.

“Nika, I—” His voice was barely audible, low and incredulous. “Where is he? Why are you here?”

She turned back around. “He’s gone,” she said flatly. Her expression shifted, darkening into something almost maniacal. “He died on his first flight… to space. His vessel...exploded… just after leaving atmosphere.” Her gaze fell to the floor, and she added softly, almost pensively, “sometime after midnight.”

The room seemed to shrink around him. His mouth trembled, words failing him completely. Tears burned behind his eyes, slipping silently down his cheeks, and he sank to the floor amidst the scattered letters, unable to make sense of the cruel, impossible truth. Maksim—the man who moved with the weight of the world on his shoulders—was gone.

Dominika lingered a moment, her smirk returning faintly, sharp as a knife. “Just thought you should know,” she said, then turned and walked away, leaving him in a stillness that seemed to echo with loss and betrayal.

The Ethereal Boy collapsed fully among the letters now, the world around him a blur of grey tights, forbidden prose, and the crushing realization that everything he had known—his secret, his love, the tether he thought unbreakable—had been irrevocably shattered. 

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Abandoned Fortune Teller's Tent, Somewhere in Russia

Inside the fortune teller’s tent, the Ethereal Boy watched the images within the orb accelerate. Dressing rooms in Moscow, the mirrored walls reflecting unknown performers; then, in the vastness of space, fragments of a spacecraft scattered like debris in the void. Among the wreckage spun a lone cosmonaut. Its body turned slowly, weightless and horrifyingly serene. 

The Ethereal Boy’s eyes widened as he recognized the face through the shattered visor—Maksim—his face frozen in terror, as if the universe had carved that moment into eternity.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Zinovi Ballet, Theatre District, Space City Aksinya

Back inside the dacha set, Zlata flinched after Maksim dropped the bottle of Mirovskaya vodka. The orchestra kept playing. The audience didn’t stir. “Maksim?” she said. “Are you okay?”

He didn’t respond right away. As he knelt to gather the glass fragments, his movements lost their balletic grace—slower, heavier, almost human.

Zlata stepped closer, noticing that the set beneath her feet was no longer the smooth stage floor but rough, uneven boards. She blinked. The walls seemed darker now, the wallpaper faded, patterned with tiny stars.

Had it always been like that? She wondered.

The smell of dust, woodsmoke, and a women’s perfume filled her lungs. It was comforting and foreign at once. She felt she had stood here before, in another time, with another kind of body—stronger shoulders, a different weight to her stance. But the thought made no sense to her.

There was another knock at the door.

Maksim started, as if answering a cue from some distant memory of his, and turned through a crisp tour en l’air before striding toward the door, unsure whether he was performing or remembering. When he theatrically swung open the door, light from what seemed to be an actual moon spilled in—not as an effect from a lighting rig, but from somewhere soft and bluish; as though it was real night.

A parade entered: clowns, acrobats, a woman in trapeze silks, her face painted in silver and rose. They laughed too loudly, as if in slow motion.

Zlata stepped back. “Who are these people?” She asked Maksim.

Maksim turned to her, eyes bright, almost tender. He crossed the space in a few deliberate steps and laid his hands on her shoulders. His whisper was soft, intimate. “I know about affair,” he said.

Her stomach clenched. The words landed with a strange, old familiarity. As though he wasn’t referring to her affair with Aleksandr—not even an affair in this life. It was something else. Someone else.

“I’m leaving you,” he said gently, pressing a kiss to her cheek. Then, louder, to the others: “I’ve decided to join Circus!”

Applause. Laughter. The clowns cheered, their painted mouths open wide. The orchestra played something jaunty, slightly off-key.

Zlata stared around the room. The dacha was shifting again—just enough to disturb her balance. The samovar on the table gleamed with real metal. The curtains over the windows were heavier now, patterned with a design she didn’t recognize. In the corner, a photograph—faded and sepia—hung crooked on the wall: two men smiling, one of them looked like Maksim.

She blinked and it was gone.

“I couldn’t have done this without Petyr’s help!” Maksim called out. “Where is he?”

The crowd murmured, shrugged. The laughter flattened into static.

Zlata turned toward the audience. The dark shapes beyond the footlights weren’t people anymore—only silhouettes, unmoving, eyes like glass. As the curtain began to descend, the applause wavered, stuttering like a broken record.

Ksenia Zelyaeva (UNSEEN) Promoted to Prima Ballerina within the Ballet Company. Her sudden professional ascent serves as a sharp reminder of the fragile nature of status in Moscow, where talent is often secondary to the invisible shifting tides of political favor.

The Ethereal Boy (UNSEEN) The Ballet Company’s Premier Danseur, known for his lightness and grace. He exists on the periphery of Dominika’s domestic life but occupies a central, hidden position in the private world of her husband.

--

1960s Soviet Russia

The knock was three sharp, metallic raps. It wasn't the heavy-handed thud of the local militia, nor the frantic tapping of a neighbor looking for sugar. This was a measured sound.

Dominika stood in front of a window of her Moscow apartment, a chipped teacup halfway to her lips. The steam curled around her face, mirroring the fog in her mind.

For weeks, the silence from the Steppe had been a low hum in her ears, but this sound—this precise, rhythmic pounding—was the answer she had been terrified to receive.

She opened the door. Two men in heavy, charcoal-colored wool coats occupied the hallway, their faces immobile. The shorter one gripped a worn, brown leather document holder under his arm, the brass clasp dull and scratched.

“Citizeness Dominika Andreyevna Volkova?” the taller official asked. The name felt heavy and foreign; to the Ministry, her stage name—Dominika Sokolova—was a meaningless alias, regardless of the very real life she had built under it. They dealt only in the cold reality of birth registries. He didn’t wait for her to respond. “We are here on behalf of the Ministry.”

Dominika’s hand flew to the hollow of her throat, her fingers brushing the collar of her robe. “Is he... is he back from the Urals?”

The officials stepped inside without invitation, bringing the smell of cold exhaust and wet pavement into her sanctuary. The shorter man unclipped the leather holder with a clinical snick. 

“Regarding the Major,” the tall one continued, his posture stiffening. “There was… an incident. During a high-altitude atmospheric test. Total structural failure of the vessel.”

Major. The word felt cold, a name that didn't belong to the man she loved. She saw him for a moment behind the glass of the capsule, his gaze pensive and distant; then, the image fractured, replaced by the memory of the way the bridge of his nose would crinkle when he laughed.

“Where is he?” she asked, her voice sounding thin, like it belonged to someone miles away. “I need to go to him. The hospital in Star City—I can be there by morning—”

“There is no hospital, Citizeness,” the shorter man interrupted. He finally looked at her, and for a second, she saw a flicker of something—not pity, but a weary kind of warning. “The Motherland thanks him for his sacrifice. But officially, his sacrifice does not exist.”

“Sacrifice?” she whispered, the syllable feeling like glass in her mouth. “But the telegrams... they said the mission was a success. They said the Vanguard were untouchable, that the height was reached—”

“The Vanguard are an ideal, Citizeness. Your husband is a ghost in the Steppe,” the official snapped, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous hiss. “There was no launch that night. There was no explosion. There is only the silence of the State.”

He leaned in closer, the smell of stale tobacco and cold winter air clinging to his wool coat. “Do not look for a grave. The Steppe does not keep names.”

The shorter man reached into the leather holder and pulled out a thin blue folder and a small, red-covered pension book. He set them on her dining table next to her ballet slippers.

“You will tell the neighbors he died of a sudden respiratory illness while on a remote assignment,” the tall one said, leaning in. His eyes were like two cold coins. “There will be no funeral. There will be no mention of the Steppe, or the rockets, or the program. If a single word of the truth crosses your lips—at the theatre, in the market, or to your mother—the State will consider it a deliberate act of sabotage, and will betray the very 'ideal' he died for.”

“You know where the trains go for those who sabotage the reputation of Soviet science, Dominika Andreyevna. For the sake of your career, and your life, you will forget he ever left the ground.”

They both turned and left, the click of the door echoing in her ears. Dominika stood alone, a First Soloist with no stage, a wife with no husband, and a secret that was already beginning to consume her.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Dominika’s lips parted, but no sound came. The air in her state apartment had been replaced by the dry, metallic taste of state-sanctioned finality. She could only stand there, her world narrowing to the cold concrete beneath her feet and the echoing, rhythmic tap of the officials’ boots in the hallway outside her door as they departed.

Her knees buckled. She collapsed onto the closed door, gasping for breath as if the very oxygen in the apartment had been confiscated. She clutched at her chest, her sobs disappearing into the empty, indifferent air of the space she resided in.

When she finally composed herself, the apartment suddenly felt foreign—hostile, even. This was a "hero’s residence," a perk of her husband's special service, but now every familiar object seemed suspended in a cruel stillness. The heavy velvet curtains, the radio that had once broadcasted triumphs, the shadowed corners—all of it mocked her. It was a museum of a life that had ended the moment he did.

Her bandaged hand throbbed faintly from when she shattered her dressing room's vanity mirror, but the physical sting was a ghost. It was nothing compared to the hollow ache pressing against her ribs, the suffocating weight of a grief that made her limbs feel leaden. She felt untethered, as if the ground beneath her were merely a thin crust over a void.

The stillness was unbearable. She could almost hear the echoes of their routine—the scratch of his pen, the low hum of the kettle—now relegated to memory. Her thoughts swirled in dizzying, frantic loops: How could he be gone? How could a man who touched the stars be reduced to a thin blue folder on a dining table?

In that moment, a sickening clarity washed over her—sharper than the grief. She thought of her audition the other day and her meeting with the artistic directors after.

The way they wouldn’t meet her eyes, their gazes fixed instead on a Red Folder—the Ministry's seal—resting prominently on the judge's table. She remembered the sudden, hushed withdrawal of her costume fittings and the way the Company Director had mentioned "reliability" and "political stability" as if they were technical dance terms.

The way Ksenia had been handed the lead and promotion to prima ballerina without a single explanation now made sense. The Ministry had known her husband's fate before she did. They had already begun the process of pruning the "unlucky" widow from the Ballet Company’s garden before the body of her love was even cold. Ksenia hadn't out-danced her; she had simply out-survived her husband.

Then, almost instinctively, Dominika moved like a tempest. The need to shatter the silence became a physical demand. She threw herself through the apartment's rooms, scattering books on engineering and aeronautics, tearing papers from shelves, hurling porcelain across the floor. She needed the world around her to look as fractured as the world inside her.

Each movement was both frantic and necessary, a desperate attempt to feel something tangible. A small wooden box toppled from a desk, its lid springing open. Letters spilled across the floor, curling like autumn leaves.

She paused, her breath hitching. One envelope lay apart from the others.

The handwriting caught her breath immediately. It was unmistakable—his precise, disciplined Cyrillic. She knew the careful loops of every character, the unique, sharp curve of his "д" and the elegant flourish on his "я". Her fingers trembled as she picked it up, a fleeting, treacherous sense of comfort blooming in her chest—proof he had thought of home—but the relief dissolved as she read the recipient’s name.

It was not her name.

The letter was addressed to a name she recognized as the Ethereal Boy's—the premier danseur from the Ballet Company she also worked at. Confusion, disbelief, and a sharp, stabbing sense of betrayal crashed into her. As she read the letter, the words unfolded like a map of a hidden country. There were intimate confessions, delicate secrets, and a tenderness that felt like a hot iron against her skin.

The man she had married—the Soviet hero, the solid, reliable Major—had lived another life. It was a life threaded through the very ballet company she called home, entwined with someone she had danced beside every day. The secrecy burned. Every stroke of his hand was a personal, inescapable indictment.

She traced the letters with a trembling fingertip, reading the careful phrasing, the cadence of a heart meant for someone else. Dominika sank to the floor, shaking, tears spilling freely. The apartment blurred. Every memory of their shared domesticity—the quiet dinners, the shared tea, the "socialist ideal" they projected to the world—clashed violently with the humiliation of this discovery.

She felt the bandage on her hand throb sharply. Blood began to seep through the gauze, a dark bloom of red, but she welcomed it. The physical pain was a mercy compared to the ache in her chest.

She pressed the letter to her heart, and the agony of it was multifaceted. How had she been so blind? In a state where everyone was watched, how had she missed the world he inhabited behind her back? The realization cut deeper than the loss of him. Her sobs became wails of frustration and fury, echoing off the walls that had hidden his truth for years.

Hours passed—or perhaps only minutes—in the wreckage of the apartment. Dominika began to piece together the layers of her life that had been folded away like contraband. The apartment was a ruin, papers scattered like snow, broken porcelain. Yet amidst the chaos, one fact remained immutable: her husband was gone, and in death, the state had erased his name, while he had erased her heart.

Her hand throbbed violently now, blood soaking the old bandage, but the rhythm of the pain was an anchor. She clutched the letter, inhaling shakily. The Ethereal Boy’s name on the page was both a revelation and a wound. It was proof of a secret love that the Ministry couldn’t monitor and she couldn't forgive.

To her, Maksim had betrayed the Uniform, the Ethereal Boy corrupted a hero, and she failed in her "Socialist Duty" to monitor her husband.

Alina & Ksenia Two of Aleksandr’s "Seven Stars" ensemble who enters the scene with the vacant, doll-like elegance of seasoned performers.

The Ethereal Boy A grieving observer stationed within an abandoned fortune teller’s tent, watching the unfolding drama through a shifting orb.

--

The premiere of the Silence of the Crystal Star ballet at the Zinovi Theatre continued under the pale, glowing stage light. The dacha set—a neatly painted imitation of rural comfort—sat beneath the suspended birches of the backdrop. Everything appeared as it should: perfect, artificial, contained.

Maksim, playing Zlata’s fiancé in the show, was hosting a party in this scene. His movements were deliberate, stately, every gesture cued to the orchestra’s soft pulse.

A soft knock rattled the dacha’s painted door—once, twice, perfectly in sync with the orchestra’s rhythm. Zlata opened the door. Alina and Ksenia—two of Aleksandr’s ‘Seven Stars’ ensemble—posed in fourth position at the doorway, smiling with the vacant grace of dolls. 

For a moment Zlata forgot the choreography; a wave of déjà vu pressed against her in the women's presence.

Zlata knew them. Or had known them.

“Do you remember who I am?” she asked them without realizing she’d spoken.

The two women only smiled, a flicker of confusion—or pity—in their eyes. Then they glided inside, executing a silent pas de bourrée couru across the floor.

As Zlata turned to close the door behind them, the texture beneath her fingers changed. The painted grain of the prop door had deepened into something real—old varnish, worn smooth by time. A faint smell of pine sap and smoke suddenly hung in the air.

In the kitchen area nearby, Maksim had reached for a bottle of Mirovskaya vodka, but it slipped from his grasp, shattering. The crash echoed too long, too sharply. Shards glittered across the floor like scattered frost.

Zlata stared at the wreckage on the floor in stunned silence, as if a harrowing memory was forcing its way into her psyche...

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Abandoned Fortune Teller's Tent. Somewhere in Russia.

Back in the fortune teller’s tent, the orb shifted. The Ethereal Boy watched as the bottle of vodka tumbled in slow motion, spinning through the air before shattering. He closed his eyes, grief spilling unbidden.

He remembered that autumn day on the train, sometime after his beloved Maksim had left for his mission to space. In the hushed intimacy of the train carriage, the Ethereal Boy had whispered the prayer he carried in his heart: “Hear my voice from the deep, I call. Oh hear my voice. Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into morning...”

The scene within the orb morphed, continuing in the Moscow region. A grey winter day, in an old apartment. Dominika, the first soloist who had recently lost the prima ballerina promotion to her rival, Ksenia Zelyaeva, stood at her window watching the snow fall outside.

Dominika did not yet know that the knock coming would change everything.

She did not yet know that some truths, once uncovered, cannot be buried again.

The Ethereal Boy looked on, his grief intensifying, wishing he could stop what he already knew was coming.

He couldn't.

The Boy (Memory Figure) An echo from a distant era characterized by gray hallways and heavy coats. He is a child of secrets who learned to navigate a world of strict grammars and administrative doors, carrying an internal ache in his throat that stems from a name and a life that never quite fit the architecture of his bones.

--

Mr. Pereversev leaned closer across the desk, his eyes reflecting the dim glow of the lamp. “I brought you here because I believe you can identify this interference. I need your help to find out who is stalking your signal, Zlata. We must stop this person, or being, before they overwrite your existence entirely.”

Zlata watched as Mr. Pereversev reached toward the instrument on his desk—the luminous pendulum.

The crystal spheres brightened, the filament between them swelling into a slow, rhythmic pulse that dictated the air.

“This instrument,” he said, “is comprised of two quantum spheres suspended by photonic gravitation. When activated, it measures resonance between biological and cosmic frequencies. You may feel… lighter, or heavier. Both are normal.”

Zlata watched the spheres. Their alternating glow seemed almost hypnotic. “It is beautiful,” she murmured.

“Tell me. When you look into that fragment,” he nodded toward the shard of mirror in her hands, “what do you see?”

Zlata lifted it carefully; the glass caught the lamplight, multiplying her reflection into uneven shards: half-faces, half-ghosts, some frowning when she did not. “Not just me,” she said. “Someone else. Someone watching from inside glass. It feels… familiar, but wrong. Bad wrong. Like remembering dream that never ended.”

“And it frightens you?” he asked softly.

“More than I want to admit.”

He nodded once. “Then we move slowly. It is not important to understand everything right now.”

He adjusted a small dial on the bronze base. The spheres began to pulse faster, alternating light; each glow a measured breath. The air vibrated faintly, a hum that came from nowhere and everywhere. It was a rhythmic, bilateral stimulation, a calibration of her own internal mapping.

“When I ask what you feel, it is not sentiment,” he said. “It is calibration. Your mind has its own constellations, Zlata. We will trace them one by one. Follow light. When it stops, breathe.”

The first pulse brightened, and she exhaled involuntarily. The mirror fragment trembled in her hands, the hum from the pendulum deepening; the air itself seemed to lean toward her breath.

“Now, close your eyes,” Mr. Pereversev said quietly, “then tell me about that first moment you remember feeling lost. Not in Aksinya, but in yourself.”

Zlata’s fingers tightened around the mirror fragment’s edge. She closed her eyes, and the office loosened around its edges. The luminous pendulum, steady on the desk, doubled and reappeared as a clock sometime in the past that others would have sworn was always there.

“I am small,” she said, her voice surprised by its own thinness. “The hallway... it knows my name, but my name is not right. Hallway smells of old soap and damp wool. Cold stairwells.” She swallowed, her wrists tensing as if the temperature in the room had dropped. “There is reading area in a school. I am with another child... we are reading same page. It is quiet. Safe. I lay my head on his shoulder. But then—later that day, a stone. He throws a stone. I can feel the sting at the back of my heel just talking about it.”

She paused, her breathing shallow as the imagery shifted behind her eyelids.

“Now it is a classroom,” she continued, her voice dropping to a strained whisper. “Chalk dust in the light. The teacher is speaking a grammar that demands obedience. And I... he is wanting to play with the other girls. He wants so badly to be part of it, but he refuses to let them see him want it. So the room learns not to look at him. And he learns not to look back.”

Mr. Pereversev didn’t interrupt, the steady hum of the luminous pendulum anchored Zlata to her chair.

“He looks through dark window,” Zlata said, her chin trembling slightly. “He sees his face, but it is face he isn't permitted to have yet. The name they gave him... it doesn't fit the body it lives in. But his shoulders carry it anyway. Then a door opens. It’s a kitchen. A home. Heat hits his face like a slap. The father is behind a newspaper, rigid as a confessional screen. The mother moves with... with love, but it is a law-bound love. Their eyes pass right through him, like light through glass. Later, in the dark, he whispers a prayer. He is just experimenting, praying for a different word to attach to the same breath.”

She took a sharp breath, her fingers digging deeper into the mirror fragment in her hands.

“There's a cloakroom now. Wet wool. There is a scarf on a hook—a color he loves, but it makes him embarrassed. They told him, ‘That is not a boy’s color,’ and he agreed aloud. He took that agreement home like a weight. But he ties a girl's scarf anyway. He finds relief in it in secret, but he also practices how to make that secret disappear. If he disappears perfectly on cue, they praise him for it.”

The hum of the pendulum deepened, shifting the geometry of Zlata's mind. The gray corridors of childhood began to stretch and brighten, transforming into the vast, echoing halls of a prestigious ballet company. The smell of old soap was replaced by the sharp scent of rosin and sweat.

“The hallway is longer now,” she whispered, her posture straightening in the chair. “The floors are wood—polished, unforgiving. I am no longer just hiding. I am training. I am moving my body so precisely that world cannot find place to hurt me.”

The rhythm of the spheres accelerated, and in her mind, the boy grew. The heavy winter coats were traded for the stark white of a practice tunic. She felt the ghost-throb of a thousand leaps in her calves.

“I am dancing,” she said, and a strange, masculine grace entered her gestures. “The directors… they look at me and see Premier Danseur. They see machine of strength and elevation. They do not see ache in my throat—name that still refuses its address.”

The scene blurred into a crescendo of light and music. She was on the stage of the Ballet Company, the heat of the lime-lights striking her face. The applause was a deafening tide, but inside the costume, the boy was disappearing, overwriting himself with every bravura turn.

“I have become perfect lie,” she murmured. “I am Premier. I am ‘Hope.’ And yet, in mirror of dressing room, person looking back is that of stranger wearing my skin like borrowed costume.”

Suddenly, the pendulum’s filament turned a sharp, violent violet. The smooth rhythm broke into a jagged, parasitic staccato. A cold wind seemed to sweep through Mr. Pereversev's office, though the door remained sealed.

Zlata’s eyes snapped open. The mirror shard in her hand was no longer reflecting the office. It was showing a shivering gray void, a distortion that had a face—a woman’s face, seemingly beautiful yet obscured, frozen in a silent scream of rage.

Zlata’s breath came in ragged hitches. She looked at Mr. Pereversev, whose eyes were fixed on her.

“It is not just ghost, is it?” Zlata asked, her voice trembling but certain. “It is shadow of what I was supposed to be—or what I took from someone else.”

She looked back at the gray void in the glass and then at Mr. Pereversev.

Aleksandr "Aleks" Lebedev (UNSEEN) The ghost of a former love and a symbol of the vanished "real" world, he exists only as a whispered name and a hope for direction. He is the missing anchor in Zlata’s fractured consciousness, the one she expects to see standing behind her in the mirror for a ballet that has long since abandoned its choreography.

--

The curtains opened again for another scene of Silence of the Crystal Star. The stage had become a theatre within a theatre—a vast dacha interior framed by painted birch trees, a single brass bed beneath a frosted window, and, beyond that, a suggestion of a “backstage” within the set itself: a corridor lined with dressing rooms and the faint shimmer of a rehearsal hall beyond. The illusion was complete; from her position on the bed, Zlata could no longer tell where the Zinovi Theatre ended and where the ballet began.

Somewhere in that inner corridor, the Seven Stars were gathered in the “artist recreation room,” slow-dancing to the faint strains of a radio. The light was low and tinted with violet from a small, spinning disco ball they had hung from the rafters. Tables and chairs were pushed aside; their laughter was muffled by the wooden walls of the dacha Zlata was in. It was all part of the choreography, or at least it was supposed to be—but to her, it didn’t feel like a ballet anymore.

She could feel the warmth of the Seven Stars moving beyond the door. The music was real. The night was real. Then came the drift.

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Zlata wasn’t sure when she had fallen asleep—perhaps it was written into the performance, perhaps not—but the dream took her without warning. She saw Ivanov’s Planet, floating in the abyss, an isolated blue-grey sphere trembling beneath the shadow of a dark mass. TASYA 282 loomed above it, cold and immense.

It was night on the planet’s surface. She saw a dacha standing alone in a vast field specked with birch tress, its windows faintly glowing. Somewhere within, a flashlight flickered, flashing against the panes like a distress signal. She crouched behind a row of black, leafless bushes, breath fogging the glass of her helmet—except, wait—she was wearing one now. She was a cosmonaut, suspended in the endless void of space.

Then the whispers came. “Zlata… Zlata…”

The voice emerged from the spiral of the black hole. TASYA 282’s edge began to blur, its light bending and folding upon itself.

Her name echoed again, a chorus of frayed whispers rising from the event horizon: “ZLATA!”

She drifted closer, powerless, her hands outstretched, her reflection curving back at her in the glare of the accretion light. Inside her visor, her own face smiled—a wide, terrible grin she didn’t recognize as her own.

The black hole opened like an eye.

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Zlata awoke with a start—sweat damp on her collarbone, her breath uneven. The dacha set surrounded her in silence.

She looked down. Her tank top clung to her skin, her white crêpe skirt hung slightly askew, and her fishnet stockings were torn along one thigh. None of it felt like costume anymore—it felt lived in, worn through.

For a long moment, she sat motionless in the brass bed, listening to the faint hum of the radio beyond the walls—the Seven Stars were still dancing somewhere in the “recreation room.” The melody was slow, nostalgic, threaded with static.

Then, without thinking, she rose and slipped on her tapochki. Her body moved like it was following stage direction she couldn’t recall learning. She crossed the dacha’s wooden floor, walked “offstage,” opened the “backstage” door, and stepped into the dim hallway beyond.

The world did not change. The hallway was still a set, yet her steps sounded too real—too hollow, too weighted.

She reached her “dressing room” door. The same one from before. She hesitated before turning the handle.

Inside, the air was still. The candle she’d lit earlier—during the fortune ritual—had long since melted down, leaving only a small black crater of wax. The two small mirrors still stood on either side of the large vanity mirror, their edges tilted just so, creating a faint corridor of endless reflections that shimmered faintly in the dark.

Zlata approached the vanity and sat down in the seat in front of it. Her reflection in the mirror blinked back. She reached out and tapped the center of the mirror. The surface of the glass rippled, inexplicably, like water.

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

From within the shimmer, something vast stirred—the cosmic sphere that hovered behind the Three Cosmic Ballerinas in another region of space. The orb’s surface wavered, and within it, the faint outline of Zlata appeared, seated in the dark, her finger against the mirror’s glass in her plane of existence.

On the other side, the Cosmic Ballerinas paused in their slow, celestial dance. Their furred costumes glimmered with starlight, their rough-hewn space-rock masks tilted toward the image of her as if in recognition.

Zlata frowned, whispering, “Aleks?”—half expecting to see the man she once loved appear behind her reflection, to tell her what she was supposed to do next. But only her own face stared back, flickering with light from somewhere far away. Then, from somewhere far beyond the “dressing room”—past the painted birches, past the dacha on the “main set”—came a ripple of laughter. It was faint at first, distant and distorted, like the echo of a forgotten recording. Yet as it carried through the theatre’s stage, it struck her as unbearably real.

She froze, her reflection flickering with the sound. The laughter rose again, fuller this time—an audience amused by something she could not see. She glanced around the "dressing room". The mirror, the walls, even the air seemed to hold its breath, as though the theatre itself were listening too.

The Cosmic Ballerinas began to move in their region of space. They sidestepped in perfect unison, performing a sweeping, solemn rotation, their arms extended toward the orb in a gesture that felt like both greeting and recognition. They spun again, faster this time, limbs cutting through the void like desperate birds before collapsing forward, reaching one last time toward the image of the girl trapped behind glass. And then—she was gone.

Zlata’s presence vanished from their astral realm. The orb darkened. The Cosmic Ballerinas froze mid-pose, hands pressed over the hollow place where their hearts would have been.

Aleksandr "Aleks" Lebedev (UNSEEN) The spectral antagonist whose presence is felt only through the "stain" of his forgotten watch. He represents the catalyst for Zlata’s shame and Maksim’s transition into violence, serving as the third point in a tragic triangle within the ballet story.

--

The curtains rose to a low hum of static applause, marking the continuance of the Silence of the Crystal Star ballet. The dacha appeared once more, but it was changing—slowly, almost imperceptibly. The wallpaper rippled like water. The painted birches outside the window seemed to breathe. 

Zlata stood in the entryway of the dacha, closing the door gently behind her.

She turned and saw Maksim sitting on the couch. The lights on the set caught half his face, casting the other half into shadow. His expression was unreadable—somewhere between exhaustion and fury.

“Is everything okay?” Zlata asked, her voice trembling.

Maksim looked up at her, eyes reflecting something she couldn’t place—pity? recognition? He extended his hand, holding up a silver watch with a cracked brown leather strap. “I found this,” he said quietly. “On my bedside table.”

Faint, distorted laughter drifted from the audience. Zlata froze.

The watch glinted in the stage light. She recognized it instantly. Aleksandr’s! He must have left it there after that night—after their sexual liaison in the ballet's opening scene. Suddenly, she remembered her affair with Mikhail at the gala, after Maksim had proposed to her. She could no longer reliably distinguish between the two affairs—which one was real and which one was a stage performance—and a wave of shame and confusion rose in her throat.

“Maksim…” she began, but her words faltered.

He turned the watch over in his hand, running his thumb across the back as though searching for an engraving. “Whose is it?” he asked. His voice was trembling now—too raw, too human for performance.

Zlata couldn’t speak. The air was thick and heavy. The set around them creaked softly, as though the wood itself were listening. The rug beneath her feet was no longer fabric—it was worn carpet, real, stained by time.

“Zlata,” he said again, rising from the couch slowly. “Who does this belong to?” 

Something about the way he said her name made her flinch. The syllables felt off—as if he were saying another name entirely beneath it, one she didn’t remember.

She backed toward a wall. “Please,” she whispered, “you don’t understand—”

But Maksim stepped closer, the watch glinting in his hand. The light in the dacha shifted again: the walls narrowing, the ceiling dipping lower, as if the set itself were closing in.

“I won’t ask again.” His voice broke through the false air of the theatre—raw and real. “Whose watch is this?”

Zlata’s breath caught. She could see the pulse in his throat, the tremor in his hand. The audience was laughing again, but the sound was warped now—drawn out, echoing like a recording played backward.

“Maks, please—”

He took another step. The stage light above them flickered. For a brief moment, she saw him not as her stage fiancé nor her real life ex-fiancé, but as someone else—someone she once knew in a time before this life. The same watch had been here before.

Pain blossomed across her cheek before she could process what was happening. The audience gasped—or was it laughter again? She tasted copper. Her hand went to her face in stunned silence. The air around them shimmered. For a moment, she thought she saw the stage dissolve—the dacha opening into something vast, something cold and full of stars.

“I don’t think you are who you say you are,” Maksim said, his voice betraying a sense of fear, as though he didn't think she was real.

She stared at him, scared. The sound of applause rose in waves, distorting as it grew.

“And I’m not who you think I am,” he said at last, his voice distant, as if coming from somewhere beyond himself.

The silver watch gleamed faintly in his palm. He turned it once, then again, the motion slow and mechanical. Each rotation seemed to catch the light differently—first cold white, then amber, then a strange deep blue that didn’t belong to the theatre. The ticking grew louder in the quiet; rhythmic and insistent.

For a moment, his reflection shimmered across the watch’s curved glass: but he was different somehow—familiar, laughing. A cosmonaut’s suit flashed behind him within the watch, a blur of stars and vapor. Then it was gone.

Maksim blinked hard, clutching the watch tighter. He looked as if he might speak again but couldn’t remember the language.

“I’m not…” he tried once more, but the rest was swallowed by the hum of unseen applause, the sound bending and folding in on itself until it was no longer clear whether it came from the audience—or from somewhere inside the walls of the dacha itself.

Allen The Pianist of the troupe who serves as the conductor for the uncanny, sitting at his grand piano to bridge the gap between classical music and otherworldly sound. His silent, ghost-like touch on the keys triggers a synthesizer hum from the void, signaling the start of a sequence that is less a dance and more a countdown.

The Voice An invisible, commanding presence that bellows with the authority of a mission control operator. Cutting through the ethereal melody with a rhythmic countdown, this disembodied entity dictates the movements of the Seven Stars, turning the theater into a launchpad for something far more industrial and alien than a standard performance.

Aleksandr "Aleks" Lebedev (UNSEEN) The looming, unseen figure of authority and tradition within the ballet story whose expected disapproval haunts Zlata’s thoughts. Representing the strict protocol of the ballet world, his shadow serves as the rational anchor that makes the surreal breakdown of the "Seven Stars" scene feel like a dangerous act of artistic treason.

--

“My future betrothed, come to me,” Zlata whispered again. She was still in front of her dressing room mirror, wearing her white cotton tank top, crêpe skirt, pointe shoes and fishnet stockings. She was unaware that her subconscious had become trapped in a Soviet past.

The candle continued to flicker in front of Zlata; its light trembling across the tunnel of mirrors she had arranged, reflecting endlessly into each other. The warmth of the flame seemed to pulse with the rhythm of her own heartbeat, but an unsettling heaviness pressed against her chest. She rose from her chair, her slippers whispering across the floor.

She stepped forward carefully, her movements echoing across the silent expanse of the stage, yet the space felt private, almost secret. From the corner of her eye, she saw the Seven Stars lounging in the “backstage” portion of the set—a portion that, for her, now existed as a fully realized room upon the stage. They were dressed in their colorful, retro ballet costumes, just as they had appeared in her vision (or was it a dream?) from before. The scene, though constructed, felt uncannily alive, as if she were wandering through a hidden layer of her own mind.

Zlata lowered herself to the stage floor, sitting at the edge of the mirrored “backstage” set, feeling simultaneously drawn to and detached from the tableau before her. Her eyes scanned the group, drinking in every detail: the tilt of Sveta’s head, the mischievous curve of Marya’s lips, the sly grin Vika wore as though she alone understood the secrets of the theatre.

“Seven Stars,” Alina drawled lazily, tossing a hand in the air.

Sveta smiled faintly. “Seven.”

“And seven more,” Marya added with a laugh that sounded almost like a chime in the stillness of the hall.

Zlata couldn’t help but smirk, though unease prickled beneath her skin.

“Der’mo,” Vika muttered, her grin stretching wider than natural.

“What?” Ksenia asked, tilting her head, genuinely amused.

“Our scene is coming up and we’re not even practicing,” Vika replied, laughter bubbling from her chest as though it were the most absurd truth she had ever spoken.

“You’re right,” Sveta said with a scoff, brushing an invisible lock of hair from her face.

Valeria rose suddenly, posture sharp and commanding. “Come on, girls, let’s show those rich fuckers in the audience what we’ve got,” she said, her voice carrying across the hall like a clarion.

“Hit it, Allen!” Natalya commanded.

At her word, Allen—who embodied the Pianist in the ballet—sat at the grand piano, his fingers ghosting over the keys in a practiced silence. The third note sounded and was immediately layered with an otherworldly hum, like a synthesizer from somewhere beyond the theatre. The Seven Stars assembled into formation with uncanny precision, their movements both graceful and disjointed, as if choreographed by dream logic rather than human instruction.

Zlata watched, transfixed, as a deep, commanding voice cut through the strange melody. She couldn’t place its source, yet its cadence pressed into her chest like a pulse.

“TWENTY SECONDS AND COUNTING,” the voice bellowed. The girls danced with a disturbing, unnatural delight.

“FIFTEEN SECONDS… TWELVE… ELEVEN… TEN… NINE… IGNITION SEQUENCE STARTS.”

Zlata’s brow furrowed, her dancer’s mind clinging to structure. Aleksandr is going to disapprove, she thought sharply. They’re not even performing a single proper ballet move!

“SIX… FIVE… FOUR… THREE…” The Seven Stars’ smiles remained plastered, artificial and unyielding.

“TWO… ONE… ZERO.”

Suddenly, the Seven Stars, Allen, the music, the voice—all of it—vanished. The hall was empty, eerily silent except for the Seven Stars’ faint echo. Zlata blinked, dazed, her pulse still thrumming in her ears. She felt the lingering warmth of the mirrors behind her, as though they had drawn back only a fraction of the unseen world beyond them.

A flicker of a smile curved her lips, half in wonder, half in disbelief. But the rational part of her—the part trained in discipline and obedience—fumed at the thought of Aleksandr’s likely reaction. The improvised scene, the audacity, the surreal breakdown of rehearsal protocol—it would not be tolerated.

Shaking off the residual haze, Zlata rose to her feet. Her slippers whispered across the polished floor as she made her way toward the next portion of the stage, her movements precise, rehearsed, ready to continue the ballet. Yet the memory of the Seven Stars, and the uncanny voice clung to her, a secret layer of the performance she could not fathom, a hidden reality folded inside the theatre of the ballet itself.

--

Mr. Pereversev looked up from his ledger as Zlata entered his office, her leopard-print handbag clutched close. She hesitated at the threshold before speaking. 

“Sorry, I was told you could help me,” she said. She drew a jagged shard of mirror from her handbag—its edges catching the lamplight and scattering ribbons of brightness across the dark walls. “But I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing up here.”

Mr. Pereversev gestured to the chair opposite him. “Sit, please.”

She obeyed, perching lightly, the mirror fragment resting on her knees. For a moment she seemed afraid to look at it.

“Kind evening, Zlata,” he said, closing his ledger. His tone was calm but not indifferent. “You’ve brought reflection,” he said lightly, indicating to the mirror fragment in her hand. 

She glanced up. “You’re astrophysicist, aren’t you?” She asked. “Why would you be helping me?”

He folded his hands. “Science and healing aren’t so far apart. Both are concerned with gravity—what pulls us, and what we cannot escape.”

Her brow furrowed. “That sounds poetic for man who counts stars.”

He smiled faintly. “Poetry and physics are both languages for what refuses to explain itself.”

He reached under his desk and pressed a recessed button. A soft mechanical click followed, and the heavy metal door behind Zlata sealed completely. The air changed texture—denser, as though all outside sound had been folded away.

“Zlata, I need to tell you something before we begin. There is phenomenon I have been studying—anomaly known as TASYA 282. It is black hole that materialized in Puchkov solar system, Aksinya’s destination, but not like any I’ve seen before. This black hole appeared without origin—no progenitor star, no remnants of collapse, no mathematical precedent. It simply was. And ever since, it pulses. Slowly, rhythmically, as though something inside it remembers concept of heartbeat.”

Zlata blinked, recalling the segment on the Volya news broadcast. She had watched it on a television set at Starikov Bar. The man who sat before her, Mr. Pereversev, had discussed this mysterious black hole with the host, Darya Vassilyevna, on the program. “And what does that have to do with me?” Zlata asked him.

Mr. Pereversev studied her. “Every resident of Aksinya,” he said quietly, “carries harmonization seed near heart. Filament of bio-circuitry. It stabilizes gravity within our bodies—keeps us from drifting into air each time district plates shift rotation around Citadel. Of course, each district has its own gravity generators, but this implant each of us has, ensures we ourselves remain grounded wherever we are in Great City as it traverses through space.”

He glanced at her. “This implant also listens. To us. To each of our cells’ despair or joy. It records them as frequencies.”

She stared at him incredulously. “You mean… we’re being watched?”

“Observed,” he corrected. “Just as physician observes pulse. Citadel does not judge; it measures. That is its mercy, and its cruelty.”

He touched a console inset into the wall behind him, and a soft vibration rolled through the room. Above his desk, a holographic constellation flared to life—hundreds of threads of light pulsing in slow sequence, like a living nervous system suspended in air. Each point shimmered, shifted color, and then dimmed again, as though taking turns breathing.

“Some time ago,” he continued, “pattern of black hole became clearer. Interval began to mirror biological rhythm—one that matched micro-fluctuations of human heartbeat. I cross-checked its signal against every telemetry feed available: medical satellites within Aksinya, atmospheric bio-sensors, neural scans from Citadel’s Collective Vital Field.” 

“I compiled this data and built simulator you see before you. It is neural-field map where each citizen’s data is rendered as shifting constellations of light. It took some time, but I noticed signature repeated itself in only one instance—yours. Your constellation didn’t stay within your baseline coordinates; it extended beyond Aksinya, curving toward my simulation’s edge where TASYA 282 is represented. It is as if your consciousness leaves gravitational fingerprint that black hole recognizes.”

He gestured to the central point, where a brighter filament burned with a slow, deep rhythm—two pulses, pause, two again. As it beat, another light—fainter, distant, beyond the model’s horizon—answered in perfect sync.

“This,” he said, “is your record.”

Zlata looked closer at the hologram in disbelief. “Mine?”

“Your harmonization seed began fluctuating some time ago; around time you accepted leading role in your ballet. At first, I assumed it was stress—artists often register higher emotional gravities during times of performance. But then…” He tapped the hologram to zoom in. The projection magnified, showing the two synchronized pulses, one in the Citadel where Zlata currently was, and one far beyond, “…TASYA 282 began to echo you.”

The breath caught in her throat. “Echo?”

“When you dream, it brightens. When you perform, its gravitational spin shifts. Even your smallest emotional deviations correspond to measurable waves in its accretion field.”

He paused, letting her watch the light of the hologram flutter in synchronicity with her heartbeat. She watched the two lights in the hologram flicker—the one where her light was located within Aksinya and the one far off the side of the hologram. Their rhythm was unmistakable, a duet without distance.

“So, you found me through this?” she asked.

He inclined his head. “Through mathematics. Citadel’s biofield archives cross-reference millions of signatures each hour. Only yours completed my equation. You are variable cosmos answered.”

Zlata wrapped her arms around herself, the movement reflexive, as though she were trying to hide her pulse from the room. “You’re saying this—black hole—breathes with me?”

“I am saying,” he replied evenly, “that black hole listens when you do. When you are calm, it dims. When you are agitated, it flares. It behaves less like space object and more like sentient being.”

 “And you think I caused it?”

“Universe has ways of reflecting fractures. We do not yet understand this mechanism—only that whatever lives inside that void knows your name in language of rhythm. Your neurological pattern, your circadian cycles. Every dream, every surge of adrenaline, every time you dance or cry, there is echo across spacetime.”

“So, you brought me here to… study me?”

“To listen,” he said. “And… to warn. Because signal this pure does not go unnoticed.”

He adjusted a dial, and the holographic map shimmered. “Zlata,” he began gravely, gesturing toward the luminous threads of her own pulse. “There is secondary resonance. Jagged, parasitic pulse that has grafted itself onto edge of your frequency.”

He pointed to a tear in the light—a shivering gray void that clung to her gold filament like a burr. It twitched every time her own light flared.

“I cannot map its coordinates because it is not part of Citadel’s intended harmony. It is misalignment that should not exist. It means there is person—or perhaps entity—within Aksinya who has recognized this connection you have with black hole. It appears they are attempting to use your connection to this anomaly as bridge. They want to reach TASYA 282, and they intend to do so by riding frequencies of your rhythm.”

He pressed the button on the wall behind him and the holographic projection faded, its constellations folding inward like a closing flower. Zlata’s eyes stayed fixed on the place where her light had burned in tandem with the unseen star. The room felt suddenly cold.

“Because I cannot map it, my sensors see only ghost—flicker of interference. I see that distortion, but I cannot ascertain who or what it is. I only know that it is closing in on you, waiting for moment your ballet performance reaches its peak to take your place.”

He leaned closer across the desk, his eyes reflecting the dim glow of the lamp. “I brought you here because I believe you can identify this interference. I need your help to find out who is stalking your signal, Zlata. We must stop this person, or being, before they overwrite your existence entirely.”

A cold shiver suddenly traced down Zlata’s spine. In the silence, a dusty memory surfaced—the cryptic warning her Landlord had once whispered to her:

--

The dark stage shimmered like the inside of a dream, infinite and airless. The Left and Right Cosmic Ballerinas stood beneath a vault of warped starlight, the orb behind them bending and breathing as if alive. The Left Ballerina held first position, motionless.

The Right Ballerina moved en pointe, their feet tracing perfect crescents across the black floor. In each hand, they carried a slender staff crowned with a small, flickering flame. As they turned, the light cut through the void, painting quicksilver shadows across their space rock mask. The movement was precise, devotional—a rite performed for something unseen.

Their shadows stretched and coiled as the tempo of the cosmos quickened. The orb of stars rippled violently, its edges smearing into spirals. Then, in one fluid stroke, both ballerinas froze. Their outlines blurred, dissolving into the dark—their light consumed by the swirling void.

Out of the distortion, the image of the Premier Ballerina emerged—radiant, weightless, suspended within the churning heart of the nebula. For a moment, the Premier Ballerina hovered between form and formlessness. Then the Premier Ballerina vanished, as if pulled inward by an unseen current.

The Left and Right Ballerinas reappeared in opposite corners of their space, facing each other. They began to move in slow synchronization, arms lifting like wings, guiding their Premier counterpart across the dark sea—as if leading its soul to the next realm.

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Premier Cosmic Ballerina emerged elsewhere—within a room both mundane and dreamlike, an office drowned in shadow. Rows of star charts and old instruments lined the walls. 

The Premier Cosmic Ballerina sank into a chair behind a desk, the bells at their waist now emitting a faint, spectral clatter. Upon the desk rested a telephone, a ledger, and a small lamp. On the corner of the desk sat a curious object—a luminous pendulum that comprised of two crystal spheres hovering a finger’s width above a bronze base, suspended by light rather than metal. A pale thread of illumination stretched between them, flickering like a heartbeat.

The Premier Cosmic Ballerina transfigured into Mr. Pereversev, Aksinya’s pale astrophysicist. He switched on the lamplight; the glow revealing his gaunt face, its planes sharpened by exhaustion and thought. He bent over the open ledger, the faint hum of the instruments lining the walls underscoring the silence, as the lamplight trembled over his hollow cheeks.

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Sometime in the future, the Pleasure District on Plate 01 shimmered like a fever dream—its corridors of neon fog and perfumed steam murmuring with laughter, music, and the slow throb of machinery. Zlata followed Mikhail through its labyrinthine backstreets, her pulse keeping rhythm with the muffled beat that leaked from a nightclub’s corrugated walls. He was the club owner she had met during the gala—a man of smooth words—one of the wealthy patrons of the arts, as well as her sponsor in the new production she starred in.

He guided her to a narrow alley behind the nightclub. The air there was thick, humming with unseen machinery. Zlata clutched her small leopard-print handbag like a treasure, her fingers, which protruded from black spike-knuckled gloves, were pale against the fabric of her handbag. She wore a black mesh bodysuit beneath a longline shirt of cotton and wool twill—black, patterned with faint champagne-pink florals, cinched at the waist by a padded belt. Her boots gleamed with studs; pearls and charms trembled at her wrists; her leather gloves bristled with the small spikes. The ensemble was defense as much as decoration, but it did little to conceal bruises that were blossoming across her face.

“Do you know Mr. Pereversev?” Mikhail asked, his voice almost lost to the music on the other side of the wall.

Zlata blinked, trying to recall the name. “Yes. Isn’t he astrophysicist?” she said, remembering a fragment of a Volya broadcast she had seen at the Starikov Bar so long ago.

Mikhail nodded toward the adjoining building, where a rusted fire escape coiled like a wounded serpent up the side. “You’re in trouble,” he said softly. “Go see him. He can help.” He pointed toward the highest landing. “Last door on right.”

Then he turned and vanished into the electric murmur of the frozen alley.

Zlata began her ascent. Each step groaned beneath her as she climbed the narrow iron stairway, the Pleasure District’s glow spreading beneath her like a feverish carnival—neon pinks and cobalt blues flickering across her pale face. The laughter, the shouts, the grinding pulse of the Pleasure District grew fainter with each level until only the wind remained, whispering through the metal rails.

At the top, she found an open window breathing stale air from within. She climbed through and found herself in a dim corridor, its ceiling lights flickering in arthritic intervals. Her boots struck the floor with a dull echo. Shapes lay scattered along the hallway—figures, sleeping or unconscious, their limbs slack, their breathing shallow. She stepped carefully around them.

At the end of the hall stood a lone elevator door, its glass panel etched in Russian Cyrillic: TO MR. PEREVERSEV—ASTROPHYSICIST. The words glowed faintly, absurdly dignified in this decrepit place. She hesitated, wondering why access to an esteemed Citadel scientist would possibly be in such a ruin. Then she pressed the button.

The glass door slid open with a sigh, revealing a small pod of transparent panels and humming mechanisms. Zlata stepped inside. As soon as she did, the outer door sealed, and the glass and steel pod began its quiet ascent through the vertical dark tunnel above.

Upward it rose—through the choking grime of the elevator shaft—until it broke through into the pallid artificial snowy sky of the district’s plate. Through the glass, Zlata saw hover vehicles gliding like insects of light, the train coiling through the air in loops of neon mist nearby. The elevator pod turned of its own accord, navigating elegantly through the flying traffic toward the vast rotating cylinder of the Citadel above.

As she drew closer, the metallic iris of a docking gate dilated open above her. The elevator pod adjusted its speed, aligning itself perfectly with the Citadel’s slow spin, and slid inward with grace.

The elevator shaft within the Citadel swallowed her in darkness until it reached its destination. Then came the faint hiss of air pressure, and the glass doors parted in tandem—revealing a corridor of pristine white. The silence was absolute.

A sign on the opposite wall denoted MR. PEREVERSEV’S OFFICE →.

--

1960s Soviet Russia

The Ethereal Boy gathered his things, carefully folding his rehearsal jacket and slipping on his coat. His dressing room was a sanctuary of high ceilings and heavy velvet, a private ground-floor privilege reserved for the Premier Danseurs.

Marisha would be waiting—his wife, the carefully arranged presence in his life that society expected, the one his family demanded. 

A dull ache settled in his chest, a mixture of obligation and guilt. Each evening with her was a reminder of the life he had never chosen, of the quiet compromises that bound him to appearances. And yet, despite the predictability of their shared routine, despite the comforting familiarity of their apartment, his heart longed elsewhere.

He thought of Maksim, far away now on his space missions, and a fresh pang of yearning tightened around him. He wanted to hear news of him, to feel even a flicker of that tethered presence across the stars—but with the cosmonaut’s journey underway, glimpses would likely be weeks apart. He swallowed the ache, tucking it away behind the mechanical precision of packing, and focused on the small, orderly tasks before him: checking his ballet shoes, straightening his trousers, making sure nothing was left behind in his dressing room, and stepped out into the hall. Outside his heavy oak door, the "Star Corridor" was silent, carpeted to muffle the footfalls of the elite.

As he reached the T-junction where the plush carpet of the Premier wing gave way to the cold, echoing stone of the Soloist corridor, a muffled sound of sobbing cut through the usual clatter of folding chairs. Then, a sharp, metallic crash erupted from Room 12. He froze mid-step.

Rushing toward the sound, he reached the dressing room and paused at the threshold. This room was tighter, designed for two. On the left, Ksenia’s side of the long vanity was a shrine to success: a fresh bouquet of roses, a neatly stacked pile of fan mail, imported French perfumes, high-end Soviet cosmetics, and a pristine mirror.

On the right—Dominika’s side—was a wreckage.

Her vanity mirror was fractured, jagged cracks spider-webbing across the glass. Amid the shards sat Dominika, curled on the floor, her hands trembling. One hand glinted crimson in the dim light, blood smearing the delicate fabric of her sleeve.

“Nika!” he called gently, stepping closer. “Are you hurt? Let me help—”

In a sudden, sharp movement, she seized a shard of glass from the floor and lifted it in his direction. He froze, hands raised instinctively.

“Stay away from me!” she hissed, her voice brittle and raw. “Stay the hell away!”

The Ethereal Boy took a cautious step back, his heartbeat hammering.

“That… that parasite,” Dominika spat, her voice a jagged rasp that seemed to catch on the glass shards. “Ksenia—she didn't earn it. She stole it! It was written for me! Mine! I have bled for this stage, and she… she just smiles at Director and walks away with my life!”

Her words dissolved into a strangled sob, her voice quivering with a palpable fury. The Ethereal Boy stood frozen, the heavy scent of Krasnaya Moskva perfume in the air clashed sickeningly with the metallic tang of Dominika’s blood.

Dominika shook her head violently, as if trying to shed the very skin of a First Soloist. “To hell with them,” she hissed. “To hell with her, and to hell with that spineless coward in Director’s chair. I am ghost in this building! Every time... every single time, I am shadow she walks on!”

Her fingers tightened around the glass shard, knuckles white against the crimson smearing her palm. “They think they can bury me here,” she muttered, a dark, desperate resolve flickering in her eyes. “Let them try.”

Without another word, she yanked her bag toward her, gathering her scattered belongings with trembling arms. Sobs wracked her body as she stumbled toward the exit, the glass shard still in her bloody hand. 

The Ethereal Boy’s mind raced—he wanted to reach for her, to stop her, to do something—but the jagged edge of the glass she held firmly and the storm of her emotions made him hesitate.

He stood there for a long moment, listening to the echo of her footsteps fading down the hall. The broken vanity mirror glinted in the overhead light, shards catching the faint glow of the dressing room, reflecting both the violence of the moment and the fragility of ambition. 

A quiet ache settled in his chest, not for himself but for the way desire and disappointment could so completely consume someone—a reminder of how easily a single role could mean everything, and how cruel the world of ballet could be behind its polished, glittering surface.

With a heavy sigh, he knelt, his fingers hovering over the wreckage, the shards clicking softly as he gathered them into a piece of discarded newspaper. His movements were cautious, as if the glass held the same jagged volatility as Dominika’s temper.

"Careful," a voice drifted down. Alina Tzirkova, one of the Company's choreographers, had stopped in the hall. She walked into the dressing room and knelt opposite him, her face a mask of practiced neutrality that only those who had survived decades in this building could maintain.

"She has fire," Alina murmured, her voice like dry parchment. "But fire without hearth only burns house down."

The Ethereal Boy looked at the other side of the vanity. There, sitting atop a stack of Ksenia’s clean makeup towels, was a stiff, cream-colored envelope. It was embossed with the gold seal of the Ministry of Culture, unopened but its contents already screaming through the paper.

"Ksenia received her Prikaz this morning," Alina said, noticing the Ethereal Boy's gaze. "First Soloist to Prima Ballerina. Director signed it at ten; it was on desk by noon."

"And Dominika saw it," he replied, the weight of Dominika’s rage finally making sense.

"Dominika has been First Soloist for six years," Alina said, picking up a particularly large shard that reflected the dim overhead bulb. "In this theatre, if you stay in one place for that long, you're sinking."

She looked at the Ethereal Boy, her eyes softening. "You were lucky. Your promotion came like summer storm. For other dancers, it is slow drought."

When they were finished cleaning, the Ethereal Boy made his way back down the corridor. The hallway felt colder now, empty and haunted. He adjusted his bag over his shoulder, his thoughts flickering once more to Maksim, to the faraway stars, and to the fragile, human dramas unfolding here on Earth. He wondered if the vacuum of space was any more unforgiving than the silence of a dressing room where only one person is allowed to succeed.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Abandoned Fortune Teller's Tent, Somewhere in Russia

The Ethereal Boy was crying in the fortune teller’s tent as he watched all of these memories unfold within the pulsing orb. Then, the shifting light crystallized into a sharp, static image: a silver Zvezda watch—his own—gleaming in perfect clarity. 

He looked down at his wrist, his tears merging with the snowflakes that were melting upon his coat. And then—the familiar showed within the orb. That man he once knew, Maksim, standing at a Russian space agency, cosmonaut suit in pristine condition, helmet cradled under his arm.