ISBN 978-5-0056-6478-5

      Created with Ridero smart publishing system

      Luck

      Nikita was about to disconnect from the chat room, but the photo that suddenly popped up caught him. The angelic face looked as if from a parallel world. Never mind that something sinister emanated from the photo. What mattered was that it was the girl of his dreams.

      “Hello.”

      How else can you begin a dialogue with a stranger? In a chat room all the phrases are simple and short to the point of absurdity.

      “Hello!” Nikita typed back the same word with which the stranger had approached him. How come she had addressed him herself! Usually pretty girls didn’t like him. Was the photo on the icon have been heavily retouched or a stranger altogether? Even if it was, Nikita didn’t want to deprive himself of the illusion of contact with the dream.

      “What is your name?”

      The nickname popped up brightly. The question was only a formality.

      “Athenais.”

      “And I’m Nikita,” he sat under the nickname “stranger,” so he saw fit to introduce himself.

      “How old are you?” Atenais’s question appeared in the dialog window instantly, as if she could type in a fraction of a second.

      Nikita didn’t have that kind of speed. The keys slid under his fingers, skipping typos.

      “I am twenty-two years old. What’s your age?”

      There was a long silence. What if she is a minor? The tardy answer was a little shocking.

      “I am of angelic age.”

      “You mean underage?”

      “I mean more ancient than the whole earth.”

      Sounds like a joke! Athenais must be a couple of years older than him. That’s why she’s joking. Girls take it painfully when they’re even six months older than the guy they like. And why is it that all girls necessarily want someone who’s older? Large age is no guarantee that a man has achieved something in life.

      “You look about seventeen,” Nikita typed out a reply that sounded more like a remark. “Is this photo from last year?”

      “Yes, but if you took it now, it would come out the same. I don’t change with time. But the landscape around me keeps getting darker. I don’t want to add a picture of the ruins to the chat room.”

      “Where do you live?”

      There is a long silence in response.

      “Are you on a tour of some ruined manor house right now?” Nikita remembered his experience of school excursions to noblemen’s estates and nature reserves. Sometimes they had to spend the night practically in a barracks not far from historical sites, but teachers encouraged such trips. For the sake of broadening one’s horizons one should do anything!

      “More like in the pyramids.”

      “So you’re in Egypt?”

      “It is not exactly.”

      “Then where?”

      “It’s a mystery.”

      “Why is it a mystery?”

      There was silence again. No one typed an answer. Nikita’s mouse cursor twitched. He wanted to talk to Athenais again. Why was she frozen? Combine chatting with other guys? With her looks, she sure had a lot of admirers.

      “There are no secrets in chat rooms,” Nikita diplomatically remarked, “otherwise no one would be interested in communicating with you.”

      Now the silence was awfully long. The electronic clock measured five minutes, and there was no reply from Athenais. Had he scared her off?

      “Are you still there?”

      “I have to go see a movie,” Athenais typed. “The session is about to start.”

      Did she really mean the movie theater session? So it’s daytime where she lives. How far was she from Moscow? Nikita’s heart sank. He had hoped to arrange a date, bring a red rose, go to a cafe for a cup of tea, and take a long look at Atenais across the table. Was she as beautiful as she looked in the angel photo? There seemed to be a sort of black feathery wings flickering behind her back in the tiny photo. It looks like photoshop. But He want so badly to believe that a real fairy or angel is talking to him. This is a fairy tale! Turn on the Internet, and there, on the network, lives a real elf with a golden-blond head, azure eyes, and a divine face. Except that the decorations on Athenais were more museum than fairy-tale. Indeed, it reeked of the culture of ancient Egypt.

      “Are you going to the cinema? Are you going alone or with company?” Nikita hoped that the companion had not yet passed out.

      “With the company,” she honestly replied.

      “What kind of movie is it?”

      “It is a movie about a demon.”

      “It is a horror movie! And you don’t even know the title?”

      “It might change over time.”

      “How’s it?”

      Silence again.

      “Is the show in the evening or at night?” Nikita guessed to ask.

      “It is at night.”

      So Athenais doesn’t live far away. The clock above the computer table reads exactly three in the morning. At three o’clock at night the movies don’t go on, but at twelve o’clock they can still go on. Athenais probably lives a couple of towns away from Moscow. Then she can be reached in one night by train.

      “Where do you live?” Nikita asked again, but Athenais had already passed out. He managed to add her as a friend. Would she still be chatting tomorrow?

      It was long past his bedtime. He had class at the university in the morning. He would oversleep again and not be able to attend any lectures or seminars. It was all because of the chat room.”

      Athenais had sent some kind of link. Thanks to her sociability, the beautiful photo was able to expand to full screen. Indeed an image of her shoulder-length was mounted with black angel wings. The wings and forearms sparkled with gold chains threaded through the feathers. Such jewelry conjured up thoughts of genies from Oriental fairy tales. What an image Athenais had! It was as if she were preparing to play the part of a demon herself.

      “Shall we have a chat?” Someone called Nikita back into the chat room. Probably it was one of those ugly girls who texted him yesterday. Is it Lada or Dasha? And he was waiting for Athenais. Her name must have been made up. Probably her parents had named her after some book character. For example, Nikita’s pockmarked neighbor, a romantically inclined mother had named her Angelica, having read French novels. The intricate name Angelica did not fit in with the simple surname Ivanova at all.

      What was Athenais’ last name? What is the girl’s profession? Or is she a student? Certainly she is not a lady of the night, as she did not offer to meet, and did not talk about payment. After a couple of months of chatting on dating sites, Nikita had gotten used to ignoring prostitutes, who sat online as a whole artel. They had pretty pictures, too, but always with bright makeup. Athenais in the photo looked like she had no makeup on at all, aside from the golden lashes. Do lashes and hair have a golden hue in nature? Nikita had only met platinum and natural blondes in his life, but never golden-haired ones.

      “Athenais!” He typed her name involuntarily and seemed to fly into someone else’s chat room.

      “Chat better with me now,” someone unfamiliar answered. The picture of the head under the red hood could have been either male or female.

      Nikita