Chapter 2.

Anna Chtorkh

by Anna Chtorkh

Story

I had already pondered the contents of my backpack on many occasions. Warm clothes and a compact mattress so I could sleep on the ground, some canned food and matches. I quickly equipped myself and set off immediately.

Once out of my house, I didn’t even have to look up to instinctively head for the wall. A few steps away from the stone behemoth, I simply made a quarter-turn to the left and kept walking.

Soon the town’s cobblestones dissolved into a graveled soil path and the urban setting gave way to a pastoral scenery dotted with the last few farm dwellings, at which point the presence of the wall became truly incongruous. Like a silent motionless jailer, changing yet constant, it escorted me on my journey, and outpaced me in its race towards the horizon.

The sun had reached its zenith and the heat was becoming mind-numbing. Hypnotized by the contrast that filled my peripheral vision – the gray of the wall on my right, the yellow of the fields on my left – I felt no fatigue in my body, my steps automated. The idea of measuring the wall by counting my steps lingered in the back of my mind for a moment, but I gave it up immediately. I preferred to look at the landscape to my left and try to ignore the wall, but the inevitability of its imposing presence could not be tamed by any mental exercise.

It was even more difficult to imagine its absence. What could be beyond the wall? Maybe the scene was exactly the same, as if reflected in a mirror. Maybe someone was walking at the same pace and asking the very same questions I was. Perhaps on the other side, the world was a better place. Or was it an abyss, an unimaginable danger, from which the wall protected us without our knowledge?

Absorbed in these thoughts, I did not immediately see the luminous square on the dark surface of the wall. I even walked past it, my legs mechanically taking me a few meters further before I realized what I had glimpsed. I turned around and ran to the odd place.

Choose one of the two possible options: go to Chapter 5 or to Chapter 12.

© Anna Chtorkh 2023-08-16

Genres
Novels & Stories