The Power Field

Chapter 7

The habitually short autumn day seems to bring a special gloomy mood today. The clouds that have been threatening to spill over Mystic Falls all the time now cover the sky from any light source with a smooth gray dome.

The wind seems to penetrate even into the most secluded corners of a small town in Virginia. It seems to warn of impending danger. Its unusually cold whirlwinds force residents to close windows and doors as tightly as possible. Its panicked howls frighten even the bravest inhabitant of this God-forsaken town.

There are no people or animals on the street. The latter, however, preferred to hide in the dirty basements of the half-abandoned ruins of the outskirts of the city. Stray cats took refuge in safer places, closer to people. And the birds, which often stealthily watched the residents of the city through the thick window frames of two-story houses, left their usual perches and hid in the dense, but not yet fallen foliage of local low trees.

The world is trapped in despair. Melancholy, moist and stuffy, absorbs everything around it, dragging into its swamp anyone who gets in its way.

It's hard to understand why anyone wandering the deserted streets of Mystic Falls during these terrible hours feels this painfully familiar heaviness somewhere under the ribs.

Whether this is a harbinger of an impending disaster or just an autumn melancholy, which, like a plague, infects every living being within a radius of fifty kilometers, no one knows.

Meanwhile, night had fallen on the city. The once gray sky has now turned black. The park in the city center, the streets, and even the Mystic Grill, which closed the night before for unscheduled repairs, are deserted. No one, not even the most fearless of the inhabitants, dares to leave their safe corner. Only sometimes especially vigilant citizens look out of the curtained windows of their houses in an attempt to make sure that there really is no one around.

On Maple Street, five blocks from the city park, a particularly creepy atmosphere reigns in a two-story, half-rotted house. Surprisingly, perhaps, this is the only house in the district that has escaped the fate of being captured by universal anxiety. And it isn't about some kind of supernatural protection. Just anxiety, fear and horror live in this house from the very beginning. They permeate every corner of it, so no one pays attention to something new anymore. Everyone knows perfectly well who lives at number thirteen Maple Street.

Nora, that's the name of the unfortunate inhabitant of this cursed place, barely audibly opens the door of her room. She has to walk a long way from here to the back door of her house so that her drunk father doesn't hear anything.

A sixteen-year-old girl with short-cropped brown hair stands and, sticking her head out into the hall, listens to her father's snoring. Dressed in gray, worn jeans and her friend's oversized jacket, she is thinking about how to get to the exit of the house. Despite the absolute inconvenience, Nora had to throw her backpack over her left shoulder. The right one still hurts. She is afraid that her wound may open at any moment.

After making sure that her father is sleeping peacefully somewhere downstairs, Nora quietly leaves her room. She would have to walk down the hall to the stairs so that the creaking of the old floorboards would not attract his attention. She knows how to move around the house without anyone hearing her. She has learned all the rules of survival in the house since childhood. However, even this rarely saves her from the regular beatings of her eternally drunk father.

«Three steps on the right side, one in the center, two on the left» Nora repeats mentally.

When she reaches the stairs, she stops and listens to the sounds below. Nora doesn't see her father's body. From here, at the top of the stairs, she can only see his leg. Soiled in some kind of dirt, it hangs from the armrest of the sofa.