The Dark Side Ep. 02

An ordinary, silent night in a snow-filled forest was split by occasional snow crunches. Each crunch was followed by a moment of silence. Sounds slowly but steadily moved deeper and deeper; until they stopped for a moment longer than previously. A dim light, not more bigger than a dot, appeared between trees.

"What are you..." a young masculine voice whispered.

"Wait... I have to check," a different masculine voice, barely audible, whispered in reply.

"You said you know where it is," the first voice whispered.

"Yes," the second voice quietly answered. "But I have never been here in winter. Summer nights are way brighter, and that helps quite a lot."

Suddenly, something cracked and fell in the fluffy snow between trees near where they stood. An eerie silence overtook the surroundings. A few moments passed before nearby bushes started slightly shaking and cracking. Someone or something was there. Another second or two passed, and everything stopped.

A small creature appeared from the snow next to the bushes. It looked at two tall strangers for a split second or a bit longer, and they looked back. As the tall figure with a dimly lit display in his hand turned the light source towards the tiny creature, it quickly jumped away. In a blink of an eye, it was gone, leaving behind its little footprints in the snow and the sound of crunching snow each time it landed.

"Shi-i-i-it..." a figure with a young masculine voice quietly breathed out. "What was that?"

"A rabbit or squirrel," the other figure answered, turning the dim display of a device towards himself. "Don't tell me you filled your pants."

"Almost."

"Calm down. They don't even know we're here," a dark figure tapped on the device's screen in his palm.

"Why, then, must we be so quiet and careful?"

"Because..." The figure made quick swiping gestures on the screen and started moving forward. "Because we don't want them to know."

They walked for a few more minutes, turning right and left until the figure holding the device in his hand stopped next to a tree. After putting it away in his coat pocket, he leaned towards the tree and tried to reach something by rising on his tiptoes.

"What are you doing?" asked his companion.

"I can't reach the foldable ladder," the tall figure whispered. Before anything else was said, his fingertips touched something. Instinctively, he pressed his body closer to the tree, face brushing against the cold bark.

Once again, the echoing sound of cracking branches filled the cold and silent air, accompanied by the slight sound of crunching snow.

"Did you hear that?" whispered a young masculine figure with concern in his voice as he looked in the direction from which the sound came.

Silence overtook the forest again. The young man was so concentrated on picking up any movement in the area from which the sound came that he even stopped breathing for a moment. His trans-like state was disrupted when his companion poked him twice from behind.

"Stop freaking out," the tall masculine figure whispered. "Climb up," he gestured towards the ladder now unfolded and hanging in front of the tree. "There is no one but us out here," he added as the young masculine figure started climbing the tree. After briefly glancing around, he followed his companion up.

"Does anyone come here at all?" The young man gasped after entering the treehouse and turning on a flashlight on a power bank that he took out of his coat pocket.

"Are you allergic to dust?" The tall figure slipped by his companion and reached a table with an oldish-looking phone and dial pad in the room's far corner.

"No, but... Everything feels so ancient here," the young man quietly continued, looking at the rolled mattresses in the corners covered in spider webs.

"Those are for an emergency," the tall figure said, noticing where his companion was looking. "Haven't Flora and Thunder explained anything?"

"They told me part of my task and gave me a bunch of these," the young man reached the table and shook the power bank in his hand.

"Oh, great," the tall figure snapped the object out of his companion's hand and turned off the flashlight. "Let's fill this baby up," he said, placing the powerbank into the free slot of a tower on the table next to the phone.

"All of them just to power the phone?" the young man whispered in disbelief, seeing at least a half-dozen power banks filling up the tower with USB cables already attached.

"No, they are powering the directional antenna up there," the tall man slightly gestured with his left hand towards the window. "There should be five more. Do you have all of them?"

"Yes, they gave me a few," the young companion took power banks out of his coat pockets and, one by one, handed them over to a friend, who slid each of them into tower slots before attaching USB cables.

After the last power bank was connected, the tall figure pressed a button on the hub that combined inputs from all of them. A small green light appeared next to each cable, including one attached to the phone with a dial pad and a thicker one that led to the window. Not losing any moment, he took out his smartphone. After making a few taps and gestures on it, he placed the dimly lit device on the table next to the phone with a dial pad.

"Fauna managed to get contacts only for four birdies," the tall man said, picking up a handset from the top of the oldish phone.

"Was there more?" The young man looked at the dimly lit screen, which showed a bit of a blurry photo with names and phone numbers written on someone's palm.

"Yes..." the companion answered, pushing the cradle multiple times and pressing some keys on the dial pad. "She almost got caught... Shit! I have to climb up and check what's with the antenna," he said, handing the handset to the young man.

"I don't hear anything," the young man blurted out after placing the handset to his ear.

"You will," the tall man walked to the window of the tree house and, with eyes, followed the thick cable running up into the treetop. "Press asterisk. If you hear a beep, twice press zero, followed by a pound key, and wait for the dial tone. When you hear it, dial the number. Rest, you know."

For a moment, the young man glanced away at a dial pad and the picture with phone numbers on the smartphone's screen. When he looked back, his tall companion was already outside, climbing up the tree. It took a few seconds for his companion to disappear from his view and several more to become totally silent around him. Turning his attention to the oldish phone, he pressed and held the phone for a second or two, then pressed the asterisk on the dial pad, as he was told. The handset still wasn't giving out any sound.

Before repeating the actions, he pressed the handset between ear and shoulder, taking a dimly lit smartphone in his hands. Zooming in on the names in the picture, he read the names out to himself: "Annie, Zaiga, Irina, Gvido."

It didn't take long for the tall companion to reach the treetop. The night above the trees was bright, with the full moon shining in clear skies. If not for the occasional coldish wind gusts that blew straight in his face, he could look at the beautiful scenery and admire the Latvian nature for a while. The only regret he felt was that he had to leave his phone back down because the sight in front of his eyes was magical and deserved to be captured.

The thought about the phone reminded him of the reason why he was up there. Looking at the pole mounted to the tree, he noticed three small lights on it. The lower one, indicating power, was lit green. The middle one was yellow and occasionally blinked, while the upper one was lit red.

"Damn it," he muttered under his breath, reaching out to adjust the antenna. His fingers were numb from the cold, but he slightly twisted the antenna. The red light flickered, then turned green. A sigh of relief escaped his lips as he descended, careful not to slip on the icy bark.

As he descended, he heard the crunching of snow, followed by the sound of cracking branches somewhere on the ground nearby. The tall man interrupted his descent and carefully listened, but the forest filled with eerie silence. After waiting for a moment and not hearing anything, he decided to continue his descent. At that exact moment, snow on the ground crunched once again, followed by a whoosh sound shortly before an object hit the back of his head, causing him to lose consciousness and fall down from the tree.

Meanwhile, miles away, a smartphone screen lit up and started loudly ringing in a darkened and silent room of an apartment in a Riga neighborhood.

Awakened by the sudden sound in the middle of the night, a girl threw away a blanket and jumped out of her two-story bed. With a few bounces on her bare feet across the room, she reached the table where the source of light and sound was lying.

"Yes?" she asked in her hollow sleepy voice after tapping on the screen.

For a moment, all she heard was static crackling, reminiscent of an out-of-tune radio, when a young masculine voice, barely hearable, said: "Hello. Annie?"

"Who is this?" the still half-asleep girl asked.

"It's..." the young man's voice was muffled by a sudden crackling noise.

"Hello? Who is this?" the girl asked once more.

The girl could hear someone speaking but could not distinguish the words behind such powerful crackling noise. She was ready to hang up the call when words came through: "... don't come here. It's dangerous..." Another severe wave of crackling muffled the speaker for a moment. "... kill you." Words were followed by loud bangs, similar to the sound of something falling to the ground.

"Sorry, who is this?" slightly irritated the girl asked, rubbing the sleep out of her eye. "Hello?" she asked, not hearing anything behind the crackling noise shortly before the call dropped.

"Sounds like someone finally found your profile on a dating app," her sister laughed in her sleepy voice and pulled a blanket over her head.

"Actually, Annie," the girl gripped her sister's phone in her palm tighter, "he was looking for you."

THE DARK SIDE

Episode 2

A few days after New Year's celebrations, Sunday came - the last day of the winter holidays. For me, it was also the last day at home with my family: I had made up my mind and decided to transfer to the school that Ms. Pine suggested.

"Annie, are you sure you don't want us to come with you?" My mom kept me asking again and again.

"Mom, imagine me walking in that office surrounded by my parents and siblings," I finally said. "It will give them the impression that I need a nanny, and they might reconsider my acceptance."

My mom pressed her lips together and looked at me with her deadliest look possible. "Or maybe they'll see that you still have family," she finally said after a moment of silence.

"Your mom is right," my dad budded in, "even celebrities have bodyguards."

"Only celebrity here is Marta, so guard her," I said. "I have guarded my body pretty well for the last 18 years and will do so also for the next ones."

My little brother Robbie lighted up and curiously asked: "So, you won't have sex till you're 36?"

"Marta, who had been quietly chewing on something, suddenly choked at Robbie's question. She started coughing, half-laughing and half-choking, her eyes watering as she tried to regain her composure.

"Shut up, little smurf!" I shouted. "That's not what I meant. Anyway, you're too young for that," I added while calming down.

"But you're not," he protested, his face scrunching up in confusion. "You're old."

"Thanks for the reminder," I said, rolling my eyes. "But I can handle myself, okay? I'll be fine."

"Alright," my dad said finally. "But you call us the moment you get there, okay? And if anything feels off, you come straight home."

"I will," I promised, giving them both a reassuring smile. "I'll be fine, really."

Just a few hours later, I found myself sitting in the backseat of a van that was carrying me and6 other newly accepted students to our new school. All of them were around 15, heading either for junior high or first year of high school, deeply engaged with each other, sharing funny tik tok or memes. Besides listening and observing them, I could watch the road either through the front windshield or the small window on the back of the van beside me. Since there were no other windows, eventually it meant that the interior was too dark to read a book.

A girl who sat on my side of the van and introduced herself as Irina tried to chat with me, but we didn't have much to talk about: she already knew her future path - becoming a chemist and developing a cure for cancer and other diseases, while I didn't have any exact idea what I want to be. I told her that I like literature and languages, which obviously wasn't her thing, so she turned to the girl on her other side and chatted with her.

Roughly an hour after we departed from our meeting point - an office building in the heart of Riga, the two-lane road began its meandering journey through a dense forest. Suddenly, without any prior warning, the youngsters found themselves disconnected: any video or music playing came to an abrupt halt. However, this sudden silence went unnoticed by some. For instance, Irina and her new acquaintance were so engrossed in a discussion about biochemistry that they only checked their phones when the other youngsters began questioning each other about their own lack of service.

We spent several more minutes driving through the forest, which absorbed as much daylight as it could from the scant sunlight of January afternoons here in Latvia. As we emerged from the forest, light returned, and it seemed to me even brighter outside than when we had boarded the van back in Riga.

As the forest receded further and further behind us, the orange beams of the setting sun streamed through the window. The van began to slow down until it rolled to a stop next to a group of people on the side of the snowy road.

A moment of total silence. The sliding door of the van clicked and slid open. A girl in her early 20s appeared in front of us and looked inside.

"Hello, everyone!" she said in a cheerful tone. "I'm Ieva. Maybe you've heard about the blondie with the red apple. Well, that's me. And my friends are highly trained snakes, so don't play dirty jokes with me. Yes, welcome to paradise."

I smiled at her clever reference to the biblical Eve in Genesis, but it seemed that youngsters didn't get it. I used the brief moment she was waiting for the reactions to get a better look at her.

She wore a hand-knitted cap of a deep, midnight blue that sat jauntily atop her head, covering her ears. A matching dark green scarf, hand-knitted as well, was looped stylishly around her neck, matching the charcoal-gray parka that reached down to her knees, its fur-lined hood pushed back to reveal her cap.

When I looked into her eyes, I almost lost my breath. I already saw them. Knew them.

"Oh, already afraid of me. That was easier than I thought," she said, pulling a piece of paper from her pocket and unfolding it. "I'll call your names one by one. When you hear your name, please step out of the van," she continued, stepping aside from the van doorway and scanning the paper in her hand.

First, she called out two boys' names - Teodor and Gvido. After getting out of the van, they were paired with a buddy named Markus. Then followed Zaiga and Irina, who was paired with the girl named Vineta, and she finished up calling out the names of Deniss and Rachel. Ieva started chatting with her newly gained buddies and most likely forgot about the list. She slowly folded it back together.

"Okay, let's go," Ieva said.

"Ieva, I don't have anyone," a feminine voice said from nearby.

"Haven't I called everyone?" Ieva looked back inside. She scanned the space, looking towards me, and I looked back, straight into her eyes.

I felt paralyzed. I couldn't breathe, nor blink, nor move the slightest part of my body. My heart started beating like crazy. These are Ms. Pine's eyes, but this is Ieva. How is this even possible? Or am I imagining things again?

Before I fainted due to lack of oxygen, Ieva blinked and turned away.

"Oh, hi!" said a girl who appeared in the van's doorway. She had already taken the paper from Ieva and quickly scanned it as she unfolded it. "Annie, right?" she glanced at the list in her hand.

"Oh, sorry. Yes, Annie," I said as I regained my breath. "I think I daydreamed."

"That's fine," she smiled at me. "Come, join us," she gestured to me with the hand holding the list and moved away from the van doorway.

I quickly grabbed my bag and backpack and finally stepped out of the van.

"Hey, I'm Margarita," the girl introduced herself. "You can call me Margo," her green eyes sparkling behind tiny framed glasses. "But please, don't 'Ma' or 'Ma Ma' me," she smiled broadly, corners of her lips touching her dark red colored hair.

"Hey, finish up," came Ievas voice. We both looked in her direction to see her and the rest of the group walking away.

Margo raised her hand, showing her thumbs up. "And what's even better, I'm your buddy," she looked back at me.

"See you," Ievas voice came again. Margo looked back at her and waved to her with the paper she still held in her hand. I smiled and waved to her as well.

"I hope we haven't forgotten anyone," Margo said, instantly turning serious and once more scanning through the list in her hand.

"I guess the driver doesn't count," I blurted out.

"Unfortunately - no," she looked inside the van through the open doors and moments later slid them close. Not wasting any second, she knocked on the passenger side window in front of the van and showed thumbs up to the driver.

I looked around. Sun was slowly sliding down behind the forest, coloring high clouds in a light shade of orange while the afternoon sky transited from orange to afternoon blue. If not for the setting Sun, I would be totally oblivious to directions because everywhere I looked - the forest was the horizon. Not counting the buildings in the distance and walkways, it was one big snowy field. Snow looked so pure and white. I closed my eyes and deeply inhaled the cold air. When I opened my eyes again and exhaled, Margo was already standing before me, looking at me with sparkling eyes and a wide smile.

"It's...It's just... WOW," I managed to say, gesturing towards the sunset.

"Ye-ey, I knew that you'll like it," she chirped, with such excitement and sincerity, that I felt like the beautiful scenery was her well-crafted gift to me. "Let's go and check how it looks from your room," she gestured towards the buildings.

It was in the same direction where the group went, but I didn't see them anymore. As I looked at the buildings, I started wondering which of these was the dormitory and what was in the others.

"Hey, maybe I can help you with your bag?" Margo's voice snapped me back to reality. "Weight on your shoulders is weight on mine; maybe we can share it?"

"Sure," I took off my messenger bag from my left shoulder and handed it over to Margo, who placed it over her right one.

As we walked towards the buildings, I kept looking around and under my feet. The walkway, wide enough for three people to walk side by side comfortably, was made of black rectangular tiles, neatly arranged and slightly gleaming in the fading sunlight. The tiles were smooth and surprisingly clean, separated by small canals that ran between them and along the sides of the walkway. Like there would be an invisible wall, white snow cover ended at the outer side of these walkway canals that ran along it.

As I gazed up at the setting sun, I was met with a scene of indescribable beauty. The scenery took my breath away, compelling me to reach into my coat pocket for my phone. I was eager to capture this spectacular sight, to freeze this moment in time. But, my disappointment was palpable when the images failed to mirror the stunning vista before my eyes.