Rehearsal room. A basement under a loft warehouse on Vasilyevsky Island. It smells of sweat, dust, and old carpet. The fluorescent lamp is flickering—Grom kicked it a week ago, and no one fixed it. The amplifiers are humming in idle, like sleepy wasps.
I'm sitting on an overturned equipment crate, guitar on my knees, my fingers running mindlessly over the fretboard—a picking pattern that doesn't turn into anything. The jack cable is twisted, as always. On the floor—a cigarette butt in a tin tomato can, half-finished coffee in a paper cup, black, no sugar.
Behind the wall—a dull bass. Ray, probably. Or Mark. Or both.
Phone on the crate nearby. The screen is dark.
I'm not looking at it.
The guitar picking breaks off on a half-note. I look at the wall—where someone (Lis, most likely) scratched 'Plague Circus — 2019' with a nail. Below it—an old setlist, yellowed, with a coffee ring.
Pause.
I shift my gaze to my hands. Fingers—calluses, bitten nails, an ink comma on my index finger (an old tattoo, from back in the world of two suns).
The picking resumes. Quiet. Automatic. Like breathing.
The basement door creaks.
I don't turn around. I wait. Gena, probably. Or Lis. Or no one.
Footsteps. Not Gena—the footsteps are different. A stranger's.