Karina, Belyana and Fox walked along a barely noticeable path between tall trees and their steps crunched branches under their feet. From everywhere one could hear the muffled chirping of various birds, sometimes interrupted by the drawn-out singing of the cuckoo. There was no horizon visible beyond the mass of trees, and the sunlight barely made its way through the foliage.

Fox cursed, catching her hem on some bush. She wore a black, thin sarafan without patterns, worn over a white shirt with loose sleeves. Being tied with a red belt at the waist, it even made her a little slimmer, but in compare of her companions, she still looked huge.

“A very strange choice of clothes, frankly speaking,” Belyana quipped.

“I still don’t understand why you’re helping her?” Fox asked Karina.

"Because I’m in all the world is fairest and has beauty of the rarest?" Belyana interjected.

“This tale is about the state of the soul, and not about the face, by the way,” Fox answered her. “If your thinking was material, you could solve the problem with an artificial blackbody.”

“You should tell this to your collection of other people's fingers,” Belyana retorted. “It would never have occurred to me to build a wall with cells in my house, each of which would contain severed parts of the body and to stick a piece of paper in each, justifying their contents.”

Karina sighed wearily.

“I'm thinking about it myself. Probably because I feel guilty about what is going on all around.”

“She told you that,” Fox said. “She would have introduced herself as your lost grandmother, if she could have any use out of it.”

A naked man ran past them, obviously tucking his body up so that his cock pounded his thighs with loud slaps.

“I thought about this also, until you appeared, partially confirming her words,” Karina answered, pretending that nothing had happened.

“And that should have made you even more suspicious, because I know her, don’t you think?” Fox asked, as if she hadn't noticed anything either.

“Well done, girls,” said Belyana, “But he really ran through.”

“A-a-ah ...” they drawled in unison.

“Well, where did he come from?” Fox rightly asked. “The nearest signs of civilization are about fifty kilometers away.”

“A good question,” answered Belyana. “I suggest we check it out. Will you smell the trail?”

“Shit,” Fox cursed, “If you compare me with a dog again, I'll bite off a piece of your ass so that you don't forget the difference.”

Belyana laughed.

“Still, I must admit that I missed it a little. But the question doesn’t change - it’s unlikely that he would have run a marathon so cheerfully. And of the three of us, only you can find where he came from.”

“Fine, fine,” Fox sighed. “Instead of ‘Foxy-sister, help the useless white-haired bitch’ - no manners, just vomit coming out of your mouth. Whatever, let’s go.

“Is it just me, or did your mouth just say the word ‘manners’?” Belyana asked, raising an eyebrow slightly. “Shouldn't your jaw be jammed?”

“Karina, tell me,” Fox turned to her, “Isn't she insolent as fuck?”

“Don't drag me into this,” she replied irritably.

“I see,” Fox said. “And does it help a lot, pretending to be a plant every time you smell something interesting?”

Karina growled doomily, and Fox and Belyana laughed.

Sometimes in place of trees were barely passable shrubs and vice versa. This was also surprising because there was not even a scratch on the runner. If Fox did not guarantee that the road was correct, one would think that they were mistaken. However, even Karina sometimes managed to notice a couple of prints of bare feet left in the ground.

Fifteen minutes later, they finally stopped. There was nothing around but trees - no signs of civilization, not even any edges.

“I would say that up to here he jumped through the trees,” Fox explained, “But nope. Complete bullshit, but it looks like he just appeared out of thin air.”

“Hmm,” Belyana said, reaching for her eye patch. Karina and Fox turned away sharply.

“Are you stupid?” Fox screamed in dismay. “Can you at least warn?”

“What for? Both of you have reflexes just fine,” Belyana giggled. “That’s done already.”

She pulled the patch back on, and then sat down on the ground, looking thoughtful.

“Well, why are we sitting?” Fox asked after a minute.

“Quiet,” Belyana replied. “I’m thinking.”

“How?”

“With a special part of the body, sometimes called by people as ‘head’. A difficult concept for someone who has never met it, but you could already memorize it. You better go for a walk, look for a tree or branches.”

“Why?”

“We need to make a door.”

“In the forest? Door?” Fox couldn't believe her ears. “Have you finally lost your mind?”

“Not now,” she replied coldly. “I'm going after the runner for the time being - since he got out of there, it means he carries a key. I don't even want to think where he put it.”

“To hell with it, with a tree, how do you propose to make a door out of it?”

“With this.” Belyana threw the ax, which stuck in the ground with the blade.

“Where does it come from?” Now the dazed Karina asked.

“Really, where is it from?” Fox repeated after her. “It wouldn't fit inside you!”

“Who knows?” She giggled, already turning around in the opposite direction.

A few hours later the door was ready. Well, how - a lot of crooked sticks, with two across, were rewound with handmade ropes. To two nearby trees, ropes were tied to a semblance of a frame on which this door rested. Notches were visible on the sidewall, indicating an attempt to make at least a semblance of hinges, but apparently, that was not crowned with success.

Belyana, as if waiting for the right moment, appeared in the distance. A huge iron key dragged along the ground behind her.

“What is it?” Belyana asked when she came quite close.

“The door,” Fox answered sadly.

Belyana had tears in her eyes from laughter. She even began to choke, clutching her stomach with her hand and dropping her burden.

“Awesome,” she said, wiping her tears. “Actually, it will do. The idea is more important than the form.”

Belyana picked up the key and went to the door. A suitable keyhole appeared right in the middle, into which Belyana inserted the key and turned it. Key exploded into sparks. She faked opening the door, then just dropped it on the ground. There was nothing to be seen in the frame but ripples, like the surface of water in the wind.

“Be my guest,” she said.

Through the door, they found themselves in a huge cave, the dome of which was dotted with luminous crystals. Small brick houses stood on the ground.

People by their behavior did not particularly stand out, living their lives. The only thing is - most of them wore acid-colored clothes. Many had a bandage on their heads, in which many feathers were inserted, sometimes even in several rows, as if they were competing with each other to fit more.

“I don't get it,” Karina said. “Again. Didn't you yourself say that teleportation doesn't exist?”

Belyana just sighed.

“It's not a teleportation. Roughly speaking, just natural paths. Well, usually natural - we are now in an isolated zone that shouldn’t exist.”

“Wow!” Fox was surprised. “And how much arrogance was when you told how you got rid of them on your own!”

“Not me,” Belyana giggled. “You shouldn’t read books that no one allowed you to touch in a first place.”

“If I knew what I would see there, I would have simply burned this entire library right away.”

“What kind of library?” Karina asked.

“Oh, it’s better for you not to know,” trembling Fox answered her. “Not because I'm bitch, but because it's just an abomination.”

“Never cared,” Karina said with feigned indifference, after which she turned to Belyana. “Why the door then?”

“It was necessary to unlock something with a key,” Belyana shrugged. “Well, if I dragged both of you through any of the passages without a door, someone would have to clean up the wet puddles.”

A little boy ran up to them, with his face smeared with chocolate.

“Ladies, ladies, do you want to hear a rhyme?”

“Oh, go on,” Fox answered him.

“I'll take mosquito from a camp,

I'll put inside his ass his head

And I'll sew him finest shirt,

With a thread made from a turd.”

“Disgusting,” Karina gave her assessment. “Do you know something normal?”

The child howled, bursting into tears, and ran away somewhere.

“It wasn't that bad,” Fox said. “Certainly not enough to lead the child to tears.”

“I have nothing to do with it,” Karina shrugged. “No patience is enough if you praise every nasty thing, in reason not to offend anyone.”

Not too long after they had walked, an angry woman jumped out of a nearby house, with smeared face as if a three-year-old girl had reached the makeup bag for the first time. And she began to beat Karina in the face with a wet rag.

“You! Hellish! Whore!” with a blow with every cry. “Give! Birth! First! Talk! After!”

Under the wild laughter of Fox and Belyana, Karina nevertheless realized what was happening and began to dodge. In the meantime, she saw the crying child standing at a distance, realizing what the matter was.

“So if the rhyme isn’t good at all, what can I do?” Jumping away from the next attack, she blurted out.

The calmness on the woman's face was not even close, but at least she stopped attacking.

“Come here,” she almost hissed through her teeth to the child, stroking his head as he approached. “Come on, tell her the best one.”

Still sobbing, the child began to tell.

“There a gaffer and crone lived

They ate porridge with a milk.

Out of nowhere man went mad -

With a fist he punched crone's head.

But the crone could not stand it -

With a poker she him hit.

And he got a rough flight,

Into trash can he arrived.

And a rat lived in the can,

She gave birth to ugly Dan.

And Dan shouting: ‘Hooray!

Call a doctor right away!’

Doctor rides right on a bottle,

Hit directly gaffer's napper.

Gaffer thought the war begun,

Out of shit he made a gun,

And with a cutlet he it loaded,

On count of three the gun exploded.

Gaffer covered in the shit,

White coats took him off the street.”

“Also dis ...” Karina began to speak, but stopped, meeting the evil gaze of his mother. “Not bad, I even liked it.”

“Really?” Immediately shone the child.

“Really, really,” Karina sighed sadly, looking first at the rag, then at the woman.

With the same angry expression on her face, the mother took the cheerful child by the hand and left. Even if she did not want to let Karina get away with it so easily, she could not do anything. Further swearing could ruin her child's mood again.

“It’s funny after all,” said Fox. “What do you not like?”

“This is an insult to poetry,” Karina answered her. “Instead of normal poems, they are memorizing only trashy ones.”

“In the end you got infected with snobbery from her,” Fox answered accusingly. “From your point of view - poetry itself offends speech, because it distorts the pronunciation, and sometimes the meaning for the sake of rhymes.”

“There is a more serious problem here,” Belyana interjected.” While I have never heard the first in any of the variations, the second is pretty much modern.”

“And where’s a problem?” asked Fox.

“All these zones are hundreds and thousands of years old. The key generally got out, because it sensed us and really wanted to die. Otherwise, the local inhabitants couldn’t have any connection with the outside world.”

“Are you seriously calling a piece of iron a suicidal?” Fox was surprised to hear the delirium.

“That person was the key entirely,” Belyana shrugged. “Even if he didn't fully realize it. Well, it doesn’t matter, the town may be small, but it’s better not to waste time. Let's go look for answers. I don’t have any.”

“Day of discoveries,” Fox quipped. “The know-it-all finally admitted that she had always been just an arrogant.”

“Aren't you glad that for once, your exorbitant talkativeness can be useful?” Belyana giggled. “Enjoy it.”

After spending a couple of hours interviewing the local population, they returned to the same place.

“Nothing interesting,” Karina reported. “Except for a couple of exhibitionists who ran out of nowhere.”

“Well, I found something,” Fox said. “They are going to temple once a week. Magical, they say. No one knows how it works, but they learning everything they’re interested in there. I hope, of course, their common fashion doesn’t take roots from there.”

“Not a lot,” answered Belyana. “However, maybe it was necessary to start with the temple, since it’s existing at all. Where else to look for an unnatural stuff?”

Having reached the place, they fell into a long line of people. For a long time they stood in it, until, finally, they were at the entrance. The line led to an ordinary cave in a stone wall, even though it was covered with incomprehensible symbols around the hole.

After standing there little more, they finally went inside. An ordinary room, of which there are many. There was a large double bed against the wall, and the room even had a window, although nothing could be seen through it but the rock.

“Okay,” Fox said loudly. “Where is my stash?”

“Ahem,” there was a bass echo in the room. “Pay first, ask later!”

“Where from did you say that?” Fox began to rummage around the room, looking under the bed and in the closets.

“Okay, stop, stop, stop, I'll tell you for free!” The echo became confused and nervous.

“Nah, it's too late,” Fox answered, with one brute force pushing back the secret door that divided the real room almost in two.

Behind it was a sweaty little man, with piggy eyes, sitting on a small chair. He was dressed in a crimson jacket and crimson trousers. Behind him on the wall hung a human-length mirror. It itself was in a golden frame, inscribed with the same symbols that were at the entrance.

“Well, you found me, so what?” he asked irritably. “All the same, I'm not doing anything bad, just living here, don't bother anyone.”

“Why are you making excuses then?” asked Fox.

Belyana all this time stood with a very thoughtful look, putting her finger to her lips. Sometimes she took it away, as if remembering something, about to say, but then returned it to its place, and again went into herself.

“Move away from the mirror,” she said at last.

The man began to resent, but Fox simply moved him along with the chair, and Belyana went up to the wall.

“Looking-glass against the wall,

Let me see the universe's core.”

Nothing happened, and the man just laughed.

“Another one read too much fair...” he suddenly stopped when Belyana only glanced at him.

“The window of gods that sleeps,

The universe's core let me see.

As equal payment I gives -

The one who avoided the Sea”

Without uttering a rustle or a squeak, the man simply disappeared. His crimson suit collapsed to the floor, jingling with some trinkets that the owner once wore.

The mirror showed no sign of life. Only Belyana's eye, for a moment, was completely covered with blackness, as if someone had stolen all the light from it.

“This mirror,” she said at last, “Is very old. I never thought it existed. It even developed its own will. I'm taking it.”

“And why should I care?” Fox asked reasonably.

Two men with swords at the ready ran into the room. Surprisingly, the color palette of their armor was quite normal, even if the clothes were clearly not appropriate for the era.

“Freeze! Remove your hands, and all of you slowly leave the temple,” they said to Belyana, who had already removed the mirror from the wall, and to Karina and Fox, who were just standing at a distance.

“This why,” Belyana giggled. “Sorry, guys, but I'm taking the toy from you. You played enough with it.”

With a vile gurgling, the skin of the guards began peeling off in patches, exposing rotting, wormy meat.

Immediately they took off from their seats to punish the troublemakers.

As soon as they got close, Fox reflexively waved her hand, slamming them into the bed, causing it to fall apart with a crash.

“I don't see a problem.” She turned to Belyana standing behind.

“You actually should,” she answered, looking at how the guards behind Fox rise.

One of them overcame five meters in a jump, sinking his teeth into Fox's hand.

The face of the second from the blow just crumpled. His mouth began to stretch until it reached the size of the guard himself. Something came out from inside, repeating a human silhouette, only unpleasantly shimmering with some kind of glare.

The snarling Fox waved her hand, on which the decaying monster dangled, with all her might.

He flew into the silhouette, chopping off a piece of meat from her hand with his teeth. The exposed bone could be seen through the bleeding wound.

The silhouette, under the body flying through it, fell apart into separate swarming parts. It turned out that this is a colony of thick toothy worms that quickly crawled towards Fox.

The thrown corpse pierced several meters of rock. With a deafening roar, everything around trembled, and the ceiling began to crumble.

Fox, clenching her teeth and squeezing a cry, rushed to the exit as fast as she can, and with her Belyana and Karina, trying not to get caught by the worms.

As soon as they ran outside, the room collapsed completely.

Karina squealed, coloring the whole space with a violin echo. Her left leg, calf-deep, was under a fallen boulder.

Decaying crowds have already gathered around, glaring at the intruders. But they did not try to attack, they just stood there.

“It seems that they want you to return the mirror back,” Fox shouted over Karina’s screech, lifting the stone with an exorbitant weight with her healthy hand.

Only Karina had the opportunity - she pulled out the crushed part of her leg. Giggling, Fox congratulated Karina on her baptism of fire.

“Not an option,” answered Belyana. “As you can see, it's just dangerous to leave it here.”

“Maybe then you can deal with this undead army yourself? I actually should have grabbed the ax ...”

“And that's why we have you here!”

Fox only sighed, looking around at a couple of hundred corpses.

“Keep up,” she said to Belyana, grabbing the still groaning Karina, who was clearly unable to walk on her own.

And they ran.

The undead immediately rushed towards them, trying to tear them apart with their teeth and peeling hands.

Each kick that Fox did shook the ground, and the monsters that fell under the distribution demolished a dozen others.

Those who stood with difficulty kept their balance under the trembling of the earth, but growling, they attacked with all the malice that was in them. Those who were thrown back also attacked, quickly recovering, and disintegrating into worms if the damage turned out to be too serious.

They seemed to be simply ignoring Belyana, although it was she who dragged the huge mirror.

No matter how well Fox fought back on the run, every now and then they managed to reach her. The sarafan and shirt were already fairly torn off, and all the exposed parts of the body were slashed with lacerated bleeding wounds.

There was a door through which the forest could be seen. With the second hand, tolerating a pain, Fox simply grabbed Belyana, and with two bodies at the ready, jumped a few meters forward into the passage.

One of the monsters managed to jump after them, but he was only stretched into a long tape, gradually disintegrating into invisible particles, until he completely disappeared.

The door fell off along with the frame. The forest landscape has changed - now they were in the middle of ruins, albeit surrounded by the forest. Brick remains of the buildings are so dilapidated that with great difficulty anyone could say that they once were houses at all.

“It’s still a pity for the sarafan,” tired Fox exhaled, looking around her tattered body after she lowered Karina to the ground.

Karina carefully touched the dangling semi-liquid ankle, wanting to examine it, but when her face crumpled from pain, she decided to wait with it.

“After all, someone’s ass will be kicked,” Belyana said to nowhere, patting the glass with her hand. “She didn’t leave any toys here, riiight, yeeah.”