Devil’s Cinema. Crypt of the Seven Angels

“Everyone here is vulnerable.”

And again voices in his head. What’s with him? Now he is no longer standing by the creepy tree, but the feeling is as if his hands are still in the ashes from the bark.

:Come on! Coming soon!” the girl did not even greet him and did not even throw a cursory glance at the invitation, which he nervously crumpled in his hands.

“They don’t even guard the doors,” Daniel complained.

“So what,” she casually waved her hand, on which a scarab bracelet flashed. The adornment looked like a very ancient museum item.

“There is no fear of a terrorist attack, robbery, hooliganism?”

“There is nothing more to be afraid of!” Cordelia walked forward along the corridor without even turning around.

“I’m sorry what?”

“We have good security. Do not worry!”

“But I didn’t see anyone.”

“You have nothing. You came to watch a movie, not meet the guards.”

She was obviously teasing him, although how could she know that this morning he met the guard specifically in order to inquire about the local creepy sights.

“By the way, what’s the name of the film?”

“Didn’t you read the title on the invitation?”

The question shocked him. He was ashamed to admit that he did not understand the words that were printed there. From the sight of the letters either his head began to ache, or it seemed that these were not letters at all, but some obscure symbols and hieroglyphs. Indeed, he needs to drink less. His director is right.

Before entering the cinema, Daniel dropped his smartphone. How embarrassing! One movement, and the means of cellular communication with the world immediately shattered to smithereens. Now, even if they begin to kill him inside, he will not be able to call and warn anyone. Everything seems to be calculated in advance?! Daniel immediately dismissed the thought. No one is to blame that he did not get enough sleep that he had everything to fall out of hand. Some of his former agents liked to admonish him that the most important thing for a star is to get enough sleep in order to properly control his actions. Not having enough sleep, you look worse, and play badly, and you can blurt out something completely unnecessary to the public or journalists. And now, from fatigue, he controlled himself so badly that he could smash his head against the door lintel, and not just a smartphone.

“I’m not going further with you,” she said at the door. “There is no spare place left for me.”

“But there are plenty of places!” Daniel saw from the doorway that the whole hall was empty.

“There’s only one invitation for you,” Cordelia explained to the dull.

“And what does it change? The seats are all unoccupied, and there are five minutes left before the session, no more. Usually, in cinemas, no one is acting up, if a more convenient place is free, then the audience can easily change seats on it. Apart from special screenings, the auditorium is never completely occupied at movie shows. And here there are just no guards who will expose the free rider.” Why is Cordelia hugging so tight? Is she too proud to enter without a ticket?

“Anyone else coming?” Daniel asked after all. “Or I’m the only guest.”

“Take your seat and wait for the beginning,” she nodded dryly.

“Where is my place?” he didn’t even look at the invitation. Since Cordelia is here in charge of the controller, then let him conduct it herself. But she did not step into the hall. She just explained:

“In the very center!”

And that’s it! Her chic train of butterflies rustled behind the slammed doors. Daniel felt trapped as they closed. It looks like there will be no more spectators. The whole room is empty. The screen is blank. No one is around. Only the luxurious rows of chairs upholstered in purple velvet. The hall itself is good! It’s beautiful here, like at the royal court. The velvet is clearly real! The walls are gilded. The curtains at the entrance are also velvet. More like a sophisticated theater than a movie. But the blank screen in the center spoils the impression.

An animal slipped between the rows. He nearly fell as it ran over his leg.

He did not immediately notice the seven marble winged figures, which were scattered on the sides of the auditorium and one even at the stage. Did they come here themselves? Or are they just duplicates of the statues he saw at the entrance? It seems that there is nothing surprising in the fact that such eerie decorations are present here as well. It was more fitting for them to stand in a crypt or in a cemetery. Monuments on graves are most often decorated with such sculptures. Although here they may turn out to be just papier-mâché mannequins, light decor details. The appearance of marble is probably only an illusion. He wanted to get up and touch them to check it, but for some reason he did not dare. The beautiful white faces of the angels looked so sinister, especially when combined with pointed ears and long claws on white fingers. And their smiles are too predatory. It seems that they see everything with their empty white eyes without pupils.

Daniel turned away from the figures. For some reason he immediately got sick of watching the film in their presence. This will not be a session, but hell. It feels like seven white pieces are watching him closely. And why are there exactly seven of them, as well as in front of the entrance? Does this number mean something?

He did glance at them again. The light had already started to go out. The figures at the end of the rows were indistinguishable, but the same mystical decorations suddenly appeared in the seats of the auditorium – winged statues sitting right in the chairs and made so skillfully that their hands lay flat on the armrests, and their wings surrounded the back of the chair. There were also exactly seven seated figures, and they were scattered throughout the hall at a decent distance from each other. Well, the decoration came out of them cool and mysterious, but why didn’t he notice them when he entered? All the chairs a minute ago were empty. Or did the figures become visible only in the darkness? Did some kind of lighting turn on inside them? They are slightly phosphorescent. And if they had just been dragged into place, then why did he not hear any noise. He never went deep into his thoughts so that he did not notice anything around him. And now, Daniel noted that the light went out too suddenly. Usually in the cinema it is extinguished in stages, allowing the audience to get used to the semi-darkness, and then suddenly full darkness came at once. Only the figures in the chairs shone. Their presence was very uncomfortable. They are not alive, but the feeling was that they themselves flew here.

The instinct of self-preservation actively warned that they would now attack him. Someone walked through the rows. Daniel clearly heard footsteps and the grinding of metal on the floor, but turning around, he could not make out in the darkness even just a vague silhouette of the controller. But one of the angelic figures suddenly turned its head right at him. More precisely, he did not see how it turned its head, but before all the angels looked at the screen, and not in the direction of the chairs. And now, suddenly, one of the marble faces stared straight at him. The angel was sitting right in his row, only a dozen chairs away. Has he really sat here before? When Daniel took his place, the whole row was definitely empty. The feeling was that the next moment the marble fingers would touch the arm of his chair and squeeze his hand until he fainted.

Everything could be attributed to the 3D effect, but the film has not even started yet, and Daniel himself has no glasses. Or are there special ways to impress the viewer in this privileged area?

From somewhere behind there was the mechanical rustle of a spinning reel. A golden scarab was crawling across the screen. How did he get there? No, it’s not real. Daniel looked more closely. In fact, the show has already begun. The screen lit up, as if some gates had opened from within. No commercials before the movie starts. Amazing! The credits went straight away. He had never seen a gold title before. And the letters are strange. He couldn’t read them. Or double in his eyes? The scarab crawled between credits in every frame.

Someone touched Daniel on the shoulder. He did not turn, fearing to see that one of the statues was already standing right behind him. Better not to spoil your nerves once again. All the same, the doors of the hall are now closed, there is nowhere to run. Until the session is over, it is worth enjoying the film. However, instead of enjoyment, many questions arose. At the beginning something like “Lady of the Pharaohs” flashed in the credits. Strange, but still understandable. Probably, it was about some kind of goddess. But the next line, highlighted in especially large print “And his name is Dennitsa” evoked frightening associations. Dennitsa is one of the names of the devil, it seems, the one under which he gained fame in paradise. The name of the most beautiful angel! Bible! Daniel remembered some of it. But how are the biblical devil and Ancient Egypt connected? In those days, no one had ever heard of the Bible. Therefore, no one knew about the devil either.

Daniel was confused. The feeling of being inside the screen was strong and without the 3D effect. Rapidly flashing footage of ancient palaces mixed with some kind of horror, as if sucked consciousness into a funnel. What if this feeling does not go away, but remains with him forever. Consciousness swept through the ancient Egyptian halls and pyramids, past bloody wars, witchcraft and the rituals of burying mummies, as if in search of something. Luxury mixed with horror, which only intensified the all-encompassing nightmare effect. It seems that this is not horror, and not a historical drama, and not an action movie, or a biblical story, but all together. And it all has a kind of crushing realism.

The film was about a golden creature that has conquered rulers since the beginning of time. It crept across the screen. Its claws were palpably close. Palaces, temples, pyramids remained behind it in the frame as a background. The time of action was in fact not only the Ancient Egypt, but all eternity, from the war in the heavens to the present day. But the main action, apart from numerous digressions to the twenty-fifth frame, was concentrated precisely on Egypt during the reign of Akhenaten. His commander Taor, who returned with a great victory, at the moment of honoring the hero noticed a beautiful winged creature whispering advice to the pharaoh, and fell in love with her. This creature was the biblical devil who ruled the local kings like puppets. This creature, contrary to biblical descriptions, had a girlish face and body. The creature was called Alais, and this name contained some kind of magical wording. Alais was cruel to the point of horror and sacrificed people to resurrect the army of demons from the desert sands. Taor was noble and inclined to self-sacrifice so much that he could be called a true Christian, although no one knew about Christianity at that time. And such a generous guy, ready to beg Pharaoh for forgiveness even for those who intended to kill him, fell in love with a creature performing bloody rituals. Love for Alais so overshadowed his brain that he was ready to give up all his own beliefs. But Alais, as it turned out, is not capable of loving anyone at all. The rejected young man, not finding a place for himself, wandered through the deserts and met the Archangel Michael himself, who put a dagger with two dragons on the hilt in his hand, capable of killing Alais.

What a special effect! It was even painful to look at Mikhail, so he shone, and the dragons on the dagger moved and hissed as if alive. And here is the only goodbye kiss in the tomb. Taor sacrificed himself only so that a monster would come to replace the angel. Everything fused from gold plates, clawed, multi-armed, like Kali, vaguely resembling a precious scarab.

The frames flashed like a top. Pyramids, mummification rites, a fallen army rising from the sands, deserts, rivers, palaces. And everywhere it is. Dazzling! Overshadowing the mind! Spooky! And beautiful.

It was already crawling across the stark darkness of the screen. It reached out with golden claws to Daniel’s throat. It breathed heat and fire into his face. It was near. Already in the hall. Between his row of seats and the previous one. He was willing to swear it. He even had a chance to feel the touch of hot metal claws on his neck, to look into bleeding sand-colored eyes, sparkling from under a pile of thin gold plates twisted with bizarre symbols.

Is this a creature from hell or from Egypt? In any case, it is here and now he will die, as all the pharaohs who did not obey him died.

And suddenly the light came on. There was no golden monster around. And the film did not come out of his head. For some reason, the story of Taor and Alais felt like a cutting pain in his mind. Daniel was never sentimental, but now he involuntarily wondered: why did all the greatness of history end in tragedy? Why these two, as if created for each other, could not stay together.

Of course, he did not voice the question out loud, but someone’s ringing voice boldly and mockingly answered him from the other end of the hall:

“Because she was the devil!”

Dead star

No one around. Even the figures of marble angels disappeared somewhere. One and all. Daniel looked around in vain for the speaker. Could someone bend over and hide behind the empty chairs? Is it worth walking through the rows and checking? The hall was quite large.

Daniel frowned, not knowing where to go now. I didn’t want to leave at all. There was an unbearably strong desire to see the same film again. The story stirred up the blood, and the shots with alternation of luxury and horror did not go out of his head, almost driving him crazy. Daniel suddenly realized what exactly flashed in the frames, incredibly frightening. Rise of the angels and their overthrow. Fight winged, clawed and flaming creatures. Their transformation into monsters. Fall into the desert, burnt symbols in the sand. With the army of the devil, everything is clear, but there are many questions about Alais herself. If he is allowed to watch the film again, he will be able to understand everything, but who to turn to in order to ask for a repeat of the session and whether his request will be fulfilled.

Daniel sat motionless for ten minutes, waiting for someone else to talk to him, or at least that the exit doors would finally open, but neither one nor the other happened.

He was suddenly struck by burning jealousy for the actor who played Taor. This is handsome! A white-faced brunette with bright blue eyes. Doesn’t look like an Egyptian at all. And he played above all praise. Daniel, even in his best works, could not compare with him. I wonder what his name is? For some reason, his name was not indicated in the credits. And he is one of the main performers. Daniel remembered about the stupid Hollywood style of marking the first old but famous actors in the credits, who play only small roles, bypassing the main characters who were played by newcomers. This often caused confusion for the audience. But here all the actors except a few were completely deleted from the credits. There was clearly only one name. Starring – ATENAIS.

So she’s playing Alais? An actress who doesn’t even have a last name? The name seemed vaguely familiar to him. It seems that not so long ago it was very famous. Daniel saw him often in newspaper reports. He was not particularly fond of other stars besides himself, but all newspapers and magazines trumpeted Atenais for a while. She was at the peak of popularity, and then the press suddenly fell silent. After the tragedy. Daniel stumbled upon the recollection of one article like a sharp blade. Atenais died in a terrorist attack several years ago.

The guy felt that he could not get up from the chair. These associations struck me like thunder from heaven. It seemed that there was nothing to live for. Atenais is not the lively and capricious actress with whom fate will one day bring him on the set. This beauty has been like a corpse for years. Only her mystical image lives on the screen. She herself is dead! Why hadn’t he been so upset about her death earlier, when the news was fresh? Yes, simply because I did not watch a single film with her and did not know how beautiful she was.

They say love is like an arrow in the heart. He lived without receiving it, that is, without seeing the object of this very love, and when you see it, you understand that you cannot continue to live on. Everything is decided by one meeting, one glance, and life loses its meaning. Especially if you fell in love with a dead woman.

This is stupid. Daniel tossed his bleached strands of hair, and it fanned out over his shoulders. It is likely that if you wash off the makeup from Taor, he will be no more handsome than an ordinary guy. And it is even more likely that the early death of the actress gives the supernatural charm to the whole appearance of Alais. It was not for nothing that Edgar Poe sang the charm of the death of a young maiden, when death, as if by mistake, takes a girl too early. Those who died young and will never grow old acquire some kind of special appeal. And the impression left by the film is just the detrimental effect of an overdose of the twenty-fifth frame on the psyche.

And yet how painful! Head squeezed like a hoop.

Above the exit door, someone had just raised the curtain. The door itself is probably already open too. Daniel stood on bending legs. He sat motionless too long. How long did the movie go? An hour and a half, two hours? It seemed like an eternity. It is worth leaving the cinema, and he will find himself in the new millennium, and the golden creature will be waiting for him there.

The floor swayed underfoot like the deck of a ship. It only seems so, because the legs hardly obey. The cinema doesn’t seem to want to let him go.

Something stirred behind the curtain at the exit. It seems like a wing. Someone raised a finger to his lips, urging him to be silent. How beautiful this face is, and how cold it blows. It’s like drawing on top of the frame. Is this a poster or another statue? Daniel pulled the curtain with all his might and saw her – the star of the film.

To say that he was dumbfounded was to say nothing. The girl was the same. With or without makeup, but the look of Alais from the movie. The picture from the screen came to life. He had never experienced anything like this, although he quite often met women in his life, whom he had previously watched only in films or on TV. He had such a job, and he already knew how much the actresses live different from their ideal looks in the films.

Only the beauty standing next to the pharaoh in the film actually turned out to be even more beautiful. Pale, slender, graceful. The golden curls and eyelashes seemed to be natural, not dyed, no matter how unusual it may sound. What country breeds girls with such an unusual hair color and the grace of a fallen archangel?

“Did you play the main role in the film?” His heart beat like a bird in a cage.

The movie star is here! He didn’t even ask when the movie was filmed. Let even millennia ago. Get her autograph. For the first time in his entire biography, he would have asked for a painting, not from him. But where to get a notebook, a pen. The smartphone crashed at the entrance. You can’t take a selfie with it. It’s worth a try though. She dived into the shadows. Well, okay! He still wanted more from her than an autograph.

“Alais!” he did not even think that he called her after her heroine. It’s even good! It can be considered an achievement when an actress is called by the name of her character. This means that she performed the role perfectly. Another thing is the stars, who are known only by their promoted name and only thanks to advertising campaigns. She is no match for them.

“Don’t disappear!” he himself held the curtain that had slipped on the door with his hand, but the girl was already standing by the armchairs. The hall immediately became somehow dark, and the darkness behind her seemed to fold into two large black wings.

“You look like a jewel from an ancient treasury, thanks to the color of your hair,” Daniel never said such poetic words to anyone, but now poetry was closest to reality. All this is not a movie illusion. He saw golden scarabs adorning her shoulders and arms. A blush like ruby dust painted on her cheeks. Curls of hair like red snakes. Truly, it looks like a jewel that came to life and fled from the royal treasury.

“Looked – you will go blind!” a whisper came from the topmost row. There, on the back of a chair, is a winged animal. It hardly speaks well.

“Did you come for the next session?”

“I’m here all the time,” her voice rang out for the first time, and reminded the clink of gold coins falling to the floor. “And you are late.”

“At this time, everyone is already asleep.”

“Not everyone, someone comes here in search of adventure, and we delight them with films that are ready to satisfy the most demanding taste. Be that as it may, people get what they are looking for. But the entry price is sometimes too high for them.

“It’s not surprising if each session is designed for just one viewer. In such a huge hall,” he defiantly looked around. The animal from the upper row disappeared somewhere. “Do they show old films here?”

“Sometimes even the ancients.”

“I’ve never heard of such. A museum piece, a palace, a crypt may be ancient, but not a film.”

“You should get used to the local vocabulary if you want to watch something else from our film program.”

“I did not mean anything bad or judgmental. It’s just that in the places where I visited the cinema, even last year’s films are no longer in the box office.”

“Updates are regularly made here too.”

What did she mean? As in the already shot and edited film that goes to the cinema, you can make updates. Or was she talking about something else? In any case, the phrase sounded mysterious.

“The world is changing, the frames of films too. Nothing stands still, except for the cinema building itself.

“By the way about the cinema. Why is it officially considered closed? I heard there was some kind of tragedy? Something like a terrorist attack during an old premiere…”

She somehow became sad, looked away. Fans of golden eyelashes fell on her cheeks. Eyelashes are definitely not false, but how long they are. And the scarabs on her skin, as if alive. Are they moving?

“You need to live for today.”

Did she say that or did he just hear it?

“I’m sorry if I disturbed any bad memories,” Daniel apologized hastily.

“I have no memories. Everything was filmed a long time ago, like a film.” She nodded at the long-extinguished screen, on which nothing else was crawling.

Daniel scanned the rows of empty chairs. The feeling was as before, as if the golden monster was still in the hall, crawling between the rows and was about to cling to its legs.

“Truth, lies, hidden truths… Everything is not important until you capture it in the frame. People are interested in sights, not memories, and we give them more than they want. In a similar way, the desires of the public were fulfilled in the amphitheaters of Ancient Rome, only the audience there was not touched.”

“It’s hard to understand you.”

“But it’s nice to look at me,” she stepped towards him, and he was so frightened of what that he backed away, stumbled over one of the corner chairs and nearly fell. Looking up at Alais was the same as looking at a deity. She was all glowing, and the darkness behind her was forming into two patterned wings.

Something seemed to be crawling between the seats. Daniel heard claws scraping on the floor, he even saw suspicious claw scratches on the carpet. This is definitely not a cat scratch. Moreover, not five, but six claws were imprinted. There are no animals with six claws on their paws. Or has he just not heard of such?

His first agent liked to say that all actors are extremely dumb, but Daniel persisted in thinking of himself as an educated guy. And even if he managed to unlearn at the university only one course before he received a dubious offer to act in film, for which he dropped out. But he has a wide outlook, he traveled a lot, moving from one shoot to another, he managed to see a lot. But he had never seen anything like it. The cinema is unique. Maybe that’s why they spread a rumor about it that it was abandoned so that people would not besiege it in droves in the hope of peeping at the local miracles even through the keyhole.