The Curse of The Ancients. Quintarra

I stopped at the traffic light, nervously tapping my foot as I waited for the green. Surprisingly, the usually crowded street near our café was completely empty. We stood alone at the crossing.

"Sorry, I've been busy…" he began with his usual excuse. "Work, you know…"

A sarcastic sigh escaped my chest.

How many times had I heard that line already? And I'm the one being accused of not giving him enough attention?! I should've spat in his face long ago instead of trying to find a compromise…

"How was your day?" The unexpected question of concern nearly stopped me in the middle of the crosswalk.

I threw him a side eye and crossed the street.

Our apartment was right next block, which was actually the reason I'd chosen that workplace. Waitressing at a café sounds degrading at best, and not exactly a dream job — not that I saw myself working for anyone at all. But having to commute for hours on top of that? That would've been too much.

"Rough. Stressful. Dirty," I snapped, earning raised eyebrows and a furrowed forehead in reply. "It's Friday, so there were tons of people, huge lines, and hordes of kids running around like crazy. Two of them threw mashed potatoes at me with a spoon, and one even got me in the eye!"

I turned toward him and pointed a trembling finger at the reddened corner. Owen forced a smirk.

"I told you to get out of there ages ago. It's a waste of time."

"And do what?" His words made me stop. "Find another café? Go mop floors? Or sell myself on the street?"

"I don't know. Take some courses, learn something new…" He shrugged. "Get a job at a company, for fuck's sake."

"As a secretary for pennies?!" I flared up. "Serve coffee to rich old men and let them grab my ass?!"

"Isn't that what you're already doing?" Owen's sarcasm nearly made me lunge for his wavy, dark-blonde hair.

Getting a hold of myself, I took two short breaths and one deep exhale — just as Orin had taught me. Spinning like a carousel before my tired eyes, the rotten world finally settled back into place.

A wave of disappointment washed over me. The corner of my mouth twitched in a fleeting moment of realization. It was time.

"Why did you come?" I repeated my initial question.

"To talk. Calmly," Owen answered, closing the distance between us.

My breathing grew erratic again.

"You know that—" I started, but then Owen’s warm lips pressed against mine. His right hand slid through my stress-tangled hair, while his left gently rested on my waist, pulling me slightly toward him.

A spark of wild desire shot straight through me.

No matter how immature he could be, our sex had always been flawless. And my body remembered it perfectly, greedily begging me if not to take him back, then at least to let myself have this one more time.

My knees buckled involuntarily, and the smirk on Owen's lips told me he'd noticed.

God, if Orin was home — she'd kill me… But I'd deal with that later. For now… I'd had a very long, very stressful day, and I wanted to leave it behind as soon as possible.

Fumbling, I opened the front door, and we headed for the elevator.

This time, it was working properly and arrived surprisingly fast, so within a minute, our street kiss had turned more passionate and almost scandalously arousing.

"Alora…" he whispered my name, trailing kisses down my neck.

"Not now…" I replied, having absolutely no desire to hear whatever stupid thing he might say.

No. Right now, I didn't want to think about anything…

Just one night… One last farewell sex… And then we'd break up…

Another fake promise I made to myself.

By the time we reached the sixth floor, the elevator cabin was already hot enough to warm half our drafty building. Owen's lips kept sliding down my body, lower and lower, as if nailing me to the dusty, graffiti-covered wall. The bulge in his mustard-colored pants was so hard that I nearly ripped my own clothes off right there.

I'd almost forgotten how big he was…

A loud ding announced our arrival. Taking each other's hands, we headed toward the far door.

By some lucky coincidence, Orin wasn't home, so we dumped all our stuff on the floor and locked ourselves in my room.

It was exactly as I remembered it every lonely evening when the heat between my thighs reached its peak, and my hand inevitably wandered down, playing with fingers one by one, and sometimes with things a little more intricate… And yet, despite all my skill, nothing could replace the warmth of a burning male body, and that firmness that slid in and out of me, making me beg for more and more until the ringing in my ears faded and the cheap bed nearly cracked in half.

Relief washed through my body, making every inch of it tremble, when Owen laid me on my back, spread my legs wide, and got to work with that tongue of his — the same tongue that loved to babble about all kinds of nonsense, driving me up the wall.

But this time, he brought me somewhere far more interesting…

After tumbling around in bed for about two hours, we finally calmed down. Physically, at least. Mentally, the anxiety from the conversation I'd failed to have was pressing down on my neck like a giant boulder — one I couldn't bring myself to swallow, but also couldn't quite spit out.

To my surprise, Owen was the one who nudged me toward it.

"So, you really moved in here, huh?" he said, thoughtfully scanning my room.

There weren't many things in it as I don't like useless clutter. But it wasn't exactly tidy either… A dusty closet, only half full, a desk buried under notebooks and stationery, a couple of tops randomly tossed into corners — everything had its place. And it was truly mine.

"I didn't have anywhere else to go," I answered, putting on one of my clean black t-shirts with a neon geometric print — I had very few of those left, and they were worth their weight in gold.

This insane work schedule wouldn't even let me go down to the damn laundry room! In that respect, Owen was absolutely right. I desperately needed to change something…

He smirked, giving me an appraising look.

"What?" I asked, narrowing my eyes slightly.

"You know, if I hadn't seen you in bed, I'd think you and her were… you know…" He made the stupidest face I'd ever seen. "You get it."

"No, I don't get it?" I played dumb, nudging him toward the edge of the cliff.

If there had been even a drop of compassion or doubt left in me, it dried up irreversibly after his next words.

"Well, you've just been friends for so long and you're always together… If anything happens, you run straight to each other, like you're… a couple? I can't even imagine how you live! She's… You know…" Owen started spewing complete nonsense. He twirled his finger by his temple, smirking at his own observations. "You even dragged that shabby thing of a cat off the street!"

My face twisted with rage.

"Get out…" I muttered, barely holding back my fury.

"What?" he asked, propping himself up on his elbows.

I grabbed his things and started hurling them at him.

"GET OUT OF HERE AND NEVER DARE COME BACK! YOU HEAR ME?! NEVER!"

"WHAT DID I EVEN SAY?!" Owen protested, trying to dodge his shirt and underwear.

"YOU'RE A PIECE OF SHIT! HOW THE HELL DID I EVER GET INVOLVED WITH YOU?! YOU… YOU…" I was out of breath.

I pushed through it and finally let him have it… It was a long, fiery speech, full of cutting insults and throwing anything I could get my hands on at him. In the end, Owen ended up in the hallway in just his boxers.

"MY SHOES!" he yelled after me.

Without a second thought, I launched them at his head and slammed the door.

"YOU CRAZY HYSTERICAL BITCH!"

I had never felt so light, so hurt, and so amused all at once. I'd replayed this moment in my head so many times, expecting to break down sobbing. But the tears stubbornly refused to come. Instead, a hoarse laugh burst out of me, as if a mountain had fallen off my shoulders and taken my sanity with it.

I slid down the rough wooden door and plopped onto the floor.

Purring loudly, Silas nudged his way under my arm.

"Well, there you have it…" I mumbled, listening to Owen's furious shouts from somewhere behind the wall.

As it turned out, my cat had also decided to leave his mark on this situationship — just a bit more literally.

"FUCK’S SAKE! THESE ARE BRAND NEW!" echoed through the hallway as Owen shoved his feet into his pee-soaked shoes.

Chapter 3

The breakup went easier than I’d expected, but the aftertaste of last night still lingered. So, taking advantage of our shared day off, Orin and I went to a meditation session at a wellness center not far from Midwood Park.

"I don't think I can do this," I shared my doubts, remembering all my failed attempts before. "I'll probably just sit there with my eyes closed and die of boredom in a couple of minutes."

"Oh, come on!" Orin nudged me with her elbow, glancing at the neighboring brownstone houses. Say what you will, but Brooklyn's noble architecture never failed to please the eye with its aristocratic refinement.

That day, my friend was dressed more than hipster-ish: burgundy leather pants, an olive cotton long sleeve, and a colorful beret paired with her angular, nineties-style sunglasses. I didn't tell her all the details of our breakup — just the gist. But for Orin, that was more than enough.

Maybe she really was out of this world, but that's exactly what I liked about her. Because I myself, year after year, kept wondering more and more if I'd even ended up in the right place. If such a choice even existed at all…

"This way!" Orin's voice snapped me out of my sublime thoughts.

Following her finger, I spotted the studio sign.

"Laba-Daba?" I read the name with irony. "Are we sure this is the place?"

My friend uttered an affirmative "um-hum."

Grudgingly, I followed her.

Orin pulled the frozen rectangular metal handle of the glass door and confidently walked up to the registration desk, giving our names for the list. Where she'd dug up this place — I had absolutely no idea.

Waiting for her to come back, I looked around.

The new studio seemed brighter and more spacious than our previous one, with panoramic windows, angular mirrors that created a kaleidoscope effect, and lots of green plants in light-colored pots. They even had their own little coffee shop to the right of the reception desk, selling various goodies and Ayurvedic things, the smell of which had nearly knocked us off our feet as soon as we walked in. A bit heavy, but more than pleasant.

Patchouli stood out to me the most.

"Ready?" Orin bounced back over to me and nodded toward the studio hall.

This time, the session was led by a man older than middle-age, originally from India. Because of his hard-to-pronounce name, he asked us to call him Bobby.

As soon as the room filled up, the practice began.

There were about twenty of us, and everyone obediently followed the instructor's directions, whether it was slow neck rolls or long inhales and exhales using the square breathing technique that nearly made me pass out. I made a mental note that I really needed to get out into the open much more often.

But the most interesting part started when we lay down on the floor.

"Imagine your consciousness as an empty vessel. Banish all unnecessary thoughts…" The calm voice with a slight accent floated somewhere among us. "Silence and peace… Complete serenity…"

"Alright…" I said to myself, trying to fight off the skepticism. After all, the session cost us twenty dollars, and I was not about to let that money go to waste!

"Inner peace…" I repeated the cliché mantra in my head, fidgeting on the squeaky mat. "Did we turn off the stove? And we should have probably left some food for the cat… Good boy, stood up for all of us! Damn, what if the stove is still on and we burn the apartment down?!... What if we burn down the whole building?!... We'd never be able to pay for that! OKAY! Shh… Inner peace..."

I took a deep breath, scratched every itchy spot, and finally allowed myself to relax.

Truth be told, I didn't catch any Zen. Neither during the session, nor after my fight with Owen. That night, I had the same nightmare as always. Only this time it felt even more real…

I was standing in the middle of a dark desert surrounded by pointy hills. Smoky clouds gathered under a cosmic-purple sky, lightning flashing here and there as the cold wind kept whipping the frayed hem of my dark cloak… Looking down, I saw that my legs were covered in scars, and in my left hand I held a black dagger of a bizarre, sharp shape, stained with dried blood. Its appearance both frightened and fascinated me in the most inexplicable way… Behind me were endless dunes, and ahead… pure horror! Mountains of corpses lay before me — humans and creatures I had never seen before. All of them were dead.

I had killed them…

A loud sob escaped my throat. I gasped as if choking, then bolted upright on my mat. The people sitting near me flinched. A wave of whispering spread across the room.

"ARE YOU OKAY?!" Orin rushed to my side, feeling my arms. My blurred vision briefly registered her blueberry-green workout set as a dress. I'd never thought about it before, but she looked just like Merida.1[1]

"What… What happened…" I mumbled, trying to snap back to reality.

"You were screaming so loud, it was horrible!" Genuine worry was written all over my friend's face.

"I must have fallen asleep…" I guessed, wiping my red, puffy cheeks with my dusty hands.

Things like this had happened to me before. But… when had I drifted off? I'd only closed my eyes for a second…

"Return to your starting positions. Deep breath in… And out…" Bobby redirected the audience's attention back to himself. Once he was sure the alarmed stares were busy again, he leveled with me and gave my shoulder a light pat. "Come…"

I couldn't help but raise my left eyebrow, then frowned. My head was pounding like after a hangover, and my legs were humming no worse than an old TV that had lost its signal.

Easy for him to say…

Leaving the studio in complete silence and bewilderment, the unshakable guru escorted me to his office. An unremarkable light-colored door hidden in the far corner of the hall closed behind us.

"Tell me," he said, sitting down at a desk nearby. "Was it your first time going astral?"

My eyes nearly popped out of my head.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, 'GOING ASTRAL'?! I JUST FELL ASLEEP!" I laughed at his words, forcing out a sarcastic tone.

But the man's dark-skinned face was dead serious. He pointed to a soft armchair across from him and sat me down like an experienced psychologist.

Driven by curiosity, I obeyed.

Bobby's office was rather modest, as if he'd just moved in yesterday: bare walls, an empty desk with an old computer, and only a couple of seats, which struck me as odd — considering the cost of his sessions, he could have afforded something much nicer.

I sniffed.

"What practices do you do?" the guru asked, still insisting on his standpoint.

"None." I shrugged. "I breathe. Through my nose. Sometimes I try to meditate. But it's no use. I still can't get it right…"

Bobby listened carefully, narrowing his eyes now and then. After rummaging through his drawers, he pulled out a rather old and strange book of practices and handed it to me.

"Try this," he added, tapping the worn binding respectfully.

I raised my eyebrows skeptically, yet accepted the peculiar gift.

In my hands lay a small book with a dark, woven cover marked with purple hieroglyphs. Its pages, faded by time to a nearly orange hue, made me realize it could be five times older than me.

"What is this?" I asked, having no idea what I was supposed to do with it.

"Open it and you'll find out," the man replied, then quickly added. "Only at home! It's not for prying eyes…"

He waited for some kind of reaction from me, but got nothing in return. So, Bobby stood up from his chair and headed for the exit, only adding as he went. "If you have any questions — come find me."

I gave a polite nod.

The narrow door closed behind him.

Left alone with myself, it finally dawned on me: this was just an ordinary yet genius marketing move — pretend to be Yoda of a sort, make me feel special, give me some mysterious instruction in a language I clearly can't read, and then sit back and wait for me to come back to his studio for yet another practice. Judging by the number of pages in this manuscript, I'd just signed up for a year-long yoga subscription.

"Sly bastard!" I muttered under my breath, feeling used.

Sure, I could have not taken the book. I could have set it on the table, quietly left the office, and never returned to that money-hungry place. But something was pulling me toward it like a magnet. Wounded pride, or simply the basic desire to escape my boring routine for a while — even in a not-so-logical way. Whatever was on those tattered pages, it already promised a more interesting pastime than my usual evenings of binge-watching shows and staring at the ceiling, stuck in the bleak realization that my life was being wasted on nothing.

"Fine! Let's see what's in there…" I accepted the challenge.

Already changed, Orin found me after the session, and we decided to walk through the park, grabbing a couple of fruity popsicles to boost our mood. The day was surprisingly sunny for an autumn in the city, so we picked what looked like the cleanest bench and sat down to soak up the rare warming rays, surrounded by slowly balding trees.

"What did he give you?" my friend asked, peeking into my bag.

"Some book." I shrugged, biting into the creamy filling.

Noticing the corner of the cover, Orin's face changed. I smacked my lips loudly.

"What?" I felt uneasy, seeing her scared expression.

"Hide it and don't EVER show it to anyone!" she practically hissed in a commanding tone, covering the book with my knitted scarf.

"What's wrong with it?!" I protested, hearing that phrase for the second time in the last hour.

Looking around, Orin started whispering.

"That book is forbidden in esoteric circles. It's considered a grimoire of dark magic! Rumor has it, it was stolen from a monastery in Tibet and cursed by the very monks who wrote it in a possessed state. The cover is made of embalmed human skin as a reminder of the infinitely high price for the sacred knowledge and our insignificance compared to the vastness of eternal existence…"

I swallowed nervously, missing the melted drops of ice cream I'd meant to lick off — rolling down the waffle cone, they splatted near my leather ankle boots, staining my new jeans.

Not that I'd ever been superstitious, but I still tried to steer clear of folk signs and legends. Just in case. Especially when it came to artifacts.

"AND WHY THE HELL WOULD I NEED THAT?!" I stared at my friend. "DO I LOOK LIKE A FREAKING WITCH OR SOMETHING?!"

Orin rushed to calm me down.

"It's just rumors," she added, glancing around. "But sometimes there's a grain of truth in them…"

I shook my head, denying everything I'd just heard.

"It's just a book with hieroglyphs, nothing more!" I zipped my open bag shut. "Let's finish up and go back. He can have it and dance around it with a tambourine for all I care!"

My friend gave a conceding shrug. As much as she loved adventures, whatever might fall on us if the rumors turned out to be true didn't appeal even to her adventurous spirit — and I couldn't help but go with her gut on that.

I exhaled loudly and shifted my gaze to the people around us.

Dozens of strangers wandered slowly through the autumn park — some with their families, but most alone, or with a cuddly dog to keep them company. The loneliest ones were walking as many as five. Others preferred soulless gadgets as their companions, diving into the bottomless pit of "overwhelming success" and the latest trends pushed by perpetually and groundlessly happy influencers hiding their true faces and feelings behind masks.

"A sad sight…" I muttered, thinking about the weight of the modern world.

Orin seemed to be pondering over the same thing.

Unlike me, she cherished the idea of a husband and children, a little house in the countryside, a big garden with a flower patch, several dogs and cats, and maybe a flock of feathered chickens laying fresh eggs for breakfast. Yet, even being ready for it, family happiness stubbornly passed my friend by, making way for the years flying past her eyes.

Next spring, Orin would turn thirty. And I knew she dreaded that day with a shudder…

"Alright, let's go. We need to get there before they close." I interrupted the thoughts that could potentially send my friend into an early seasonal depression. And honestly, I wasn't far from another tearful episode myself.

Orin forced an awkward but grateful smile.

Crossing the street clogged with cars, we found ourselves on a busy sidewalk filled with ever-rushing people.

Capitalism and consumerism rule the world, that's for sure…

Scaring off a flock of pigeons, we hurried to the studio.

"Damn it!" I grunted, tugging at the locked doors.

"Weird…" Orin agreed, studying the sign. "They're supposed to be open until at least seven."

"What time is it now?" I turned up the sleeve of my dark cotton turtleneck.

"It's not even five yet," my friend answered, pressing her face to the glass. "It's empty. Completely…"

"Screw it. We'll come back another day." I waved my hand, not paying much attention to her words.

To our surprise, the studio wasn't open the following weekend, nor the week after. It had simply vanished into thin air, leaving behind nothing but lingering questions and taking with it everyone who could answer them.

Well, one person, to be precise.

I scoured the Internet but couldn't find a single mention of Bobby — who he was, what he'd done before. No address, no phone number, not even his real name. All we had left from that visit were memories and a mysterious book gathering dust on my nightstand.

"You still haven't looked inside?" Orin asked over dinner, cutting into a grilled piece of tofu smothered in barbecue sauce.

I shook my head.

"What's the point? I wouldn't understand anything anyway," I said matter-of-factly, finishing the last of my berry tea.

My friend fell into deep thought. As potentially dangerous as it might be, the book was nagging at her as much as it was at me. And naturally, in her scholarly manner, Orin found a way around the obstacle standing in our path.

"So… I dug around online and found this interesting article buried on the 'dark side' of some esoteric forum…" she began circuitously, carefully watching my reaction.

"Aaand?" I hummed, waiting for more.

"These hieroglyphs aren't exactly Tibetan. More like a combination of several languages at once," my Sherlock in stretched-out leggings shared. "Here, I'll show you!"

Jumping up from her seat in excitement, my friend headed toward the laptop lying on the table in her bedroom, grabbing a bunch of chaotic notes and scribbles in her notebook along the way. When she returned, Orin tied her curls into a bun and put on her square black-rimmed glasses for an extra dose of scientific credibility.