Unlike me, he’d had to watch as some of our friends were killed.
Shortly after Alexi’s last entry, military came into the town and began dividing people into groups. The first divide was between people that worked at the plant and those that didn’t. Brian, still appearing to be Alexi to everyone else, was placed in the plant worker group. This group was then divided into those that had participated in hunting parties for the monster or otherwise made official reports of seeing strange things, and those that hadn’t. This wasn’t said, of course, but Brian remembered enough of Alexi’s life to figure it out quickly.
Alexi and the rest of his group were interviewed extensively about what they had done, seen and heard. The interviews were conducted in what had been the mayor’s house, but it had now been turned into a military post of some sort since the supposed meltdown had begun. Alexi, sensing the direction this was all going, minimized his knowledge and participation in the hunting parties and denied ever seeing or hearing anything strange himself.
He was allowed to return home and see Alena. He described the strange love he felt for this girl that he had just met and the desperate fear growing in him that she needed to get away as soon as she could, even if it meant sneaking past the quarantine. She refused to leave him behind, however, and he worried that if he went with her it would just guarantee that they would get caught, as he had every idea they weren’t done with him yet.
He was right. The next morning they loaded him along with two dozen others into a bus and began heading toward the plant. When some of his coworkers asked about the radiation, one of the guards just chuckled, telling them there was nothing to worry about. Brian wanted to ask more questions—how could radiation not be a problem? how could it be safe to go up there at all if the plant was still burning?—but they had assault rifles and he didn’t want to test their good humor. Besides, he had realized something as they were slowing to a stop at the gate of the plant.
None of the guards were wearing radiation protection either.
****
The bus parked underground in Staff Lot B. We were all taken out of the bus and made to line up as a severe-looking officer approached. He said that we had been chosen for a very important task. That all of the details of the reactor accident had not been made public, and in fact, large portions of the plant were still operational. People had been brought in to maintain the plant temporarily, but it was a short-term solution to a longer-term problem. They now needed us to go back to work for the next few weeks until a more permanent resolution was found.
There were many confused looks and fearful murmurs at this. What the man was saying made little sense. If there truly had been a meltdown at Reactor 4, the proper protocols were to evacuate, stop any outlying fires or electrical issues from spreading to the core cooling systems of the other reactors, and then look at further containing and extinguishing the fire in Reactor 4. There would be no talk of running the other reactors normally at this point, or having more than the handful of crew needed to keep the emergency systems running so there was no further problems during the full shutdown.
But I recognized many of the men they had brought because they were not only my friends and neighbors, but workers that I supervised on Reactor 4. At first I thought they were just going to have them help on one of the other reactors, but as we began dividing up, I saw they were being told to report to their normal stations. Without any special instructions or suits, not even respirators or potassium iodide tablets.
Then they gathered the few of us left, the supervisors, together. Told us that they knew we had questions, but now was the time was for action and loyalty, not questions or fear. We all nodded and held our tongues as we made our way into the plant, and as we went deeper, I kept waiting for the smell of smoke, the heat of fire, or worse yet, the metallic tang on my tongue that I’ve heard comes from radiation poisoning.
But there was nothing. No signs of destruction or even disarray. I went through my rounds like I normally would, checking with every station, and everything seemed to be in order. Not only in order, but still running. There had been no shutdown of Reactor 4. As far as I could tell, the control rods were still in their normal position and there were no signs of a meltdown or any other incident. After a couple of hours I snuck away long enough to look at some of the readings for the past few days, but the logs for the past week were all gone. Aside from confirming my suspicions that none of this was what it seemed, it also troubled me for another reason.
If they were going to all this trouble for secrecy, would they ever actually let us go?
The answer seemed dreadfully apparent, and over the next few days, it only became more so. We weren’t allowed to go back to Pripyat or leave the plant at all. It was justified as “safety measures” and “security precautions”, but by the third day several of the men had had enough. Many of us gathered in the dining hall, and three of the most vocal dissenters demanded we all be released at once. After a brief consultation of who they were and how critical they were to the running of the plant, two of the three were shot dead in front of us. The third, a nuclear engineer named Dusan, was taken away in handcuffs and I never saw him again.
It was that evening, as I lay in my cot during my three-hour shift break, that I realized what I must do.
When I heard tales of the tunnels between the plant and Pripyat, I always wondered where they might be hidden. When Luka told me of the Bowl of Pripyat, my mind had turned to it again, but this time backed by years of experience working at the plant and familiarizing myself with much of its layout. I never had access to all areas, but I knew of only a few places that were likely spots for such a tunnel to exist.
I felt a rumble of nervous fear at the idea of trying to escape and being caught, but it was far outweighed by my terror at what might be happening to Alena every hour I was trapped there. I had found a forgotten letter opener the day before and taken to carrying it in my pocket just in case I needed a makeshift weapon. Tapping my leg to insure it was still there, I crept out into the hall and began making my way down to the lower levels.
I had assumed that I would encounter guards or some kind of resistance on those lower floors, particularly if there were a tunnel that needed to be kept secure. But oddly there were none. Normally this would have cemented my fears that I was on a fool’s errand, but I had been gripped by this strange certainty that the tunnel existed and I was on the path to it.
It was in one of the sub-basements that I found a heavy metal door standing ajar. I saw no one, but there were splashes of fresh blood on the concrete floor nearby, which might have explained the lack of any guards. My breaths came in burning gasps as I approached the door, terrified by what might be waiting for me beyond it. But what choice did I have? I had to at least try.
Pulling the door open further, I saw it led to a well-lit concrete tunnel that moved at a slight downward slope for several hundred feet before its path curved out of view. I saw no signs of guards or the monstrous thing I had encountered in the woods. In fact, other than a few more splatters of blood inside the tunnel itself, it looked relatively benign. Glancing behind me a final time, I stepped into the tunnel and started making my way down.
I walked for ten minutes before the tunnel started to change. I was deeper now, to be sure, but the rock was different here too. Darker and with an oily sheen that I didn’t like. There were still lights strung along as I went, but I found myself trying to avoid looking around any more than I had to. That’s why when I rounded the next corner, I almost ran into another massive steel door.
Like the last, this one was open. Pushing it further, I gazed into a large massive chamber that was lit by large fire braziers rather than the electric lights from the tunnel. In fact, it almost felt as though the light from the tunnel barely reached the chamber at all. Pools of shadow lay across much of the large cave, with jagged rock formations stabbing down from the darkness like the closing maw of a wolf. Aside from the braziers, the only real source o
f light came from what lay in the middle of them.
The Bowl of Pripyat was much as Luka had described, or at least as I had pictured it. Despite my desperate need to get home, I found myself drawn to it and the silvery light that seemed to be pulsing from inside like the beating of a heart. It looked to be made of some kind of metal, but…
It was then that the guard attacked me. He was already dying, but whatever had gotten his comrades hadn’t finished him off completely. Whether he thought I was his attacker or he was just determined to do his duty to the end, he managed to drive a knife deep into my side. He was talking nonsense as he pushed his weight against me, saying “держись подальше от зеркала”—“Stay away from the Mirror.”
I fell against the side of the Bowl, rolling my body away from him with enough force that he let go of the knife. Trying to fight off the cold shock I felt filling the right side of my body, I dug for the letter opener. Once out, I held it up to fend off any further attack, but it wasn’t necessary. The guard was already on the ground, his body contorting unnaturally as his bones snapped.
The monster was here.
I gripped the letter opener tighter, peering into the darkness as I felt my vision beginning to dim. My thoughts were growing stranger and more desperate as I felt my life leaving my body. I knew better than to remove the knife, but I had no way to stem the flow of blood from around the blade. I would never make it to Pripyat, never be able to help my sweet Alena. I would die here, alone in the dark with this dead man and the terrible monster that had caused all of this calamity.
Except had it? And even if it had, hadn’t it just helped me at least inadvertently? Knowing how pointless it would likely be, I found myself calling out into the darkness, asking the monster to help me. To help me get home to my Alena. There was no response, though I felt as though I could sense it out in the dark, watching me as I clung to the Bowl for support. In another moment I would be too weak to even stand, and then it would be over.
Turning away from the unhelpful darkness, I found myself staring into the glowing silvery liquid in the bottom of the Bowl. I had the distant thought that either the Bowl wasn’t quite as tall as Luka had said, or I had gotten taller. I almost laughed at the idea. Then I saw my reflection in the liquid.
I looked strange. Something…wasn’t right. In my addled state, I found myself suddenly obsessed with seeing my reflection closer, trying to figure out what exactly had changed about me. Using strength I shouldn’t have had, I pulled myself up on the lip of the Bowl. The next moment I was overbalanced and plunging face-first into the shining depths that lay at its center.
But I didn’t hit the bottom or die from whatever that liquid might be. I may have gone mad, however, for I suddenly found myself lying on thick carpet in a darkened room. I barely had time to sit up when the lights of twin crystal chandeliers blazed to life overhead and I saw there was a painfully thin woman wearing a business suit and a serious expression walking toward me from the edge of the room.
She came within a few feet before stopping and giving what I supposed was her version of a warm smile. Looking down at me, she spoke English with a strange accent I didn’t recognize. I understood the words well-enough, though they made little sense to me at the time.
"Welcome to the Imago Hotel, Alexi. I hope you enjoy your stay."
The Bowl of Pripyat: If you run with wolves, you learn to howl.
The sensation of reading the journal of my twin-self, this other mixture of Brian and Alexi, was strange. It reminded me of finding something I had written years earlier—it was unfamiliar until I read it, and then I remembered it again. As I sat on the train trundling its way from Kiev toward Pripyat, I remembered these events from this other life as I read them, and it shook me to my core.
The smell of fear and uncertainty as we rode the bus up to the reactor. The terror of watching some of our co-workers be killed. The growing certainty that we would never be allowed to leave the plant once they were finished with us because we knew too much. The cold smell of the tunnel that led down deep into the earth where the Bowl lay waiting in its cave like a coiled, subterranean serpent. The sound of the guard’s body being crumpled up like a piece of paper by the creature that lay in the shadows, apparently in an attempt to save my…Brian’s…life.
The touch of the liquid as I fell over the lip into the bottom of the Bowl…and then nothing.
As soon as this other me passed into the Imago Hotel, I had no further memories of what happened, even when I reread passages several times. The remainder of the account was relatively brief and the brief postscript only made my sense of unease grow stronger as I put the pages back into the envelope. We were now nearing Pripyat and the end of my journey, but I feel I should share with you that last account by the version of me that fell through the Bowl of Pripyat into that strange hotel ballroom. It may make the rest more understandable in some ways.
****
The Imago Hotel, as I came to learn, was a very exclusive, very secluded hotel in the western part of America. I searched the memories of both Alexi and Brian, but neither had ever heard of it before. Then again, only a select few were ever allowed entry.
The hotel was old and massive, with an air of elegance and wealth and history that was both wonderful and a little terrifying at the same time. Everything was in its place and everything was beautiful…but too much so, if that makes sense. The spotless marble floors, the polished glow of the wood walls and the artfully decorated coffered ceilings far overhead almost gave it the solemnity of a church, though a church for some unknown and alien god unseen in the minds of most.
I’m sure this all sounds quite melodramatic, and I ask your forgiveness on that point. I know I will fail in describing this place properly, but I feel I must try. And it should be noted that the oddness of the hotel only began with the décor. Far stranger were those that inhabited it.
After I found myself in one of the smaller ballrooms of the hotel, I was greeted by the owner herself—Angelica Lemark. She was a tall, very thin woman with bright, intelligent eyes and a kind of magnetism that made it easy to get lost in her voice when she was talking to you. If I hadn’t already been so muddled from my journey through the bowl and my growing blood loss, I might have drowned in the soft roll of her words and the deep, raspy warmth with which she intoned them.
But the pain where the knife had pierced me demanded attention, both from me and from a doctor. Showing remarkable strength, Angelica picked me up with seemingly little effort and carried me out of the ballroom and across a brightly-lit lobby. As we moved into the open, several other men and women came walking up, their faces interested but unconcerned. She told two of them to get a wheelchair while directing a third to wake the doctor and prepare the clinic for their new guest.
Even through the fog slowly filling my brain, I felt a stab of worry at this. What were they going to do to me in this strange place? How had I gotten here and what did they mean to do?
Then I was gently sat in the chair and Angelica wheeled me nimbly down several halls and into a large space that wouldn’t look out of place at the nicest hospitals in Moscow or America. An older man with a mustache stepped forward and introduced himself as Dr. Graham before easing me out of the chair and onto a nearby metal table. I felt myself tensing again, but he patted my shoulder comfortably. He told me he understood this was all very strange, but it would make more sense in time. For now…for now they had to make sure I lived long enough that I got the chance to see everything.
Three days later I was back on my feet. Angelica had come by several times to check-in on me, but otherwise I had been left to my own devices. I mainly slept, but I also read sometimes as well. I had grown used to my shared and overlapping memories, but I was still amazed that I was able to read and think in both English and Russian. While I was still worried about Alena and the others, it all seemed strangely distant now. And by the time I had been there a week, I hardly thought of them at all.
&nb
sp; ”It’s the hotel.” Angelica told me one day when I asked her why I wasn’t more scared or worried. I made sure I prefaced it with telling her how much I appreciated her saving my life, but she had just nodded and waved it all away with a laugh as she explained. “Not that you shouldn’t be happy to be alive and appreciative that we were here to help, but much of your…peace…is coming from this place. It is very special.”
She continued. “My family has always been very fortunate. We live a very long time and we tend to live very well. But out of all my kin, I was the one blessed with finding Mirror Valley. That’s what the locals used to call it because of the small, still lake that lies at the valley’s center. It’s perfectly round, perfectly calm. It was also the subject of many superstitions and folktales, as geographic oddities often are. Except this time…well, this time some of the tales were true.”
”I built my hotel on top of that lake more than a hundred years ago, both to be close to its untapped potential and to channel it. This hotel is my temple and my tuning fork, if you’ll pardon the clumsy alliteration, as it serves as both a monument to my system of belief and the means by which I exert my will in this world and others.”
She paused here, waiting for me to ask the implied question so she could have the satisfaction of answering it. If I wasn’t enraptured by the odd effect of her voice, I might have found it off-putting, but as it was, I just gave her the response she desired. “Others?”
She smiled with the practiced graciousness of someone used to getting what she wanted. “Other worlds. So many other worlds.”
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