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Chapter 1: The Lion and His Light
Leo's world ran like flawless code: silent, efficient, and utterly lifeless. His eternal soundtrack was the hum of processors and the ticking of system clocks. But one day, music breached this vacuum. First – a fragile, almost whispered line from a song: “Who cares if one more light goes out?” The question hung in the air of his sterile apartment, finding no answer. Then, as if in confirmation, another crashed over him – with a harsh beat and a refrain as clear as a verdict: “I am needed by no one, I need no one.”
These two songs became his obsessive mantra, the ringtone of an existential crisis. Now, looking at the sea of city lights, he didn't just think – he heard that question in a persistent, alien voice. He was sure of the answer. The world wouldn't notice one quiet "light" disappearing in a metropolis of millions. His existence was a bug that could be rolled back without a trace. And in this certainty lay a strange, chilling peace. Like a man who has finally stopped waiting for rescue and simply counts the last ticks before the program ends.
Chapter 2: Anna and Her Edge
Anna's world was different. Not sterile, but filled with the silence of a library, which she tried to drown out with music. Her "background" playlists shuffled through everything, until one day something struck her like a bolt. A sharp beat, a choked, strained vocal. She froze, listening to words that seemed torn from her own subconscious: “Hold on with your hands to the edge of the earth. Hold on with your last strength. Crawl from the mud, however you can…”
This wasn't a beautiful metaphor. It was a scream. An order shouted into the face of the despair she carried inside. The song spoke of a labyrinth and a monster in one's own head, and Anna recognized that feeling. She put it on repeat. Again and again. The words etched themselves into her brain, leaving behind a bare, harsh imperative – to hold on and crawl. It became her drill rig, her antidote to the silence that screamed of meaninglessness. When she lacked the strength to get up in the morning, she muttered through clenched teeth: “Crawl.” When the world seemed like indifferent mud, the command “Hold on!” was her only anchor. She didn't ask "why." She, like a skipping record, repeated "how." Even if that "edge of the earth" was the edge of her bed, and the "mud" – the sticky feeling of her own uselessness, which she knew all too well.
Chapter 3: The Decision and The Abyss
Leo's decision matured like a quiet, inevitable glitch. He sat before the monitor, and in his headphones, over the code, that same song began to play again. “Who cares if one more light goes out?.. In a sky of a million stars…” He muted the sound, but the question kept echoing inside. He could no longer pretend not to hear the answer.
He opened a tab for tickets. Typed random letters. Chose the first coastal city that had a train. A one-way ticket. Payment. An email to work about leave "due to family circumstances." It wasn't a lie. His "family" – the obsessive songs in his head and the emptiness in his chest – demanded evacuation.
That same day, Anna was weathering another assault. A random "How are you?" message from an acquaintance on social media triggered a wave of nausea. How was she? She was crawling along the edge. She turned her song up full blast, plugging her ears with her palms, and whispered in time, trying to drown out the internal noise: “Hold on… hold on… hold on…”
She didn't know that at that moment, a man was boarding a train carrying him away from his old life, in whose head played a different, yet harmonious soundtrack of despair. And that in two days, on a rainy Thursday, his question “Who cares?” and her command “Hold on” would meet in the silence between rows of bookshelves, and that silence would become the first honest dialogue in each of their lives.
Chapter 4: Arrival
The train arrived at dawn. The city greeted Leo not with sun, but with a thick veil of sea fog, swallowing the outlines of houses and masts. The air smelled of salt, fish, and dampness. He stepped onto the platform with one bag, feeling not like a fugitive, but a ghost materialized in an alien, indistinct reality.
He rented a room in a guesthouse with peeling paint, its owner giving him a fleeting, indifferent glance. “Needed by no one,” echoed in his head. He put on his headphones, but turned them off after a minute. The sounds of the real world – seagull cries, the distant horn of a ship, the roar of the surf – now seemed louder and more intrusive than any track.
He wandered the deserted morning streets, past closed cafes and sleeping shops. There was no purpose. He was a grain of sand blown here by the wind. His old question, once accompanied by guitars, here in this silence, grew quieter, yet heavier. He no longer posed it to a sky of a million stars. He simply carried it within himself, like a burden. He didn't care if anyone would notice his disappearance here, at the edge of the earth. He was almost sure they wouldn't.
By noon, rain swept in from the sea. Cold, fine, endless. Leo, having no plans, simply walked forward until he came upon the facade of an old, slightly gloomy building with a sign: "City Library." Shelter. Wait it out. There was a simple, meaningless pragmatism to it. He pushed the heavy door.
Chapter 5: Premonition
For Anna, this day was no different from the others. Morning began with a battle. To wake up. To get up. “Crawl,” she whispered at the ceiling, forcing her muscles to tense. At work, Tatyana Petrovna again talked about "prospects," and outside, rain curtained the world in a gray veil.
She checked out books, sorted cards, feeling the familiar heaviness growing towards evening. Inside, like a background track, her song played on a loop. Not the melody, but the rhythm – persistent, like a heartbeat under strain. “Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.” It was her shield against the library's silence and the noise in her own head.
When the downpour started, the library became completely empty. Anna watched the streams running down the glass and caught herself thinking that today even her musical shield was cracking. The feeling of loneliness wasn't sad, but physical – as if the air around had grown thick and viscous, and every movement required immense effort. She mechanically wiped dust from the nearest shelf, repeating to herself the mantra that today sounded a little more hopeless, a little more automatic.
And at that moment, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the door open.
Chapter 6: The Meeting
He entered, shaking raindrops from his shoulders. Tall, hunched, with the face of a man who was very far away. His gaze slid across the hall – not interested, but stating: shelves, windows, her.
Anna froze. Her hand with the cloth stopped on the shelf.
He didn't wander the aisles, pretending to be interested. He simply walked to the nearest shelf by the entrance and stood, staring into the space before him, not seeing the books. He was just waiting for the rain to stop. And in his absolute, frank detachment, there was something painfully familiar.
Anna saw not just a wet stranger. She saw a gaze that held the same abyss that was in her. The same weariness from an endless internal dialogue. Only if her dialogue was the command “Hold on!”, his, she felt it in her bones, was the question: “Is it worth it?”
He felt her gaze and slowly turned his head. Their eyes met for a few seconds. No smile, no embarrassment, no polite mask usual for such moments. Just a look into a mirror that had suddenly appeared opposite.
He was the first to look away, as if embarrassed by this mute exposure. Anna, without thinking, stepped out from behind the counter.
– Can I… help you? – her voice sounded hoarse from long silence.
He shook his head.
– No. I'm just… escaping the rain.
– It's here to stay today, – she said, not looking out the window. She wasn't talking about the weather.
He nodded, understanding. Then his gaze fell on her hands, still clutching the cloth convulsively. White knuckles.
– And you… work here? – he asked, just to say something, to break the deafening silence that had bound them.
– Yes, – Anna answered. And added, not knowing why herself: – It's quiet here.
He nodded again. "Quiet" – that was the only thing they both needed right now, and they knew it. He didn't go deeper into the hall. He remained standing by that same shelf, now looking at the book spines, not seeing the titles. She returned behind the counter, but didn't sit down. She watched his profile, his wet hair, a drop running down his temple. She saw not a stranger, but someone who, like her, was balancing on the very edge. Only he seemed to have already let go with one hand.
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