Path part 1-6

"He's dead!" Uncle Coel states the fact.

He walks up to the tree, raises his head and says:

"Why are you there? Nain get off, I killed him. Do you hear me?"

In response, only rustles are heard, no response, no greetings.

"Zhen," he says, "Get down after her, she looks too scared."

He lifts me up, and I begin to climb the tree, closer to the top I see Nain, she clings to the trunk, squeezed her eyes shut and trembles slightly.

"Ning", I whisper, "No matter what", I touch her hand. "She shudders and opens her eyes, horror reigns in her emotions."

"Jeanne," she says in a vibrant voice, "And where is THIS ONE?!" She closes her eyes again., "THIS Terrible, Scary, Huge...!?"

"He's lying dead down there, and Uncle Kol shot him with a carbine."

"IS-S he REALLY dead?!"

"That's right, that's right, I saw it myself. Let's get off."

"But you can! I'll stay here for a while, eh?!"

"It's not impossible, you'll freeze autumn already."

"Come on, coward." I whisper.

"She's a coward herself!" Nain whispers back, "But I'm scared!"

But he starts to slowly descend from the tree, Uncle Coel picks us up at the bottom, Nain hides behind my back and stares at the dead snufl with all his eyes.

"He's even dead, scary!" Nain whispers loudly.

"That's right, baby," Uncle Coel replies "I'm going to get dressed, otherwise I'm still wearing sneakers! He-he, that must be a sight." And he goes into the house.

In the evening, my father told me how the snuffle entered the village, the door closer flew on the gate in the fence and it did not close with a magnetic lock, but the creature, stomping along the fence, noticed a gap and got through. As if out of spite, the brothers took Polkan with them to the city, and in general, the only adults in the village were Uncle Coel and Aunt Kaadi, but she was asleep, because she was pregnant again. Uncle Coel laughingly told how he dozed off with a book, but was maliciously woken up by a wild two-voiced childish squeal from the street!

So that's why my ears were ringing and my voice was dead! So that's why my ears were ringing and my voice was dead! Then his daughter ran past him and hid under the kitchen table! Grabbing a carbine from a closet, he ran out into the street in his clothes, and shot Snufla, who had entered the village. They find it funny, but I've never been so scared in both my lives! And the girls were terrified. I said that I want hats to be sewn from his skin, that should be enough!

The elders agreed, laughing.

"Good compensation for fright!" Uncle Coel said.

Chapter 6. Eugene (Mendoir, December 2358)

Surprises for Christmas.

December 24, 6:00 a.m.

I'm doing gymnastics by the window, and behind it it's snowing, soft and fluffy from large snowflakes. In my previous life, I didn't like winter, but now I adore it. Maybe it's because it's mild on Mendoir, the temperature hardly drops below minus five degrees Celsius, there's a lot of snow, and since there's no wheeled transport, there's no problem with travel. Of course, my father cleans the snow at the garage and in the yard, but that's all. Our village is illuminated by lanterns, they walk along the fences in three-meter increments, so everything is beautifully illuminated, since the lighting is automatic, it turned on after dark, turned off after dawn. Today is Christmas, what a holiday! People have been in space for centuries, they have mastered other worlds, we are neighbors with alien races, and they still celebrate Christmas! And that's it! That's a twist of consciousness, and the other races don't mind. They celebrate with people. Well, at least here on Mendoir.

They say they celebrate at the Citadel too, well, they celebrate everything there! All the holidays of all the races of space, a never-ending holiday! I'll probably see you sometime... At the intersection, my parents, with our common children's help, built an ice town, a spiral slide around a tree, and ice statues (Tael handmade).

He has a talent for this, although Santa Claus looks like a Quarian, only bearded! Here's a joke, Tael himself doesn't grow a beard. An artificial Christmas tree was put up, toys were hung, half of them were homemade. The garlands are also homemade, half of the village is considered engineers. As my father said:

"I'll spend money on it if I make it better myself!

And he did. Standing at the intersection, the light is clearly visible from the window.

The Turian brothers will come by in an hour and we'll go to the school pool, learning to swim! I promised damn, now I'm taking it easy! Things are going badly, the brothers still can't cope with fear, it's hard for them to overcome their nature. Nain seems to be small, and she trusted me very much, so things went quickly with her, but with her brothers everything is hard. Uncle Duck looks at this case, travels with us and keeps a magazine. In general, normal scientific work, as he says, whether or not I can overcome my Turian nature. If I can, he'll send the job to Palaven, let the others have a headache. Nain also travels with us, trains and works as a living example. Since it's the holidays, we'll return home after the pool, we need to read the vacation assignment, and practice with the girls in the "Base".

By the way, we started learning languages in mid-November, I thought that as we would, the teacher says we repeat, but we don't! They brought him to a room with comfortable upholstered chairs, sat him down, put on soft hats with a thick harness connected to them, and opaque glasses over his eyes. We're all sitting there waiting for a carousel of colored spots, symbols and other incomprehensible nonsense with glasses, and there's a strange itch in my head, so we sat for ten minutes and admired the pictures and it was over. We returned to the group, and our teachers started talking to us, and I suddenly realized that they weren't speaking Russian, but everything was fine.

I asked Rien how it turned out, and she replied that what they did to us was called mentoring, and that chair with a cap and glasses was a mnemograph, a device for recording information directly into the brain. And we'll have to be friends with him until graduation. And many after that. Russian and basic Galactic have already been taught for two sessions, so we're all writing and reading fluently now, although I knew Russian well enough, it's true that it's much better now. They offered me a choice of other languages, I'm leaning towards an English course to consolidate, and I'm deciding between Turian and Asari. I haven't decided yet. In our day, such a device would be a fairy tale, not a study, but you need to consolidate what you have received so that you don't forget it, well, it's not for others.

More dreams have come! Strange, sometimes amazing, sometimes scary, in which I see places where I've definitely never been. In these dreams, I am often haunted by a strong sense of loss, fear, and anger.

I especially often have a dream in which I walk through our city park, I'm wearing a hunting jumpsuit like my father's with thick inserts on the knees and elbows and with lots of pockets. My father's carbine is in my hands. His hands were scratched, his knuckles were bloody, one nail was broken, and his combat jacket was stained with brown spots, dirt, and grass. I wander between the trees and look for my own, but there is no one, I call, I scream, but I only hear rustling, there is fog in the park, the trees appear like ghosts! All of a sudden I find myself in our village, strangely quiet and deserted, walking past the Tanir house, the parked Dakar flyer is covered with leaves, Ham's bike is covered with mud and covered with dust, despite the fact that Ham is a terrible cleaner in life and his bike always sparkles. I see Nino's hefty, once snow-white teddy bear, given to her by my father, now lying gray from dirt in the dust by the path, staring with his blue glass eyes at the misty sky. It's amazing, she never takes him out of her room! Ray's house is opposite, it's locked, the shutters are closed and the red hologram of the castle is burning, the flowers in the flower beds around the house are wilted and blackened, the rose bushes are like dark skeletons with no flowers or leaves on them. The swing is broken, hanging on one chain, the second is coiled like a silver snake in the brown grass, and the seat is slowly rotating around its axis in the wind, making a soft, barely audible creak. Rigard's house stands with the airlock open, and fallen leaves are blowing across the hallway floor. I slowly walk around it, I see that the bay window is broken and small glass crumbs have covered everything around. Tael's favorite armchair is lying on its side with the upholstery torn. The Natols have darkness and silence, the windows are black and look like holes in the darkness, the holograms of the castles are not lit, the wind is blowing sheets of paper around the front garden, there are drawings on them, I try to collect them, but each time the sheets are blown away before I can grab them. Here is our house, but there is no one in the courtyard, it is empty inside and it seems that everyone has just left, the holovision is working, a cup of tea is floating on the coffee table, the guys in the room have a guitar on the bed and the turned-on datapads are lying around. My father has a cooler turned on in his office and the sensor pads are on the edge of the table. There is a cold, growing, aching, acute feeling of loss in my chest!

The first time I had a dream, I woke up screaming and couldn't sleep anymore. After that, I looked at my family all morning and couldn't get enough of it, the thought was beating in my head — Really! Am I really going to lose them, for what?! No! Please, not again!

Standing in the shower under the hot, taut jets of water, I remember the conversation between my mother and Ray that I overheard that day. It was Sunday and the whole family was at home, my father, as always, was sitting in the study at a stewpan, the older brothers had gone somewhere, Ivan was sitting in his room and enthusiastically assembling something from Lego bricks. I got tired of reading, and my throat was dry. When I went downstairs, I decided to go into the kitchen for compote and found the beginning of a conversation at the locked door.

"Dayan, what are you worried about! You have the most ordinary daughter. An absolutely healthy child, smart, active. The most important thing is obedient! What are you unhappy about?! I don't understand?!"

"Ray! She scares me! Sometimes it seems to me that she is not a child, someone else is looking at me from her eyes, an adult! You know, a four-year-old girl can't have that look!"

Oh! It looks like I've burned down to the fullest! We have to get out somehow! But how? Okay, let's hear it further...

"Don't talk nonsense! What are you imagining! You didn't like the look! You do remember that she has an absolute memory, right?!"

"Well, I remember. What does that have to do with it?"

"And yet! She doesn't forget anything. She just remembers everything! Every day, every hour, every minute of your life! Just imagine yourself in her shoes. Remember EVERYTHING!"

"Oh my God Ray! This is terrible!"

"Plus, you know she's an empath! She feels us all, all our feelings, every emotion, and with her memory!"

"Ray! It's just a nightmare! How did she not lose her mind?!"

"She's been like this since she was born! He doesn't know any other life. It's normal for her."

EH. If only that were so! That's the thing, I know! And that makes it even more bitter. The fact that I'm an empath has been known to my family since six months ago. Then my parents quarreled, I don't know for what reason. Only I, who was sitting in my room, suddenly felt such a wave of emotions, anger, resentment, even hatred. It hurt me! I rushed downstairs, my parents were standing in the living room and silently looked at each other, pouring this emotional cocktail all around! Standing between them, I began to ask them in a low voice to stop, I said that I could feel everything and it was hurting me. As a result, she sat down on the carpet and just burst into tears. They rushed to me, hugged me, and questioned me. Sobbing, I buried my face in my father's chest and told him everything about memory and empathy! Confusion and anxiety mixed in the feelings of the parents, the father whispered softly:

"I need to tell Ray, maybe she can help." But Ray couldn't help, she was stunned by the news.

"No Ray, it's not okay! This is really, really not okay Ray! My poor daughter! Today at breakfast, she sat and looked at us as if she couldn't see enough, as if we were going to disappear, and there was such longing in her eyes..."

"Maybe something happened to Dayan?! Did you even ask her?! Maybe I had a dream about some kind of trash!"

That's the moment. I'll tell you about the dream now, at least some of the questions will be removed. She pressed the sensor, the door slid open, went into the kitchen, greeted Ray. I took a decanter of compote from the table and poured it into a glass. I stood there, drinking and looking at the women.

"My daughter?! Tell me, why did you look at us so strangely this morning!?"

"I had a terrible dream, Mom!"

"Tell us about it." Ray said.

So I told my dream, and I ended it almost in a whisper, saying that I was sure it would be like that. I look at my mother with her hands over her mouth, tears in her eyes, fear for me and pity in her emotions. Ray, he's sitting there, frowning, looking at me with sadness.

"You're a Seer, Zhenya." Ray speaks softly.

"The Seer!?" Mom jumped up.

"Among our people, those who can see the future are occasionally born, their visions are vague and often contradictory, but as they age, they can somehow extract useful things from their dreams. They warn others about the dangers that threaten them, and they also have extremely developed intuition, that's what they are called Seers." Ray told us.

Mom came up to me, hugged me, and said in a low, broken voice.

"It's not enough for you, my little one, your memory and empathy, but also this trash, who doesn't love you so much in heaven that he put it all on you."

I know who it is! But I won't tell you, Mommy, I'll never tell you, this burden is not for your shoulders. I'll carry this cross myself. What gifts the VOICE has, either gifts or curses! I hear the terminal chirping, and I come out of my memories. 6:45 a.m. In 15 minutes, the Tanirs will arrive and go to the pool to teach Ham and Tam to swim.

Well, things finally got going, and I swam there, cautiously so far, not swimming into the depths, but already quite confidently. Ham, looking at such a case, seemed to redouble his efforts, clenched his teeth, and periodically I heard him whisper lying on his back — I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid... Uncle Duck was scribbling in his datapad, taking pictures with a omny-tool, talking into it. Puffing around with concern mixed with surprise and delight.