Ten days passed in the Republic in an atmosphere of muffled yet deep and anxious expectation. Discussing or commenting on the ultimatum delivered to the government was strictly forbidden, but the days remaining before the appointed date were counted with equal trepidation and apprehension by ordinary citizens and top officials alike. The feeling that something catastrophic was approaching gradually grew. The fateful tenth night had arrived.
Inside the luxurious building of the official presidential residence, which everyone had long called a palace due to its scale, they were also feverishly preparing for Hour "X" despite an outward appearance of calm. Security was increased several times over, and the perimeter was practically blanketed with new surveillance cameras. Multitudes of intelligence officers tried in vain to find even a single lead that could shed light on the identity of the man who had threatened the country's leadership on screen, or on his mysterious organization. How these "extremists terrorists" had been able to breach the state's most complex defense computer systems and hijack the broadcast networks of television channels also remained a total mystery.
The final, tenth day did not bode well from the very morning. President Konstantin had not slept well that night—he was plagued by nightmares that left behind a dull headache. Despite the urgent advice of his aides, he still decided to re-watch the recorded performance of this fanatic, a choice he later deeply regretted. The stranger's words left a sticky, unpleasant impression and for some reason kept spinning stubbornly in his mind. But more than anything, Konstantin was irritated and exhausted by that exact hypnotizing look at the end of the video. During the last few nights, the large, unnatural eyes from the broadcast had frequently forced him to wake up in a cold sweat, after which he could not fall asleep for hours.
President Konstantin did not consider himself a dictator or a tyrant who had illegally seized power. He had assumed this position as a result of honest—or so it seemed to him—elections more than twenty years ago and had invariably received the majority of votes in all subsequent ballots. Putting forward his candidacy for the presidency for the very first time, he had, of course, generously given campaign promises to the voters, guaranteeing the country prosperity and a better future. He had promised many things that afterward he simply could not fulfill.
Later, when he appointed his loyal friends to lead the Election Commission, and other reliable people carefully checked their work and the counting of votes, the necessity for loud campaign promises faded away on its own. If there were any irregularities in the vote counting, as those eternally dissatisfied critics claimed, then they were surely minor and purely technical, he reassured himself.
The complete control of the ruling political party headed by him in parliament, the government, and the ministries only strengthened his leadership role in governing the state.
Under my reign, the country and the whole people have begun to live much better, the President sincerely believed. At any rate, this was absolutely obvious if one looked at his immediate environment. His friends and relatives had grown rapidly wealthier, running the largest firms and corporations, supposedly creating jobs for millions of citizens of the Republic. And if the regular reports of the special services were to be believed, discontent in the country was expressed by only a small handful of outcasts and oppositionists heavily funded from abroad.
Of course, it was he, the President, who had personally ordered harsher penalties for any activities or statements against the State power ten years ago. Most of those who had openly expressed dissatisfaction with his rule had left the country, and many had been convicted under the new laws. The especially active opponents of the regime who ended up in prisons were subjected to forced "re-education" with the help of specialized medications. First, their memory was entirely erased; then their personality was restored, but with a deep, reverent respect for the State introduced into their consciousness. After this procedure, the people became completely different and barely even recognized their closest relatives.
Also by his decree, all newspapers, television, and the internet were taken under the rigid control of the Ministry of Information. Since then, the overwhelming majority of the country's population, according to regular polls, fully supported the activities of the government and the President.
Public survey companies controlled by the State and special services called mostly the relatives of current government officials and politely asked if they were satisfied with their lives and whether they approved of the actions of the Republic's leadership. And the answers were always perfect.
It seemed to President Konstantin that over the last few days, the administration staff and the personal security guards had been looking at him strangely—either with poorly concealed sympathy or with a quiet, lingering curiosity.
They're waiting for me to break, he thought with a flash of irritation. Idiots. There is no question of any possible resignation.
He did not believe in witchcraft himself, of course, and attended church services exclusively to maintain a flawless political reputation. And yet, giving in to the urging of his closest ally, Prime Minister Martin, Konstantin had agreed to extreme measures. Deep in the night, a popular psychic magician was secretly brought to the presidential palace so that no journalists or staff members would see or recognize him. The mage performed a series of rituals and assured them that he had established a powerful energetic defense around the entire residence, and specifically around the head of state. Just in case, a high-ranking church clergyman was brought in at noon; he sprinkled holy water, recited a prayer, and promised the president divine protection and absolute safety as well.
Today was Tuesday, an ordinary working day. However, President Konstantin asked his assistants to postpone all meetings, sessions, and official briefings until tomorrow, citing a sudden bout of poor health. He tried to lock himself in his office to work with documents, but soon realized it was entirely useless—the lines of text just blurred across the pages before his eyes.
To distract himself, he connected with his second wife, Cassandra, via video link and asked about the children. The twins, of course, were at school. He reminded her to continue packing things for their upcoming trip to Disneyland on their new yacht, just as he had promised. This yacht, built to his secret order, was more like a small warship, complete with a helipad, a missile defense system, and even a miniature submarine on board. Yet, unlike a real destroyer, there was a massive swimming pool at the stern, and the cabins were furnished with such luxury that even an oil sheikh would feel envious.
It was his long-held childhood dream—a blue, unattainable ideal—to travel around the world on a big sailing ship, to visit exotic foreign countries, and perhaps even live for a while on some desert island like Robinson Crusoe. Now, he was seriously dreaming of taking an extended vacation, leaving with Cassandra and the twins far away from this suffocating Republic, and finally showing the children the world.
Although his marriage to Cassandra was not officially registered, no one in the country would dare to call the former athlete and celebrated beauty the "mistress" of President Konstantin. Nevertheless, she lived separately with their children in a heavily guarded mansion nearby. He had managed to conceal his relationship with her for a long time, but when the secret was exposed a few years ago, it led to a high-profile divorce from his first wife, Gloria. Currently, Gloria and their daughter were living abroad under different names, under the vigilant supervision of special intelligence agents, having received an astronomical sum for her silence. Their daughter, Stephanie, who had been educated at a prestigious American university, had always openly opposed her father's dictatorial methods of governing the country. Lately, they hadn't even been on speaking terms.
As evening approached, Prime Minister Martin arrived for dinner. At the personal request of the President, he agreed to stay at the palace for the night. Together, they had built their political careers; it was Martin who had always headed his campaign headquarters and personally verified the necessary figures during the vote counting; this man knew everything about the inner workings of the regime. They tried to play a game of chess, as they often did, but the match quickly ground into a stalemate, and they agreed to a fighting draw. The men spoke on various abstract topics, carefully avoiding any mention of the primary reason they were gathering tonight. Everyone knew that at midnight, the deadline of the ultimatum presented to the country's leadership by that "crazy clown" or terrorist on the television screen would officially expire.
They drank two glasses of collectible French cognac. The President perked up a bit when the conversation turned to plans for the future. They firmly decided that immediately after the crisis, they would significantly strengthen the control and filtering of the internet, completely eliminating the technical possibility of hacking state computer networks, and make the punishments for cybercrimes explicitly brutal.
On the advice of the staff psychologist, who frequently helped top administration officials relieve stress after work, all the clocks in the palace rooms had been removed or hidden today so that their ticking would not weigh on their nerves.
"By the way, what time is it now?" the President asked, grimacing slightly. He mechanically glanced down at his wrist, only to find bare skin—he had taken off his expensive Swiss watch on the advice of the doctor.
"11:00 p.m.," the Prime Minister replied, checking his own watch, which was significantly more valuable than the president's. The hands were marching relentlessly toward the fateful mark.
"How fast time flies," Konstantin said thoughtfully and quietly, staring out into the advancing darkness beyond the window.
Martin stood up from the armchair and said in a low voice, trying to hide the gradually growing panic deep inside him. "It is time to go down. Security reports that strange fluctuations are being recorded across the entire city's power grid. The external jammers are operating at maximum capacity, but... we need to move underground."
President Konstantin made no reply. He rose from his armchair in silence, leaving his unfinished glass of cognac on the table. The heavy ache in his head had given way to a strange, pressing tingling in his temples, and that cursed image of Gabrillend's massive, unnaturally blue eyes still hung before his vision.
It's just panic. Nothing more than a mass psychosis, he told himself stubbornly, trying to soothe the sudden trembling in his knees. The bunker will withstand any impact. We are protected by thirty meters of reinforced concrete.
They exited the office, accompanied by the chief of personal security and four silent special forces operatives in full combat gear. The long corridors of the presidential residence, usually flooded with bright light, now felt gloomy and alien. The illumination had been switched to emergency mode, and dim red lamps cast long, ominous shadows against the walls.
At the end of the hallway, the special forces soldiers activated a heavy hydraulic system. With a deep, guttural groan, the massive steel plate of the elevator—the camouflaged entrance to the secret underground bunker—slid aside. This bunker had been built during the Cold War and was retrofitted with the absolute latest technology: autonomous life-support systems, food reserves designed to last for years, and deep-level air filtration. No nuclear warhead, no chemical gas, and no radio signal from the outside world could penetrate this depth.
The elevator began its slow, fluid descent into the depths of the earth. With every meter plunging downward, the hum of the outer world—the distant wail of sirens, the sound of falling rain, and the rustle of military patrol tires—faded completely, replaced by a sealed, vacuum-like silence.
Martin tightly clenched and unclenched his fists, checking the time over and over again. The second hand crept across the watch face, ticking away the final moments of a dying era.
With a sharp hiss, the elevator doors slid apart, revealing a spacious, sterile, and pristine command center. Dozens of monitors, connected to autonomous subterranean cameras, displayed the empty squares of the capital and the darkened residential quarters. All systems were operating normally, yet the air in the underground complex felt uncharacteristically dense and heavy, as if charged with static electricity.
Konstantin walked up to the main terminal and rested his hands on the metallic console. Less than an hour remained until midnight. In that moment, he happened to catch his own reflection in a dark, powered-down monitor, and he froze. It seemed to him that from the darkness of the screen, those same bottomless, hypnotizing eyes were staring back at him once more.
Alexey Petrovich woke up that day in an exceptionally good mood. Ever since his meeting in the park, he had felt an extraordinary surge of strength, as if he had received a direct charge of vital, foreign energy. He had also noticed that occasionally, just before his hand touched an object, a tiny electric spark would jump from his skin—like a miniature bolt of lightning. So, just in case, he started using his left hand when working on the computer.
The agonizing situation with his grandson, Anton, continued to worry him deeply, but recent events gave him a sudden, stubborn hope for a change for the better. Like most people in the country, he harbored immense doubts that the government and the President would ever voluntarily resign. Still, banned websites across the internet—which could only be opened by utilizing VPN services—disseminated reports of a massive number of citizens who intended to take part in the virtual protest of burning the President's photograph if he refused to step down.
The photographs of the primary culprit behind all their problems had long been prepared, carefully cut out from old newspapers and magazines, and folded into an envelope. Now, spreading them across the table, Alexey Petrovich looked down at the array, debating which one to choose. He had, of course, meticulously cut away any other people who appeared in the frames. On some sheets, only the President's head was visible; on the rest, he was captured in full-length portraits. Finally, Alexey decided that, just in case, and to guarantee the greatest possible effect, he would simply burn the entire pack.
After dinner, while watching the state news broadcast, he informed his wife that the scheduled protest would definitely take place, since no resignation had been announced.
"But still, it's not right—it's ungodly to burn a living person. It feels like some kind of black magic," his wife said with quiet disapproval.
"Firstly, no one is going to burn anyone alive, only a photograph. Perhaps absolutely nothing will happen to him," Alexey Petrovich objected. "And secondly, they were all warned. Step down, go somewhere far away, and take your foolish laws with you. Let free, democratic elections to be held in this country. There was simply no need to anger the people."
Of course, he did not discuss this topic with any of his acquaintances, friends, or relatives. In this police state, in times like these, no one and nothing could be trusted.
In the kitchen, where he intended to execute the virtual protest—or the ritual of black magic, as his wife believed—he carefully connected a corrugated smoke exhaust pipe to the ventilation shaft, reinforcing it with a small electric fan. After completing the assembly, he sat down at the table and checked his wrist. It was exactly 11:00 p.m.
How slow time goes by, he thought, staring intensely at the ticking clock hands.
The presidential palace was brightly lit, and guards with dogs patrolled the perimeter. In the parking lot in front of the main entrance, two fire engines and a government ambulance stood on standby. Security measures had been further intensified today on the recommendation of the presidential security service and by direct order of the Prime Minister, driven by intense fears of possible provocations or arson attempts.
At first, no one had wanted to take the threats against the country's leadership seriously. However, at the direction of the Prime Minister, aides had quietly gathered information regarding the physical possibility of causing harm to a person through a photograph from a distance—about influencing an individual from afar using his image. They sought any evidence of an individual being influenced remotely through their likeness, but no clear, undeniable cases of such phenomena were found. Only esoteric literature and books on occult magic mentioned successful rituals of this nature, describing a supernatural, mystical bond between a living person and their portrait across vast distances. Yet, the report also noted that certain modern scientific inquiries and paranormal experiments claimed to have proved the existence of such a link—an invisible, unexplainable connection that mainstream science could not yet comprehend.
After reading through the briefing, the Prime Minister had developed a vague, lingering sense of anxiety and dread over this alleged mass burning of the president's photograph.
Now, as he sat in the office of the underground bunker of the presidential palace with less than half an hour left before the appointed deadline, that unsettling feeling only intensified with every passing minute.
"Stop thinking about it at all," the Prime Minister said aloud, snapping himself out of his spiraling thoughts after the President asked about the time yet again. "It's just a form of hypnosis, auto-suggestion—a psychological trick. It was designed specifically for this, to rattle our nerves. I'm absolutely certain nothing will happen. Let's play a quick game of chess and go to sleep."
"Alright," the President agreed, beginning to arrange the wooden pieces across the chessboard.
The Prime Minister furtively glanced down at his wrist. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the dial. It was already twenty minutes to midnight.
How fast time has flown by, he realized with a sudden spike of alarm.
Less than twenty minutes remained until midnight—the hour appointed by the League. The entire city seemed to have fallen into a lethargic sleep, but this was no peaceful quiet; it was a suffocating, ominous silence before an inevitable explosion.
The government, completely consumed by total panic, had completely shut off the electricity to all residential quarters two hours before the deadline. The authorities hoped that in the dark, people would be unable to find the portraits or would be too afraid to act without any way to communicate with one another. Mobile towers were powered down, the internet was dead, and armored military police vehicles rolled slowly through the empty, pitch-black streets. Their powerful searchlights cut across the windows of high-rise buildings with a deathly white light, while a monotonous, mechanical voice blared from megaphones every five minutes: "Citizens, observe the curfew. Any use of open flame or subversive symbols will be treated as high treason. Shoot to kill."
Alexey Petrovich walked over to the window and cautiously parted the heavy curtain with a single finger. In the building opposite, through the slits of tightly drawn blinds, he caught fleeting, faint glimmers of light. Here and there in the darkness of the apartments, matches and lighters were flicking to life. People were sitting in the dark of their locked rooms, holding their breaths, clutching those very same photographs. The System thought that isolation and fear would break them, but they were wrong. Every single apartment had transformed into an isolated point of hidden, silent resistance.
We are not alone, Alexey thought, the realization triggering a powerful surge of adrenaline in his chest. We are those very drops. And right now, we are going to become a torrent.
I wonder how many people will take part in this protest, Alexey Petrovich mused. Does the number of participants directly influence the eventual result of their action? I suppose the more, the better.
His mind drifted deeper into the mechanics of the ritual. Or perhaps in ancient times, it was precisely the outcome of such a concentrated mental impact by specially trained people—priests—that made it possible to move huge blocks of stone during the construction of the pyramids and other gigantic structures. Indeed, even now, there are especially gifted individuals in the world. Telepaths or psychics who are capable of moving small objects through a mere effort of will, a glance, or the power of thought. It has been proven by scientific research. I believe it is called telekinesis or psychokinesis. If a single person is able to move a box of matches without touching it, what might a hundred such people achieve if they act in perfect unison?
He leaned against the window frame, staring into the dark sky. Some scientists suggest that special electromagnetic fields exist in nature—collective biological fields—through which information can spread among living organisms across the planet. The exact nature of these biological fields is not fully understood, although it is clear that they are associated with electromagnetism, operating at a more subtle level of quantum-vacuum interactions. This is called bioelectromagnetism.
As experiments prove, he reminded himself, the effect of this field of collective consciousness is exponentially enhanced when it unites a massive number of participants. It is this holographic information field of collective consciousness that forms the basis for all paranormal and magical phenomena, enabling influence from a vast distance.
Or maybe in times past, people could employ some kind of amplifier of mental energy inherited from Atlantis—an analogue to the Tesla transformer, which is capable of increasing the output voltage to several million volts with only a small input voltage. After all, a single person has very little physical traction force on their own. Yet in the nineteenth century, by joining forces, thirty or forty burlaks could pull a barge weighing a thousand tons along a river against the current.
It must be equally possible to combine mental efforts—the raw energies of human thought. You just need to know how. Some people must have possessed this knowledge in antiquity, but over time, it was forgotten or lost. Perhaps not by accident, but on purpose. In fact, this is incredibly dangerous knowledge. It is vital to rediscover and study the possibilities of the united mental influence of mankind. If a hundred or a thousand people think about something at the exact same time and with absolute purpose... what if a million do? It will soon be known whether something will work out. After all, any idea manifests itself at its designated, certain time.
Taking a few more breaths of the fresh night air, he closed the window and checked his watch.
It was 11:56 PM. Closing the heavy curtains, he turned on the exhaust fan and brought the metal bowl containing the photographs directly under the corrugated pipe. He lightly sprayed the paper with solvent to ensure rapid and complete combustion. Intending to mix the stack, he extended his right hand over the bowl.
Snap.
A violent blue spark burst directly from his fingertips, and the entire pile of photographs flared up instantly with a fierce, multi-colored flame.
"Wow... Blimey! But maybe that's how it should be," he said aloud to himself. He stared down at his palm, which was vibrating with a strong, deep tingling sensation and a barely noticeable blue glow was visible under the skin.
It seems it's necessary to utter an appropriate wish or a spell...
"So that you burn down," he whispered, watching the photographs writhing and curling in the intense fire.
One of the images shrank and deformed beneath the heat. For a split second, instead of the President's printed picture, a disgusting, grinning demonic face appeared in the flames. Then it quickly turned to ash, which was instantly sucked up into the ventilation pipe. Soon all the ashes remaining after burning the photographs of the head of state went into the sky.
Making another move on the chessboard felt entirely pointless. The Prime Minister covertly glanced at his watch yet again. From the darkness opposite him, the President's bloodshot, hunted eyes stared back. The older leader's silent, pleading question pressed down heavier than the concrete vaults of the government bunker.
"If I tell him the truth, his heart will burst right here, right before my eyes," the Prime Minister thought, panic fluttering like an icy bird against his ribs.
"Five minutes past midnight," he lied, though the luminescent hands on his dial had ruthlessly frozen at 12:01.
The President let out a ragged, wheezing gasp, leaned back into his leather armchair, and closed his eyes. The Prime Minister tried to follow suit, letting his own tense shoulders drop.
Suddenly, a strange, horrific sound shattered the silence of the office—a suffocating groan that twisted into a hoarse, choking shriek.
The Prime Minister snapped his eyes open and froze in absolute horror.
The President was staring directly at him, his mouth distorting into a silent scream. His gaze was flooded with a primal, agonizing fear and blinding pain as violent, blue-green flames erupted directly from the center of his torso, tearing out from beneath the fabric of his expensive shirt. His clothes charred within seconds, disintegrating into black flakes. The President raised a trembling, convulsing hand, silently pleading for salvation, and tried to scream or say something. But instead of a human voice, a solid, shearing torrent of fire sprayed from his throat with a guttural roar.
The doors burst open from a heavy impact. Out of nowhere, the panic-stricken bodyguards rushed into the room. One of them, completely losing control to fear, hurled a bucket of water into the epicenter of the nightmare, onto the President, who was now completely engulfed in the unnatural inferno. A thick, suffocating cloud of steam and black smoke instantly filled the air of the room. Through the thick veil came a malicious, furious hissing—the water was not extinguishing the fire; it seemed to be feeding it.
The piercing ring of the fire alarm began to wail, drowning out the shouting men and all other sounds. Another guard rushed forward, unleashing a steady stream from a chemical foam extinguisher to smother the human torch on the armchair.
However, it was completely useless. The hellish flame possessed an anomalous, chemically impossible temperature, fueled by an unseen, subterranean force. The powder and foam vaporized on approach, scattering into whistling, scalding droplets all around.
All the while, the Prime Minister sat paralyzed, clutching the armrests with a death grip, utterly unable to tear his eyes away from the nightmare. His knuckles turned white, and his mind refused to accept what he was witnessing. Only when the head of security shook his shoulder roughly, to the point of pain, did the politician break out of his catatonic trance. He leaped from his seat, and the sickly, sweet, nauseating stench of charred flesh immediately hit his nostrils.
"If I take one more breath, I'll vomit my guts out," his consciousness reeled with a violent gag reflex.
He clamped his jaws shut tightly and stopped breathing. Spotting a tactical respirator strapped to the gear of a nearby guard, the Prime Minister approached him, ripping it off without ceremony. He pressed the mask against his face and took a desperate, gasping breath. The filters failed—the disgusting, heavy metallic taste still bled through into his lungs.
The fire alarm abruptly cut out, and an eerie, sinister silence descended upon the bunker. Everyone stood entirely motionless, their eyes locked on the center of the room. The Prime Minister turned and looked.
The focus of everyone's horrified attention was the badly scorched armchair in the middle of the office where the President had been seated only moments prior. As the toxic smoke cleared slightly, it revealed what was left of the head of state. A black, heavily smoking pile of fine ash rested on the seat. His legs below the knees were shockingly, horrifyingly untouched—the expensive fabric of his trousers and his shoes looked immaculate. One arm, torn off by internal pressure, lay on the parquet floor. The other—charred to the bone, with black threads of burnt tendons—hung limply over the armrest.
A blackened, cracked skull lay in the corner of the armchair. Against the scorched bone and burnt skin, his white teeth bared in a mad, contemptuous sneer. His boiled away, film-covered bulging eyes remained wide open, forever fixing endless hatred and the agony of the nightmare in a permanent post-mortem grimace.