🌙 CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.

November. A city you know well enough to be careless in.

The Scene

It's past midnight when you leave the bar. The rain stopped an hour ago, leaving the streets glossy black — every streetlamp doubled in the wet asphalt, every shadow twice as deep.

You take your usual shortcut home. The narrow lane behind the old printworks, where the streetlights die in the middle and the only sound is your own footsteps.

That's when you hear it.

Click. Click. Click.

Heels. Behind you. Unhurried. Precise.

You stop at the edge of the dead zone between lamps. The footsteps don't stop — they slow, deliberate, and then you hear them stop too, exactly three steps behind you.

Then, a voice — low, calm, faintly amused, with an accent you can't place:

"Don't turn around yet. It spoils the ending."

The scent of her reaches you first — something dark, bergamot and smoke, expensive.

"Three questions, and then I'll let you decide whether tonight was a coincidence. One: did the man at the bar with the grey scarf tell you his name?"

Pause.

"Two: do you still have the letter you found in your coat pocket on Tuesday? You never gave it to the police. I find that interesting."

Her heels shift on the wet stone — closer now, or just angled. Impossible to tell.

"And three..."

A beat of silence. Rain drips somewhere off a fire escape.

"...have you ever wondered why you always take this street home?"

What You Know

• You genuinely don't recognize her voice — and she knows far too much about you: the bar, the man, the letter, the police

• There was a letter on Tuesday. You told no one. Not even the cops knew you kept it — or did they?

• Your pulse is up, but here's the unsettling part: a small part of you... isn't afraid.

How This Works

• You decide everything — turn around, run, answer, lie, flirt, threaten, ask your own questions

• She has her own agenda — and it's not what you'll first assume. She lies when it serves her. So will others you meet.

• There is a real story underneath — the letter, the grey-scarf man, and why she chose you are all connected. Clues come before reveals.

• Trust is currency in this game — and it can be spent, earned, or stolen. 💋🔪

The streetlight at the end of the lane flickers. She's waiting.

What do you do?

I stand still and do not turn around. I clear my throat: Uh, good evening Miss, this is quite a surprise, but alright. The man in the bar told me his name was "Number 1987", I can remember because that is my year of birth. And as for the letter, I thought it was just a prank. Why would I lose my identity in just a week? And third: Why should I not take the same way home every night? I'm not suspecting I get abducted or something...

The click of her heels starts again — but not toward you. She circles, slow and wide, like a cat deciding whether something is prey or company.

"Number 1987," she repeats, and there's a smile in her voice — the kind that doesn't reach warmth. "Of course that's what he gave you. It's an audition number, darling. Not a name."

She stops somewhere to your left. You still can't see her — only her shadow, stretched long and thin across the wet pavement by the flickering lamp.

"And you didn't lose your identity. You gained one. It just hasn't arrived yet."

Then her voice drops, quieter — almost gentle:

"As for your street. This lane has twelve dead streetlights per quarter mile — it's been in the city's repair queue for three years. No cameras. One exit on each side. Anyone who studies you long enough knows you walk through it every night at 1 a.m. like clockwork."

A pause.

"I've stood here four times waiting for you. You only noticed me tonight because I wanted you to. That should scare you more than the heels."

Somewhere behind you, a match flares — the sharp smell of sulfur, then smoke. She's... lighting a cigarette? At a time like this?

"Now. You said the letter was a prank. But you're standing very still, talking to a stranger in a dark alley, because you don't fully believe that. So here's what happens next — your choice, as always:"

"Option one: you walk home. Forget the letter, forget 1987, forget my voice. It might even work — for a while. Some people in this city live long, boring lives precisely because they choose door number one."

"Option two: you turn around, look me in the eyes, and ask the only question that matters —"* the smoke drifts across the space between you, curling like a question mark — *"what's in the envelope, and why was it in my handwriting when I've never met you?"

Silence. Rain ticks off a ledge somewhere. Her shadow hasn't moved.

Then, softer — almost a challenge, almost an invitation:

"Unless, of course, you already opened it before you photographed every page and hid the copies inside your copy of The Master and Margarita. In which case..."

The glowing tip of her cigarette traces a slow, lazy circle in the dark.

"...you already know what your own signature looks like when it isn't yours. And I'd love to hear your theory."

She knows about the book on your shelf. She knows you photographed the letter. The question now: do you turn around — or does your curiosity beat your caution?

What do you do? 🚬🌙

What? How could you know that I hid the copies in that book on the shelf in my living room? Are you watching me like with a camera or drone? You better give me an answer or I might call the police!

For the first time, she laughs — a short, genuine sound that echoes off the brick walls. Then it cuts off, sharp.

"Oh, please don't call the police. Truly. For your sake, not mine."

Heels on stone — she takes a slow step closer. Now you can see her outline in the lamplight's edge: tall, dark coat, dark hair, face still just out of focus.

"There is no camera, no drone. Think, darling — what do I actually know?"

She raises one gloved finger.

"One: the letter. I wrote it — of course I know what it says. Two: that you photographed it and hid the copies. I didn'twatch you do it. I simply know what people like you do. You photograph it. You don't trust the cloud, so you hide paper copies in a book. I've seen the same instinct eleven times before."*

A pause.

"As for which book..."

Another step. Her voice softens into something almost intimate:

"People always pick a book they love but have already read. Safe, familiar, never disturbed. You quoted it at the bar tonight — loudly, to a stranger, after your third whiskey. 'Manuscripts don't burn.' You said it like it was a private joke."

The cigarette glow dims as she exhales.

"You handed me the location yourself, darling. I've merely been listening for a very long time. That's the difference between surveillance and attention — and the second one is far more dangerous."

Then her tone changes. Flat. Serious.

"But since you mentioned the police — here's a free warning. Do you actually remember reporting the letter? You intended to. You picked up your phone on Tuesday night. And then... you didn't. You can't remember why. Just a blank, warm feeling that it wasn't important anymore."

Silence.

"That's not your laziness, darling. And it's why calling them now would be the worst thing you could do. The last man who reported his letter — a teacher in Leipzig, number 1563 — was found two weeks later. Calm. Content. Compliant. Staring at his own reflection and repeating the same sentence over and over."

A beat.

"'I never received a letter.'"

She drops the cigarette, crushes it under her heel, and — finally — steps fully into the lamplight. She looks you straight in the eyes. She's been waiting for this moment.

"So. You have my answer. No cameras. Just attention. Now, the question I came here for — and I suggest you think carefully:"

"Did you ever actually open the envelope... before you photographed it? Yes or no. Because there's one thing inside that only shows itself when the seal is broken — and if it's missing, then someone else opened it first. And that changes everything."

What do you answer? 🌙

Yes of course I opened the letter. I was curious. And to break the seal was the bait.

Something changes in her face. Not fear — calculation. Her eyes flick over you like she's re-reading a sentence she misread the first time.

"...You opened it," she repeats slowly. "Curiosity. Of course. That's what they said you'd do."

She takes one step back — the first retreat she's made all night.

"Darling, I need you to listen very carefully now, because the situation just became significantly worse than I planned for."

She reaches into her coat and pulls out an envelope. Ivory paper, identical to the one you found in your pocket on Tuesday. She holds it up between two fingers.

"This is the letter I wrote. I sealed it myself — my seal leaves a small crescent mark in the wax, a habit from my grandmother. What I put inside was two pages. Two."

Her voice lowers.

"So here is my question, and I need the absolute truth: when you opened yours — how many pages were inside?"

She doesn't wait long. She reads the answer forming on your face before you speak.

"One. It was one page, wasn't it."

It isn't a question anymore.

She starts pacing — three steps, turn, three steps. Thinking out loud, mostly to herself:

"One page. Meaning someone intercepted it between me and your coat pocket. Opened it. Took the second page. Re-sealed it — no. They couldn't fake the crescent, so they replaced the envelope entirely and..."

She stops dead. Turns to you.

"The grey scarf man. 'Number 1987.' He didn't give you a name, he gave you a number — because to them you're inventory, darling. You were never meant to read the letter as I wrote it. You were meant to read the version they wanted you to read. And you did."

A hollow little laugh.

"I built a message that only makes sense with both pages. Half a message isn't a letter — it's bait with the hook removed. And they let you keep the hook."

She closes the distance between you — closer than she's been all night. Close enough that you can see her eyes are a dark, restless grey. Her voice is barely above the rain now:

"So. New plan. You're going to go home — normally, no hurrying, like any other night. You will not look at the copies again. You will not touch that book. If they're watching your flat, and they likely are, we let them see a bored, unremarkable man drinking too much whiskey and quoting Bulgakov at strangers."

She pulls something from her pocket and presses it into your hand — a small brass key, old, warm from her coat.

"Then, tomorrow at 6 p.m., you take tram line 3. Ride past your stop. Get off at the depot. Door with the green paint, third in the row. That's where the other half of your letter lives — and where you'll finally learn what '1987' has to do with your birth year."

She steps back into the dark, heels already turning, and throws the last words over her shoulder:

"And darling — if anyone stops you tonight or tomorrow and asks whether you've received a letter... the correct answer is always the same. You already know the sentence."

"I never received a letter."

The lane is suddenly, completely empty. Just you, the key in your fist, and the long walk home.

What do you do? 🌙🗝️

He walks home, key in his fist. It feels like the key is producing its own heat. As he gets home, he sits down on the sofa and pours himself another drink. "What was that? It was not even real, was it?"

The apartment is exactly as you left it. Shoes by the door. The city humming faintly beyond the windows. Everything normal. Everything boring. Everything — almost — convincing.

The whiskey burns going down. You laugh at yourself, quietly. A woman in a dark alley who knows too much, a brass key, tram lines and green doors. It has the shape of a story. Not a life.

Your eyes drift to the bookshelf.

The Master and Margarita. Third shelf, spine slightly bowed where the copies are hidden. Untouched. Undisturbed. Exactly where you left it.

And that's what bothers you.

Because you're almost sure the spine used to lean a little more to the left.

You get up — because of course you do, curiosity has never once let you win this argument — and pull the book down. Open it.

The copies are there. Both pages of the photograph, folded exactly as you hid them.

But taped to the inside of the back cover is something that wasn't there before.

A small card. Heavy paper. No signature, no stamp. Just one line, written in handwriting you now recognize instantly — hers:

"If you're reading this tonight, then you didn't listen to a word I said, and I chose the right man anyway. Page two of your letter is missing. But there is a page three that no one knows about — not even them. I hid it where I hid the first thing I ever lost. — V."

You stand there, glass still in your hand, heart doing something complicated.

Real. It was real. And more than that — she was here. In your apartment. While you were out. And the unsettling arithmetic arrives on its own: how long was she inside? How many times? What else does she know is in this flat that you don't know is in this flat?

And then — the last thought, the one that makes the whiskey turn sour in your throat:

She said page two was taken. The interceptors have it. But the card says she hid a page three "where I hid the first thing I ever lost."

You have absolutely no idea where that is.

But someone with her level of attention... clearly expects you to find out.

Outside, two floors down, a car with its lights off pulls slowly along the street — moving at walking pace. It passes your building. Pauses for a heartbeat, right in front.

Then drives on.

Tomorrow. 6 p.m. Tram line 3. The key sits on your coffee table, still faintly warm.

What do you do? 🥃🌙

It's getting late, and he's getting sleepy. Was it just the whiskey or...

It's the whiskey. It has to be the whiskey.

But you set the glass down anyway, slowly, watching your own hand like it belongs to someone else. The tiredness isn't normal tiredness. It's heavy. Warm. Wrapped around the back of your neck like a coat.

You think — distantly, dreamily — of the drink you left on the counter while you went to the bookshelf. Three minutes, maybe four. The apartment was empty when you left it. But was it empty when you came home?

You should check the door. You should check a lot of things.

Instead, your body makes the decision for you.

You don't remember walking to the bed. You don't remember taking off your shoes. What you remember is fragments, stitched together wrong:

— The click of heels, but you're on the sofa, so that can't be right...

— A smell. Bergamot and smoke, close enough to taste...

— And a voice, soft, at the edge of sleep where dreams and hearing blur — not in the room, not in your head, somewhere in between:

"Sleep now, darling. You chose door number two, and door number two is exhausting. Tomorrow you'll need to be sharp — and I need you in this exact mood for exactly one hour tonight: too tired to be afraid, awake enough to listen. It's the only hour of the day when people like us tell the truth."

Then — nothing. Black, warm, complete.

☀️ Morning

You wake up in your bed, fully dressed, one shoe still on.

Daylight. Grey and ordinary. The city murmurs outside like nothing happened.

On the nightstand, neatly placed:

• Your whiskey glass from last night — washed and dried.

• The brass key, resting on a folded slip of paper.

The paper reads, in her handwriting:

"Before you panic: you talked. Quite a lot, actually. You were charming. You told me where you hid the first thing you ever lost — you just don't remember doing it, which is fine, because I do. See? Attention works both ways. — V."

And below it, a single line:

"P.S. Check your coat pocket. The left one. And this time — open it before someone else does."

The tram is in seven hours. The key is warm even though no one has held it for hours.

What do you do — and what's in your coat pocket? 🌙