One

The old telephone, which had not worked for more than thirty years, began to ring and broke the grave silence in a house on the outskirts of the town by the Laborec River in Michalovce. Paul, a forty-year-old local bank employee, couldn't open his eyes, so he just lay there and heard the monotonous ringing of the phone. He was cold, because the heating in the ground floor house, where he has lived with his family for more than ten years, does not work. For unknown reasons. A stocky man with thin glasses on his eyes, a father of two daughters who are still elementary school students, sat down slowly on the bed. There was a strange twilight in the house, but no wonder, as it was December 20, 2019. Paul was examining an old telephone, remotely attached to a shelf on the wall, which kept ringing. He stood up slowly, walked over to the phone, and considered picking up the phone. Since the ringing did not stop, he decided to pick it up. A strange, veiled, but at the same time calm male voice came through the receiver: "Have you woken up yet? Today it all starts ..."

Although Paul did not understand the meaning of these sentences, a bad premonition overwhelmed him and he pressed his heart. But he caught his breath and asked the stranger, "What will begin today? And who are you? Why are you telling me? "There was a moment of silence on the phone until an unknown man with a sarcastic undertone spoke again: "Today is the day I've been waiting for so long. And who am I? It's not up to you to know."

"Okay, so what do you want from me?"

There was silence on the phone again. After a long moment, with a stoic to cold undertone in his voice, the man uttered a mysterious sentence with great emphasis.

"Today is your big day, Paul!!!"

And with that, the stranger ended his phone call with Paul. Paul sat down in a chair. He wondered what the stranger actually wanted to tell him. He looked around the house and realized more and more that everything around him was different. It was as if the whole house was immersed in a strange gloom. In addition, he noticed that he was most likely all alone. He went through the rooms to be sure, but neither his daughters nor his wife were home. He found it shortly after nine o'clock in the morning. He thought, "I guess I fell asleep ... but why didn't anyone wake me ?!"

He wanted to call his wife Kiara to make sure everything was okay and the children were already at school, but he couldn't find his cell phone anywhere. Although it was already Friday, the last day of the work and school week, Paul was always in charge of taking his daughters to school before starting work. So they agreed with his wife a long time ago. How is it possible that they are already gone, even though he has not taken them away? Why did he wake up so late and add to the ringing of the old phone that was rather just a living room decoration ?! Where is everyone ?! Where's his cell phone ?! How to connect with his wife ?! It was really weird. The strange gloom in the house began to frighten him, but it also raised a number of unanswered questions. So he got dressed, took off his winter jacket and left the house. When he reached the entrance gate, he could not believe his own eyes. Right behind the gate was a dark and dense forest. He began to look around, examining the surroundings and finding that tall trees by the fence bounded the entire area of ​​their land with the house. No neighbors or river was seen ... Shocked, Paul realized that he was actually standing in the middle of a forest. Wherever he turned, he saw only tall coniferous trees.

"What's that supposed to mean!" He thought, "how the hell is it possible that those trees have grown here ?!"

He opened the gate with determination to enter the dark forest, but then he realized that there were unpleasant sounds and screams coming from the forest. . He was frightened, so he quickly returned to his land and closed the gate. He looked around again, boiling for half an hour from the winter in front of the house, but he still couldn't believe what he saw: his house in the middle of an unknown forest, from which terrible cries were constantly heard. At the same time, the strange gloom ... it was starting to snow, the snow was getting heavier, and the surroundings were increasingly shrouded in opaque fog, and so the frightened Paul finally returned to the house, to safety. Well, it was cold in the house, the heating probably didn't work … Paul speculated like him repaired, but over time he found that the house was not connected to gas.

"Hell, that's unbelievable! How is that possible?"

Paul didn't understand. And to warm up a little, he put on a thick sweater and looked for warm socks. Suddenly the old telephone on the wall began to ring. Paul immediately picked up the phone.

"So how did you start today?"

It said from the phone,"have you probably been out before and seen the beauty?"

The stranger did not allow himself to be distracted by the lamentation of Paul and continued their unusual debate: "The forest around your house protects you from yourself. You are exactly where you are supposed to be. At home."

"Um, at home ... but everything here is kind of different, weird ... like from a different time. And where are my children and Kiara? Why can't I call them from this old phone?"

"You know, Paul, this phone's job is to connect me to you. You're not going anywhere. That's right now, and right now."

Paul was confused and didn't understand why he was in such an awkward, strange, and worrying situation. The stranger on the phone changed the tone of his voice a little cold and scolding, and began to ask Paul strange questions, "Do you remember Joya in the fifth grade?"

Paul thought, asking in surprise, "Joy? Well ... yes, I remember ... and what about him?"

After a moment, the stranger replied, "What kind of person were you, what kind of child were you at that time? Just remember, Paul."

Paul was taken aback by the question and thought hard, trying to remember.

"Well, I guess I made fun of little Joe sometimes in front of the others, and here and there I gave him a bite. Why do you ask me that?"

"Did you say here and there? You beat him like rye! Poor little Joy, for fear of you, was reluctant to go to school! And you take it as nothing? So I'm asking you again, what kind of person were you?"

The stranger pushed Paul too hard. It made him feel uncomfortable. It revived memories and unreal remorse that he had never had before. But the unknown man, through his questions, showed Paul the things that had happened, from other angles as well. When Paul realized all this, he reluctantly replied to the stranger: "So you're asking what kind of person I was? Well ... probably not very good. I was ... arrogant and I liked to hurt the weak."

After these words, there was silence on the phone again. Only after a while did the man say again in a strong voice, "I want you to do it again. I want a clear answer to my simple question, Paul. What kind of person were you?"

Paul couldn't stand it anymore and exploded,"Damn you too. I won't piss you off when you touch me. Why are you breaking this down and forcing me to return to things I don't even want to hear about anymore! I was a bad person !!!"

After these words, the man repeated in a dark voice: "I was a bad person! I was a bad person! I was a bad person!"

Finally, the man on the phone paused and Paul hung up. He sat in his chair and stared blankly at the window behind which it was snowing. He didn't understand what had just happened. But he still seemed to read. As a result, he became intensely aware of what he had once caused and felt sorry for: "Poor little Joy, he was afraid to go to school! What did I just do ?! Who knows how Joy lives today? And in general, how would I behave if I met him face to face today? I can not imagine that."

Sadness came over him after these thoughts. He went into the kitchen, as he was already hungry. He picked out sandwiches from the fridge that his wife Kiara often prepared for breakfast. But it was strange that none of them had eaten a piece before. He wondered what the kids had eaten before they went to school. Kiara didn't touch anything either. He walked over to an old telephone hanging on the wall and tried to dial Kiara's cell phone number. But the handset did not emit a tone. He was dead in it. Total silence. He tried to dial it many more times, but still nothing. Each attempt failed. When he gave up, he put on his jacket again and went out into the yard. There were tall trees everywhere behind the fence around the house, no change. Unattractive sounds could be heard from the forest from different directions. Suddenly there was a piercing female voice. Several times in a row he shouted the name Paul and at the end added - group! Paul remained scalded. He couldn't say a word at first. Over and over, he felt the mocking female voice shout, "Paul is a miser! Paul! They won't lend me anything! Disgusting Paul, miser!"

When there was really too much, Paula woke up to the activity, took a deep breath, and began to shout from his full lungs, "Who are you! Why are you cursing me! I'm not a group! What does that mean! What do you dare! Stop!"

But the voice from the forest came again and again, insulting Paul, swearing at him, repeating that he was a scoundrel, a man who would not share anything with anyone. Paul soon gave up this fight and ran back into the house. He went from one room to another, wondering what was going on and why. He panicked. He couldn't even remember what had happened the day before. And what that depressing darkness in the house and all around is supposed to mean. Screams from the forest were repeated in his head as someone embraced him with remorse and swearing. After a while, he realized that his younger sister had been swearing at his groups long ago as a child, when he didn't even want to share chocolate with her. It was a common thing in their childhood relationship. Paul thought and understood the whole thing. He behaved like an idiot and used his position as he was older and stronger. The physical little and weaker sister could not assert herself and gain her work, which Paul always appropriated. Perhaps for some, this matter would be petty, irrelevant, and not deserving of remorse. But it took place very often and remained stored in a universe that reminds Paul today. The phone started ringing again. Paul picked up the phone and asked teasingly, "So what do you want to blame me for this time?"