Darkness.

It seemed to envelop the world, strangling and suffocating Ivan as his eyes opened. Looking around, it was all pitch black. Suddenly, his stomach lurched and he sat up. Something, he could tell, was very wrong. He didn't know where he was or how he'd gotten there, and he felt fingers reach up to his face. He didn't realize they were his until he pulled the burlap sack off his face, blinding him with light momentarily. As his eyes adjusted, Ivan blinked and assessed his surroundings. The room he was in what white and tiled, almost like a hospital room. That alone made Ivan uneasy, thinking of his lover alone in a hospital. He stood up on weak legs, and his eyes focused on a clock as his head spun. 3:02, but was it early morning or late afternoon? As Ivan pondered this, his legs seemed to move without much thought or input from him. His fingers wrapped around a cold doorknob, and it seemed almost too cold. He turned it and stepped into a hall, white and similar in look to the room he'd just been in.

The light fixtures hung low, and the hall, while incredibly white and clean, seemed almost suspiciously so. Ivan knew for a fact that the only places kept this clean were places where terrible things had happened. Even the corners were scrubbed clean as the walls, which was even more suspicious. Nervously, Ivan walked through the hall, still not entirely in control of his actions. This was definitely not normal, and it left a bad taste in his mouth and made his stomach churn. He walked through a labyrinth-like maze of halls, past doors with numbers and unfamiliar words and names on them. Some seemed to be in entirely different languages. Ivan stopped, at last, in front of a door that was slightly unassuming, but almost seemed to radiate heat. He turned to look at it, and saw small charred markings in some places on the door, and something seemed to be screaming at him to open it. The moment he closed his hand around the doorknob, he pulled back and let out a cry of pain. The metal was scalding hot, and Ivan saw that his hand was bright pink from the heat.

"Damn," he cursed quietly, but held his breath when he heard a noise from behind the door. Something almost like an animal, but not quite… Ivan took another hesitant step forward, and then realized there was a peephole. Had that been there before? He couldn't remember, but couldn't bring himself to worry about it at that time. He stood on his tiptoes and closed one eye, peeking through the glass. His heart almost stopped. His throat constricted and his mouth seemed to dry up. It couldn't be, but… Was it? Volgin? He shook his head and looked again. There was no mistaking it now, the familiar scars along his arms and face, the hair… Ivan didn't know why the doorknob was so hot, until he noticed what Volgin was doing. The man looked at his hand, and Ivan watched in horror and amazement, as it seemed to glow like fire or lava. It spread down Volgin's arm through the rest of his body, lastly his eyes, making them glow like embers. Ivan stepped back, aghast. Whatever was in there was most definitely not his darling. That left only more questions, however. Who had done this to him? Why? How? And where was this place? WHAT was it? Ivan's eyes flickered to the bottom of the door and he watched as light shone from behind it. His legs were moving before he knew what had hit him, and he found himself in a bathroom, splashing his face with cold water at a sink. He looked into a mirror and jumped in surprise, having expected to see his own face. The person in the mirror stared at him, shocked and bewildered, but only for a moment.

And then the moment was over, and everything was blackness once again.1

Ivan sat up on the bus; bile in his throat and a whisper on his lips that he couldn't quite remember after it escaped him. Taking a shaky breath, he realized it was night, and that he was one of the last two people on the bus. Oddly enough, the only other person was a woman who looked to be about his age. Her hair was short and the color of chocolate, and Ivan noticed that she seemed to be looking at him fixedly. He cocked an eyebrow, and tilted his head to the side inquisitively. She looked at him and as the bus stopped, she jerked her head in a motion for him to get off of it with her. He nodded, agreeing to do so partially in fear and partially out of curiosity. She looked like the kind of woman that wasn't afraid of anything and would hurt anyone who wronged her. Ivan admired people like that. He got off the bus behind her and she led him to an alley.

"Who are you?" He asked in French, assuming she spoke it, seeing as they were in France and all.

"That's not important. You're Ivan Raidenovitch Raikov, right?" She asked in near-flawless Russian. Ivan took a step back and responded in the same tongue.

"Yes, I am. Why?"

"Four years ago you ran away to be with Colonel Volgin, right?"

"Yes…"

"And he went into a coma two years ago."

"Why are you telling me things I already know?"

"Because," the woman sighed, "I know where he is. He's awake, and I'm here to take you to him. Consider it a favor."

"Wh-what? No, Josephine would have told me if he'd woken up. Who are you?"

"I told you, it doesn't matter who I am, and I hate to break it to you, but Josephine isn't who she says she is." Ivan took a step back.

"Well I don't know who you are either!" He defended, squaring up to fight if he needed to. "How can I trust you if you won't even tell me who you are?" The woman leaned against a wall and huffed impatiently.

"Fine. You can call me Katya."

"Alright. Well, I'll go with you, but you have to explain everything on the way." Katya nodded and pulled a couple train tickets out of her pocket.

"I'll sure as hell try, but I won't make any promises. I have orders to take you to Moscow, and that's it." She handed him a ticket and shoved the remaining one back into her pocket, instructing Ivan to pack his things and meet her at the train station tomorrow morning if he ever wanted to see Volgin again. He hailed a cab and ended up getting home at around midnight. Should he go? The thought raced through his mind over and over, and he found himself absentmindedly packing his things into a suitcase. He paused when his fingers grazed against the cover of a worn, beaten novel. Picking it up, he looked at the faded cursive gold lettering along the cover.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

And he had his answer.