At the end of August, when the town had held the air in its lungs for too long and the wind had stopped speaking to the trees, the Rust River shrank like someone who had suddenly run out of courage. The water flowed lazily, slow and flat, revealing stones that always seemed too sharp to exist at all. Nina stood on the concrete bank, her fingers clutching the strap of her cello case, although it was empty inside. She had stopped playing three hundred and twelve days ago. She counted, unable to stop. - 'Show again,' said Iwo, coming up so that he stood level with her. He smelled something soft, like a freshly laundered sweatshirt, and his presence pulled the darkness inside her apart like a curtain. Nina took an envelope out of her pocket, this one made of thin paper, in which she found a dried yellow maple leaf and a card with three words on it: Friday. 23:17 Bridge. The character of the writing was unfamiliar, but even, calm. It was as if someone was writing on a moving table, and still his hand did not tremble. - 'This isn't funny,' she muttered, before she felt the sting again, the kind that listens. Hope is predatory. - I could burn it, throw it away, but... - she fell silent because she didn't need to finish. Iwo knew. Alex had left them last year with only a sudden silence, hanging in the house like a heavy, unfinished chord. Three years older, rambunctious, with an impressive sticker collection on his cello case, in which all the stickers were equally important, though none matched the other. One day he packed up and left, saying "I'll be back", as casually as if he were going to the shop to buy bread. He didn't come back. - 'We'll sit down, we'll wait,' said Iwo, pointing to a bench by the railing. - If it's some stupid joke, at least we'll talk it through to the end. If not... - he paused, as if he didn't want to tempt. The sky had taken on the colour of someone's forgotten jumper, rubbed off where it was most often touched with the hand. The lanterns on the bridge put the world to sleep, and only the mosquitoes refused to sleep. Nina had to change position from time to time to breathe more comfortably. An even electronic time was ticking on her watch, but a different river was flowing inside her, which was speeding up once, slowing down once. - 'Remember,' she began, 'how Alex came up with the idea that we would guess people's dreams by their shoes? Iwo smiled. - And how all your types were about children and dogs. - And yours were about travelling and running. - Nina tilted her head. - And his? He was always talking about sounds. - That the man who walks around in white trainers in November wants to play so quietly that no one has to cough. They laughed briefly, in whispers, so as not to wake too many past. The minutes began to take a different shape. At 23:12 the water moved strangely, as if someone underneath had pulled a thin thread. At 23:14, a metallic rasp sounded from the north side of the bridge. The twisted railings beeped, and Nina felt the sound screw into her, all the way to where her heart had recently been as soft as bread crumb. - Hear that? - Iwo straightened up, already without the soft smell, instead all nervous. They heard. The rasp repeated, longer, more certain. Under the bridge, where branches and bottles usually smashed, something rectangular and dark emerged low by the pillar. It looked like a flap of metal, hitherto hidden under water. Now it shone a dirty silver colour, dripping. Next to it, in the shadows, a staircase was drawn. A few steps of rough stone, so weathered that they seemed to remember other cities. Nina didn't know whether she wanted to run away more or touch it all. She stood up first. She felt a tremor in her knees, unbearably her own and yet not entirely her own. - Do you understand that this could be a trap? - Iwo did not ask questions that stop. Rather those that allow you to see better. - If we go down, it's together. - I know - Nina nodded. - Iwo... if it's him... - The 'if' had no end. It floated in the air like a cloak that refuses to fall. They walked down the embankment from the bridge, carefully, like in a film that is better watched without sound. As long as they didn't frighten the reality. The stones shot under their shoes, the mud crunched silently. The flap was not closed, as if whoever opened it did not have time to close it or wanted someone else to open it fully. Iwo picked it up with two fingers, the way we pick up something that doesn't belong to us but must be done. A chill blew in. The staircase, up close, looked like it had been carved by hand. Each step was different, each burned differently in the calves. Underneath, it smelled of damp, algae and rusty water, so intense that memories came on their own. Memories where Alex's laughter reverberated off the walls as much as their footsteps did now. - 'Give,' said Iwo and pulled out his phone, turning on the torch. A cone of light cut through the air and spilled over the wall. Brick, here and there nibbled by time. Some inscriptions, smudged, illegible. A tube that led nowhere. The last step was lower, dangerously slippery. - Easy,' he muttered, taking half a step back. - Someone had been here. Not long ago. In the corner, against the wall, stood something black. Elongated. Nina saw it at the same moment that her stomach did something very specific, that movement that tells us: I remember. The case. Black, scratched, with a sticker depicting a yellow cassette tape and a worn-out inscription. This inscription always amused them because it was in English and sounded like the name of something from another world. The case was closed, but the lock had the same silly scratch that she had once made when she was learning impatience. - It doesn't have to be... - Iwo started, but his voice stuck in his throat. Nina put her fingers on the handle, then drew them back as the past steamed her. Blood pulsed in her cheeks. She felt metal in her mouth. Past scenes creaked in her head: the three of them in the kitchen, the sun on the tiles, Alex with the cello, laughing that the bow was a sword, only smarter. - If it's not him, I need to know anyway,' she said quietly. - If it's him... - She hovered again. Above them, some three metres above, a car drove by, and the vibrations of the bridge slid along the walls like a tongue over glass. Water condensed on the edges and fell on their shoulders. Nina didn't flinch. She took a breath, the deepest one, like before entering the stage, when the light doesn't yet know that in a moment it will have to stop blinking. - One, two... - she started, counting senselessly, because, after all, she wasn't running, yet her whole body was making movements familiar from running. - Three. She touched the lock. At the same second, the phone vibrated in her jacket pocket. The sound cut through the silence, uncertain and ordinarily contemporary. She almost dropped the case. She looked at the screen, not yet believing what she was seeing. The letters were ordinary, white on a black background. Nothing glittered in them except their meaning. "Incoming call: Alex" Nina's finger hovered over the green receiver. In the corner, on the case, a drop of water flicked and dripped slowly, as if it had time just for them. And then, from the darkness on the left, where the torchlight no longer reached, something moved.