Free A Step to Nowhere by Natasha A. Salnikova Page B

goggles or something looking like them and his facial expression was like ice. He walked toward me, but didn’t meet my eyes. He approached without as much as a single word and started busily unwinding a tube, pressing some buttons.
    I swallowed a lump in my throat.
    “Who are you?”
    Of course, he hadn’t answered. He waved to the mirror, which meant there had been somebody watching us, and detached a tube with a needle from the cylinder. My head became heavy and darkness covered my vision. I didn’t care about my makeup anymore as well as about the whole aesthetic part of death. I hoped to faint. I was afraid of needles, but realization of the fact that there was death in that needle turned fear into stupefaction. I saw the needle coming closer to my skin and tried to object, but there was no sound from my mouth. I couldn’t move either.
    The man reached his pudgy hand and tried my skin at the fold, looking for the visible vein.
    “Don’t kill me,” I whispered.
    No reaction. Like I wasn’t a human, like I was a thing. Probably I was a thing for him in this room of death. One of the unfortunate idiots from Planet Two. Now I believed that Ray from here had told me the truth and I knew I wasn’t the first one here. Everything prepared, no panic, just the regular routine. Just the regular murdering routine of people who suspected nothing and weren’t guilty of anything. Their fault was an extreme credulity and permission to be used. Thank you very much for your appreciation.
    The needle was long and thick, would fill the whole vein. The liquid in the tube was pink.
    “Will it hurt?” I asked. My voice sounded pitiful. I cleared my throat and said more strongly, “You’re killing an innocent person. I’ll haunt you in your dreams.”
    He glanced at me. Under the thick lenses of the goggles, his eyes looked huge and incredibly kind, like the eyes of a deer. His thin, tightly pressed lips betrayed the real nature of his personality.
    “I don’t have dreams,” he said.”
    He found a vein and lifted the needle. I closed my eyes. Warm metal touched my skin.
    “Edward!” Loud voice. The needle moved away. “Come to the observation room!”
    I opened my eyes and saw the confused face of my executioner. He held the needle with the tube like a flag.
    “Right now,” the voice said. “We have urgent changes.”
    The man looked at me, at the needle, attached it back to the machine, and went to the exit.
    I was alone once again. I stared at the ceiling and hoped that urgent changes meant cancelation of my murder. The terrible things were behind me. Ray kept his word and now I could go home. He leaped in the last moment. One more second and I would be dead.
    Don’t think about it. It’s over.
    “Let it be, please. Let it be.”
    A few minutes passed that seemed like eternity, before the executioner entered the room again. He moved toward me in leaps and bounds and I almost screamed in desperation, but when he approached, I saw it was a different man. He was almost the same height and weight as the previous one, but his hair was lighter and when he came closer I noticed he had gray eyes. The goggles covered half of his face and it was difficult to see the difference from a distance.
    “We barely made it,” he said.
    “Who are you?” I asked, watching as the man hurriedly pressed something on the cylinder. The thing gave a squeak, releasing my arms and legs. The man bent to my ear and whispered.
    “Ray has sent me.”
    While I was reviving, he helped me to sit down and talked louder.
    “We’ve got to hurry. Ray tried to cancel your liquidation, but it didn’t work. Somebody really wants you dead, so he sent me. I’ll transfer you to Planet Two. You’ll have to change your location, maybe your name. Temporarily. In a few minutes you will be home.”
    “I’ll have to hide? They will try to bring me here again?” I rubbed the imprints of rings on my wrists.
    “Ray said he’s really sorry.”
    “Tell