Chapter 2
Episode 2
Rytoj...po metu viltis
The next morning, the green light was gone, but the air felt thicker, as if something had been pressed into it overnight. Kristina stood at the kitchen window, watching the dust settle on the tomato plants her grandmother had planted years ago. The leaves were curling at the edges, and the fruit hung small and hard, refusing to ripen. She pressed her palm against the glass, felt the heat of the day already building, and thought of the way the earth used to smell after rain—damp and green and full of promises. Now it smelled of rust and silence.
She had not slept well. The light had pulsed through her dreams, turning them into landscapes of rust and bone. In one dream she walked through a field of sunflowers whose heads had been replaced by clocks, all ticking backward. When she woke, the clock on the nightstand read 3:17 AM, and she knew, with a certainty that made her throat tight, that she would not see her grandmother again. Not in the way she remembered her. Not with the soft hands and the smell of dill and boiled potatoes. That woman had already become a ghost, and the ghost had already become a story that Kristina was not yet ready to tell.
The rumors had grown louder overnight. The baker at the corner shop said the white witches had been spotted near the old quarry, their robes stained with something dark that did not wash out, no matter how long you soaked them. The mechanic at the garage said the machines were not just gathering dust—they were moving on their own, grinding gears in the dead of night, carving symbols into the asphalt that looked like teeth. Kristina had laughed at first, the way you laugh at a story that cannot be true. But the laughter died in her throat when she saw her own reflection in the toaster: her eyes looked older, hollowed out, as if something had already taken root behind them and was waiting for the right season to bloom.
She decided to cook again. It was the only thing that made sense. She pulled out the heavy cast-iron pot, the one her grandmother had used for stews and soups and everything in between. The handle was warm in her palm, worn smooth by decades of stirring. She chopped onions, carrots, and potatoes, the knife hitting the cutting board in a rhythm that felt like a prayer—or close enough to one that it did not matter. The meat was tough, some kind of game she had found in the freezer, wrapped in butcher paper and labeled in her grandmother’s shaky handwriting: Lapas, 2023. She did not know what lapas meant—leaves? pages?—but she trusted the handwriting the way you trust a door you have opened a thousand times.
As the stew simmered, the smell filled the kitchen, warm and familiar. She added bay leaves, black pepper, a pinch of salt. The steam curled up toward the ceiling, and for a moment, she forgot about the green light, the white witches, the grinding machines. She was just a woman making dinner. She was just alive. The stew bubbled, fat bubbles rising and popping, releasing the scent of onions caramelizing, of meat surrendering its toughness. She closed her eyes and let the kitchen hold her.
But then the light returned. Not the green one from the horizon—this one was different. It came from the stove, a faint orange glow deep inside the flame. It flickered and grew, and Kristina saw shapes in it: faces, hands, something that might have been a city burning. The faces were not screaming; they were singing, a low and throaty hymn that made her bones vibrate. She stepped back, her heart hammering against her ribs. The stew bubbled, and the faces dissolved into steam, but the sound lingered, a hum trapped inside her skull.
She turned off the burner. The kitchen was silent. Outside, the sun was setting, painting the sky a bruised purple that looked like a healing wound. She looked at the pot, at the stew that had been her anchor, and she knew she could not eat it. Not tonight. Not with the taste of ash in her mouth, not with that hymn still vibrating in her bones. She wrapped it in foil and placed it in the refrigerator, next to the milk that had gone sour and the eggs that felt too light, as if something had already hatched inside them and left only the shells.
Then she walked to the front door and opened it. The street was empty. The machines were quiet. But in the distance, beyond the rooftops, a single green star pulsed in the twilight. It was not a star. She knew that now. It was a signal. A promise. A warning. It blinked at her, once, twice, and she felt the weight of its gaze, patient and hungry.
She closed the door and locked it, but the lock felt flimsy, like a child’s toy. She thought of her grandmother’s hands, how they had held her face on the day she left, how they had said, Rytoj... po metu viltis. Tomorrow... after a year, hope. The words had seemed like a riddle then, a gentle dismissal. Now they felt like a map drawn in disappearing ink.
She did not know if she had a year. She did not know if hope was something you could save, like a jar of pickles or a bag of flour. But she knew she would wait. She would cook. She would watch the light. She would let the kitchen fill with steam until the walls grew soft and the windows wept. And when it came for her—the green light, the singing faces, the grinding machines—she would be standing at the stove, her grandmother’s knife in her hand, ready to stir whatever needed stirring.