Андрей Сопельник – UNIVERSE AETERNOV The first book The heart that remembers tomorrow (страница 3)
• Features:
• You can dive into the “River of Tears” and live through someone else's pain to figure out how to help.
• “Sea of Laughter" heals emotional wounds – but only if you are ready to laugh yourself.
• In the center is the “Well of Tomorrow” – if you make a wish and throw a tear there, it will come true… but not in the way you think. But as needed.
• Residents: Water Etherians, “wailers" (guardians of sadness), “smeshinki” (spirits of joy), travelers-healers.
• A local phrase: "Don't be afraid to drown. Water knows when to let you go… and when to hold you to your heart."
5. Pyrolysis (planet of fire) – the planet of fire.
"The flame doesn't burn here, it cleanses. If it doesn't destroy, it regenerates."
• Type: Emotional and transformational sphere / forge of destinies.
• The Rulers: Ash Smiths are creatures of fire and will, forging fates on anvils of stars.
• Description:
Volcanoes here are the “hearts of the planet", spewing not lava, but molten dreams and fears. Deserts are made up of the ashes of past mistakes – but if you listen carefully, lessons are whispered in it.
The sky is always in shades of sunset – orange, crimson, gold. There is no night – only the “hours of coals”, when the fire rests, but does not go out.
• Features:
• To get through Pyrolysis, you need to burn something inside yourself. Pride. A grudge. Fear.
The Forges of Fate allow you to forge your pain into strength – but at a price: you have to give the fire a memory that you no longer want to carry.
• The center of the planet is the “Heart of Flame” – if you touch it with pure intent, you will gain the power to revive even what has been erased from time.
• Residents: Blacksmiths of Ashes, “fire jumpers" (acrobatic children dancing in flames), spirits of determination, wandering redeemer warriors.
• A local phrase: "Fire is not the enemy. He is your most honest judge. And the most faithful friend, if you are ready to burn… to become a light."
6. Somnium (planet of dreams) – the planet of dreams.
"Here, reality is what you believed in the most. Not even for a second."
• Type: Psycho-reactive world / collective unconscious
• Rulers: Architects of Dreams are creatures capable of materializing thoughts into landscapes.
• Description:
The landscape changes every 7 minutes, depending on what most living beings in the multiverse dream of.
Today is a city of clouds and sweets. Tomorrow is a maze of books and mirrors. The day after tomorrow – a field of flying whales with sails of stars.
There are no laws of physics here, only laws of imagination.
• Features:
• In order not to get lost, you need to hold a “thread of reality” in your hand (usually it's something very personal: a toy, a letter, a smell).
• You can “meet” your dream – literally. It will look the way you imagine it to look.
Danger: if you stay too long, you can forget where the dream ends and you begin.
• Residents: Architects of Dreams, “wandering fantasies", “wandering dreams", heroes from other people's stories, seekers of inspiration.
• A local phrase: "Do you think this is an illusion? Look at your heart – it's beating faster. So this is the real reality."
Chapter 1. The awakening of chronos
.
The epigraph:
"He didn't know that time is not sand in a clock.
It's like sand in his palms.
And when he clenched his fist…
The whole world held its breath."
1.
Rostov-on-Don. 1978. 6:47 a.m.
Andrey Chronosynthez was late. As usual.
–Damn…– he swore softly, pulling on a battered jacket and grabbing a backpack with tools. – Ivan Ilyich will definitely kill me with a wrench today if I don't make it in time for the opening.
He rushed out of the modest Khrushchev house on Budennovskaya Street. The balconies were hung with linens, and sparrows were already buzzing in the courtyard. My mother's voice sounded behind me.:
– Andrew, you forgot the sausage sandwiches!
– I'll eat them on the way! – he shouted and, without turning around, ran to the auto repair shop "Auto Repair at Andrey's".
The morning was warm, southerly, with a light breeze from the Don. The air smelled of dust, fresh bread from the bakery, and blooming acacia trees.
Muslim Magomayev's velvety voice could be heard from the open window of his neighbor, Uncle Senya, a pensioner. The song that my father adored, as always, was playing in the courtyard. Andrey couldn't help but smile: this voice sounded in their house for better or for worse.
He had been working as a mechanic since he was sixteen. Not because he dreamed of cars, but because his hands knew how to fix what was broken. Sometimes it was the engine of a Lada or a Volga, sometimes it was someone's hope of getting to the sea or on a date in Gorky Park.
He was late today because he had been working too long on his grandfather's old clock, the one with the cracked glass and the hands frozen at 3:33.
"They don't tick," said grandfather, a veteran who was sitting at the entrance with an accordion, "but they remember every second when you were happy.
Andrey didn't understand it then. Even more so now.
But he still carried the watch in his pocket. Like a mascot.
2.
Andrey's Car Repair shop was already smoking from work. Andrey rushed in, out of breath, with disheveled hair and an oil stain on his cheek.
"I'm sorry, Ivan Ilyich!
"You're twenty—two minutes late," Ivan Ilyich said calmly, wiping his hands on an old rag. —But okay. It's not critical yet. Major Petrov's Volga is over there. He says the car cries in the morning. It's like he knows he's retiring.
Andrey grinned: Major Petrov's cars all "cried" – he loved them too much.
He walked over to the blue seventy-year-old Volga, lifted the hood and sank into his usual rhythm: the clink of keys, the smell of gasoline, the warm metal under his palms. Here, among the engines and oil, he felt whole.
And suddenly – a scream.
Cutting. Child. Shrill.
Andrey jerked and turned to the window.
A crane was swinging at a construction site across the street. One of the hooks broke, the chain jerked, and the steel beam, heavy as a sentence, slowly but inexorably slid down.
A five-year-old boy in a red T-shirt was standing under it, looking at the beam as if it were a toy.