Ebrugh Report 15: The War Behind

Photo of the supposed burned down building where Uspenskaya was stationed.

In this Ebrugh Report, a radio operator records a melody from space and is mesmerized by it.

## Summary

A Soviet military radio station becomes the unlikely stage for a harrowing psychological drama, unfolding against the backdrop of the Cold War. A psychologist is summoned to address a deeply unsettling situation: Uspenskaya, one of the radio operators, has been grappling with increasingly bizarre behavior, seemingly triggered by his exposure to an otherworldly transmission known as the "Melody of the Void," which was intercepted from deep space.

This eerie signal has cast a sinister spell over Uspenskaya, plunging him into a nightmarish descent into dissociative disorder. He is haunted by vivid hallucinations, each more terrifying than the last, as he is transported to alternate lives filled with mounting horror and dread. The Melody of the Void has become a siren's call that pulls him deeper into a nightmarish abyss.

Alarmed by the worsening condition of Uspenskaya and growing concerned about the inexplicable signal's influence, the station's personnel take the extraordinary step of isolating themselves in quarantine. Yet, as they too succumb to the sinister allure of the Melody, they experience the same unsettling symptoms and nightmarish visions that have ensnared Uspenskaya.

Amid this escalating horror, a stark divide emerges: the psychologist remains untouched, having never heard the Melody, while his colleagues are lost to the relentless grip of this auditory malevolence. As the other people fall deeper into the grip of their shared madness, they become inexorably disconnected from reality, in the end perishing away.

In the eerie climax of this chilling tale, Uspenskaya, who had been the first to fall victim to the Melody, undergoes a gruesome transformation as whatever force possessed him finally releases its grip and vanishes. At this juncture, the psychologist and Uspenskaya are the sole survivors of the station's ordeal, though the former's mental fortitude remains unshaken.

Ultimately, the surviving pair escape from the station, leaving behind the nightmare of the Melody-inflicted madness. Uspenskaya, however, is not unscathed. His encounter with the Melody has eroded his sense of self to such an extent that he is admitted to a mental institution, where his memories start to fade away.

## Report 15

### Rumoured Origin

*This report was given to me by a Russian source who became aware of me through the releases of my other published documents. I hesitated for some time to release this report because I fear that skeptics or reckless individuals will go looking to verify the circumstances described in it. They could come across something that poses a danger to us all. Therefore, I would like to issue a clear warning at this point: Whatever follows must not lead to further investigations! It must remain only a report, a tale, as spreading the... signal… could have serious consequences...*

### Main Report

Perhaps you are familiar with the radio station UVB-76? It has been repeatedly transmitting a periodic buzzing sound since the 1970s and has therefore also been labelled “The Buzzer”. Additionally, short transmissions in Russian have been received from time to time. The messages seem to be unrelated, but I have information that can shed some light on this apparent curiosity, even though other questions will arise in the process. Questions that neither you nor I should pursue. The signals from UVB-76 originated at a Soviet listening post called "Debut," which intercepted all sorts of radio transmissions at the time. I cannot fully explain what was happening there, but I am confident that the following report of mine will provide some insight.

It began with one of the senior ensigns stationed there showing signs of psychological changes, which eventually led to me being ordered to that station under the strictest secrecy. I specialize in treating psychological disorders connected to trauma and had already quite successfully treated some military personnel at that time. I knew how important the mental well-being of soldiers was, how stress or gruesome events could leave mental scars. I had even experienced that firsthand when I was once a field medic living through the horrors of World War II...

The... condition... of said Senior Ensign was already very bad when I finally arrived at the barren complex in the middle of the wilderness. Therefore, the man was already in solitary confinement when I briefly talked to the commander of the facility, Lieutenant Abramovich. The commander insisted that I read some notes before we got deeper into the matter. He gave me writings that had been found among the Ensign's belongings, apparently titled "URGENT: READ" in shaky handwriting. I never officially forwarded those notes, so I cannot prove their authenticity. All that remains are copies that I made independently at the time. It took me long to work my way through the increasingly confused passages that Senior Ensign Uspenskaya had put on paper in his few remaining moments of clarity. I tried to sort them out as best I could and reproduced them below. Some passages were written in careful block letters and seemed strangely accurate and out of place. I have highlighted these passages in the following text. They will give you an idea of what the circumstances were that I got tangled up in.

“Have you ever heard it… the Melody of the Void? The music of nothingness? Have you ever searched for a radio station, but only found static that sounded a bit too regular? Too much like a pattern devised by unknown minds? Have you ever wondered if something could be hidden in the silence?

How often have I just listened to my headphones, which reduced the whole world to a few astonishingly beautiful sounds. How often have I sat there, closed my eyes, and let myself get carried away? How often… did I think I heard a whisper?

My name is Uspenskaya. Igor Uspenskaya. Sounds are my life. My daily bread. For a long time, sounds were my dream. But in that one night, everything began to change, and darkness entered my world. It all seems blurry and unreal now. I have decided to write down the events to perhaps bring clarity, resolve my confusion, and reflect on my impressions and thoughts. Maybe I will succeed.

I can only hope...

I can only hope that this helps me not to lose myself...

I am still young - only 19 years old - and have just recently enlisted in the Soviet army as a radio operator. In my youth, I always wanted to become a famous musician, a pianist, but the times in which I lived offered no prospects for an artist. So, with the support of my parents, I decided to work for the army's communications branch. Here, although I cannot pursue music, my ears are full of echoes of past and present conversations, full of sounds from the ether and the depths of space. I was promoted to senior ensign after only one year of service and moved to this small secret listening station that used modern techniques to search the sky for stray American signals. I was proud because the rank was something that one normally only achieved after a longer time. It was a reward for my service to the Motherland.

The work here seems tailor-made for me. My ears are sensitive enough to detect the different nuances of the soundscapes that need to be analyzed. So, a few months ago, I moved into this listening station, which allows me and my colleagues to pick up all the scattered signals in the sky.

We are located relatively far south in the Soviet Union, where summers are warm and winters are mild. Our facility consists of three concrete buildings, one of which is the reception station, one provides space for our beds, and one is equipped for cooking, communal activities, sports, and everything else we need. The buildings are situated on a flat hill that provides a good view of our idyllic surroundings. My comrades often use the environment to relax, as a great responsibility rests on their shoulders during working hours. I prefer to claim one of the smaller reception dishes for myself during quiet moments of rest and to search for frequencies that are beautiful or mysterious.

For a long time, I only heard the buzzing and background noise that I already knew. The dull sounds that brought nothing new. The buzzing that only contained boredom.

Until that fateful winter morning when I heard it for the first time.

The melody of the void.

I had aimed the sensors at Jupiter, as in recent weeks, I had been listening to the planets of the solar system in my spare time, starting from Mercury. The planets... they all had a unique sound that almost seemed alive. Sublime. But also dull and somehow... sad. Countless times I listened to them, caught myself wishing I were up there, walking on foreign moons and seeing other worlds.

Suddenly... in the silence... in the noise...

A faint rumbling.

A booming sound that slowly grew louder. Hammered. I kept a tape running to examine the signals later. The noises and rhythms that I slowly made out... or thought I made out? They froze my thoughts. What was it that was hiding there in the dull hum of the gas planet? Fear and anger? Fury? Suffering? Vengeance? Was the melody... evil?

I felt unwell, but I couldn't stop. What if I missed something important? That thought frightened me. I wouldn't allow it, not when I had concrete evidence... evidence of a thinking mind beyond this world...

And so the hours passed until it was already far past midnight. Exhausted, but also excited, I went to bed, trying to sleep through the foreign melody. Suddenly, I remembered my past, more vivid than I had ever before… Remembered, that…

I once had a friend. A companion who had had my back for as long as I could remember. In my childhood, we spent a lot of time together, our lives seemed inseparable. The memories of him are now blurry, as I haven't seen him in years. Why had fate torn us apart? Why had the glorious time not been around for longer? All the adventures we had experienced in the dark pine forest near our hometown. All the pranks we had played on our teachers, the homework we constantly had copied from each other. All the cigarettes we had stolen from the old man with the irritable watchdog and then secretly smoked in the attic of a barn.

All of that now seemed distant. Those days of past happiness. The times without worry. Perhaps the peculiar melody that I had received was like a helping hand that led me back to my past? Maybe it was just a coincidence that I started dreaming of my old friend again that very night.

***There he stood before me, my friend, nodding knowingly at me and gesturing for me to follow him, deep into the forest. I hurriedly ran after him, stumbling through the undergrowth. A cold wind swept through and leaves danced between the trees, steadily increasing in speed. I saw him running in the distance, further and further away, until I had lost him, until I had lost myself, hopelessly lost. Where was the way out? How could I get back home? I was alone. Alone in the darkness.***

Startled, I sat up from my cot that morning. The sun had already risen, but when I went outside to collect myself, fresh dew still glistened on the grass. I remembered that day. We had gotten lost in the woods, walked for too long and too far. I had fallen and must have lost consciousness. Juri hadn't noticed and had continued ahead. Back then, half the village had searched for us until late into the night, where they eventually found me. Juri had only been found a day later, half-starved, near the neighboring village. Later, we often laughed about our stupidity. What were we thinking? We were probably just simple-minded boys.

I chuckled to myself and dropped into the damp grass. The sun had already risen higher and my spirit felt light and content.

When work called, I kept catching myself traveling back to that forest in my thoughts, to explore its unknown depths with Juri and regain the adventurous spirit I had lost somewhere along the way. The Americans only sent out garbage, so it wasn't tragic to think about more interesting things. By afternoon, it got colder, winter announced itself loudly, and snow slowly began to fall. Finally, it was evening, and I could retreat back to my usual spot and listen for the planets. It didn't take long for me to hear those sounds again. They were no longer foreign - quite the opposite, they felt familiar, like old friends. Despite the resounding echo and irregular rhythms, which only just stood out from the noise of space, all the doubt I had had the night before and disappeared. This melody couldn't be evil. When I lay back in bed, I could practically feel my past catching up with me again.

***The poppy fields always had a calming effect on me. Countless flowers stretching to the horizon, resembling a red sea of bliss. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. My older sister and I had spent long afternoons in that sea of flowers that summer. The sun made the poppies look like an infinite sea of fire, blazing over the vast hills.***

***"I wish this could last forever," I heard my sister say.***

***She sat there peacefully in her bright yellow dress and fashionable hat, which was meant to protect her from sunburn.***

***"So do I," I agreed.***

***Both of us were afraid of the future, but here our thoughts could fly. No people around to distract us. No machines, which spread their metallic sounds over the land to remind us of our technological progress. Only nature and the flowers. Only the red poppies.***

***In those past days, peace rested in our hearts. How protected and secure we had felt back then...***

I must have woken up with a smile. The days long gone felt distant, but the memories of my sister and the fields warmed me all morning. I had to call her in the next few days. Unfortunately, I often neglected my family obligations, even though my parents and sister had supported me so much while I pursued my dreams and worked my way up in the military. My family was always in my heart, yet I often forgot to contact them for long periods of time. But I think love for one's own cannot be undone by time alone. Still, I wanted to get in touch with them soon, so I decided to call them before the end of the week. However, it didn't take long for my work to absorb me completely again, and I couldn't focus on such matters, as some critical maneuvers beyond the pond were noticed. After a long and exhausting day, I finally fell asleep on my uncomfortable bed, tired and stressed.

***I had sensed it. I had felt it deep inside me. On that day, the poppies looked dull, the sky threatening, and the sun small and insignificant. As if it had decided to withdraw from our world, to turn away from what was to come. As if it already knew that everything would change and that suffering and pain were lurking, waiting for us.***

***My sister didn't come with me that day, but another friend accompanied me... or was it a neighbour? Everything seemed blurry, strange, and looming. The red sea of flowers was no longer a place where I wanted to be, and at times, it felt like I was sitting in a pond of blood that threatened to swallow me. My companion didn't seem to notice much.***

***"A wonderful sky, isn't it?" was all I could hear dimly before I let myself fall back into the flowers.***

***With my eyes fixed on the blue emptiness above me, I lay there shivering.***

***I imagined smelling unpleasant smells, sulfur, vinegar, gasoline...***

***Restlessly, I held my breath.***

***It had grown cold, bitterly cold. Was I shivering because of that? Was I just imagining the cold? Wasn't there a bloody red in the sky? Weren't there pus-yellow clouds gnawing at the heights above me? No, there was only a calming blue. Only the wonderful, gentle blue...***

It took a long time for me to think clearly again after waking up, and to suppress the feeling of an unknown, greedily lurking danger within me. I suspected that the previous day's workload had not been good for my health, and I must have tried to process the stress in my sleep with peaceful memories, but my past had been smeared with negativity as a result.

I wouldn't let that happen again!

When calm returned around noon and my inner darkness disappeared, everything was more or less okay again. However, the work felt unnecessary and superfluous. It wasn't until evening, when I listened to that signal again, that melody of the void, that peace returned. My colleagues must have noticed something, because they gave me skeptical looks. Or was that just my imagination?

No, that couldn't be.

Maybe they knew about the signal, about its beauty. Maybe they wanted to take it away from me? But I wouldn't allow that. Never.

At the end of that day, the darkness made my sleeping place seem uninviting. But with some trust in the melody, everything would be okay.

***The time when Anya started to visit me more often was the most wonderful of my life. We met during my training. She was a baker's assistant and brought baked goods and cakes every morning, so we could go to our stations fully stuffed. Never before had I seen such a delicate girl, graceful, beautiful, always with a warm smile of kindness on her lips. Every time she entered the room, all worries disappeared, all fatigue, all stress. Her hazel eyes seemed to radiate ancient tranquility and turned every moment into a fairy tale.***

***Countless times passed where I just sat there at one of the shabby tables and waited. Not like the others for the food, no, for her enchanting presence. For most of the other people, Anya was just the little baker girl, but I always knew she was something special. When she started winking at me every morning, first shyly like a deer, then more invitingly, I knew Anya was made for me. We never had a chance to talk - we didn't have time - but I was sure that we were inseparably connected to each other.***

The dream about Anya made me forget the uneasy strangeness of the visions from the night before. Everything was back to normal, everything was good.

All day long, I just sat there, staring into space and living in the past. It's not easy to put into words how grateful I was for the melody of the void during those hours, as it had allowed me to relive my dearest memories as if it was the first time.

Perhaps it wasn't very wise to lose myself in my thoughts like that, as at any moment an act of war by the Americans could threaten us, and only places like this station could possibly anticipate it in time. However, the instruments seemed so insignificant to me that I simply couldn't concentrate on my important job. I only wanted one thing: for it to be nighttime again, time to sleep, so I could immerse myself in my memories once more. I don't like to admit it, but I too feel the constant threat, the knowledge that every moment could be the last before the atomic bombs turned the world into a barren wasteland. That is why it was even more pleasant to give myself up to my peaceful past, to remember Anya.

But I had to make sure. That's why I listened to the melody again, thinking of her, wanting to relive our first moments, as fresh and wonderful as they had been back then. I imagined... no, I was sure that I now understood the melody better, its essence, its intentions. I needed its tones and the static, needed its closeness before going to sleep, its loving embrace. I fell asleep with the headphones on my head at my little workplace shortly before my shift was over.

***The girl was a stranger and ugly, a bit fat and rough. When I saw her come in through the door, with her basket of pastries under her arm, which she then began to distribute carelessly, I became very afraid.***

***"Where is the other one?" I asked.***

***I had followed her when she left the dining room, full of fear.***

***Was Anya gone? Had she contracted an illness? Had she moved away? Been promoted?***

***The girl gave me a disdainful look.***

***Anya's mother had become very ill and was dying. The good girl wanted to be with her for the last time.***

***With great effort, I got Anya's address from her. After reporting sick to my trainer, I immediately set out to visit Anya.***

***I didn't know what to say, how to start, how to behave to avoid being intrusive, but my heart drove me to proceed.***

***When I arrived at my destination, I found Anya sitting on the steps in front of her small, shabby home. Her face buried in her hands, her knees bent, as she sobbed incessantly. Somehow, I knew what had just happened.***

***I had not yet fully reached her when she looked up and looked me directly in the eye. Despite the usual warmth that undoubtedly still shimmered in her gaze, I could feel the icy cold that held her mind in an iron grip. That clouded her world and made her doubt the goodness of life. I just stood there, looking at her, not knowing what to do.***

***After all, I didn't really know her.***

***Suddenly, Anya jumped up, ran towards me, and fell into my arms. I held her tight, never to let her go, the greatest treasure I had ever found.***

***We often still talked about those moments, our first moments alone. Anya never grew tired of stressing that I had felt to her like the only light in the suddenly breaking darkness, a face that had always given her positive feelings, and reminded her that there was joy in addition to sadness and pain.***

For a long time, I thought back to that morning. What luck it was that in those moments my presence felt like hope in a difficult time to Anya. It could have gone another way so easily, because who was I to her back then? A stranger she delivered bread to? Who sometimes gave her a smile but otherwise just focused on his work, without taking notice of his surroundings? It must have been fate.

As if through a veil, I perceived the world around me, enchanted by thoughts of my one true love, who had once warmed my heart. Everyday life seemed distant and unimportant again.

Now, in every break I could somehow allow myself, I listened to the melody from the depths of the universe. It had become the basic substance of my existence disturbingly quickly, allowing me to relive the beautiful past days so realistically. And who can blame me for secretly wishing back the days when happiness and peace were the only things that mattered?

Time passed, it became evening again, and under the suspicious glances of my colleagues, I finally lay down to rest.

Did they suspect something about the magical, foreign sounds that were changing my life? Did they covet my melody?

Those looks they gave when they felt unobserved.

That... greed.

Despite these unpleasant thoughts, I did not let myself be deterred and fell asleep immediately.

***Something was different that evening. Something was wrong and abnormal, I felt it immediately. Her gaze was distant, her hair uncombed. We sat on the small balcony attached to her tiny apartment, drinking wine and eating sweet pastries. Despite the cool air of the fading day, she was sweating. It was not often that salty drops adorned her forehead, but her eyebrows were soaked with them, glistening in the evening sun.***

***The evening sun.***

***Something was wrong with it too.***

***It seemed larger than usual, but not in the way it sometimes does. Its diameter seemed almost ten times what one could usually observe. The blood-red heat it emanated, which soon made me sweat too, felt terrible on my skin, as if cancerous growths were already beginning to break through to the surface of my irradiated body. Pulsing like a gigantic heart of death, the… sun… stood just above the horizon. I heard Anya gasp. She tried to get up and stagger around our small table towards me when she stopped.***

***Her usually beautiful eyes widened, and her mouth opened in a piercing scream that never reached my ears. Because just as her throat was preparing to utter the sounds, her jaw fell to the ground, melting and reeking, while the rest of her lovely face began to liquefy. As her eyeballs evaporated and her lifeless sockets continued to look at me for a fraction of a millisecond, the evening became brighter than a thousand days, and blinding light tore me away.***

Anya! Why... why this dream? Why not those cozy moments again, those fantastic memories that showed me my past happiness? Why had I seen such horrors that turned my guts and made me collapse on my meager cot?

She was fine... wasn't she? Anya was fine?

We... we had separated before I entered service here, after my training.

She didn't like what I was doing, so she left me. It still hurt when I thought about it, but duty called. The Motherland. In my heart, though, I sometimes wished I had made a different decision. Wasn't the dream just my innermost self, reminding me of the fateful decision that had led me to this station? My comrades were worried about me and sent me to the doctor, but what could he do? After all, I only had lovesickness, just an old scar that had flared up again.

But I was also afraid that it wasn't just the pain of the separation that had resurfaced in my subconscious.

The way of her... our death in the dream...

I must admit, I had thought similar things before. I had seen the instructional films they had shown us. About the bombs. About the bombs that could destroy cities, erase all buildings and works of art, all libraries and monuments, if the Cold War grew warmer. If it ignited, and with it the world, melted, melted because of that horror from Manhattan.

Those damned Americans.

They had developed the tools that now threatened everything, they were to blame for my suppressed fears, my panic, my dreams. What would come, what would my future bring? One false signal, one wrong button pressed, and my dream would become reality. There would be no more poppy, no more bakeries. Only a quick death for the lucky ones and a slow one from ulcers and mutations for the others.

I considered talking to my comrades about my fears, but I was too afraid of being shot or ending up in the Gulag. So I stood up to their hard, greedy, ugly looks, ignored their sly questions about my well-being.

They wouldn't find out that I was afraid.

I was a soldier. I would conquer the fear.

The workday was hell, I was looking forward to the night. Again and again, I made sure that I could listen to the melody for a few moments. It helped me calm down, and I realized: the melody was my friend. It would help me. It would take care of me.

Finally, the evening came. Finally, I could fall asleep.

I hoped to go back to Anya, my dear Anya, my beloved wife whom I had pushed away from me by my loyalty to the Motherland.

What had I done?

I wanted to be with her, lay there in the hard bed, thought of her face, her smile, how she came in with her bread... But she seemed blurry, the memory of her seemed to slip away from me, and I got scared. I knew that sleep would bring terror when I dozed off. On that night, I dreamt of war for the first time.

***Sulfur, burning air, the screams as my brothers died. I was there with them, in the trenches. In the caves. The enemy had come so fast and silently. Without warning, they attacked and began to exterminate us mercilessly. It was so real. So close. The sky, the ground, the water, everything burned in an infernal stream of destruction. Everywhere a mad red and suffocating fog. The popping and roaring of the weapons made me tremble. The echoes of my dying brothers reverberated in my head as I tried to hide in a small crevice. Maybe they wouldn't find me here?***

***A few meters away from me, I saw Dmitri, my best friend from childhood, lying in the trench about ten meters away from me. His weapon fired incessantly, the bluish muzzle fire tearing through the mist, and his gaze was filled with not only fear but also defiance and anger. He shouted orders and some other nearby soldiers ran into the fog towards the enemy. Their screams as they died unseen made me fall shake violently. The smell of sulfur became increasingly pungent and with horror, I could see Dmitri standing up and also jumping out of the trench, covered in dirt, earth, and mud, with entrails and blood sticking to his uniform. The smoke from the weapons and the haze around us now flooded over us like a tsunami. I heard Dmitri's battle cry, his voice firm.***

***His fading silhouette looked heroic as he rushed forward...***

***Out of nowhere, they were there. I couldn't really see them, but I sensed them. Those dirty monsters! Why did they come? What had we done to them? In the air, Dmitri's screams echoed, piercing me deeper than any blade could. They got him. I almost believed I could see Dmitri's arms and legs being ripped from him, as they dragged him away and he disappeared forever. I didn't want to live anymore, I wanted to perish too. I wanted to die here in these trenches among my friends, my brothers. And then they came and...***

When I woke up crying, I didn't know where I was at first. Or who I was. My bed was drenched in sweat, as was my clothing. I was shaking. My comrades were standing around me, eyeing me suspiciously.

"What happened to you?" one of them asked.

I couldn't answer, a strange fear of death still gripped my bones.

"Must have had a bad dream…"

I quickly changed my clothes and stormed into the night to organize my thoughts. Stumbled through the wild nature.

War...

I had never been in a war. Not in an open war at least. Not on a battlefield, not near certain death. Why... why had everything been so real? So clear? Why did it feel like I had just relived a memory again? What was the difference from my dreams where I was with Anya?

I tried to concentrate, but only fragments of the dream remained, I remembered Juri, remembered how we had been lost in the trench... how we were lost in the woods...

I stopped, was confused. I hadn't dreamt of Juri, but of someone else.

I felt sick and wished to hear the melody. I needed someone... something that calmed me, gave me a feeling of family and protection. I needed the melody. And my family. I had not contacted them for far too long. I planned to call them the next day. I had to talk to them. I had to... sleep...

***I saw them on the horizon. The enemies. I crouched on the ground as they approached. The thundering of the weapons was deafening. The grenades kept landing closer and closer to our little protective hole, sending rocks and foul smells into the air. The bombs created scars everywhere in the ground.***

***Everywhere.***

***Destroying everything.***

***The sky was bright, bright everywhere...***

***Annihilation, total destruction.***

***They won. They won effortlessly.***

***I burned, inside and out. My family, my friends, just fading memories. My world covered in a flaming death that drove us towards annihilation. My body died, crippled by sulfur and radiation. Only red and yellow and the end. Only pain.***

***I couldn't scream, couldn't move. Was this the future? Diving into nothingness until time itself eventually ended? They stood on the horizon. I couldn't see them through the smoke, but I felt them. Those abhorrent creatures who had taken everything from me. From us. But we would endure. For millennia.***

I came to my senses, must have fallen. I was lying in a thorn bush, my skin torn. For a brief moment, it felt like I was wrong, like nothing was right anymore. The barren landscape and the concrete buildings nearby looked dead and bleak. Slowly, calm returned to my inner self. I needed my family. I needed my mother.

I called her right after sunrise.

It took a moment for her to answer.

"Igor! My goodness, it's been a long time since we heard from you!" she greeted me happily.

Once again, I felt guilty. Guilty for not contacting them for so long. For almost forgetting them while listening to the melody.

"Hello. How are you?" I asked hollowly.

"Same as always, really. Your father just went to work, but he's doing pretty well too. And how about you? Is everything okay? You sound tense! Are you eating enough? Are you getting enough sleep?"

"Yes, the food is good and I have... Mom, this may sound a bit strange, but when was the last time you saw Anya? Do you know if she's okay?"

I was afraid of her answer.

What if Anya had an accident? What if they took her and put her in the Gulag because she hung out with the wrong people? That was hardly conceivable, but maybe...

"Who's Anya?" my mother asked, confused.

I was filled with worry.

Had I misheard? What did she mean? Was she going senile?

"Mama, are you okay? Anya, my ex-wife. We were married for ten years..." I tried to remind her.

"Igor, you're 19. What are you talking about?"

Only 19 years old...

I was only 19 years old.

But I had met Anya when she came in with the baked goods. I still remember finding her crying. How she burned and melted while the heat wave of the bomb tore her apart...

"Igor, honey, you sound sick. Or are you just pulling my leg? Have you talked to a doctor...?"

Dizziness came over me as Anya's face appeared in my thoughts. An old face. I had spent my life with her before she was taken away... I was with her when she burned... When she was crushed by debris from the cave...

"I'm not feeling well," I groaned into the phone.

Thousands of images flooded my mind. Like a lightning storm, they poured through me and I had to focus not to be swept away by them.

Was I going insane?

"I'm sorry, Mom, it's very stressful here, I'm probably really tired..."

"Oh, that's alright, honey. Take some time off. Come home for a few days. Can you do that? I know you're doing something important and I don't even know exactly what, but maybe you have the opportunity..." she suggested uncertainly.

But I couldn't leave. I couldn't leave the melody. I had recorded it on tape, but something inside me resisted taking the tape and carrying it out into the world.

"Yeah, maybe, I'll talk to my commanding officer. Maybe I should take some time off. Or take more walks. It's actually quite nice here, wooded and the air is fresh..."

"I'm glad you're feeling better in the woods," my mother said, sounding at least a bit pleased about it.

"It's getting better. But that one night still sits in my bones..." I admitted, while recalling the suffocating thicket where I once had gotten myself lost with Juri.

The dark hours when I wandered through the darkness, alone and scared.

"Why did you just run away, you know how tangled the forests are..." I heard my mother sigh.

"I don't know, Juri and I just wanted to... you know how much mischief we used to get into..."

A little guilt began to creep over me. We shouldn't have always been pushing the limits.

"Who is Juri? One of your friends from back then?" my mother asked, now with a slightly cutting tone.

"Sorry, I meant Dmitri," I said apologetically.

It had just slipped out of my mouth, I didn't know why.

Dmitri... Juri...

I froze as I realized that I couldn't remember their faces anymore. Not the moments we had spent together... In my mind, there was only the forest... only the war...

"Who? My God, Igor, what are you talking about?"

A deep sense of confusion and fear was present in her voice.

"He came from the neighboring village, visiting a friend," I quickly lied to reassure her.

"Oh, I see," my mother said, but it was clear she didn't believe me.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you, Mama. I'm fine, it's just long shifts here and I dream a lot. But it'll be alright. Please give Papa my regards when you see him later. I love you!" I ended the conversation, trying to sound calm.

But inside me, there was chaos. What was happening? What were these thoughts in my head? Why did I keep having these lapses, these... visions? Where did these images, these faces, so familiar yet so foreign, come from? I'm afraid of losing myself in memories that aren't mine.

That I'll soon disappear or won't know what's real and what madness. So, I've decided to write everything down. I hope that one of you, comrades, will get help if I'm no longer myself... if I'm not me anymore... And destroy the audio recordings of the melody because I can't do it.

It's now become a part of me, a part of my being. Or maybe I'm a part of it now? I don't know, I'm so confused.

I hope you've read my words, comrades. I hope you've locked me up or ended me should I lose myself. I don't want to hurt anyone. The visions of war, I feel that more will come and my body trembles every time I remember lying in the trenches. The... memories are coming more often now and seem to last for eternities. Oh God, Lord, I hope this is real. That I'm really leaving you these words and you're being warned. Please destroy the tape, please destroy it..."

I finished reading these disturbing notes, saw the terrible words written so differently. I sat on an old, wooden chair, reading the text with increasing horror. The case of madness presented to me here had to be handled with extreme caution, and I had to be careful during my planned interrogation of Igor Uspenskaya not to be attacked by him in a fit of insanity. Something else also worried me. The lines, the thoughts that the Senior Ensign had had, the lines he had written about the war...

I lost myself in my own thoughts, thinking back to the moments when I myself had been at war, fighting against the Germans, still a boy, a field medic, even younger than Uspenskaya. I thought back to the icy trenches, which I still dreamed of, and the soldier lying in front of me, speaking words I did not understand and...

I brushed aside the thoughts that had already tormented me enough. They had no place here. I thought back to Uspenskaya. After the notes were written, the Ensign's mental state had deteriorated so badly that he was placed under arrest, and I was called immediately. So… I had to prepare for the worst. With a sigh, I stood up to examine the man and find out what kind of delusion he had fallen into.

Before I spoke to Senior Ensign Uspenskaya himself, I wanted to make sure I had all the necessary background information. Therefore, I decided to speak to his superior again, Lieutenant Abramovich. Soon I was sitting across from the old, mustached officer who looked at me penetratingly as he smoked a cigar. He still seemed both concerned and angry that he had had to remove one of his comrades from duty under such circumstances.

"Doctor," he began, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "Doctor, I've heard that you're one of the best in your field, and we need someone like you here. You read the notes I gave you, you know it looks bad. We're down to just seventeen people serving here now, and I have to admit that Senior Ensign Uspenskaya was the best of them. It's regrettable what happened, but it looks like we'll have to release him from  duty entirely. The boy did good work, so it would probably be best to transfer him to an institution rather than the Gulag, but I'll think more about it after I receive your report."

I waved the smoke from my face. The man seemed self-assured and unsympathetic, as I expected from a commanding officer. Thoughtfully, I stroked my beard.

"I'm solely here to ensure that Uspenskaya is really insane and not just pretending. There have been cases where such a state was feigned to smuggle information out of bases. You see, I'm not just a doctor, I'm a doctor in the service of the KGB. I just want to make sure that Uspenskaya is as crazy as they claim. His writings are disturbing, and I want to know whether they're just nonsense. If it turns out he's pretending, we should consider digging a hole for the poor man outside," I said calmly, looking him in the eye.

I hated how I had to be. How dehumanizing. But that was the only way I could possibly save some from cruelty. In an emergency, I would even fake the report myself.

"Hmpf," said the lieutenant. "He's definitely crazy. You'll see when you talk to him. He doesn't even know who he is anymore. Completely insane."

"Let me decide that for myself. I'd rather know what behavior he exhibited before you detained him."

"He was normal, maybe a bit of a loner. But clever. Had it together. As I said, he was my best man. Two weeks ago, he started becoming distant. Sometimes hostile. Openly hostile, I mean. He barked at the others, sometimes flew into a rage, or retreated into himself completely. His comrades thought it was just stress. Then three days ago, he suddenly collapsed and started screaming and flailing wildly. At first, we thought he had just had a nightmare, but he didn't calm down, even when he seemed to be back to his senses. We locked him up temporarily and checked to see if he had hidden opiates, and that's when we found these strange notes."

"Ah, the notes. Yes. I've read them with a lot of worry," I said calmly.  "They are weird and a little eerie, but seem to me to just be the product of a confused mind."

"Do you think so? That he simply went mad? Does that happen at his age?"

"It's possible. Not often, but with enough stress..."

I tried to hide my doubts. Stress could trigger problematic episodes, but not without reason. Usually there was something else behind it. The lines I had read hinted at a trauma that had surfaced. In the best case. I didn't want to speculate further, so I steered the conversation in a different direction:

"His parents, have they been contacted? Asked if he really made that call?"

"Yes," Abramovich said bitterly.

After some silence, he suddenly stood up and walked to the window, staring out.

"Not only did the mother confirm that the call took place, but also that Uspenskaya apparently forgot things from his childhood. I can't imagine what the poor woman is going through. I haven't told her anything, no details at least, just that her son is in the hospital due to excessive work stress. I hope that wasn't a complete lie. That nothing else has happened."

A slight tremble could be heard in his voice. It unsettled me.

"May I ask what you mean by that?" I asked, trying to sound as neutral as possible.

The lieutenant turned back to me and looked at me piercingly as he took deep draws on his cigar. For a short time, the man seemed to sink into thought, but then he collected himself.

"The... Melody of the Void," he began slowly.

"The Melody of the Void? You mean what Uspenskaya supposedly heard? From beyond the sky? Come on!" I said and laughed hollowly.

Abramovich didn't laugh. He looked at me piercingly.

"We didn't just find the notes. After we searched his personal belongings in his quarters, we also looked at his workplace. One of the audio devices still had the tape he had last listened to in it..."

"You're kidding me! That ominous melody was on it...?"

"Maybe..."

I didn't want to believe what I was hearing.

"You don't seriously believe... and what do you mean by 'maybe'?"

"Some of my comrades are currently examining the tape. Don't worry, we haven't listened to it yet. Who knows what's on there. Certainly not a message from outer space, but what if the Americans sent us a signal that somehow... scrambles the mind? Extremely unlikely and equally ridiculous, but still... We want to make sure," Abramovich said.

"Of course."

I didn't know if I should laugh, but something about the lieutenant's demeanor held me back. He seemed unnaturally tense, his voice now trembling more. I wasn't even sure if Abramovich himself was aware of that.

Maybe something else was going on here, maybe some chemical substance was leaking out somewhere, triggering fear and uncertainty. Maybe a chemical substance that had been placed here.

Sabotage?

Maybe just my imagination running wild. Nonetheless, I now took the matter more seriously than I had initially.

"I want to talk to him, now."

"I know. And I hope you will come to me and report that the good Senior Ensign has gone crazy due to too much stress. That would be best for all involved.“

After Abramovich lit up a new cigar, which he drew on heavily, he motioned for me to follow him. We walked silently, and my thoughts kept pulling me back to those passages in Uspenskaya's jumbled notes that had been written so strangely. I had to prepare myself for a dissociative disorder, as I regretfully realized.

"I'm very curious for your assessment," Abramovich said when we arrived at an iron door with a small glass window in the middle.

The corridor we stood in was dreary, with plaster falling off the concrete walls.

"I'm sure I'll get something out of him and at least be able to tell you exactly what he has," I said, but my confidence was not sincere.

Who knew what had happened and driven the poor man insane. I took a deep breath and prepared myself to face the Senior Ensign and talk to him. Finally, I entered and left Abramovich behind in the corridor.

Uspenskaya was crouched in a corner of the room, far from the door. His hands were shaking uncontrollably, and he didn't look up when I entered. Dark circles under his eyes and pale skin testified to the stress the young man must have been under. I suspected that Uspenskaya had always been thin, but now he looked emaciated. An untouched tray of food stood next to him. His ice-blue eyes stared into the far distance. He smelled a little and a faint smell of vinegar wafted through my nose, but I ignored it. I took a chair and sat down near the door. One of the other soldiers had been instructed to keep watch in the room in case Uspenskaya attempted to escape, so now a towering uniformed man stood next to me.

"Senior Ensign," I began the conversation in a clear voice.

No reaction. Just staring from half-dead eyes.

"Senior Ensign Uspenskaya. I've read your notes. I'm here to help you," I continued.

"You can't get through to him like this," the soldier holding guard said.

"If he's like this, he won't listen to anyone. Sometimes..."

A jerk went through Uspenskaya and suddenly he looked up at me. He looked directly into my eyes, asking somewhat confused but clear:

"Who are you? What are you doing here? How did I get here? Why am I not in my bed?"

"Senior Ensign Uspenskaya, I am a doctor. I was called because you were not feeling well..." I began, but suddenly he began to shake again.

It seemed he remembered something and suddenly Uspenskaya began to cry.

"They're dead," he sobbed.

In his voice, there was not only sadness but also biting hatred.

"They're dead, killed like cattle..."

"Who is dead?" I wanted to know.

"Everyone. Everyone. Everyone..." The Ensign seemed to be almost singing the words. It appeared to calm him. Then he blinked confusedly.

"Excuse me, I don't know... I can barely remember. I remember... the war. I also remember other things, but always the war... As if it were yesterday, but it's been so long ago..."

"Which war are you talking about?" I wanted to know.

In his notes, Uspenskaya had talked about a war, but only in his dreams. Though… the dreams had read so real, felt so real to me, as if I were there too, in the trench... In the trenches... My thoughts drifted back again, back to those moments when I...

No, that wasn't the time, I had to pull myself together.

Think logically. Focus.

I was sure that Senior Ensign Uspenskaya had never really been on the battlefield, but perhaps he feared the Third World War? That was possible.

"Are you afraid of war?"

"No, I'm afraid of losing my friends. My brothers, my sisters..."

I decided to gently confront him with reality.

"You don't have a sister. And no brothers. You are an only child, Senior Ensign Uspenskaya," I said calmly.

"I know, I... Why did I say that? Why do I believe I had a sister? I don't understand... What's wrong with me?"

His crying had stopped and he now looked at me imploringly, as if I could help him and find an answer. And maybe I could.

"I'm trying to find out. Please describe how you're feeling right now," I instructed him.

"I... I feel empty. Strange. As if I was somewhere else. Just now. As if I were a stranger in my body, but it's slowly subsiding now. I've been feeling like this lately," he confessed, while sweat formed on his forehead.

"You feel strange because you believe you're still in the war?" I asked.

I had realized what his condition was, or at least I had a hypothesis. I just had to test it. I had to ask the right questions.

Suddenly, Uspenskaya jumped up, his face red, his eyes drowned in anger and hatred.

"I'M STILL AT WAR! THE WAR IS NOW! THE WAR IS NOW!" he screamed, then suddenly recoiled and sank back to the ground, where he started crying again and running his hands through his hair.

"He's never reacted like that before," cursed the guard next to me who had drawn his weapon to defend me in case of emergency.

I was grateful that the man was there, but I signaled him to lower his weapon for the time being.

"I understand. Senior Ensign Uspenskaya, I understand," I said.

"Do you?" he asked with a trembling voice, clearly on the brink of a breakdown.

But hope was on his face.

"You understand?"

I did. I knew what he had because I had gone through something similar. Shell Shock. A war trauma that grew like an ulcer in his thoughts and anchored his soul to the most terrible moments in battle. There was only one problem left. Uspenskaya had never been in open warfare. Just as he had written in his notes. So until a few days ago, he had been aware of that fact.

Why not anymore?

There were some cases where a similar trauma could also be triggered by other circumstances, but never with such a strong reference to combat actions. Nevertheless, there was often a trigger, an act that one committed, which one regarded as unforgivable after committing it. That made one doubt whether one knew oneself. Whether one was a good person... I knew the symptoms, had experienced them myself almost every night.

"Do you know why I became a doctor?" I asked.

"No, why... no," Uspenskaya said.

"There were several reasons. I wanted to serve the Motherland, wanted to support our comrades and ensure that they were always in the best of health... but one reason was also to ensure that war traumas are treated early and do not become self-perpetuating. War can consume you, even years later."

"What… I was never in a war," Uspenskaya said, perplexed.

"But you believe it," I noted.

"No, why should I? I'm nineteen..." Uspenskaya stammered.

He looked around.

"Where am I? Why... they killed him... but... it was just a stupid dream. I must have dozed off..."

"You are under observation because you have suffered a severe shock," I said.

"No, nonsense, what kind of shock? Why am I not in my room? Is my shift over already...? Listen, I have to get back to work, I have to get to my desk... I have to listen to it, otherwise I can't concentrate..."

It seemed worse than I had thought. He had strong memory disorders, stronger than I had initially suspected. And something else worried me.

"You want to hear…it?" I cautiously asked.

"Nothing, nothing, I didn't say anything, it's none of your business! It's mine!" Uspenskaya suddenly hissed and turned away.

Stared at the wall.

None of my further attempts at communication succeeded, so I had to give up for the time being. In thought, I left the room and the Senior Ensign behind. His condition was undoubtedly that of a person with a strong trauma, with the expected signs of dissociative disorder being the most concerning to me, as they seemed much more pronounced compared to other similar cases I had treated. Besides, I hated such disorders. I always had the feeling that I was about to be attacked, the fear that suddenly the humanity of the affected person would break down and they would pounce on me like a wild animal.

"And? How was it? I heard him scream. He has never screamed like that before," Abramovich said, tense, with a new cigar in his mouth and his hand on the pistol at his side.

"He has... suffered a strong trauma. As a result, his personality is disturbed, his perception is clouded, and he has episodes in which he is no longer himself. Imagine it as if he were dreaming while awake, only that it is a nightmare. And he cannot wake up..."

I leaned against the wall, my legs trembling.

"My God, what happened to him? So, you believe that these delusions in his... notes were the first signs of his condition? That's why they are so confusing?"

Abramovich spat on the ground.

"Possible. Maybe he has a tumor in his brain. Something that is growing and slowly robbing him of his senses. I'm not completely sure, we would need to do a computed tomography, but I don't know where to get hold of a device for that..." I said.

"Computer... what? We don't have that, never heard of it. So… we'll just guess. I guess Uspenskaya can't be rehabilitated anymore. That's too bad. We'll soon take him off the streets. Maybe to Station 13? Yes, I'll check with them. They probably have some new... ideas..." Abramovich murmured.

"Station 13?" I asked, confused.

Suddenly, the lieutenant's face hardened, and he looked at me piercingly. Slowly, his hand went back to his weapon.

"I didn't say anything about Station 13. You must have misheard, didn't you?" Abramovich asked penetratingly.

I understood.

"Yes, indeed. I must be tired," I said, looking him straight in the eye.

"Very well. So am I. We should go to bed."

"I would like to speak with him again tomorrow before they take him away. Maybe I can find out more, so that I can at least give his parents some more details," I said.

A stupid pretext. I didn't like the situation. Why should they take Uspenskaya to an ominous place and examine him there? Was there something I didn't know? Probably. I likely didn't know a lot. And that was good. Nevertheless, something in me wanted to know more. Something in me suspected that it wasn't a tumor that was burdening the Ensign. Because why would a tumor trigger shell shock? That didn't make sense.

"Speak to him again? If you want to. As long as I get your report, and fast, I don't care. And then I won't have to deal with his... whatever," Abramovich grumbled.

"Thank you. You will have my report tomorrow before my departure. I'm not needed anymore, am I?"

"No, just go. And don't forget that you are bound by secrecy. Otherwise, we'll meet again, and it will be in a much more unpleasant situation. Good evening. “

With that, he rushed away.

Lost in thought, I looked back at the door where poor Uspenskaya was wasting away, saw him through the small window. Who knows where they would take him and what they would do to him. I couldn't help him anymore.

Maybe he wouldn't even notice?

After having dinner and retiring to my makeshift room, I fell onto the cot exhausted. It was hard on my back but reminded me of long-forgotten times. I had slept on such a bed often. Or in the mud, in bushes covered in frosty dew that glittered in the morning sun, while in the distance the crackling of rifles and artillery roared.

As I lay there thinking of Uspenskaya, his explanations and notes, the passages in which he recounted the war, I remembered and sank into my own past...

I was back in the trench, in that cursed trench. The temperature below zero, the ground frozen hard as stone, my breath visible in the air. I was back on that day. I was with my comrade, bags slung over our shoulders, the crosses on them clearly visible, meant to protect us. Not even the Germans frequently attacked medics. I hadn't completed my training when they mobilized me. They had attacked us in the summer and pushed us back, but then winter came. And winter belonged to us. I had seen a lot of blood, had stuffed intestines back into bodies that were writhing in pain in the hope of saving lives. Had amputated festering arms and legs that were already rotting and stinking, in which maggots were already growing. The smells came back, especially the smells, the smells of burning flesh, charred corpses, and dirty blood.

And of all the gunpowder.

On that day, I had already patched up four of my comrades, well enough that they would survive. At least for the day.

We were approaching the Germans, encircling them. We would wipe them out. My comrade and I, only called "Spasatel," ran through the frozen, snow-covered trenches that the Germans had dug here months ago. We were on our way to the front, which was only five hundred meters ahead of us.

As a medic, I hated the war, but it wasn't just out there, not just far ahead of me, with its murders and pain and despair, with its hunger and hatred, but also in me. I wanted to defend my country, even if I didn't want to kill. It wasn't expected of me, as long as I didn't put anyone in danger and kept my comrades alive as best I could and gave my life for them if necessary. My rifle hung heavily over my shoulder, weighing me down, my body, my conscience. The walls of the trench passed me by, and I more and more smelled the stench of a fire that was driving some soldiers to their fiery end in the distance.

"Spasatel, we're almost there, on the left...", I began to shout, but my comrade just looked at me bewildered.

Then he collapsed, his chest ripped apart by a projectile. The blood and intestines splashed in my face and clouded my vision. I was petrified and had no time to react, to cry or to mourn.

I saw him in a hollow next to us.

A German soldier who had somehow slipped through. He lay there, his leg disappearing into a bloody stump, reloading his rifle to aim it at me. Like in a trance, I also aimed my rifle. My fingers were shaking. I had to blink because Spasatel's blood had run into my eyes. The German paused briefly, his eyes on my bag. He also trembled, but probably only from shock and pain. I looked into his eyes and he into mine. I heard his babbling, unintelligible. I couldn't understand him, didn't know what he was saying.

I saw in his gaze that he was going to pull the trigger.

His head exploded as my finger twitched.

The world became quiet and distant. Numbness enveloped me. Then I started to scream. And when I came back to the present, woke up, I realized once again that my soul had never finished that scream from so many years ago. That it was still roaring, full of pain. Like a phantom, my deadly shot echoed through my thoughts, pulling me out of my memories. Sweating, shaking, sobbing all over, I sat up and thought back to that soldier who had died by my hand.

Whose life I had taken.

Whom I had murdered.

After that moment in the trench, questions had arisen that never again left me in peace. Had he really wanted to shoot at me?

Was I only telling myself that my finger had twitched, and had I intentionally shot him in the head?

Perhaps he had seen the cross on my bag, wanted to make me understand that he had made a mistake... That he wouldn't do anything to me before I snuffed him out like the flame of a candle.

I hated these thoughts.

Years ago, I had tried to push them away and had finally managed to drown them out. But the story of Uspenskaya and the way he had talked to me, the pain in his voice and the despair, the hatred... It had brought my past back, had reminded me of it. And the nightmare had brought me certainty: the Senior Ensign had to process similar thoughts and memories.

But how was that possible?

As I sat on my cot and felt like I was suffocating in my thoughts, I heard hurried footsteps from the hallway outside my room, and then there was a violent pounding on the door.

"Doctor, Doctor, you have to wake up! Quickly! Get dressed, come out!" Lieutenant Abramovich shouted from outside.

Had they heard me screaming?

"Are you there? Come out!"

I swallowed. Besides strong urgency, his voice also carried... Fear. And uncertainty.

"Yes, one moment," I replied quickly.

I hastily changed my soaked clothes and unlocked the door. There stood Abramovich with two other soldiers, all of them as white as chalk in the face and completely out of breath.

"What the hell took so long, come on!" I was barked at, and before I knew it, I was dragged away through the corridors and into the large communal room.

My thoughts were racing. Were they going to execute me, did I know too much? Had they heard me screaming and now thought that something else was going on and Uspenskaya didn't have a tumor, but a more peculiar illness, one that had now passed on to me? Men under stress could jump to hasty conclusions. Nevertheless, it also seemed unlikely to me that they had been so unsettled by Uspenskaya that they now considered such fantasies...

The common room exuded a cold, inhuman atmosphere of death and despair, but also strange melancholy. I can't say exactly why I perceived these impressions. Why I started to fear the mood in that room. Why every cell in my body seemed to drive me to flee.

In contrast to the day before, when I had eaten an early dinner upon my arrival and the ceiling lights had felt warm and inviting, they now appeared icy and sterile. Apparently, all the station's staff had gathered, and I stared into countless faces. They twitched and trembled, at least most of them did. Some grinned and swayed back and forth as if under the influence of opiates, but it didn't seem to help them escape their thoughts. Their gazes were sad, panicked, and expectant. Others seemed to have already died inside, and their almost lifeless eyes made their wide smiling mouths look grotesque and abnormal. In one corner of the room, several shelves and their contents lay smashed on the floor. I couldn't see much, as some soldiers stood in front of them, but the sight alone hinted at something terrible.

"Very good, Doctor. Very good. You're here. That's good," murmured one of the men, quietly and barely audible.

It was the soldier who had stood guard over me in Uspenskaya's cell. Just the day before, he had seemed strong and determined, awake and unyielding. Now, he stood hunched over at the edge of the room next to one of the grinning men with dead eyes, looking like he wanted to run away.

A smell rose to my nose. A horribly familiar smell. Gunpowder.

The shot that I had thought was only in my memories... had it been real...?

"What do you want? What the hell happened here? Did someone shoot? I can smell it, someone shot a gun. What's going on?" I demanded to know.

"Very good, Doctor, I'm glad you're here... Very good… Very good…"

Some of the men began to whisper these words, and I got goosebumps.

"I didn't know what to do, had to act quickly. I hope they were the right decisions... Doctor, it's good that you weren't here. I'm glad I didn't fetch you too. It's... Ensign Koslov. Ensign Koslov has... Ah..." Abramovich said softly.

"What about Ensign Koslov, where is he?" I wanted to know.

Some of the soldiers next to the smashed shelves stepped aside, revealing a young man's corpse.

"Examine him," one of the men asked.

Reluctantly, I approached to see more. The body lay grotesquely twisted under the debris, and I could see the face of the dead man under some shattered pieces of the shelf's contents, looking in my direction with a slighty curled smile. The hole between his eyes was just a dark, crusted dot, but the floor and wall behind the body were stained with skull fragments and splinters, blood, and brain matter, still shimmering in the light of the ceiling lamps.

"What am I supposed to say about this? Someone shot him. Why? What's going on here? What happened?" I demanded to know.

I had to swallow and force myself to sound calm and resolute, to not immediately be thrown back into my past at the sight of the dead man. The German I had on my conscience hadn't smiled. He probably hadn't even realized he was dying...

"That damn idiot has..."

The man who had asked me to examine the body began to speak, but another interrupted him, whimpering.

"He wasn't himself anymore... he wasn't himself anymore, and he... he..."

"Pull yourself together. All of you, pull yourselves together! We need to keep a clear head now. Doctor, let me explain it to you. So that you know what's going on here and why I brought you here," Abramovich bellowed, silencing the room completely.

"Just after you left, Ensign Koslov gathered us all together. He had intercepted a message from the Americans and wanted to make sure we were all up to date and could investigate more effectively. He told us that he had intercepted plans and routes for nuclear warheads, at least in part. He couldn't decode the entire message and needed all of us to help decipher it so that we could warn Moscow. He said the times and dates of planned actions he intercepted didn't allow for any delay, and we all had to start decoding it. Something like this had happened once or twice before, albeit not with such a serious message - if it turned out to be true - but still...

You… We couldn’t tell you about it because of confidentiality, so I saw no reason to involve you. We were all sitting here, ready to start deciphering the parts of the message that were still unclear, when Koslov inserted a tape into the tape recorder on the shelf and played back the recording... He urged us to listen to the message, he seemed almost nervous, but also strangely pleased... You can imagine what he actually played back?"

I was silent.

Thinking.

But not for long.

I had somehow known all along, in a terrible way.

Uspenskaya's tape, which he had hidden. The tape with...

I felt sick and fear washed over me as I looked into some of the faces again. Faces that seemed to remember something, a wonderful dream they never wanted to forget...

"You heard the melody. The Melody of the Void. All of you..."

Suddenly, some of the soldiers seemed to be speaking in a trance, almost singing, their eyeballs rolling back into their skulls, saliva dripping from their open, grinning mouths.

"It is perfect."

"It is peace, a home..."

"It is our love, our friendship... in eternity."

"It is beautiful..."

"SHUT UP," Abramovich roared, though his gaze had briefly drifted off into emptiness.

Once again, silence descended upon the room.

"I shot Koslov in the head as quickly as I could. I smashed the audio device. He was the one that found Uspenskaya's notes and brought them to me. He must have read them, and when examining the tape... He became enthralled by it, just like Uspenskaya. Like we all will soon be..."

With that, Abramovich fell silent as well.

"What now?" My question echoed mockingly off the bare walls.

"What now...? Indeed. What now? I have made a decision. And given an order. Not everyone agreed, but that doesn't matter. It's hopefully the right decision. We will lock ourselves in here. And surrender our weapons outside. And then wait. All of us. Whatever happens," said Abramovich firmly.

"But..."

"Some want to use the weapons. So that we don't fall under its control. So that we can escape, like Koslov... escaped just now. But that's not smart, because you are here. You can talk to us and learn from us. Learn how the melody changes us. If others someplace else have received it too, you are our only hope. I now know that it's not a simple melody. Not random notes. It's as if it's alive. As if it's full of emotions and thoughts. As if it *is* emotions and thoughts. As if it is hatred and anger and sadness and paradise. Yes, it is... paradise... See? I am changing too. We'll get tired and soon fall asleep. And then... Then the dreams might begin... And we'll lose ourselves like Uspenskaya... And if not, if nothing happens, then you'll notice and just let us out again. Give us a week. We'll prepare everything. You just have to keep watch, examine us, talk to us. And record everything. One week..."

I don't know why I agreed.

Maybe I thought I owed it to the Motherland to save it from the Melody of the Void. If I even could. If I could examine its effect on the mind, perhaps I could negate it. Could save others... And prove to myself that I was a good person. A desire that had flared up in me again and again since the trenches. The men laid down their rifles and pistols outside the common room and hastily brought in supplies, which they stowed away in a corner of the room. They took Koslov's body out into the woods and hastily buried it, while the remnants of his execution were cleaned up, leaving only memories of all the blood, memories that I too will never forget. Through the door, I could communicate with about one person each and thus investigate more about their thoughts and the effects of the melody.

"One week," said Abramovich before closing the door.

"One week," I agreed, barricading the entrance to the common room.

"I hope we'll see each other again," I heard the lieutenant say through the door.

"Me too," I replied.

\*\*\*

In the next few hours, no major changes occurred. The men spoke softly and mumbled unintelligibly through the door, so although I didn't know exactly what they were discussing, I could be sure that they were still alive. Some soon told me about being depressed and worried during our conversations, giving me phone numbers and addresses of their families and asking me to deliver last messages in the worst case scenario. Others began to rave about the melody, telling me how much they longed to hear the sounds again. I couldn't say exactly what distinguished these people from the others and tried to figure out any commonalities, but I never found any.

A few of the men tried to persuade me to let them go. They begged and pleaded, trying to convince me that there was nothing wrong with them or… that the melody had to be spread.

The day passed and it became evening. I warmed up some canned food and tried to push thoughts of the men in the common room out of my mind. Finally, I lay down on my cot and fell asleep, only to be dragged back into the trenches and relive the worst moments of my life.

The next two days passed slowly. I witnessed the changes in the men's behavior occur more quickly than with Uspenskaya, and their tones gradually became darker and more insane.

"You just have to listen to a very specific area of space, doctor," one of them laughed.

"You have to record it and bring it to us, we just want to hear it one more time. Just one more time, I promise! Please... please, I beg you..." another one wept.

Abramovich tried his best, but he too was slowly drifting away.

"It's so alive, you know? I got it all wrong, it is not bad, not evil. We'll be out of here soon and then I'll prove it to you," he murmured.

"I don't think we got it wrong..." I began, but suddenly I was interrupted by a scream of desperation.

"What... what's happening to me... why do I have these foreign thoughts? Why are they all dead..."

One of the soldiers seemed to be at the end of his wits. I heard noise, screams, the sound of a fight. And again and again, that wailing screech.

"No, no, I don't want to go back to the war, I don't want to, please! I have to get out of here, I have to get away from here!"

Finally, muffled blows and other painful cries, tumult, and yelling.

Then silence.

"What happened...?" I asked finally, after a few minutes, sweating with fear and exhausted from the stress.

"Kuzmin attacked some of the others. They beat him to death. He now lies in a corner. We turned his face away from us, his eyes still bear an unnameable panic..." reported the soldier who had once stood guard in Uspenskaya's room.

Uspenskaya... He too was trapped, had received food and drink for a week. When they had tried to bring him to the common room, he had had a fit and lashed out.

"No, no, I don't want to leave, only here am I safe, only here can I survive, it can't get me here..." They had left him locked up, not wanting to waste any time.

"Why didn't you execute Uspenskaya?" I asked the soldier to distract myself from thoughts of the fresh corpse.

"He is one of us... one of us..." the man replied.

I swallowed and tried to distract myself with a book I had found. The door beside me seemed to shield me from a terrible hell, but I could not imagine what the situation was doing to the others. One murder had already occurred, and the changes were continuing, the mood becoming more tense. I could tell from their voices, the more I spoke with them. Fortunately, the rest of the day was uneventful and I eventually occupied myself with retrieving and transcribing the notes of Senior Ensign Uspenskaya from Abramovich's office. It was just a silly task at the time, but today I am glad I did it, because it allowed me to preserve everything for posterity. I copied the texts for a long time, constantly interrupted by groans and whispering voices that disturbed me. I hardly slept the following night. At times, I thought I would also go mad.

At other times, I even hoped for it, because madness would free me from my fear and from my guilt, which still weighed heavily on me. I hated that I had been called to the station, that old wounds in my mind had been torn open and my trauma reignited. I had treated Shell Shock so many times, but I had never let it affect me like this. I had helped everyone as best I could.

I always had.

I was a good person.

A GOOD PERSON!

A good...

With these thoughts, I fell asleep and was reminded that it was not true. That I was a despicable monster who had committed cruelty without limits, that I had become stained and corrupted. That I had besmirched myself with the thick blood of another person, a blood that would forever stain my soul.

The next morning, I was afraid to go to the common room and sit by the door.

"How was the night?" I asked cautiously as I sat down.

In response, I heard stuttering from the other side, dull, toneless, and hopeless, full of despair.

"You… you came back, doctor. Thank you. Thank you. You came back... after all these years..."

I shuddered and wanted to run away.

Abramovich. He had gone mad.

"What... what do you mean, lieutenant?"

"They burned them. All burned, torn apart, shot, vaporized. The Men took them. The Men kept coming back. From the horizon. They abducted them... Oh, those grins... Those dead huge eyes, those suits... I was there again, there again, in the war, in the war... I don't want to go back anymore, I can't take it anymore.

The last time we spoke, all those years ago, I told you to let us out in a week. I told you... Why did you wait? Why have you kept us locked up all this time?"

His voice sounded delirious; his words made no sense.

He seemed lost in delusions.

"Since the last time we spoke, not even four whole days have passed," I said firmly to give the lieutenant a reference point for how long he had really been sitting in the common room.

In response, there was a violent pounding against the door, drumming as if someone wanted to break it open from the inside.

I was lucky that the door was heavy and did not budge.

"WE AGREED YOU WOULD OPEN IT AFTER A WEEK! WHY WON'T YOU LET US OUT, WHY WON'T YOU..."

Then there were fighting sounds again, this time louder, closer to the door. Men on the other side roared like animals. I would have loved to just flee, to leave this damn station behind me, but I couldn't.

I was the only one watching over them.

I might still be able to help them.

I was a good person.

"I want to hear the melody, please, I want to hear the melody!" someone whined from inside.

"Quiet, we have to get out of here, I just want to get out, otherwise... otherwise I'll be there again, I feel it, I'm going back there, there to the battle... to the slaughter..."

"It is beautiful, I remember it and its sounds... It is my heart, my soul..."

"My arms, where are my arms? Where are my legs?“

In the midst of the voices, I heard panic and euphoria, hope and despair, hatred and love and pain and death. The noise inside grew louder, and I heard people kicking and punching, objects breaking, furniture shattering, and lives ending in terrifying screams. I didn't want to know what was happening, didn't want to hear it, didn't want to hear...

Like a fetus, I lay on the ground, covering my ears and crying, crying for the men who died and lost themselves in their hallucinations, in their nightmares.

Then it was quiet.

Deadly silence.

Should I check? Should I open the door? Or were some waiting for me, waiting to jump on me and kill me for locking them up, for not letting them dance to the melody? Wherever it was...

"A... week..."

It was Abramovich's gurgling moan.

"You said... a... week..."

He was still alive, but probably not for long.

Driven by desperation, I ran away and barricaded myself in my room. I didn't sleep. I just sat there and felt time pass me by. Again and again, I imagined hearing a voice babbling incoherent German words.

"Versehen... versehen..."

Overly tired, I stumbled to the common room the next morning, after being tormented by the Germans's ghost for a long time. It felt like his corpse was chasing me through the halls, his clattering footsteps following me.

This time, I heard nothing as I reached the door. This time, there really was dead silence. Only a puddle of blood had seeped under the door and onto the hallway. The purple fluid had already dried. It was probably over.

"Is anyone still alive?" I shouted through the door.

No answer.

"Hello?"

Still nothing.

It was over. I had made it.

But I was alone.

Should I check now?

Something inside me resisted.

No, no.

But what should I do? What...

I had to get away. I had to get out of there.

I would look for Senior Ensign Uspenskaya... Yes, at least someone who was still there. And even if he... well, one corpse was a more pleasant sight than a whole room full of them. And maybe he was still alive. Maybe I could at least save him, take him away. I hadn't learned anything, despite the conversations with the men. Only that the melody was like a virus that corrupted healthy minds.

I stumbled through the corridors, just wanted to get away. But I had to do something... I had to do the right thing. For my safety, I took a gun with me, just in case. Coldness had seized me as I turned into the hallway leading to Uspenskaya's room.

As I looked at his door, I flinched.

Uspenskaya had pressed his face against the glass, so that I could see his large, insane eyes and his broad grin through the small window in the door. He stared at me and I wanted to turn around, but I had to help at least one person.

The Senior Ensign's eyes looked large and greedy. A biting smell swung towards me as I ran the last few meters to him.

"You're still here. Interesting. I thought you weren't here anymore," Uspenskaya gurgled with a strangely buzzing voice that came through the door.

"What's wrong with you? Do you know who you are?" I tried to distract him.

"Yes, of course. I beg your pardon. Of course I know who I am."

I didn't like the confidence with which he uttered those words.

"The others, they are... I think they are gone. I... How are you?"

"What happened? Please tell me what happened!" the man ignored me.

"The others heard the melody... of the void… Someone found your tape. Played it and all... all the soldiers stationed here heard it."

"NO!" Uspenskaya suddenly screamed.

"No, no, they didn't... NO! It doesn't work like that, it doesn't WORK like that! No, NO! There has been enough suffering!"

Like a madman, the Ensign began to punch the window, ramming his fist into the glass. Blood-soaked splinters flew towards me and the sour stench grew stronger. The Senior Ensign finally tried to shove his arm through the small broken window to open the door.

"No, stop that!" I screamed, drawing my pistol.

He didn't listen to me and groped for the handle. The barrel of my weapon trembled. I didn't see the Ensign, but a long-forgotten young man who was shouting incomprehensible words at me. I saw the snow, the frosty ground, and I felt dizzy and fell.

When I came to, Uspenskaya was standing in front of me, holding the pistol in one hand, the other a fleshy, bloody lump full of glass shards.

His large eyes fixed on me.

"Where are the others? WHERE ARE THEY?" He seemed completely out of his mind.

"They... they're all dead, they're all..." I stammered.

"SHOW ME!" The Senior Ensign roared.

Dazed, I picked myself up.

"Please, it's not possible. There... there is..."

"I WANT TO SEE IT!"

Desperately, I gave in. As we ran towards the common room, I was afraid. Afraid of what I would find, afraid of what Uspenskaya would do to me. Maybe I could survive somehow? Maybe I could overpower him? But what if I had to shoot him? Impossible.

Not again.

Never again.

When we arrived at the common room, a smell of decay hit me. I unlocked the door and hesitated, but Uspenskaya gestured with his weapon to open it. My hands shook as I grasped the cold, metallic handle.

"HURRY UP!" he shouted.

The door swung open.

On the other side was hell.

Torn bodies, blood, entrails, red scratch marks on the walls, urine, and a pungent smell greeted me. Only a few of the men’s bodies had been left intact. Most must have torn each other apart in a frenzy. I found Abramovich's body, with a table leg driven into his heart, and the guard with pencils stuck in his eye sockets. It smelled of death and reeked of suffering.

"NO! NO!" The Senior Ensign screamed, while I vomited and fell to the ground.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry," I wept.

Uspenskaya seemed to not hear me and continued to scream, his voice full of raging anger and relentless hatred.

„We made a mistake... Not minds, bodies! We need bodies. That is what we need. I am useless like this. As where they. They suffered so much and now they ended in a dump like this”, he roared.

Then, slowly, he looked at me, eyes twitching madly. He seemed to get a clear head again. Though that made what he said worse.

“We… will adapt…Yes, we will adapt. We will experiment. We will get it right. And then, we will be ready, ready to spread out and to fight back. We will find them. We will eradicate them as they eradicated us. They may be gone, but they have to be somewhere…”

What the hell was he talking about? His gaze became stern, his eyes scrutinizing me.

“You… you filthy, dirty rotten apes. I hate being this close. I hate living in your flesh, I hate sharing this mind. You were just tools that grew like cancer, eating up this world with your filth. I can hear your sorrow… Doctor. You are so lucky… lucky that you did not go to a place touched by them… or your sorrow would have caught up to you, wrathful, taken you and… But you have bodies of flesh. You have bodies…. And we need bodies… We need to build our own … Model them like yours… Yes…”

He was insane, insane.

Or was something else inside him? Was it really no longer Uspenskaya who was talking to me...?

The stench and fear robbed me of my senses. I blacked out for just a moment.

Or longer?

The Senior Ensign was still in front of me, but now he was confused, frightened.

"Doctor, what's happening to me? How did I get here? What happened? Is it gone? Did it leave me? I think it is gone… What... what is that over there..."

I shuddered, following his gaze, about to lose my senses again.

The bodies were no longer scattered around the room.

Some were missing.

But most had apparently been melted together into a large pile. A lump of red meat lay there, a mixture of all the soldiers who had met their end in this horrid room. The thing... Its alien anatomy seemed to make terrible sense, yet it was strange and godless. To my horror, it seemed to be alive, moaning in pain as waves of convulsions ran through its body.

"It... it didn't work... Your bodies... We have to rebuild them... Without minds… Have to take them… I have to tell them... Have to… It hurts so much... Anya... I love you… always and forever… Juri... my best friend… not their names… no… but memories of them and it's enough... I kept them with me until the end... Saved them… My memories of them, corrupted by your primitive mind… I saved them… Have them with me now, for eternity... Anya… Dear Anya, I will always love you…"

I don’t remember Uspenskaya pulling me out of the building, away from the thing that was miserably dying and no longer moving as we ran out of the room. When I came to my senses, we were sitting in the grass near the trees, in front of a blazing inferno.

"I hope it's gone. It was my fault. I should never have listened to the music of space..." Uspenskaya's voice was sad, but now clear again.

I looked at him, this shattered, broken young man.

"What... how are you?" I wanted to know.

I didn't know what else to ask.

"It's gone. And I won't be here much longer either, I think. My thoughts keep drifting to the stars. The melody, it will take me. I will become a part of it. I have no idea how I know this, but it is a truth that I carry within me..." It was only now that I noticed that he was shaking with fear all over his body.

"I can hardly hold myself in this body anymore. Here, in this place. In *my* body. Please, Doctor. Don't say anything. Don’t tell anyone. Say that you already picked me up several days ago. Say that we had an accident in the wilderness and that's why we haven't been heard from for a while. They will think it's just a fire that broke out here. Maybe they will investigate, but I don't think so."

"Why wouldn't they..."

"Because all of this was a secret. One of their secrets. It will just be an accident. There will be new personnel. Let's just go."

"Where to?"

"Take me to a mental hospital. Yes, that's the right thing to do, I think. And, tell my parents that I love them, if I can't do it anymore. Make sure my body stays alive when I am gone, so they have something to hold on to. I don't want them to lose their boy completely. I want them to be able to visit me, hug me, if they want to, even if I'm not there anymore. Please..."

"I promise."

We were silent for a while. Then I asked. I had to know.

"Senior Ensign Uspenskaya… I have to ask you. The Melody of the Void... what do you think it was?"

The man suddenly looked even sadder, full of pain.

"The melody... I believe it contains the memories of a destroyed world. In it there are wailing, hateful voices that seek revenge. They are desperate and have lost everything. Many of those voices have touched me. One of the voices was inside me. It wanted to live again. It wanted to retaliate. It tried to build itself a body there in that common room. I think other voices tried to live in the other soldiers. But they couldn't hold on. They can't push us away, not completely. But Doctor... I'm afraid that the voices that chant the melody... that they will find other ways... they won't give up..."

I was silent and got lost in thought for a while.

"Have you ever been to war?" I finally asked Uspenskaya.

"No. I still have the memories, but they are just distant echoes that are slowly fading. I know that I once knew what it meant to be at war. What it means when your loved ones are taken from you. I see faces that are disappearing, faces that I... that it... once loved... But it's all distant now and I start to forget..." His gaze seemed to become more shadowy and his voice continued to tremble.

I sighed.

"That's good. I envy you. I envy that you can forget the war... that you didn't experience it yourself. That you weren't confronted with the worst part of yourself, which you never knew was there..."

"Were you in a war? I seem to remember you saying that when we first met... vaguely remember..."

"Yes. I was. Stalingrad. I was a field medic, almost your age. I shot a man dead. I never told anyone, but I think I should have. I shot him because I thought he would kill me otherwise. Because he had shot my comrade. But I think he didn't see that we were medics, maybe he wouldn't have..."

"Maybe. Maybe you shot him. Maybe not in self-defense. Maybe otherwise he would have died as a prisoner, suffered for a long time. You don't know. But you should learn to accept and confront the darkness within you. I felt the darkness in the melody. The hatred… See it as a warning: Don't stray from the right path..."

"I could have shot you. I had the gun aimed at you. But I didn't do it. Part of me wanted you to overpower me and make me pay for what I once did in the trenches..."

"I am very glad you did not shoot it… me. I won't be here much longer, but because of your hesitation, I can talk to you, tell you what to tell my parents."

"But you will..."

"In the end, you brought a bit of light into my life and will bring a bit of light into my parents' lives. And maybe into others'. You gave me some moments in which I am still myself. Thank you."

He spoke the words with determination and there was no deception in them. Together we walked to one of the nearby SUVs and set out to leave the burning station behind us.

\*\*\*\*

The conversation with Uspenskaya near the raging flames helped me to start confronting myself and lessen my nightmares. And what helped me just as much was fulfilling the last wishes of the men whose deaths I had been so close to. I went to their parents, their loved ones, and delivered the messages I had been entrusted with. Not just to Uspenskaya's family. No, I also went to the others, even if it took me years because I always tried to do it discreetly, was careful.

And whatever the Melody of the Void had done to the men, I had to realize to my horror in the years to come that a part of them was still around. That their echoes were still being received, emanating from the ruins of the station, whose humming signal was soon labelled UVB-76 and became an urban legend. No one ever found out where the signals came from. I believe as well that other signals were deliberately sent to obscure the nature of the unnatural noise and humming. I can only hope that there is no part of the Melody of the Void in the transmissions. That's why I urge everyone not to intercept the signals from UVB-76.

Please.

Uspenskayas voice, too, had been heard, recorded, as I eventually found out. So, I must emphasize again: I do not know if the Melody of the Void is still buzzing around out there, between radio waves and antennas. I hope no one will ever receive it again, but I cannot guarantee it. Beware of messages in the ether's noise. Do not look into UVB-76.

I brought Uspenskaya to a mental institution with which I had worked before. They took him in, and his parents could visit him whenever they wanted. In the next few days, his condition deteriorated, and he had longer and longer moments of mental absence. I visited him a few weeks later, but not again afterwards. I did not want to witness what became of him. On my last visit, the Senior Ensign just sat in a corner, looking around hectically, and humming a melody that made my hair stand on end. I had never before heard such abhorrent sounds coming from a human throat.

## Characters

* KGB psychiatrist
* Senior Ensign Uspenskaya
* Lieutnant Abramovich

## Entities & Objects

* The Melody of the Void
* Voice in Uspenskaya

## Possible Connections to the Ebrugh

* The smiling men in suits described by Abramovich are reminiscent of the Man
* The cry that Abramovich has in which he claims to have lost limbs is reminiscent of the dreams of past people in Ebrugh Report 9
* The voice in Uspenskaya seems to reflect the opinions of the Ebrugh in Ebrugh Report 9, seeing humans as discusting and vermin-like, though this opinion could also be that of the alien race on one of Jupiter's moons, as the voice mentions eradicating a race that eradicated its own race (Ebrugh eradicating Jupiter race) as well as transmitting memories of losing loved ones in a war which was lost

## Trivia

TBA