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[Alexandr Korol]

It happened — so first I went there alone, on the night of September 11th to 12th. And when the night came, it was already September 12th. The girl, she was the driver. The car was parked on Bolshaya Konyushennaya, and I went through the arch to get her, called her over. And we stood near the Church of Peter and Paul, between the two monuments. I showed her the piece of paper and said, “Memorize the numbers. Now take my hand and close your eyes.” She stood on my left side, I held her with my left hand. I said, “Close your eyes and repeat the numbers silently: 3-14-15-26-42-5, 3-14-15-26-42-5, 3-14-15-26-42-5.” I immediately began to feel as if some kind of light was descending on me — onto my head, onto my shoulders. And as I kept repeating the numbers, it felt like each time was a step, like a gradual immersion. With every repetition, something was covering me more and more, wave after wave. And at some point, it felt like I was entering some kind of vacuum — I couldn’t feel the outside air temperature anymore, couldn’t hear the street, the cars passing by on Nevsky Prospect. As if I wasn’t even there anymore. And then there was this moment — like fear, as if just one more step and I would lose consciousness. At some point, I felt so deeply that I was about to lose control — though I still had it, it was as if only a tiny percent remained. And in that moment, you know how someone suddenly jerks awake, like when you feel like you’re falling in a dream? That’s what it was like — I jolted, opened my eyes suddenly. And the girl did too. And what did we feel? A state I call a vacuum, a state of “without mind.” You don’t feel your body temperature, the air — you feel like you’re in shock, like you’re only here and now. And I remember this girl, her name was Olga — her eyes were pitch black, as if there were no irises, like her entire eye was one big pupil. And my eyes looked the same. And I began to feel very unusual. I remember turning my back to the church and looking toward Nevsky Prospect, and suddenly I had this feeling — as if I could look at the city of St. Petersburg from above, from outside, and I saw it like a microchip, like some kind of mechanism or a clock. And that the place where I was standing wasn’t even central — it felt like one of the outer nodes, and that there were many such places. It felt like part of some mechanism. And I felt as if something had entered me. The girl felt it too, as if something entered her. Like you’ve become someone else — there’s no way to describe it. As if... as if you were some kind of stranger. I don’t know how to explain it.