Sergey LUKYANENKO – The Boy and the Darkness – Chapter 1. The Sun Kitten.
Everything happened because I got ill.
It was already two in the afternoon, and I was lying in bed flicking through “Peter Pan” – I must have read it a hundred times over. I had long since pulled off the bandage my mother had tied around my neck in the morning, and thrown it into a corner. I simply can’t understand – how can cotton wool soaked in vodka possibly help a cough? I don’t argue with my mum, of course, but after she leaves I look after myself in my own way – namely, lie in bed with a book and wait for my germs to get tired of such a boring method of passing time. It usually helps – perhaps not at once, but after a day or three. A good thing, really, that the street outside looked quite miserable – the sun poking out for brief moments, only to make room for a patchy, nasty drizzle. Though, the sun never actually peeked into the room – our house is so unfortunately placed that it is in the shadows of the new nine-floor high-rises on every side. “The only use for such a flat is to grow mushrooms”, – dad used to say, back when he still lived with us.
I put my book down on the floor next to the bed, and lay on my back. Perhaps, had I shut my eyes now, nothing would have happened. But there I was, lying staring at the ceiling and listening to the ticking of the clock in the hallway.
And a speck of sunlight jumped into the room through the glass. Small – the size of my hand – but surprisingly bright. As though the window was open, with bright summer sun outside. Someone was probably playing with a mirror on the balcony of the house across the street.