Sunatic

Sunatic



The sun sparkled and blazed outside the windows of an ordinary two-room apartment on the first floor.
Vera Nikolaevna Nifontova, a teacher of Russian language and literature, pressed the doorbell button.
At first, there was only silence in response, then a dissatisfied, cracked voice.
- No one is home.
- Stepan, is that you? – Nifontova asked.
Silence.
- Stepan...
- Yes, it’s me, Vera Nikolaevna, – came the uncertain voice through the door, which no one was rushing to open. – But I'm… feeling unwell. I’ll miss a few days.
- Stepan, please open the door; I want to talk to you.
- We're already talking.
- Stepan, – Nifontova said more sternly.
More silence.
And just when the teacher was about to say something else, the door lock clicked, and the door opened.
Wrapped in a colorful blanket or something similar, a figure stepped back into the dusty darkness.
Nifontova hesitated by the threshold, unsure to enter, although she had come here with the most serious intentions. She internally laughed at the absurd fears that seemed to arise out of nowhere.
- Come in if you want, – said the person in the blanket in the same crackling voice. – But I warn you: I’m sick.
Nifontova had already easily recognized high school student Stepan Bogdancev in this person, not the best and not the most compliant of her pupils. She wasn't afraid of catching anything. So she confidently entered the apartment.
- Please close the door, – Stepan asked, disappearing into the room.
Nifontova shrugged. She closed the door and fastened the latch. She waited. No one appeared.
- Stepan! – she finally called out.
- Come here.
Nifontova, for some reason now less boldly, walked into the room where Stepan had disappeared.
He was sitting on the sofa, uncharacteristically modest, and stared intently at the teacher.
- Stepan, – Nifontova began her prepared speech, – I wanted to talk to you about your constant absences…
The young man did not take his attentive eyes off her, and this completely embarrassed the woman. She decided to deviate from the script.
- Why do you skip classes so often?
Stepan shrugged and didn't reply.
- Is it somehow related to your family? I heard… sorry… that your mother, she…
- Died? Yes.
- Right. – Nifontova sat down beside him, and Stepan, as if scalded, immediately moved away. – Is it hard for you to live with your father? I see your apartment isn't very clean; forgive me for being direct.
Stepan lowered his head and remained silent.
- Is it a lack of money? – Nifontova continued, trying to look him in the eyes, but he stubbornly kept his gaze down. – Does it make you feel like you're not quite right? It must be sad. Or maybe even depression has set in…
Suddenly Stepan lifted his head and stared closely at Nifontova. Her blood ran cold at the piercing intensity of those two round black dots surrounded by a bright sunny iris.
- I really am not like others, Vera Nikolaevna… if you want to know… And it’s not even about depression. I'm sick, Vera Nikolaevna. Very sick. And right now I’m having an exacerbation of my illness.
- What are you sick with? Perhaps my classmates and I can help. We’ll involve other teachers, call a parent-teacher meeting…
Stepan didn't let her finish – he just shook his head.
- It won't help, – he said, bitterly smiling. – My illness is incurable.
- Do you have cancer? Or something like that? – Nifontova asked, only later realizing she might have gone too far.
However, Stepan wasn’t offended.
- No. Worse. Much worse. But yes, it’s a deadly disease, and it’s fatal both for the carrier and for anyone who comes into contact with it.
Nifontova shrugged in confusion.
- I don’t understand…
- And no one understands. Not even my mother understood… which is why she perished.
- But your mother died in a fire, didn’t she?
- Uh-huh…
- So maybe there’s a way…
- No. There’s no such way!
Now Nifontova was examining something deep within the boy's eyes, trying to find answers to her questions. However, she found only… emptiness. Emptiness – and something else: terrible, indescribable, terrifying…
She felt the urge to stand up and leave. To run away.
Instead, she reached out to Stepan.
He flinched away.
- No! Don’t do that!
She grabbed his sleeve.
- No! The same thing happened to my mother! Why do you think I constantly wear layered clothing and gloves, even in summer?!
- I don’t want to hear this nonsense. You will come with me right now and…
Nifontova didn't understand why she was acting this way. It was as if something or someone had influenced her ability to think and make decisions. To be a rational person, as she had always considered herself. But she could no longer stop.
- No, I’m not going anywhere!
- You will go, and!..
They began to struggle. Stepan tried to free his hand, but it ended with the blanket slipping down, and the teacher touched his exposed forearm with her bare fingers.
Nifontova's eyes widened in horror.
His entire forearm, as far as the eye could see, was covered in blisters: huge, red, swollen ones.
She tried to pull her hand away, but nothing worked; her wrist felt as if it had been frozen. Or rather, scorched. Nifontova felt an instant fever engulfing her. Sweat broke out. Her palm became unbearably hot. It even seemed she smelled something burning…
- Nooo! – Stepan screamed.
And he started crying.
And looked straight into the eyes of Nifontova, filled with horror, disbelieving.
- The doctors haven't even named this yet. I call myself a "sunatic." In contrast to a "lunatic," whose illness manifests at night.
Nifontova pulled at her hand, trying to detach her wrist. It was impossible.
Finally, with a strange sound she had never heard before, strange, scary, nauseating, her wrist came unstuck… only there was no wrist left. Nor any hand. Just a handful of ash.
Nifontova opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
- The illness flares up unexpectedly and repeatedly.
After these words, an unbearable, flaming heat consumed the teacher, and she almost instantaneously burned alive in it… amidst the deafening scream and the desperate sobs of Stepan, weeping fiery, evaporating tears.