Dasha and the Bear

…Earlier this morning, I was the happiest person in the world. I was on my way to a sanatorium in a pine forest, to spend a well-earned vacation there. Only the navigator played a cruel joke on me and led me straight into the claws of a rabid beast… But even the beast that tore the car to pieces didn’t scare me as much as the person whose house I had run into for shelter… I forced myself to look up at his face and found on me a far from kind, studying gaze. I couldn’t find the strength to say something sharply. In my head, a dense fog thickened, paralyzing me—smearing everything over the glass. And the man stepped through the curtain of raindrops and ended up almost right next to me. I only tilted my head back when he placed a huge palm on my neck and pressed me against the wall with his hot body. “Look at me,” he suddenly growled, “witch…