Prologue
It's evening. It was getting dark, and it was time to go to bed. Masha was given a spacious room with three windows, two large oak cabinets against the wall, and a bed.
The girl was left alone, saying "Good night". It became so unclear to her what to do now that she was even a little afraid: her conscience would not allow her to disturb these kind people, and she did not know what to do.
First of all, what is a bed? Grandma took so much care in laying it all out: the sheet, the duvet cover, the pillowcases… What is all this? Can't you just lie down and cover yourself with a blanket? Put your hand under your head and sleep… Why climb on something? What's the pillow for? That's not what everyone in the mine is used to. And it's more comfortable this way.
The hosts had already gone to bed. Time was running out.
Masha never took off her clothes before going to bed, like everyone else at the mine, but now is different. It was all so clean, and her light jeans were half in the ground and no longer light at all, her gray jacket was wet, and she didn't want to get it all dirty with what Maria Sergeevna had obviously washed for so long.
Carefully placing her clothes on the dresser, Masha lay down on the bed and covered herself with a blanket.
Nice and easy.
"These people are right. It's much better to sleep this way," Masha thought.
That dim and mortal moonlight. It was carried all over the room, and in every corner it reflected a plague. The girl remembered her husband again. The vile yellow images of his dead body hovered before her eyes. How he had stopped breathing, and she had been left alone, without him.
And there's nothing you can do about it!
"Jesus. – Masha covered her eyes with her palms. – How can I live without him? Why did you take him and leave me…? I want to go to him. I can't live without him… Lord, why did you take him away?"
"I'm always with you. – it was that inner voice in the middle of my chest. – Mash, I'm always with you."
And neither the moonlight reflecting the plagues in every corner, nor this high bed with white sheets-nothing could suppress that voice. He spoke to Masha for half a minute, or half an hour, or half a night, and it seemed to her that it was an eternity. That it was the same eternity that could never end. Because in these moments he was beside her, and he was a part of her… Just like that dream, which gathered all her tiredness of the previous days and took her to itself until the morning.
Prefect
Weeks had passed since Maria's escape from the Disa sector, then another, then a month…
Life was different, different for everyone.
Gavriil Zheleznov decides who will work at which site. Gavriil Zheleznov decides how much is extracted per day. Who and how to punish and reward decides Gavriil Zheleznov.
The only direction from the chums is the monthly plan.
Now nothing happens in the whole group without the knowledge of the Mountain. The only two sectors that remained under the control of the chums: 2nd and 5th (the guards rested in the fifth sector, and the access to it was from the corridor connecting the purification room with the loading room – this area was closed off for the night).
Moreover, Gora had a separate office at the exit from the purification room to Sector 1. Even though he was rarely there, the fact of having a room for the prefect of the group was important, which, by the way, had a file cabinet with reports on all the advantages and disadvantages of mining with different tools in different conditions: to tell the truth, everyone knew it by heart and without any reports.
On April 27th, the prefect appointed his former soma to the cleaning sector. His place was by this time occupied by Kostya Rich.
