Alexei couldn't sleep. The earlier encounter with the shadow left a trace behind—a tingling sense of unfinished business. The old chessboard sat on the table like a sleeping beast. He approached it carefully, half expecting the shadow to return.
Instead, his attention was drawn to something different.
He reached for it, intending only to clean the dust gathered along the sides, when his finger brushed against something uneven. A faint click echoed, unnaturally loud in the stillness. The bottom panel of the board shifted slightly, revealing a hidden compartment he'd never noticed before.
Inside was a parchment envelope. Old. Fragile. The wax seal had almost crumbled away, but Alexei could still make out the faint symbol stamped onto it—a knight chess piece, deeply carved, as though the creator had pressed with unnatural force.
His heart hammered as he pulled the brittle paper out.
The contents? A series of moves. Not just any moves. A variation.
Unorthodox. Daring. Suicidal.
The line was a fever dream of sacrifices—queen on the 12th move, a rook with no apparent compensation, bishops hurled into the fire like soldiers into battle. And yet… the end position shimmered with something almost divine. Checkmate in a haze of chaos.
At the bottom of the page, a final note in hurried, uneven ink:
"Played once. Never repeated. Cost more than the game."
Initialed: M.T.
Alexei felt a chill run down his spine.
(The Dream...)
He drifted into sleep not peacefully, but as though pulled under by invisible hands.
When he opened his eyes, he was no longer in his room.
The walls were stone, cold and ancient. He was seated at a heavy wooden table, in a hall drenched in shadows. Overhead, a single, naked lightbulb swung gently, casting flickers of light and darkness across the board in front of him.
Across from him sat a man.
Older. Worn. Eyes sunken but still gleaming with an almost supernatural intensity.
Mikhail Tal.
But this wasn't the smiling magician from the faded photos. This Tal had seen things—done things—that had marked him beyond time. His fingers drummed gently on the board.
"You found it," he said. His voice was hollow, like it was being spoken through layers of time.
Alexei nodded, unable to speak.
"The line that was never meant to be played again."
"Why not?" Alexei finally whispered.
Tal's eyes narrowed. The corners of his lips curled, but it wasn't a smile.
"Because some beauty comes at a cost. I paid it. Will you?"
Alexei's fingers moved on their own. The pieces began to fly across the board. Pawn. Knight. Rook. Sacrifices.
And with each move, the dream twisted. The air thickened. Tal's expression became more somber, more serious. A door creaked somewhere in the shadows behind them, as if the game was unlocking something.
On the ninth move, the board began to pulse—glow. Shadows rose and circled above it like smoke being drawn into a flame.
"One more," Tal said.
Alexei hesitated. "What happens if I do?"
"Then you'll see why it was buried."
The final move was made.
Silence. Stillness. Then—light exploded outward, a roaring void pulling everything into it.
Alexei shot up in his chair. His heart pounded like a war drum. Sweat soaked his shirt.
The chessboard sat in front of him on the table, back in the real world.
But it wasn't quite the same.
The pieces had reset. All but one.
The queen was missing.
Alexei looked under the table, under the board, all around the room. Gone.
And on the square where it once stood… a faint scorch mark, like something had burned and vanished.
He blinked. Was he still dreaming?
Then, from the hallway beyond the drawing room, came the sound of a chess piece falling onto wood.
Tap.
Echoing. Hollow. Deliberate.
The game had followed him back.