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She carefully examined the cloudy reflection, her scarlet burning pupils peered at the fragments of the mirror floating from the bottom of the wide pan. Something pink smoked in the sky, penetrated into the small room and froze at her feet. She whispered and whispered and wanted to overcome someone.

But for some reason it seemed to her that black was covering the passage, not allowing the fish to come out, and spells were pouring out of her toothless, bitter mouth and all her desires cracked and fell into leaves, there in another world where a pink and white unicorn lived.

They didn’t expect you here…”, the goblin whispered in her ear, demanded something from her and did not want to give it, and continued, “Only an exchange.. only an exchange..”

And the world was spinning madly under her feet, she flew like a charmed bird, looked for a big fish and remained forever alone… No one, no one, penetrating deeper and deeper over and over again…

And then the goblin took her by the throat, began to choke her and, unable to restrain herself, released them from the small blue box… The black fanged ones flew, large and small, ate all the plants, destroyed the forest. And the smallest one, with an iron sword, brought the dirty head of a blue unicorn covered in dark spots…

And then… all those others turned around and attacked her…

She recoiled, but could not get out, could no longer get into the small room and then forced her body, floating above the muddy water, to cut off her brush and throw it… The dark ones did not calm down and after that she cut out her eyes and fell dead, getting out of the beautiful forever Raya.

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Irina Tall (Novikova) is an artist, graphic artist, illustrator. She graduated from the State Academy of Slavic Cultures with a degree in art, and also has a bachelor’s degree in design. The first personal exhibition “My soul is like a wild hawk” (2002) was held in the museum of Maxim Bagdanovich. In her works, she raises themes of ecology, in 2005 she devoted a series of works to the Chernobyl disaster, draws on anti-war topics. The first big series she drew was The Red Book, dedicated to rare and endangered species of animals and birds. Writes fairy tales and poems, illustrates short stories. She draws various fantastic creatures: unicorny the Exhibition is Irina s, animals with human faces, she especially likes the image of a man – a bird – Siren. In 2020, she took part in Poznań Art Week. Her work has been published in magazines: Gupsophila, Harpy Hybrid Review, Little Literary Living Room and others. In 2022, her short story was included in the collection “The 50 Best Short Stories”, and her poem was published in the collection of poetry “The wonders of winter”.