Emily worked at an auditing firm and considered herself an independent and financially secure woman. She had earned enough to buy an apartment, and a beautiful foreign car was nearly within reach, just a step away from becoming reality. But before that, Emily, like all successful women, felt she had to travel abroad. That was where her plans for the near future ended, except for one thing money couldn’t buy: personal happiness, the kind Emily dreamed of. She was already 30, yet she hadn’t met the man she wanted to share the rest of her life with. She often wondered …

It was quiet and rather chilly on one of the streets at the very edge of a large regional city. Autumn had just begun to assert itself, but it had already generously gifted the townsfolk with a dose of drizzle and cold. In such weather, people preferred to stay in warm homes with a cup of fragrant, scalding tea or, at this late hour, to sleep off a long day of work. The old grandfather clock in the hallway struck midnight όταν 75-year-old retiree Mary Thompson suddenly woke up with a vague sense of something bad. The old woman’s heart …

Barbara had been married for three years and thought she was living a perfectly normal life. There was no luxury or wealth, of course, and the apartment was rented, but she was with the man she loved, the one she had been smitten with since high school. Her Andrew had always been a cheerful, carefree, handsome guy who easily drove girls crazy. But Barbara didn’t consider herself attractive and never hoped for more than simple friendship with him. She wrote his essays, completed his tests, and helped with homework, while he, taking the notebooks from her hands, would gratefully kiss …

Emily had been struggling to conceive for a long time, frequently visiting doctors and desperately hoping for a stroke of luck. She knew that if she couldn’t, her beloved husband, Nick, might leave her for another woman—one who could give him the joy of fatherhood. But Nick, despite wanting children, loved Emily and had no intention of leaving her. He supported her in every way, but lately, his wife had become unbearable, demanding that Nick leave her because she believed he would eventually abandon her anyway. And if that happened later, the pain would be even worse. Nick tried to …

Ethan hadn’t even had the chance to ring the doorbell when the metal door swung open, and an elderly woman in a bright satin robe shouted from the threshold: — Hurry up and come in! Where have you been? Get to the kitchen, quick! What are you standing there for? — Sorry, but I… — Ethan began, still hiding a bouquet of flowers behind his back, but the strange woman had already disappeared into the depths of the apartment. Ethan shrugged, hesitantly stepped inside, placed the flowers on a small entryway table, took off his shoes, and, still in his …