THE PENTATEUCH

"A choir lives in every person. But sometimes the voices grow too loud."

Prologue. Arthur

Arthur Wald wrote at night. During the day, he slept in snatches—an hour here, two there—but at night, he would sit at his desk and open the notebooks that seemed to pull themselves into his hands.

There were five of them: five covers, five manuscripts, five voices, and each lived a life of its own.

He told himself he was simply working on five books at once. Many writers did so, developing several plots in parallel to avoid stagnation. But for Arthur, it was different: he didn't choose which story to continue. The notebook seemed to draw itself into his hands, and he could no longer resist it.

In the first lived Victor, a detective from a city where the rain never ended. In the second was Lyra, the captain of a distant starship. In the third wandered Isabel, pale and thin as a candle in the wind. The fourth belonged to Michael, a schoolteacher writing letters into the void. And in the fifth lived Kael, a timeless wanderer in search of mirrors.

Arthur chronicled their fates in a hurried script, feeling less and less like an author. Sometimes, the lines would change before his very eyes: where he had written "he," "I" would appear. Where a character screamed, he would feel a rasp in his own throat. It seemed it was not he who wrote the characters, but they who were writing him.

Sometimes he would look at the five notebooks and think: what if these are not books, but parts of a single novel being written against his will? He tried to push the thought away, but it returned with the silence.

And then, for the first time, a whisper sounded in the room:

“I am waiting here.”

Arthur spun around—nothing. Only the notebooks, only the words. He gripped his pen, and that night, Victor’s notebook was the first to open.

Book One. Victor

Part One

The rain in this city never ended. Victor Hames stood under a dim streetlamp, smoking his last cigarette and watching the water pool in the dark pits of the asphalt. He had always been drawn to the nights when the streets emptied and the only sound was his heart beating out extra time. Tonight, it was beating too fast—the case promised trouble.

The body of a young woman had been found at the gates of an old estate on the edge of the city, a building long considered cursed. It was a house with empty windows, a collapsed cornice, and a heavy door that always remained ajar.

Victor climbed the broken staircase—the steps creaking under his heel—and stepped inside. It smelled of damp wood and candle wax. In a hall where the furniture was draped in white sheets, like corpses, he saw her.

Isabel was sitting in an armchair by the fireplace. The fire had long since died, but she didn’t move, as if warming herself with the memory of its flame. Pale, thin, with her dark hair unbound, she seemed like a shadow torn from the past, or a faded photograph.

"Do you live here?" Victor asked, pulling off his glove.

"I am waiting here," she replied softly.

The voice sounded as if he had heard it before—in a dream, or in his own thoughts. He wanted to ask more, but he noticed a faint tremor in her neck, as if she were holding back either laughter or a sob. In that moment, Victor felt they were connected by something more than a chance meeting. As if he had not entered her world, but she had always lived in the depths of his memory.

"For whom?" he asked.

Isabel smiled, almost imperceptibly.

"For the one who writes."

And in that instant, a vision flared in the dead fireplace: a desk, a stack of pages, ink-stained fingers. He blinked, and it was gone. The rain drummed against the windows, and the wind stirred a sheet by the door, letting it settle gently back into place. Victor understood: this investigation would not lead him to a killer. It was leading him to a mirror he would not want to look into.

Part Two

The rain was still falling, as if it hadn't noticed the night had ended. Victor sat in his office, at a desk cluttered with files and empty glasses. A lamp illuminated only an ashtray and a report that offered not a single lead.

He reread the protocol—the woman found at the estate gates. The names of the witnesses changed with every interrogation. Today, the file mentioned some Lyra, a ship's captain. Yesterday, it was Michael, a schoolteacher. Not a single match in their addresses, dates of birth, or even the handwriting of their signatures. It was as if they didn't exist.

Victor rubbed his temples and squeezed his eyes shut. An image immediately surfaced. For a moment, he wasn't in his office but in a corridor where the red lights of an emergency system flickered. He heard a woman's voice, calm and cold, giving orders:

"Seal the airlock. Immediately."

He jolted, opening his eyes, and was back in his office. Only his cigarette had burned almost to the filter.

Victor stood and walked to the window. The rain left crooked lines on the glass, but one of them suddenly formed words:

I am waiting here.

He drew a sharp breath and saw a stranger's face reflected in the window. A young man, wearing glasses, with a tormented expression. He was writing something with a pen on paper, his lips moving. Victor couldn't hear the words but was certain it was his own handwriting and his own voice.

He slammed his fist against the glass, and the droplets scattered. But the reflection was still looking at him.

"Who the hell are you?" he whispered.

There was no answer. Only his heart beating too fast, as if it knew something he did not.

Book Two. Lyra

The stars stretched into infinity—indifferent, cold, dead. Lyra stood on the ship’s bridge, gazing through the panoramic viewport. Space seemed to her a bottomless ocean where one could drown at any moment.

Lyra disliked silence, yet it was silence that had accompanied the expedition. Not a single signal, not a single radio interference—it was as if the cosmos had died out.

Lyra activated the ship's log and began to dictate:

"Day thirty-two. We have reached sector D-47. The crew is stable, but I feel…"

She fell silent. What was it she felt? A word was on the tip of her tongue, but it refused to be born. So, Lyra simply turned off the recording.

And in that exact moment, a whisper sounded behind her. Not the voices of the crew—they were asleep. Not a mechanical sound—the ship's systems were silent. It was a human voice, faint but distinct:

"I am waiting here."

Lyra spun around, her heart beating too fast. The bridge was empty. But she knew what she had heard. The voice was female—quiet, as if from a great distance.

Lyra sank into her chair and closed her eyes. In the darkness of her mind's eye, a face appeared—pale, with unbound dark hair. Lyra didn't know her, had never seen her before. But for some reason, she felt that this woman was waiting for her, right here, in the void of space.

Lyra ran a hand over her face, trying to shake off the vision. But a cold shudder had already taken hold.

What if the void wasn't silent? What if it was inhabited by those who do not belong to our time or our world?

For the first time in the entire expedition, Lyra didn't feel like a captain. She felt like a character in someone else's story.

Book Three. Isabel

The house stood like a wound on the hill. By day, candles burned within it; by night, shadows walked on their own. Isabel lived among shrouds and mirrors; on her desk lay a diary, a letter, another letter—the pages smelled of wax and time.

She read aloud, and a stranger's handwriting suddenly became her own thought:

"I see your words in the mirrors of my house. Do not stop writing."

She closed her eyes, listening for footsteps that weren't there. The fireplace breathed tiredly with its embers. On the wall, where an oval mirror hung, a thin crack ran from the very edge downwards, like a thread of fate.

"I am waiting here," Isabel whispered. And from the depths of the mirror, the same whisper answered her—in the same voice, but not her own.

A draft turned a page. A sheet fell to the floor—two lines: "Detective Victor Hames opened the door of the estate." She raised her gaze and, for a moment, the glass of the fireplace reflected a woman in a helmet, illuminated by starlight, as if from a dream Isabel had never had. She flinched, and the vision dissolved like vapor.

Book Four. Michael

The classroom was empty. Rays of evening sun cut through the blinds, and stripes of light fell on the desks like the dusty pages of a long-forgotten book. Michael had stayed after lessons, though he could have left long ago. He sat at the teacher's desk, writing a letter.

"You left too soon," he traced onto the paper in uneven lines. "I still hear your voice. You said: I am waiting here. But where are you waiting? On what street? In what dream?"

He put down the pen and looked at what he had written. A pang of grief struck his chest: these letters would never reach their addressee. He would fold them into his desk drawer or sometimes tear them into tiny pieces. But replies still came—strange ones, in unfamiliar handwriting, from people he did not know.

One of the last replies had been particularly unsettling. The paper smelled of wax, the letters elegant, as if written in another era:

"I see your words in the mirrors of my house. Do not stop writing."

Michael closed his eyes. An image of a woman flashed before him—pale, with dark hair, in an old armchair by a fireplace. He didn't know who she was, but he felt her closer than he had ever felt a living person.

He pressed the letter to his chest and suddenly noticed his heart was beating too fast, as if trying to break out and escape his body.

What if the letters weren't his imagination? What if someone was truly there, between the lines?

Michael stood up and walked to the window. Rain was falling outside. The drops slid down the glass as if, on the other side, there was another world.

Book Five. Kael

He walked barefoot across a stone plaza where no one had passed for a long time. The sun hung low, like a golden coin in the sky, and the houses around stood frozen, awaiting someone or something—empty, ruined, but not entirely dead. Kael could feel their breath.

He needed no path. Every step he took was a return to a place he had been before. He could walk through this city today and meet it again tomorrow—in another time, another universe. People sometimes recognized him, but more often, they did not.

At the corner of the plaza stood a solitary framed mirror. Kael approached and looked into it. But in the reflection, he saw not himself: it was a man with a weary face and ink-stained fingers. He was sitting at a desk, bent over a paper. Their gazes met through the glass.

"Who are you?" the writer asked.

Kael smiled.

"I am all your voices. I am the one who will leave first."

His words did not reflect in the mirror, but the writer flinched as if they had sounded in his own head. Suddenly, a sharp wind blew across the plaza, scattering scraps of pages into the air. Kael caught one and read:

"I am waiting here."

The line was written in a hand he did not recognize. But he knew for certain that these were his words. He crumpled the paper and understood: this world was collapsing faster than he could walk through it.

Interweaving

Lyra had not slept for two days. The ship drifted in the void, and the crew was demanding an answer with growing insistence: continue the mission or turn back. But every time she closed her eyes, a strange voice, a strange breath, a strange "I" invaded her consciousness.

And that night, she finally slept.

She found herself in a school classroom. Dusty light streamed through the blinds; the air smelled of chalk and oblivion. The silence was too thick, as if it were hiding behind the desks. At the blackboard stood a man in glasses—pale, with a tormented gaze. He held a stack of letters.

"You are not from my dream," he said, looking directly at her. "You are from someone else's book."

Lyra stepped forward, feeling the words catch in her throat.

"I am the captain of an expedition…"

But he interrupted her:

"I am a literature teacher. My name is Michael. And I hear her too."

"Hear who?"

"The woman by the fireplace. She says: 'I am waiting here.'"

At that moment, something rustled in the classroom. Lyra turned and saw Isabel in the corner—pale, with dark hair, clutching a book to her chest. Her lips did not move, but her voice sounded as if the walls themselves had spoken:

"The key is with Kael. But he will die first."

The words echoed through the class, and Michael turned pale. Lyra took a step toward Isabel, but the floor beneath her trembled. The blackboard cracked, and a cold wind seeped from the fissure. Notebooks tumbled from the shelves, and their pages swirled in the air like a flock of white birds.

Lyra grabbed one. On it, written in a strange hand, was:

"Detective Victor Hames opened the door of the estate."

She snapped her head up—and the classroom vanished.

Lyra woke on the bridge of her ship, drenched in a cold sweat. The paper was still in her hand. Real. Smelling of ink and dampness.

…And in a rain-swept city, Victor looked up at the window. In the reflection, he saw a man in glasses bent over letters. He was mouthing words, and Victor understood without sound: it was his own handwriting and his own voice. He slammed his fist on the glass—droplets scattered. But the reflection did not disappear. It mirrored his movement from the other side. Victor's heart hammered, as if it knew something he did not.

Arthur

Arthur Wald sat at his desk, surrounded by stacks of manuscripts. The room smelled of ink and old paper. He worked at night, sleeping in snatches during the day—otherwise, the voices gave him no peace.

Five notebooks lay fanned out on the desk. Each had its own title, its own handwriting, as if written by different people. But he was all of them.

In the first, Victor Hames smoked in the rain.

In the second, Lyra heard strange voices through the silence of space.

In the third, Isabel wandered the corridors of a cold house.

In the fourth, Michael wrote letters that received strange replies.

In the fifth, Kael looked into mirrors that did not reflect him.

Arthur turned the pages, and the lines trembled as if alive. Where he read, "Victor lit a cigarette," the words "I lit a cigarette" would bleed through. Where Lyra ordered the airlock sealed, "I sealed it" would appear. The words were supplanting him.

He ran a hand over his face and no longer knew if it was his hand or his characters'. He opened his desk drawer. Inside lay Michael's letters. But the handwriting on the envelopes was his own.

Arthur froze. His heart began to beat too fast. He tore open one envelope and read the scrap of paper inside. It held only four words:

"I am waiting here."

In that moment, he heard footsteps behind him. Arthur spun around—no one. Only the mirror on the wall.

In its reflection, five figures stared back at him:

Victor, with the shadow of a cigarette on his lips.

Lyra, with a cold fire in her eyes.

Isabel, like a candle barely holding on in the wind.

Michael, like a weary, unanswered question.

Kael, already nearly absent, translucent.

"We are you," they said in unison. The room grew cramped with their voices. Arthur tried to object, but the words stuck in his throat. The silence spoke for him:

"I am waiting here."

The echo of these words struck the walls. He slammed the notebooks shut, but their pages continued to rustle, like grass in the wind.

And then he understood: he wasn't writing books—he was writing himself. And somewhere nearby, a door was already opening, behind which only one voice would remain.

The Death of Kael

Night found him in the ruins of an old city. The moon hung over the rooftops like a dim lantern, and everything around seemed torn by time: the walls were crumbling, but the shadows they cast were alive.

Kael walked toward the place where he knew he was expected. In the plaza stood the same mirror in its stone frame. But now it was cracked, as if it could not withstand the intensity.

He drew closer and saw that the writer at the desk was no longer in the mirror. Now there was Victor, with a gun in his hand. Michael, with a trembling letter. Lyra, giving a command. Isabel, with a book held to her heart. All of them were looking at him.

"Why me?" Kael asked. His voice trembled, betraying fear for the first time.

"Because you are the first," they answered in unison.

The cracked mirror exploded in a flash of light, and shards flew directly into his body. Kael fell to his knees, feeling blood run down his palms. But it was not blood, but ink. It seeped into the earth, the lines forming words he could no longer read.

"I am waiting here…" he whispered one last time.

And he dissolved, like a line torn from a book.

At that same second, Arthur recoiled from his desk. A tightness seized his chest. He clutched at his heart. On the page, where a moment ago there had been nothing, a phrase was written in black: "Kael is dead."

"He's dead," Arthur said to the empty room. "And I have become less."

And for the first time, the notebooks answered him on their own.

Finale

Silence reigned in the room, broken only by the ticking of a clock. Arthur sat at his desk, not daring to open the final notebook. Traces of ink remained on his palms, as if he himself were bleeding it.

The five manuscripts lay side by side. They were finished. Each hero had their own fate, their own love, their own pain. But between the pages, the same words gaped like a wound cut through the fabric of the paper:

I am waiting here.

He rose and walked to the mirror. His reflection was not there: five others looked out from it. Victor, heavy and tired, a cigarette at the corner of his mouth. Lyra, stern and fearless. Isabel, pale and trembling. Michael, with eyes full of letters. Kael, fading, as if already dead.

They spoke with different voices, but their words were the same:

"We are you."

Arthur took a step back, but his heart struck him so hard that he clutched his chest. Scenes flashed through his mind: wet streets, cold space, a gothic house, a school classroom, a plaza with a mirror. They merged into a single moment, a single breath.

He understood: they were not characters. They were him, torn into pieces and reassembled. And when the mirror darkened and reflected only his own face, Arthur, for the first time, said aloud what he had been afraid to admit:

"I was always alone."

And in that instant, he felt a part of his soul vanish with Kael, while the others remained, living inside him.

Epilogue

White walls. A barred window. A narrow metal bed. The day was as empty as an unfilled page.

Arthur lay staring at the ceiling. The corridor was quiet; a nurse passed by somewhere, but the sound of her footsteps quickly faded.

"Patient Arthur Wald," said a doctor, reviewing his notes. "Diagnosis confirmed: dissociative identity disorder. Five stable personalities."

Arthur wanted to object, but his lips barely moved.

"I am waiting here," he whispered.

The echo of those words reflected in the empty ward. He closed his eyes. He was alone now, but the five continued to live inside him.

[From the case file of patient Arthur Wald. Psychiatric clinic archives.]

Appendix. Case Summary

Surname, Name: Wald, Arthur

Age: 42

Diagnosis: Dissociative Identity Disorder (F44.81 per ICD-10).

Condition Profile:

Presence of five stable identities:

• Victor: A male identity prone to paranoid ideation, fixated on criminal plots and the motif of "eternal rain."
• Lyra: A female identity with traits of hypercontrol and persistent anxiety, fixated on motifs of space and isolation.
• Isabel: A female identity, depressive, with pronounced autistic tendencies, associated with motifs of emptiness, fire, and mirrors.
• Michael: A male identity with marked obsessive traits and literary constructions, fixated on correspondence and "answers from the outside."
• Kael: A male identity, the most fragile; exhibits symbolism of self-destruction and suppression.

Clinical Dynamics:

• Periods of partial amnesia and identity blending. The patient reports a "whisper," which he identifies as the voice of "the woman by the fireplace."
• Episodes of automatic writing, during which entries in the notebooks are not perceived as his own.

Somatic Status: Normal. Complains of cardialgia without objective signs of cardiac pathology.

Prognosis: Unfavorable. The dissociation is deeply entrenched; no tendencies toward personality integration have been observed. The persistent delusional complex of "the five books" and the expectation of some "door" remains.

Recommendations: Inpatient observation, supportive therapy, denial of access to writing materials.

Physician's Signature: Dr. K. R. Steiner