Hail the Black Prince! Vili said. Hail the Black Emperor! he shouted, and he showed me what the Black Prince was, what the Black Emperors were, for it was impossible to express their nature with words, only with dreams and images; and I fell on my knees and prayed to them, the Black Lords. I was ready to worship anything just to prevent Vili from taking me to the bottom of the grave as fodder to the Lords, as fodder to my grandmother who, at that time, I didn’t even know was dead.

By then I could hear Vili dragging himself towards my door. He smelled of rot and onion, and he tried to speak with a real voice, but whatever he meant to say, death and the earth he was choking on prevented him from doing so. He only growled quietly.

He stopped in front of my room; the stench of death became unbearable. I was struck by waves of genuine hatred coming through the gap under the door. I knew that Vili would take me to where he had come from, and something changed in me.

I’ll give you anything, just let me live, I whispered because I couldn’t speak, you can take anything, you can take anyone, anyone but me! Please!

I wasn’t taking the harder path then. Vili wouldn’t have approved were he alive. Alas, he was not.

Vili waited a few seconds, then he went down the hallway, and I crawled under my bed and trembled until morning came. I didn’t think I would sleep, but exhaustion got the better of me.

In the light of day when I woke up, I thought it had only been a bad dream. Actually, nothing had happened. According to my therapist, everything I experienced or perceived as an experience that night was completely normal, a child’s mind struggling with the inconceivable. That morning I decided I would go to school as usual, but I wouldn’t talk to my friends anymore. I would leave all this plush toy stuff behind, after all it was indeed time for me to grow up. I crept out from under the bed and went to the kitchen to have breakfast.