The two had arrived to help her. They were holding her up high, so that the thick rope would not bite her neck, at least not as hard as before. Just enough to allow her to breathe, albeit little and badly.

But they wouldn't stop at that, of course. That would only delay the inevitable. They had come to save her.

Desmond pulled his sword out of nowhere, as usual, and used it to cut the rope. He didn't even have to put force behind the blow. As soon as the edge of the sword grazed the rope, it was cut, passed from one side to the other with no problem. Next, Amy and Desmond laid her carefully on the ground.

Christina gasped for air greedily. Her vision was spinning. Before she had seen nothing but darkness, the rope and the chair beneath her feet.

Now, curiously, her surroundings were becoming more distinct. Taking shape.

A kitchen. Dirty and cluttered. Even the light coming through the windows was a 'dirty' color, and it fell on her as if something up there was judging her. She had judged herself and found herself guilty.

She had repented when it was too late, but her friends had saved her at the last moment.

She had always believed that she was alone.

That she would live and die alone.

But they had come because they cared. Before doing that, how had she not thought about how it affected them? She had made a mistake, but she would never repeat it. It wasn't just people important to her. They were also people to whom she was important. They reciprocated.

So she had to do the same. They were together.

They belonged to each other, for better or worse.

A team.

A family, rather. She wasn't going to leave her family. No matter what would happen. As warm tears ran down her cheeks, she tried to promise them that. But she didn't have the air to speak.

No matter how hard she tried, nothing came out.

She wanted to believe they understood, despite everything. Her regret and her promise. This world was dark. It had been from the beginning, but it had become darker still, from the loss of oxygen, from almost losing consciousness.

Now, moreover, it had become blurred by tears. So she can't say she saw a hint of it in the faces of her friends.

Only that it was what she wanted to believe. No more, no less.

Christina put a hand to her throat, massaging, she wanted to talk, she wanted to tell them so much, whether they understood or not, as soon as possible. She had been on the verge of dying for real. The rope had bitten deep into her neck, and it would leave a mark, a reminder of what had almost, almost, had happened there for weeks.

A reminder of her shame. She didn't want to look at the shape of the rope marked on her neck.

Fortunately, it was so dark and he was crying so hard that even if she lowered his head, she wouldn't see much.

They weren't saying anything.

Now that she thought about it, they weren't saying anything, for some reason. They just knelt, one on either side of her, looking at her silently. Well, she supposed it wasn't strange really. Christina wanted to tell them a lot of things. But, even if she could talk right now, she wouldn't know how to begin. It was the same with them, she supposed.

It wasn't supposed to be easy. Nothing about this could be easy, of course.

She understood them. Relationships...had to be two-way streets. Understanding too, and understanding was certainly one of the most important things in a relationship. In fact, she... From a very young age, wasn't that all she had ever wanted, to understand and be understood?

Christina swallowed hard.

If she kept going down that road, she was going to end up crying. She laughed softly, mocking herself. From the state of her throat, it didn't sound like a laugh. More like she had something stuck in her throat and was trying to cough it out.

Crying. Crying wasn't bad.

Sometimes, it was the only thing you could turn to to make yourself feel better.

To end up... crying...? Hadn't she already been crying? When she realized the contradiction, she began to sink. Literally, not figuratively. Sinking into the ground. As if it were water. As if it were a very deep river. As if she was lost in the middle of the sea. And then she recovered her voice.

She didn't know if it was a coincidence, she didn't know if it was because of panic. The fact is that she recovered her voice.

“Guys, I don't want to disappear, I don't want to disappear like this!” she shouted desperately, as if she needed to ask for help. But in reality, she didn't doubt for a moment that she would get help. That they would grab her and pull her like before, and bring her back into the light. The madness that was happening now did not cloud her mind with doubt.

YES, she did not doubt for a moment.

But she received no help.

They just stood there, watching. And she sank. She sank into a lightless, fetid darkness. The smell of blood, of rotting corpses, floated on the water.

She sank, she sank, she sank....

——

And when she emerged, coming to the surface, she was in a completely different place than before. For starters, she was outside. Surrounded by a thick forest. The only thing that hadn't changed was that she was lying on the ground. And that it was pitch black.

The darkness of night surrounded her too, smothering her like a heavy blanket.

What was it that had happened? A dream, more like a nightmare? A... sort of vision, instead?

Christina shook her head. She concluded that it didn't matter as much as what she was doing here in the first place. At least for the moment. She needed to get her bearings.

The darkness of the night and the wild nature surrounded her. The only shelter, unless she found around here a cave or some hole in the ground to crawl into, was the building in front of her eyes.

There was something peculiar about that building. In design, she'd never seen one like it. She couldn't tell what was so different.

She approached it. She opened the heavy wooden doors, pushing. Good thing they weren't locked from the inside.

Christina closed the doors behind her, locked them not with a key but with a block of wood on two pieces of iron, rather old-fashioned. She had nothing to fear from any wild animal and as for people, little more or less. So it didn't matter who came in. Or it shouldn't.

But, for some reason, Christina felt she had to close the door. She felt uneasy, as if 'something' might appear at any moment.

Now that she thought about it, she had seen this building as a refuge.

A refuge from whom? Or from what? Her thoughts weren't flowing.

If she didn't know it was impossible, she would wonder if she hadn't been drugged. Not that she judged that no one could have had the opportunity or means to drug her, but that those things didn't work on her. Neither alcohol, nor other stronger drugs. Side effect of her magic.

She'd never put it to the test, but she was willing to take the word of.... Christina grimaced, remembering his name.

Remembering the time they had spent together.

Remembering a shadow, rippling on the ground. The shadow of a piece of meat that had been a human being. And of the rope that had turned him into a piece of meat.

Concentrate. First of all, analyze the situation to get out of here. Then... Then you can think about it all. Until you're sick of it. Until you puke. But first things first, you understand?

Giving herself a lecture. Anyway, if it worked...

Christina looked around. Now that she was inside and more or less focused on her surroundings instead of deep within her head, something immediately caught her eye. One of the reasons she had thought she had never seen a building like this in her life, surely.

Stained-glass windows. Very large, semi-transparent. But that in itself was not all, of course. The stained-glass formed patterns.

Strange figures were portrayed there, figures she'd never seen before in her life. If they were in reference to great politicians of history, heroes and warriors, she would have been able to identify them by name, or at least they would have rung a bell.

She read a lot, after all. But none of the figures portrayed in the windows were familiar to her.

That in itself was strange, but some were depicted with a sort of circle on top of their heads. And others didn't even look like human beings. They had wings, big ones, big enough to lift a human being into the air. But not like Desmond's.

These wings were white and full of feathers, like the wings of birds.

She didn't understand. None of this.

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She kept walking. She walked between two rows of benches. At the end of the path, there was a table, also strange—too small, to be exact. Covered by a tablecloth. On top of the table was a candlestick, its three candles extinguished, and a cup. On top of that, an open book.

What the hell was this place, what purpose did it serve, and what was she doing here?

She received the answer, or at least a good clue, almost at the same instant those questions ran through her head once again.

Hearing someone else's breathing.

Light, but fast-paced. An injured person. Christina approached that table, circled it. Slowly and carefully. Lying there, she saw a woman dressed only in the blood that enveloped her. Her own blood?

Christina bent down to examine the fallen woman. It had nothing to do with her, but that didn't mean she was going to abandon her to her fate. Of course she wasn't.

It crossed her mind, briefly, that this could be some sort of trap. But she dismissed the possibility, inwardly laughing at her paranoia. If this really was a trap, anyone with a bit of brains could set up a better trap than stripping naked and lying on the ground, pretending to be injured, waiting for someone to approach.

Christina touched her. Touched her skin, unnaturally cold. Like the skin of a corpse.

The only thing that told him she wasn't dead was her breathing.

And the blood, which she also felt as she ran her fingers along one of the woman's arms. It was very warm, freshly spilled. This was no trap and she wasn't faking anything.

Christina turned the woman's body over, and then discovered that it did have something to do with her, after all.

Abigail.

The witch who had granted Amy and Desmond powers, and had snatched Desmond from her side.

Christina gritted her teeth.

She didn't even wonder what the hell she was doing here or, for that matter, what she could possibly have to do with this. Such 'trivial' matters would not cross her mind. The only thing that did pass was a wave of rage, sweeping over everything else.

The rage she felt at the realization was so intense that, for a moment, she saw her hands on that woman's neck, squeezing. It turned out to be nothing more than a figment of her imagination, however.

Even if it had been real, even if she'd strangled her to death, she'd only have managed to take it out on her. It wouldn't have fixed anything.

Abigail was an immortal witch.

Whatever would happen to her, she would come back to life. Not to mention, even if she somehow managed to kill her, Desmond would run her through with his sword an instant later. He wouldn't even hesitate.

Things had gone too far. Nothing could ever go back to the way it was. No matter how hard she tried.

Broken things... sometimes they stayed broken. Hopeless.

It's all your fault. If you didn't exist... If she didn't exist, Desmond would have surely died that day ten years ago. And they would never have met in the first place. The miracle of their meeting had been brought about by the witch's unnatural magic. And that very thing had taken that miracle away from them.

It sounded like a joke.

A cruel joke.

Christina saw a shadow on the ground. Not hers or the witch's, but another. A shadow that trembled. No, was it shivering?

She raised her head, her heart pounding.

But it wasn't 'him'. It was Desmond, but as she'd never seen Desmond. Very small. He couldn't have been ten years old. It doesn't make any sense, she thought. None of this had made any sense in the first place, especially looking back. But this was too much. I have to be dreaming. That's right, I have to be dreaming.

Desmond had a knife clutched in a trembling hand. To make his grip firmer, he used his other hand as well. But it didn't do much good.

He couldn't hold back. In front of her, here and now, he was nothing more than a child, after all. But in his eyes burned emotions that would make even the most rational person lose control.

Not just his eyes. Those emotions were transforming his whole face into something... something inhuman. The tears running down his face, as he writhed and trembled, looked like holes in wood.

“I will not forgive you. I will never forgive you," he said softly, as if speaking to himself.

The knife in his hands trembled, trembled.

As if hypnotized, Christina followed the tip of the knife with her eyes.

“I'll never forgive you.” Little Desmond let out a piercing scream, a scream that hit Christina like a physical blow, knocking her back. “Mom!”

And he lunged for her. Without dropping the knife, of course.

Because he intended to use it. He intended to use it against her.

Despite knowing that, Christina simply stood and watched as the boy ran in her direction. It wasn't as if she had no intention of resisting. It's not as if she felt no appreciation for her own life... she had nearly thrown it away not long ago, but she had realized her mistake, now, if anything, she would fight harder to survive.

But...

But, still...

She didn't move.

They fell down the stairs. Christina ended up on the floor, with Desmond on top of her. He brought the knife down with both hands, hard.

But it didn't go in.

Without realizing it, Christina had caught the knife with her bare hands, preventing him from plunging it into her face. Just barely. Desmond's teeth were clenched tightly, gritted, a thin trickle of saliva running between them and sliding down his chin, dripping onto his neck, onto her as well. That expression, his look, was something that would seem out of place not only on a child, but on any human being.

She never wanted things to develop this way, never wanted to look at Desmond with resentment.

And she never wanted to be looked at this way by him.

This is a dream. It has to be a dream. But, no matter how many times she repeated that, the steel cutting through her hands was very real. The weight of that weapon, which could take her life, was very real.

So was the trembling of her heartbeat. This, though it made no sense, couldn't make heads or tails of it, it couldn't be a dream. It just couldn't.

“Desmond. Desmond, listen to me. Please listen to me. You have to...”

He had too much strength. Desmond wasn't at all like a kid who couldn't have been ten years old. In the end, he won the contest of strength. The knife slipped to the side as a result of the thrust, that was the only reason it ended up stuck in her shoulder instead of buried in her face.

Killing her.

Killing her?

Maybe yes. Maybe not. Even if this wasn't real... even if it was... some kind of illusion, that didn't mean she couldn't die in it.

Christina swallowed the urge to scream, gritted her teeth, biting her tongue. She had to be strong. She had to get out of here and...

A sound like glass bursting.

The strange building they were in, the forest she was surrounded by, even the darkness of the night and the stars shining in the sky and the half-hidden moon. Everything exploded and fell into a bottomless void, endlessly. Only the two of them were left intact. Falling together, held together by the knife Desmond still clutched.

Even the witch was gone.

Falling, falling, falling.

She thought there was only them left, but that wasn't entirely true. As they fell, they passed through.... Bubbles? Bubbles, so to speak, that burst and released?

The witch put a knife, her knife, in the hands of a boy she had never seen in her life. Maybe twelve years old. Somewhere around, not much older, for sure. He was trembling, but not as much as Desmond in that building. He was simply uneasy.

After passing him the knife, Abigail didn't take her hands off the boy's hands.

She kept them there, squeezing. And then the witch's lips moved.

“Kill them," Abigail ordered her as easily and naturally as if she were simply talking about today's weather. That is, giving her a bit of idle conversation.

“But they... They are my... My parents.”

“They're bad people. They'll never let you and me be together. You know that.” Abigail the witch knelt down behind him, to get closer to him. Her hair brushed his cheeks. He watched as she brought her lips to his ear. "But, once they're gone.... I can be all yours. Isn't that what you want, what you've always wanted? It's what you want, isn't it, Owen?”

“Yes. Yes. Of course it is.”

The witch slowly pulled her hands away from the knife. Dropping them. Letting him free.

“Then you know what you have to do.”

She did not see what happened next. The darkness swallowed

(that memory)

it.

But she heard it, and that was more than enough. Blood-chilling screams. Screams like she'd never heard in her life. From there she could imagine the rest. And she didn't want to see it. She didn't want to see something like that at all.

They kept falling.

Falling, falling, falling without stopping.

This Desmond in front of his eyes was Desmond.... or some kind of dummy? An element of... of all this, whatever she wanted to call it? A piece of this horrible spectacle. Or was he, instead, as real as she was?

Was she... real in the first place?

She felt a chill.

What nonsense was going through her head.

Nonsense? Wasn't that the question that had defined her life for so many, many years, ever since 'he' told her about the side effect of this terrible power within her? The question... and the search.

To reaffirm the reality of herself and her feelings. It was a good question, no doubt about it.

A question to which she still had no answer. She didn't think she would find it here, of all places. Maybe it was something that couldn't be found anywhere.

They kept falling and kept going through bubbles, causing them to burst. And the bubbles that popped, making their way to the surface (if such a thing existed in the first place, if there was even the slightest chance of going back), were memories. Intermingled memories.

Memories of her.

A rippling shadow. Christina lifted her head, following a thin shadow with her eyes. Following the sounds. The rustle of string. A sound that could be mistaken for the sound of bones creaking.

And they had creaked, no doubt. But long before she got there.

And since then, he had been spinning slowly in the dark. All alone.

His eyes were bulging out of their sockets and were completely deprived of light. They were like marbles. Or like pieces of glass. His tongue was hanging out like a dog's.

There wasn't a drop of blood to be found anywhere, but it was still a gruesome sight. Just gruesome.

She put her hands to her mouth, trembling already, and....

Of him—

She was dragged, no, they were dragged through the ruined city. Not dead, but dying. They could hear the screams of agony.... Yes. They could.

They shared the five senses.

And they were dragged through that hell that seemed to have no end. The horizon always escaped the reach of their hands.

And of the witch. Memories that could only belong to her.

The flames. The flames.

He/she was/they were burning alive.

It was so painful that he/she couldn't even scream, only be consumed.

But in the end everything had to end, even this. The fall ended suddenly and harshly, the force of the impact ripping everything away: the corridor of memories, the knife stuck in her shoulder and what little light there was, like the lights of the distant shore seen from the bottom of the sea. Even Desmond faded away, leaving her completely alone and—

Christina's eyes snapped open.

She took a breath and with that only succeeded in nearly choking on her own blood. Christina turned to the side, spitting out what threatened to block her throat. A thick layer of... Of foam, of all things.

Tinged with her blood.

Her head was spinning. Christina raised her hand and stared at the blood staining her palm as if hypnotized, breathing agitatedly.

Where was she, what had she been doing before she lost consciousness, what was all this she had been through? The answers to those questions escaped her mind. But she had a vague sense that she was in danger.

That her whole family was in danger, so she had to move.

Christina struggled to get up, leaning with her hands first on the floor, then on the nearest wall. Every millimeter of movement was an ordeal. The more she moved, the more her head spun, and she had a feeling she might lose consciousness again at any moment.

But she would make it. She had to make it.

For them. For...

She didn't make it.

Christina couldn't take it anymore, and she collapsed.

——

"Another one down! We have to...!" shouted one of the golden masks in desperation. It was the first time Amy had heard the voice of one of his enemies. That is, articulating words.

So far it had always been whimpers as they agonized.

Regardless of what this one intended to suggest....

"No!" He was rebuffed by another, the leader, apparently, as if he knew what he was going to say.

Amy was painting the living room of her new home with blood and guts, filling it with the smell of death. How long would it take for that smell to fade? Weeks? Months, perhaps?

The thing is, she could do this. A little more and she'd make it. Amy would protect them all.

One of them, at least, was a mage, but he'd only wielded his fire magic once. That was a bit strange, but she didn't have time to think, to tie up loose ends.

Amy pounced on one—

And was stopped. That's right, she didn't stop abruptly, she was stopped. Looking down, Amy saw nothing but her shadow stretching behind her like a cloak. There was nothing holding her down. Nothing, at least, that could be seen with the naked eye. She was unable to move from the spot, as if she had been staked or tied to the ground.

If it weren't for the fact that she knew it was extremely unlikely (though not impossible), she would say it was shadow magic. But Christina would never use her magic against her, and there were so few people with that affinity in the world. No, for one thing, if one of them could use shadow magic, she wouldn't have stood a chance from the start. She would have been crushed without being able to put up any resistance, so....

So nothing. No use wasting time thinking about it.

It didn't matter what exactly she had been caught with, but what she could do about it.

Amy struggled to free herself.

In the midst of her struggle, she received a blow she didn't see coming, very hard, to the back of the head.

Her consciousness faded before she even hit the ground.

Her last thoughts were not for herself, but about the safety of her family, which her defeat would leave unprotected.

Please stay safe.

Light through stained-glass windows: END