Simara moved, gave Viko a kiss on the head, and put him back in the bag when soft applause came from behind her back. The soft applause was lost in the vastness of the snowy cemetery, in the vastness of its grounds. Viko and Simara froze in place. Simara gently raised her eyes and remained very still, feeling a horrible cold in her bones, a cold that had nothing to do with the fluffy snow or the cold wind around her. She looked among the tombstones, a sneaky fog began to slither between the cold tombstones covered in dark green moss and over the white ground directly towards Simara and Viko, giving a ghostly air to the cemetery.

Simara was scared. She felt Viko stir in the bag until he jumped to the ground, raised all his black hair, and snarled at something behind her. Simara also felt the pulsing in her chest, a pulsing that came from her amethyst brooch and spread to every part of her body in waves of living energy.

"Intruder! Danger!" Viko's mental voice shouted.

The hairs on the back of Simara's neck stood up while her ears continued to hear the soft applause, and a powerful chill ran through her entire body. Something evil had arrived at the cemetery; she knew it because her surroundings transformed peculiarly.

Small balls of blazing fire ignited around Viko and her, around her mother's grave, and a little further away, creating a circle of energy on the ground that began to melt against the flames. The fireballs started as small sparks that ignited from nothing and grew into flames that curled up on themselves to create fire rolls.

Viko snarled again, and Simara slowly turned around. The cemetery had darkened as if it were already nighttime, worsened by the fog and the cloudy sky that didn't let the moonlight pass. Everything was illuminated only by the strange fire flames; Simara saw the black shapes of the trees and tombstones that the firelight began to create with its glow.

In front of her and Viko stood Evil. A black figure stood before them. It was an enormous shape, about thirteen feet tall against the dark sky, and it wasn't like any shadow that was simply a lack of light. This shadow was like a black mass made of matter and shaped like a huge man with a black cape and hood.

Simara felt completely paralyzed while absolute terror began to hammer at the rhythm of her heart. The enormous black shape shrank while the soft applause became more tangible, closer and closer until it reached the size of a real tall man. Simara's heart was beating very fast while Viko snarled and shrieked with his back completely arched because he saw that the shape that was once enormous now seemed to be a man.

A huge, nauseating smell of rotting flesh flooded the cemetery; Simara made a strong gag and covered her nose and mouth. She wanted to run and escape, but she was stuck to the ground. Between the cold, the smell of rotten food or rotting flesh, the cemetery, and the black shape, Simara felt like she was in her worst nightmare.

"Bravo!" a rough, strained voice spoke as if it was choking. It was the shape's voice.

Simara began to tremble when the figure with a black cape and hood started to approach her, sliding across the ground and causing whirlpools of fog. It crossed the snaking flames of fire and approached Simara while laughing with a choked and disgusting voice.

"Bravo, little girl!" it said again. "I congratulate you on that determination. Wow! I've never smelled such delicious hatred in all my existence!"

"He's a person," Simara thought.

"Who... are you?" Simara asked, with a trembling voice.

"The question you should ask yourself is... Who are you? What do you want from this life you lead?" the dark figure with a choked voice spoke.

Suddenly, it pulled out two pale hands with long black nails from under the cape and removed the black hood. Simara screamed in terror. She wanted to run and escape, but she felt immobilized and trembling.

Before her stood a horrible and disgusting dead man, with a foul smell. Simara was sure that this was impossible. He seemed to have been a man, judging by what was left of his destroyed features, but nothing remained of what he surely once was. Parts of his head were exposed, showing his skull, like his cheekbones, and the little that remained of some curly hair strands. His eye sockets were sunken, but he had yellowish eyeballs with which he looked at Simara with perverse amusement. The light from the flames around him macabrely illuminated his face, what was left of it, and what was missing.

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"I know your fears, Simara Novak," the dead man spoke, "I've seen your heart and your nightmares. I've seen what's inside your soul, and oh baby, it's beautiful."

The dead man stretched out a frail arm in front of him, and before Simara, a wooden coffin with bronze handles took shape. It was floating above the fog, and the firelight illuminated the white lace that protruded outward from the edges of the wood shaped like a human body.

Simara was afraid to approach and see what was inside.

"I know your hatred, Simara Novak. I've seen what you fear and what pursues you, turning your days and nights into hell, and I love it."

The dead man looked at her, piercing her with his eyes, and raised his hand again, forcing Simara to slide against her will to one side of the coffin, very close to it.

Simara was forced to look inside. Surrounded by white lace, her mother was reclined inside, but her face was the only recognizable part. Her eyes were tightly closed, and her mouth was tense, her black hair combed just as she had worn it, and small red drops splattered her cheeks, as well as a thread of blood that fell from the corner of her mouth, with a mortal pallor contrasting with the dark red of the blood.

Simara began to cry nervously and covered her mouth with her hand.

"I know you, Simara. I've been watching you closely, and I know what you've seen many times in your dreams. I know how you hide behind an appearance and a false name..."

Suddenly, her mother's shape mutated and turned into Simara herself. She recognized herself, pale and asleep, with her dull black hair and surrounded by lace, grotesquely illuminated by the firelight that created enormous shadows on her features, just like on the dead man's features, who was speaking to her.

"I know what you hide and what you remember. I know what you've seen, I know you've seen death and the decay of the body, and therefore, you know my nature," the dead man smiled.

Simara, crying in a nervous breakdown, shouted at him.

"Who are you?! What do you want from me?!"

The coffin disappeared, blending in with the fog.

"I am decay and corruption. I am fear and fury, violence, everything you fear and always hides in the darkness, but you can never see. I am the downfall of life, also the nightmare and horror, I hide in evil."

The dead man bowed, smiling.

"It's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Daien. I am the renegade son of your heavenly father Divion and prince of Morathor, a place you may know as 'hell'. You can call me 'devil', 'corruptor', 'lord of the flies', 'evil'... etc., as you like. I don't mind because the real question is, who are you?"

Simara watched him while feeling her whole body tremble. The dead man continued speaking.

"Who are you, Simara Novak?" the horrible and foul-smelling being walked around Simara, studying her as if she were a horse for sale. "Who are you? Simara Novak... Simara Derklaxs... Novak... Derklaxs... What is it that you don't want to recognize?"

Simara brought her hands like claws to her head, feeling that this being was forcibly reading her entire soul.

"Enough!! Leave me alone!!"

The dead man ignored her and continued speaking over her voice.

"What have you done, Simara...?"

"Nothing!"

The dead man laughed grotesquely, showing his black teeth and purple tongue.

"I don't believe you. You hide many things, Simara Novak. You're a mystery, but I've seen a lot in you. That's why I ask you, who are you?"

The disgusting being continued to circle her and Viko, who were still hissing, snarling, and shrieking on the ground.

"Simara... just a woman, nobody who can rule," the dead man walked and crossed his arms, listing all the things Simara had ever believed about herself. "Never talented at anything, never good enough, loved by nobody..."

Simara stopped clutching her head as she felt a bubbling fury growing inside her.

"Shut up!"

At the same time, Viko's mental voice shouted while snarling.

"Screw you!" the cat mentally shouted.

The dead man made a comically surprised expression when he heard the cat and laughed.

"I love you and your cat! I adore this combative and embracing spirit you both have. Have you known each other for a long time?"

"Leave us alone!" Simara ordered.

The dead man, who claimed to be the devil, raised his hands in a sign of peace and made a truce gesture.

"Halt! I ask for time," the devil spoke in a conciliatory tone. "I didn't explain myself well. I want to be an ally, not an enemy, little Simara."

Simara looked at him with a furious expression, not believing him at all.

"Save it, I want you to disappear," Simara spat at him, but the devil showed understanding.

"I understand, you're afraid and angry about everything that happened, and my appearance doesn't help, but don't pay attention to how I look. This exterior is just a form I feel comfortable with, nothing more. Don't be afraid of the decay of flesh, it's part of life. Many beautiful things are bad."

"I'd bet my life that you're evil and horrible alike," Simara said with a look of disdain.