It was a dark, cold night. The thundering storm could be heard outside. The rain poured down incessantly, but could only be heard softly in the inner rooms.

So where were we? In a pitch-black room. A few candles were the only source of light. A young woman was sitting in an armchair, her face covered by a hood. She was holding a baby on her lap, gently rocking it back and forth. It looked at her with wide eyes, unsure of what was happening around it. Almost equally unsure, she returned its gaze and held out her finger to it, which it grasped with the whole of its small hand. A man was standing next to her. He put his hand on her shoulder. It was quiet in this dark little room. Apart from the flickering candles, nothing could be heard. Long, dark curtains hung along the walls. At one end of the room was a wooden door, at the opposite end the woman sat next to a small table covered with a pile of books and glasses.

The lady waited for quite a while until the door finally opened inwards. In stepped a hooded figure completely wrapped in a cloak. She was followed by two others. When the last person entered the room, they closed the door behind them and locked it. The lady with the baby stood up.

Lady: "We are here."

Hooded figure: "I am glad that you have decided in favour of this. What we're going to do here is this."

The figure pulled something out of its coat pocket and held it out to the lady. It was a necklace with a sparkling red stone as a pendant. Engraved on its frame were the letters M.R.. Apart from the fact that it looked particularly mesmerising in the candlelight, there was nothing that stood out about the object.

"Is that it?" the lady asked. Immediately afterwards, however, she found herself looking intently at the stone once more. It wasn't its appearance that captivated her. It was the strange feeling it gave her. For a brief moment, a shiver ran down her spine.

The cloaked person in front of her pulled the pendant back towards them and clasped it in their hand.

"I believe you have already sensed why this is the object." The person removed their hood with their free hand. It revealed the face of a middle-aged lady, pale, large eyes. The others did the same and took their hoods off their heads. The other two were young boys. The lady with the child on her lap unveiled her golden-locked hair, while the tall man next to her, seemed to have thick eyebrows and a pale look on his face.

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The lady and her companion nodded. So the lady took a glass with a red liquid in it from the table, opened it and began to draw a circle and other shapes on the floor. Everyone watched her in silence. The man raised his voice:

"And it won't hurt him, right? You promised us that it wouldn't harm my child, Gabriela." Without turning away from her drawing, the woman replied:

"It's just like I said. It won't cause any physical harm to the boy." She paused briefly. "As for the mental state, I can't give you any information. The child‘s not normal anyway, I'd say. We wouldn't be able to predict how the dev……. cursed child would have developed anyway."

Everyone present remained silent after that, while she finished drawing the magic circle. The smaller of the two boys stared mesmerised at everything she drew. When she had finished, she stood up, walked over to the table and picked up the top book from the pile. It was a thick, leather-bound book with yellowed pages. Gabriela tried her best to prevent anyone but herself from seeing what was written in the book. She skimmed through a few pages until she finally seemed to have found what she was looking for.

Then she stepped into the centre of the circle and asked the two parents to join her, but without blurring what she had drawn. The mother, however hesitated. Her husband looked at her and recognised the worry written all over her face.

"Everything will be fine. If we want to help him, this has to be done. You know that." He took her in his arms and kissed her. She looked into his eyes and then nodded. With a single, decisive step, they entered the circle, their son in her arms. To begin the ritual, she put the pendant on the child.

The lady began to read something aloud in an unknown language:

"Soma kai psyche. Kante dyo xechorista. Syndete ta metaxy tous. Anthropos kai kosmema."

Everyone in the room suddenly began to feel a strange pressure. Warmth began to rise. The candles began to flicker. The woman took out a small needle and, with the parents' consent, pricked the baby's finger. She took a single drop of blood and let it fall onto the jewel on the necklace.

"Anaireste te moira. Desmeumenos gia te aionioteta. Allaxte to mellon."

Suddenly, the circle and the symbols on the floor below them began to glow. A gust of wind blew out all the candles in the room and yet a bright blue light illuminated the room. Slowly, however, this light began to fade again and before it could go completely dark, the candles lit up again. The strange feeling and the pressure had disappeared. Everyone stared around cluelessly.

It was done. At that moment, the child suddenly began to scream and wail loudly.

"This is only part of the solution," Gabriela noted coolly.

"We know," the man replied bluntly.

"Well then, I bid you farewell for the time being." Gabriela gestured towards the door while the lady tried to calm the child. The man glared at her and said, „I think you forgot your good manners. “ She only stared back with a blank look. „This is not a public setting my lord. “

"Come on, darling. We're leaving." - "Yes, I'm coming," said the woman in a very subdued voice.