The Criminal Diaries

      Some time goes by before Sammy shows up in the living room after sitting quietly aside, suffering not less than everyone because of his owner’s death. When he barks quietly, everyone moves their eyes to the dog that gets close to them very closely, keeping his tail lowered and looking at the men like he begs them to say Helene is actually alive and will come here soon. But Daniel, Terrence, and Edward cannot do this and look guiltily at the retriever that lost some part of his weight due to the strong stress and his refusal of food and water.       After kissing Natalia on the cheek and caressing it tenderly, Edward gets up from the sofa, comes to Sammy, squats down, and calls him to himself with a gesture. Then the doggy comes to him closely, snuggles his nose in the man’s palms that he reaches out, moves his eyes full of pity to him again, and makes a heartbreaking whine that makes his heart squeeze.       “Sammy, buddy…” Edward pronounces softly and caresses Sammy’s head. “I’m so sorry…”       While Sammy keeps barking and whining with pity, Daniel comes to him after helping Anna get up and seating her on the sofa next to Natalia.       “Forgive us, Sammy…” Daniel apologizes with sadness in his eyes, getting down to his knees in front of Sammy. “We could not save our owner.”       Looking at Daniel with wet eyes full of sadness, Sammy whines with a greater pity and starts butting his head against his chest. The man caresses the dog’s face with both hands and then takes him in a strong hug, running his hands over the back of the inconsolable pet.       “We’re so sorry, man. We’re ashamed to look into your eyes and the girls’ ones after we didn’t keep our promise.”       Edward strokes Sammy’s back softly after the dog barks quietly. At some moment, Terrence comes to them very slowly, holding his back, but he does not get down to his knees and just yanks the dog softly by the ears.       “Sorry, buddy, I can’t get down to you,” Terrence apologizes and winces slightly. “But I’m so sorry about what happened. We really tried hard.”       At this moment, Natalia and Anna get up from the sofa and come to Raquelle standing not far from them and end up in her strong hugs as the three keep crying bitterly and watching their men pay attention to the grieving dog.       “We know, Sammy, we do,” Daniel pronounces quietly with sadness in his eyes and steps away from Sammy inclining his head. “We’re here. We won’t leave you. We promise we’ll take care of you.”       “Don’t be mad at us, please,” Terrence says. “We know we let you down. But I swear we did our best.”       “And Helene wanted to see you and said she missed you so badly,” Edward adds. “As well as she missed our girls.”       Sammy makes a loud, emotional bark and howls with pity, raising his head as if he knows that Helene is somewhere in heaven.       “Quiet, quiet, Sammy, we’re here,” Edward tries to calm down, pressing Sammy to himself and caressing his head. “Here… Quiet…”       “Don’t forget that we all love you so much,” Daniel recalls. “You’re our happiness. Our little shoot of the light that helped us get up when we had bad times.”       “Believe us, it’s hard for all of us now, as hard as it is for you,” Terrence notices. “And the guys and I are much more shocked ‘cause we saw everything with our own eyes.”       Daniel, Terrence, and Edward caress Sammy for some time before he whines quietly, but then, inclining his head and keeping his tail lowered, turns around and goes aside.       “Sammy…” Danie pronounces softly. “Sammy…”       But Sammy does not react to the call and goes to the back of the house after he opens the door himself by pressing on the handle with his paw. Daniel and Edward watch him with sadness in their eyes until the dog disappears, and look at Terrence as they get up on their feet. Then the men turn their heads to the side where Anna, Raquelle, and Natalia are standing, holding each other in a strong group hug and crying much more bitterly. Not thinking a lot, the guys come to them determinedly and hug one or two of them at the same time, letting their friends snuggle their noses in their shoulders and squeeze them as strongly as they need.       “Why?” Natalia wonders, while Daniel is hugging her tightly and caressing her head. “Why did Helene die? She didn’t deserve it! Why was it her punishment?”       “We were horrified when we saw what those cads brought her to for just one week,” Terrence confesses, caressing Anna’s head, while she snuggles her nose in his shoulder. “Helene was so skinny and pale, she could barely stand on her feet… She complained that those people didn’t let her eat or drink. And… They really came to rape her.”       “But why didn't you the hell do anything?” Raquelle wonders loudly, pressing herself closely to Edward. “Why did you let her die? Why did you do nothing? Why did you just stand and watch?”       “We didn’t know where they hid her,” Edward explains. “Those scums just contacted someone on a video call, and those people forced us to watch everything that was happening in real time.”       “You did know everything!” Anna explodes in emotions. “You knew but wanted to do nothing!”       “Not at all, honey, I swear!” Daniel exclaims. “If we had had a small chance, we would’ve rushed to save Helene immediately.”       “We don’t believe you!” Natalia states. “You are just trying to excuse yourself! Excuse your failure and your reluctance to help our friend!”       “Girls, sweeties, we completely understand you’re excited now,” Terrence says quietly. “But please, trust us. Believe that we tried to do the impossible.”       “How could you let it happen?” Anna wonders, pushing Terrence off herself. “How could you let Helene die? She did count on all of us so badly! But you literally betrayed her!”       “We’re really very sorry,” Edward excuses with pity in his eyes, comes to Natalia, and takes her hands when she steps away from Daniel. “We do admit that we’re guilty of this situation, too.”       “Why would you promise something if you can't do this?” Raquelle wonders when Terrence takes her by the shoulders from behind. “We did believe you! We hoped! We believed that Helene would come back to us! But she is dead now!”       “Please, girls, don’t be mad at us,” Daniel begs with pity in his eyes and takes Anna in a strong hug after she makes several circles nervously and hits him in the chest with her fists a couple of times. “Would you really think we’d have sat and watched Helene die if we’d known we had a chance to save her?”       “I dunno…” Anna mutters in a low voice and sniffs. “I don’t know!”       “Helene wasn’t at Marcus’ house where we went,” Terrence recalls. “And there was just a part of his accomplices at first. But a little later, the others joined. Those who started the fire in the place where they held your friend.”       “Couldn’t you really do anything?” Natalia wonders. “Didn’t you have any chance to change something?”       “Alas, no chance,” Edward shakes his head. “And even if we had had it, we would’ve come too late.”       “We’re really very sorry about what happened,” Terrence says with pity in his eyes. “And we’re madly ashamed of being able to do nothing. Ashamed of letting down you, Sammy, and Mrs. Marshall…”       “Was she really far away?” Raquelle asks with mistrust. “Not where you were fighting with Marcus?”       “Far away,” Daniel pronounces with sadness in his eyes. “Helene showed us the view she had in the only small window, and we only saw thick woods. No hint at the city being somewhere close.”       “Oh, God…” Natalia horrifies.       “Alright, guys, forget it,” Anna says in a low, quiet voice and sniffs. “Sorry about attacking you. Emotions… Worrying…”       “We get it all, sweeties,” Daniel replies softly and kisses Anna sweetly on the forehead, still hugging her tightly with both arms. “It’s okay.”       “You really did everything you could,” Natalia admits, putting her arms around Edward’s waist and putting her head on his shoulder. “You tried… To help…”       “Yeah, we believe you wouldn’t have stood like columns,” Raquelle adds, takes Terrence under his arm when he, holding his back, wants to come to the sofa carefully, helps him sit, sits down next to him, and caresses his head. “You aren’t like this. Not cowards. Not heartless.”       “By the way, guys, why did you come as a trio?” Natalia wonders, while she and Edward also decide to sit on the sofa. “Where’s Peter? Why isn’t he with you?”       “I’m afraid we’ve lost Peter forever after Helene’s death,” Edward says with sadness. “We can’t help him anymore.”       “And how did he react to her death?” Anna sobs and joins her friends along with Daniel.       “Don’t ask better,” Daniel shakes his head with a tired sigh. “Looking at him gave us pain at that moment.”       “Uh-huh, he was screaming, crying, couldn’t believe it really happened…” Terrence adds. “I think we had never seen him in such a horrible condition before.”       “Gosh, poor Pete…” Natalia sighs heavily. “Marcus did get what he wanted. He did his best for nobody to help Helene.”       “Yeah, that asshole knew what to do,” Terrence throws gloomily. “He planned everything. All the details.”       “But why?” Raquelle wonders. “Why did Marcus do that? What did Helene do to him? What’s Peter’s fault?”       “Marcus killed her to make Peter feel the same things he felt when he was told about the death of his wife, Julia,” Edward confesses.       “His wife?” Anna frowns strongly.       “Oh, Marcus spent a lot of time talking about that woman!” Daniel exclaims. “I mean, as I understand, he told Peter everything, but we found out everything briefly. But the thing that’s clear is the fact that Marcus was devastated when he became a widower.”       “What does Marcus’s wife have to do with it? What do Peter and Helene have to do with it?”       “Marcus is Peter’s father,” Terrence says. “And Julia is his real mother.”       “What?” Raquelle, Natalia, and Anna surprise loudly.       “Marcus?” Natalia opens her eyes widely. “Marcus Longbottom? Peter’s father?”       “You were right when you noticed that they were similar,” Edward notices. “They really turned out to be relatives. Peter turned out to be his son.”       “My God…” Anna shakes her head in mistrust. “Does it happen… Peter… Is the son of the criminal? The son of the man, who… Killed hundreds of people in the 90s?”       “We’re shocked, too,” Daniel replies thoughtfully. “But it’s the truth. And… Peter did the right thing by refusing to find him. Because… The truth about his father would’ve had him horrified.”       “What a twist… Can’t believe it…”       “Wait, isn’t the name of Peter’s mother Cornelia?” Raquelle recalls. “Mr. Johnson somehow told us about her being arrested during the robbery of the bank.”       “As it turned out, she is actually nobody to him,” Edward says. “Someone just left the child with Cornelia Rose. I mean, she got him from the one who worked for someone, whom Marcus sold his son.”       “What do you mean, sold his son?”       “He did!” Daniel exclaims. “Marcus never wanted to become a father. But when Julia told him about her pregnancy, it was too late. He was ready to accept it, but he got enraged after her death. She gave birth to a son, but then she suddenly felt bad. She was taken for surgery immediately, but Julia did not survive it and died the next day. And the child, who is Peter, was born absolutely healthy.”       “Marcus was freaking mad at him and started to blame him for the death of his wife,” Terrence continues. “And then he got a chance to sell his child for a lot of money to some traffickers. They buy children to sell them into slavery. And… Peter would’ve been sold if one of them hadn’t stolen the child and given to a random stranger, who turned out to be Cornelia.”       “She agreed to take him because she wasn’t able to give birth,” Edward adds. “But her husband wasn’t happy with the perspective of raising a strange child and left her for another woman. So, she stayed alone and began to educate the child. Whose name she decided to change, giving him her surname.”       “Do you mean Peter had a different birth name?” Raquelle specifies.       “Yes, that guy was named Theodore Longbottom when he was born,” Daniel replies. “But Cornelia adopted him and changed his name to Peter Rose.”       “Can't believe it…” Natalia shakes her head with widely open eyes. “Did Marcus really sell his child into slavery?”       “He did,” Terrence confirms. “He said he knew one of those bastards who liked his son so much. And who offered such a huge amount of money that Marcus still lives on it.”       “But the child isn’t guilty of their mother’s death!” Anna exclaims. “And how could he give a damn about his baby and only think about his wife?”       “But Marcus decided to take it out on his own son and called him the killer of his wife,” Edward shrugs. “The killer of ‘his Julia’, as he often called her.”       “Besides, Julia herself knew well that the childbirth would put her at risk of death,” Daniel confesses. “She wasn’t allowed to give birth due to an aortic aneurysm that she knew well about, but it didn’t stop her. Though Julia hid it from Marcus and really wanted to get a child. Technically, that woman risked consciously and doomed herself to death. She knew she had weak vessels. She knew a pregnancy would be a great load for her organism.”       “Then there must be no claims for Peter!” Natalia throws her hands up. “Since Julia knew she could’ve died, all questions must’ve gone to her.”       “But Marcus blamed the child for all of it,” Edward replies. “Not himself for getting his thing out in time. Not his wife for forgetting about the risks. And he quietly sold him to someone, who almost sold Peter into slavery to a rich family abroad. Then he lived several years with the thought that his son was far from here or dead. But he had a goal to get rid of him when he found that Peter was alive and lived here.”       “But how did he know it?” Anna wonders. “He already became Peter!”       “Our band ‘helped’ him with it,” Daniel explains. “When Terrence, Peter, and I just started to perform as a trio, Marcus learned about him. At first, he just expressed an interest, but one day, he met his familiar trafficker, who told him the child had been kidnapped. And later, Marcus met Cornelia, who had already started to drink to hell. He told her a full story, and she told him about Theodore, who was no longer Theodore and became Peter, and the band that she knew about, just saying.”       “Uh-huh, and from that moment, he tried to get rid of him again and again,” Edward adds. “And yeah, girls, you hit the bullseye again! I mean, you, Anna!”       “Yes, princess, you were right, too. The case of the infected blood wasn’t an accident. Peter was infected on purpose by the order of Marcus.”       “And he was attacked many times,” Anna confesses. “Chris and Kevin became witnesses to some of them.”       “Chris and Kevin?” Edward frowns slightly.       “Yup, they came here for two hours, and we told them about the situation with Peter and Helene,” Natalia confesses. “And the guys told them about those attempts.”       “Uh-huh, Kevin didn’t know Peter yet when he became a witness to someone trying to spit acid over the blond,” Raquelle adds. “And Christopher once helped Peter get rid of the man who tried to pit a fighting dog on him.”       “Whoa, what news…” Terrence pronounces surprisingly, rounding his eyes.       “But Peter has told us about all of that!” Daniel exclaims. “No mentions about someone trying to harm him.”       “I think there could’ve been many more attempts,” Edward assumes. “Moreover, it’s been like two years since the band was founded.”       “But we didn’t even guess that danger was chasing Peter everywhere,” Terrence shakes his head. “We didn’t know he could’ve died at any moment because of his crazy father.”       “It seems that the phrase ‘this world is kind of trying to get rid of you’ gets a certain meaning,” Anna says thoughtfully.       “And as I understand, Marcus decided to use Helene to make Peter feel the same pain from the loss of his beloved girl,” Raquelle concludes.       “If Peter had loved another girl, she would’ve been instead of Helene,” Daniel replies. “Whom he knew a lot about. Against whom he turned the blond on purpose all the time by saying she wasn’t loyal to him and hiding something from him.”       “He definitely lied about not being loyal, but Helene did really hide some secrets,” Anna replies.       “And she was definitely gonna tell us about it,” Edward confesses. “Helene had wanted to confess something before we lost contact with her. Something fell over her head, and she let go of the phone.”       “Oh, it doesn’t matter what she was hiding now,” Raquelle sighs heavily. “It doesn’t make sense now.”       “But now Marcus’ motives are clear enough,” Terrence notices. “He blamed his son for the death of his wife and wanted to take revenge for her, using his beloved girl to make it happen.”       “Who has become another victim of that stinker,” Anna adds in a little shaking voice.       “We could’ve become victims if luck hadn’t been by our side,” Daniel confesses. “And I don’t mean all our bruises, cuts, and burns.”       “By the way, does it seem to me that you smell fumes?” Natalia asks thoughtfully, sniffing Edward sitting next to her better. “Edward, your clothes smell it.”       “No, it doesn’t seem to you,” Edward confesses. “Marcus tried to burn us down by setting the basement on fire where we had a fight.”       “Fire?” Raquelle, Anna, and Natalia horrify at the same time.       “Do you mean that man tried to kill you in the same way as Helene?” Raquelle opens her eyes widely.       “Not just us but also his accomplices, who betrayed him in the end and refused to fight with us and follow his orders,” Terrence confesses.       “It’s awful…” Anna closes her mouth with a hand.       “If not for Edward’s instant reaction, we would’ve choked and died there,” Daniel replies. “He saved all of us. The guy didn’t get confused and acted as determinedly as never before.”       “Yeah, we were lucky I managed to break the reserved door and end up outside,” Edward says thoughtfully. “We got out some time before something exploded there and provoked a much fierier fire.”       “Uh-huh, when Edward broke it, all the henchmen of Marcus rushed there and literally fought for a chance to get out first,” Terrence adds. “They ran right into the policemen, who were waiting for them with open arms.       “Cowards…” Raquelle throws gloomily.       “But why were they so scared?” Natalia wonders. “Why did they refuse to keep pleasing Marcus?”       “Peter terrified them so much that all of them put their tails between their legs!” Daniel exclaims.       “Peter?”       “He literally went insane after Helene died,” Edward confesses. “He was running after Marcus with a knife and beat those assholes to half-death.”       “All alone?” Anna horrifies.       “Uh-huh! And at some moment, Pete found a gun and started to shoot everyone. Without thinking.”       “Peter shot a person?” Natalia opens her eyes widely. “Are you serious?”       “Yes, he did! Many times! He was shooting Marcus and those assholes.”       “But why didn’t you stop him?” Raquelle wonders. “He could’ve killed someone! He could’ve gone to prison!”       “You think we didn’t try?” Edward asks surprisingly. “Of course, we tried! But Rose went out of his mind and didn’t understand what he was doing and who he was talking to.”       “Exactly!” Daniel exclaims. “He even stopped listening to us! He threatened us with a gun, beat us strongly, and insulted us.”       “We didn’t wanna fight with him, but we had no choice,” Terrence adds. “Because we couldn’t reach out to Peter with words. Though a cruel beating didn’t change anything. I mean, it did. Not the way we expected.”       “Uh-huh, he went much crazier and kept acting like a psycho. He added us to his list of enemies and started to call himself Theodore.”       “Oh, God!” Raquelle puts her hand on her heart.       “Seriously, girls, we were scared to death!” Daniel exclaims. “Not only did Marcus’s accomplices put their tails between their legs. We could hardly recognize Peter in Peter. His glance changed suddenly after Helene’s death.”       “Yes, it was a different man,” Edward agrees. “An aggressive, heartless, and bloodthirsty man obsessed with anger. The one who considered the whole world his enemy. As if it harmed him so much that he hasn’t still forgiven it for that.”       “Gosh, guys, stop telling us these awful things!” Anna horrifies.       “Sorry, Anna, but we’re telling the truth,” Terrence replies quietly. “It wasn’t our friend. We weren’t fighting with Peter. We were fighting with Theodore.”       “My gosh, Helene’s death made that to him…” Raquelle shakes her head.       “And the worst thing is that Rose believed truly that he found the real him,” Daniel notices. “He’s always felt uncomfortable in the skin of Peter. But he kind of found his place when he revealed the side of Theodore.”       “So, do you wanna say we’re losing him?” Natalia asks with sadness in her eyes.       “We’ve lost him already,” Edward says with sadness in his eyes. “And the case is not only Helene’s death that he will not take.”       “Yeah, Peter blamed us for her death and added us to the list of his enemies that agreed against him with the whole world and didn’t want to see him happy,” Terrence confesses.       “He hasn’t calmed down yet, and he keeps acting like a psycho?” Raquelle specifies.       “Sadly. And even if we knocked him out for a while, it didn’t help him. To give him a break. With the hope that he would come back to normal.”       “When I found him after we ran into the police and talked to Mr. Johnson, I thought he was normal,” Daniel says thoughtfully. “It was our Peter… Broken, vulnerable, unhappy, kind of weak… Who looked at us guiltily after waking up.”       “I thought everything was over, too,” Edward sighs tiredly. “But when we assumed that Helene could be alive, and they didn’t show us her real death, he went outta his mind again. As Terrence said, he blamed us for what happened, showered us with mud, and got out.”       “As I understand, doesn’t it make sense to talk to him anymore?” Anna asks hesitantly.       “Mr. Johnson advised us to leave him alone for a while,” Terrence confesses. “That’s what we’ll probably do. Though we’re worried he may harm himself. Because he… He’s probably gonna withdraw into himself.”       “Agree, Peter doesn’t have a meaning to live now,” Raquelle nods. “Which means nobody can stop him.”       “And if Peter kills himself one day, we will probably not know it and will be able to do nothing,” Natalia adds.       “That’s what we’re afraid of,” Edward replies with sadness. “We’re afraid to lose our friend. But now we’re powerless. Peter won’t hear us anyway. He… He’s no longer the kind, shy, and decent guy that we know.”       “But despite all of this, we’re still worried about him and take care of him,” Daniel adds with sadness in his eyes. “It’s hurtful for us to be treated by Pete like this. But on the other hand, we understand him completely. We understand he’s going crazy over Helene’s death.”       “Don’t take his words seriously, guys,” Raquelle advises. “He is just obsessed with emotions and is gonna blame anyone for her death. And knowing everything Peter has gotten through, it’s gonna be much harder for him to accept it.”       “We don’t,” Terrence shrugs. “And we ain’t mad. We had a chance to leave him to die when Marcus set her on fire. He was still lying unconscious. The guy and I could leave without him. We could give a damn about the one who beat us strongly. But we did not. We decided to save him.”       “Yeah, no matter what, Peter is still our friend,” Daniel adds. “The brother, who means a lot to us. We love, we laugh, we fight. But we’re still on the same ride. And we’re ready to be by his side, no matter what.”       “But we’re a little hurt that he’s never trusted us completely,” Edward confesses, rubbing his hands nervously. “You know that we apologized for our past mistakes a long time ago and tried so hard not to give him any reason to doubt our loyalty.”       “We completely understand you, guys,” Anna replies softly, holding Daniel by the shoulders and kissing him sweetly on the cheek. “We know how much your friendship means to you.”       “Anyway, that’s good you don’t turn your back on him at such a hard moment,” Natalia notices, putting her hand on Edward’s knee. “Whatever he does.”       “Wait for two or three days so he calms down a little,” Raquelle insists, holding Terrence’s hand in her hands and caressing his wrist tenderly. “And you need to come to yourself.”       “Don’t worry, friend, we’re okay,” Daniel replies with sadness in his eyes. “Even after that hell.”       “And we have enough strength to be next to you and help you accept the death of your friend,” Terrence assures.       “I still can’t believe it…” Anna sighs heavily. “I think I will never accept it.”       “Don’t be shy, girls,” Edward says softly. “Say everything you have inside. Don’t hold it down. If you feel bad, say it.”       “I don’t even know what I wanna say now…” Raquelle replies thoughtfully, putting her head on Terrence’s shoulder, while he hugs her around the shoulders. “I dunno what to say… I just wanna cry and press myself to someone.”       “We’re here, sweeties.” Daniel caresses Anna’s head and gives his hand to her so she squeezes it tightly. “We will always be.”       “Thanks, guys,” Natalia thanks quietly with tears in her eyes and kisses Edward on the cheek. “Thank you for being with us.”       “Maybe we can’t bring Helene back, but I’m really glad Marcus has been arrested,” Anna says confidently, putting her hand on Daniel’s chest, while her head rests on his shoulder. “He will finally answer for all the bad things he did to innocent people.”       “By the way, is it that true he was poisoned with the same thing as Edward, as Mr. Johnson said?” Raquelle asks.       “True,” Terrence nods. “When the police arrested Marcus, he suddenly started to cough up his blood, barely stood on his feet due to dizziness, and held his stomach.”       “And he got out somewhere several times, while his henchmen were pretending to be sassy,” Edward adds. “And I thought Marcus started to look bad at some moment.”       “Yeah, the fact he couldn’t fight young people wasn’t the only reason why he didn’t attack,” Daniel notices. “We don’t know if he poisoned himself on purpose or accidentally, but the police called an ambulance that took him to the hospital in a bad enough condition.”       “No matter what the end of this story is, I really hope that man will no longer harm anyone,” Natalia expresses hope. “He has committed too many crimes.”       “Don't worry, girls, now the police will deal with the police, and he will finally get the punishment he deserves,” Terrence assures. “Mr. Johnson will do his best for that scum to be put in prison and sentenced for life or actually executed.”       “Thank God at least you’re okay,” Anna notices. “We would go crazy if that stinker killed you, too.”       “We would’ve hardly gotten out of that situation if not for you,” Edward assumes, caressing Natalia’s head. “If you hadn’t asked Mr. Johnson for help, we would’ve died there.”       “Yeah, you did it right!” Daniel exclaims. “That’s good you didn’t wait and called him shortly.”       “We did the most of what we could do,” Raquelle replies thoughtfully. “This time, we surely know where you went. We knew you had a deal with one of the most dangerous criminals in the story of our country.”       “Can’t believe that man really turned out to be Peter’s father,” Natalia shakes her head hesitantly. “That we… Befriended… The criminal’s son…”       “Criminals aren’t born,” Anna notices. “Everything depends on your education and surroundings. If you’re raised with love and care, you’re even afraid to think about it.”       “Yeah, but nobody cancelled a genetic predisposition,” Terrence notices. “Marcus, his father, his grandfather, other relatives – all of them tended to cruelty. They all were bastards. As the guys and I saw, Peter may tend to this, too. Remembering how easily he pointed the pistol at the man and shot one or two times, failed it, and then started a mass shooting.”       “Do you mean there’s a possibility that Peter may go the wrong way and become a criminal?” Raquelle rounds her eyes. “Do you mean he can go and start murdering people for nothing? Taking revenge for all his humiliations and sufferings?”       “I’m afraid it will happen,” Edward assumes. “Now nothing holds him down. So… There’s a chance that he will harm someone else, not himself. Accept the personality of Theodore, who he was supposed to be from birth, and become… Someone like his father.”       “Maybe, if Peter hadn’t lived with Cornelia and had been educated by Marcus, that guy would’ve become a heartless bastard,” Daniel assumes. “Moreover, he said he didn’t kinda live his life. As if some part of him exists apart from him.”       “Do you think Theodore’s side is what he’s been deprived of all this time?” Natalia asks with sadness in her eyes.       “Most likely. So… No matter how heartbreaking it sounds, but… We have lost Peter. And we will never get him back. Never.”       “Maybe, everything is not lost?” Anna asks hesitantly. “Maybe this is just a reaction to Helene’s death? Maybe he will come to himself later and understand what he is doing?”       “Hardly, Anna. Hardly. And sadly, we will have to accept it. Accept the fact that there are six of us now.”       “Exactly,” Terrence agrees. “Today we experienced a double loss.”       “No!” Raquelle exclaims. “No, I don’t wanna believe it! We can’t lose Peter! He can’t go against us.”       “Yes, that guy can’t be called cowardly and weak,” Natalia agrees. “But he’d never commit a crime. Pete has never been caught robbing, killing, attempting, or doing something else.”       “Helene just held him down,” Terrence notices. “Love for her. She kept something light inside him. She gave him a reason to believe this world wasn’t so cruel. But now there’s nobody to keep it. We don’t have the power that she had. He won't listen to us, but he’s ready for anything for her.”       “Maybe Rose has never even considered us friends,” Edward assumes. “Maybe he just let us befriend him. I mean, Pete didn’t hide that he didn’t trust us completely and expected a knife in the back all the time.”       “Don’t rush to make conclusions, guys,” Anna insists. “Wait for a while. Give him some time to come to himself. I am sure he will regret everything he did a little later.”       “Anyway, there’s a high chance that the world is gonna welcome a new bloodthirsty criminal,” Daniel replies. “And it’s not surprising, knowing that everyone from Peter’s family suffered from mental issues: one had schizophrenia, another had congenital depression, a third one tended to a suicide… The four one kills people for nothing. It would be weird if a healthy child were born with such a bundle of genes.”       “You’re partly right, yeah,” Natalia agrees. “But Peter seemed such a good and kind man all the time.”       “Besides, he just recently started to go crazy,” Raquelle adds. “After Marcus decided to blame Helene for betraying him. Something really changed about Peter. He became much more aggressive.”       “Listen, girls, we don’t also wanna believe this is the end of our friendship with Peter,” Terrence sighs heavily, running his hands over his face. “But what we were afraid of happened – we became powerless after Helene’s death. We cannot bring our friend back.”       “Of course, we will listen to Mr. Johnson and won’t bother him for several days,” Edward promises. “But I’m afraid that’s all. Nothing will be left of Peter. I mean, nothing is left of him, knowing that he doesn’t react to this name anymore and calls himself Thedore.”       “I guess something really horrible connected with males happened to him since he started to show this kind of aggression toward men,” Natalia assumes. “Something that makes him fear them and hate them.”       “We will not know it anymore,” Daniel sighs tiredly. “And we literally have to mourn over the loss of Peter and the loss of Helene. We lost two of our best friends. At the same time.”       “Anyway, we don’t have time to lie in bed and suffer,” Terrence raises his head. “We have a great responsibility to comfort those who need it. Let’s focus on it.”       “I can’t even imagine how to tell Mrs. Marshall this piece of news,” Raquelle shakes her head with tears in her eyes. “She’s gonna be struck when she knows her granddaughter is dead.”       “Well, we can ask the older people for help,” Daniel suggests. “They all agreed to help us. If we can’t be with her, we can try to ask them about it. I’m sure nobody will refuse to help.”       “Mr. Johnson has already promised to visit that woman in his free time,” Natalia says thoughtfully.       “Anyway, don’t even think of blaming yourself for anything,” Raquelle says confidently, putting her hand on Terrence’s lap. “You did everything you could.”       “No matter what, you still remain our heroes,” Anna encourages, caressing Daniel’s head. “Brave, determined, and fearless heroes.”       “Thank you so much, girls,” Daniel smiles sadly. “You’re the sunshine that doesn’t let us go crazy in our hard times.”       “Hey, why were Edward and Terrence coming here as slow as snails when they entered here?” Anna asks.       “Marcus pushed me off the stairs,” Terrence confesses. “And I hit my back strongly.”       “My God, you must go to the doctor immediately!” Raquelle exclaims. “You must get fully examined! I hope your trauma isn’t too severe so you don’t become disabled!”       “Don’t worry, Raquelle, we’ve visited the doctor already,” Daniel confesses. “Before coming back here, Edward, Terrence, and I went to the clinic. While I was waiting for them in the cafeteria, where I bought a bottle of water and then went outside, the guys went to the doctor.”       “The doctor accepted me and examined me carefully,” Terrence adds. “He said I didn’t have any fractures. It’s just a severe bruise. If I get the correct therapy, it will be gone soon. I can feel better by having a full rest, massage therapy, and a special corset.”       “It is so hurt that you can barely walk?” Natalia expresses anxiety.       “Yup, taking every step is hard, but the pain weakens when I sit. So, I move very closely and with someone’s help.”       “Hey, I almost forgot!” Edward recalls, takes a piece of paper folded several times from the pocket of his jeans, and gives it to Raquelle. “Raquelle, here’s the list of cures that you need to buy, the doctor’s recommendations for recovery, and titles of all the necessary procedures.”       “Thanks, Edward,” Raquelle thanks, taking the paper from Edward and unwrapping it to see everything quickly.       “If you can’t, let me buy and bring all of this to you. And drive Terrence to all the necessary procedures.”       “Don’t worry, I will do this. And ask you for help if I feel too bad.”       “I hope at least you two are alright?” Natalia expresses anxiety, looking at Daniel and Edward. “Not saying anything about these bruises and cuts? And burns…”       “I’m okay,” Edward assures.       “Me too,” Daniel says quietly.       “Hey, what’s wrong with your teeth?” Anna specifies, looking at the broken piece of Daniel’s tooth in his mouth. “Did they break your tooth?”       “Rose did when we fought. At first, I didn’t feel it, but then I was told by the guys and Mr. Johnson. And on the way here, I recalled that something cracked in my mouth after the blond hit me strongly in the face with his fist.       “My gosh…” Raquelle horrifies.       “So, I have to spend time putting the seal.”       “And it broke in the visible place…” Natalia notices.       “I know… But at least I can fix it.”       “Gosh, Terrence, how did you do this?” Anna wonders. “How did you let Marcus push you off the stairs?”       “Yeah, I made a mistake!” Terrence sighs tiredly. “I didn’t watch out enough. My blame.”       “You’re madly lucky again, MacClife,” Raquelle notices. “If you’d been diagnosed with a spine fracture, a wheelchair and bed would’ve been your permanent friends. And you would’ve had to forget about your musical career.”       “I know.”       “By the way, Raquelle, in order for you not to get shocked, we wanna warn you that you’re gonna see a big bruise on half of his back if you take off his shirt,” Daniel warns, “The doctor said you’d need to put on cold compresses, take painkillers, and use a specific gel.”       “I got it,” Raquelle nods. “Thanks a lot.”       “C’mon, it doesn’t matter now!” Terrence exclaims. “We have a grief, but we’re talking about my back!”       “God, don’t remind me of that, please,” Anna begs, closing her mouth with her hands.       “We have to remember that,” Daniel notices. “We need to talk about Helene. It would be easier for us. I know it personally. It was hard for me to accept the death of my parents because I didn’t talk to anyone about it and kept everything inside. Just now, when I began to remember that and talk about it, I started to realize it and accept it.”       “I think Daniel is right,” Edward agrees. “We shouldn't be silent. We should speak. Speak as much as we need.”       “And it’s fine to cry,” Terrence adds. “If it’s easier for someone to accept what happened like this, we should do this.”       “When we lose our close person, we shouldn't be ashamed of our weakness and vulnerability. You shouldn’t be ashamed of hysterics. It’s a part of acceptance of the situation. One of the stages that we should overcome.”       The girls say nothing and look at each other at first. And then Natalia crying bitterly snuggles her nose in Edward’s shoulder. Anna puts her arms around Daniel’s neck and lets her emotions out. And Raquelle watches her friends with wet eyes full of pity, wrapping Terrence’s arm with both arms. The men do not stand aside and take their sweethearts in their strong hug, caressing their heads, shoulders, back, or cheeks. They are silently ready to watch their girls cry bitterly and a lot in the nearest time, scream, pull their hair out, and be close to depression. That’s why they promise themselves to keep calm and be next to them, no matter what, and take any hysterics because they know they cannot leave those who need them so badly to get through what nobody wanted but what they could not avoid, to their sadness.       

***

      The next day, the relatives of Raquelle, Natalia, Anna, Edward, and Terrence learned about the death of Helene and could not stay aside. Putting their business aside, Letitia, Anthony, Adriana, Rebecca, Jamie, Frederick, Alicia, Maximilian, and Lilian went to the home of Scarlett to give her their condolences and spend some time with the inconsolable woman. A little later, Victor Johnson joins them with his wife, Lydia. They have become close enough, and they talked often when the police were trying to find the girl.       The dog Sammy is also at home with Scarlett and is now lying quietly in the corner, curling up and refusing any food and water. His wet eyes full of sadness look into the distance, his paws press the long, silky headscarf that he has not let go of since she was kidnapped, and his nose breathes in the smell of his owner again and again. When some of the visitors come to him to caress his head or yank him by the ears, the retriever does not refuse but does not react widely, even if he turns his face aside every time they offer something delicious to him.       “Jesus Christ, I can’t believe it happened,” Frederick shakes his head with horror in his eyes, holding the crying Scarlett’s hand and caressing it softly. “Can’t believe Helene is gone.”       “Such a young and good girl…” Adriana shakes her head with tears in her eyes, sitting on the edge of the bed next to Alicia, whom she is embracing tightly. “How? How could it happen?”       “Lilian and I didn’t believe it at first when Ana called us in the late evening, crying bitterly,” Maximilian confesses. “We thought she had problems with Daniel again. But when she said Helene died, we just fell on the sofa.”       “And Jamie and I almost started to swear at Edward when he came back home with bruises and scars,” Rebecca confesses. “And when he told us everything, we initially thought it was his bad joke and swore at him harshly for these tricks. But later, Victor called and confirmed everything personally.”       “Although I barely knew that girl, I am very sorry about what happened,” Lydia says softly. “Victor and I talked a lot about her, and I prayed that she was found healthy and alive every day.”       “God, how do I live now?” Scarlett wonders, crying bitterly, as she is lying in bed and holding a glass of water with her shaking hands. “How? Helene… My little girl… My granddaughter… She died…”       “Mrs. Marshall, darling…” Jamie pronounces softly, caressing Scarlett’s shoulder.       “Why? Why was it my girl? Did I deserve this punishment? What’s my fault?”       “You’re guilty of nothing, darling,” Alicia assures.       “I was hoping… I believed I’d see my granddaughter alive until the very end. I was praying for her health. Praying that she had the strength to take it all. But I lost her…”       “God knows, the guys did everything they could,” Victor assures with sadness in his eyes. “They really wanted to help their friend. But they could not do this.”       “God… Why am I so unlucky?” Scarlett sobs with a shake in her whole body, while Rebecca caresses her hand. “At first, my daughter disappeared and hasn’t shown up… Then my husband died… And now I don’t even have a granddaughter… The old woman survived the young girl…. Gosh…”       “Don’t say it, Mrs. Marshall,” Lilian protests. “You’re guilty of nothing.”       “Why does God punish me like this? Am I really a sinner? Have I ever done something bad in my life since He took all my close people?”       “We completely understand you, darling,” Anthony says quietly. “All your feelings.”       “I’ve been good all my life. I did everything my parents told me, I never protested… Helped them do homework, studied well, didn’t walk with boys, befriended those my mom and dad liked… I got married with their permission and lost my virginity with my husband. I listened to him, I obeyed him in everything, and I never argued with him. I was a perfect wife. I paid much attention to educating my daughter and tried to make her a good girl. I spent a lot of time educating her. I did everything my parents did. Even when she got pregnant at a teenage age, my husband and I didn’t turn our backs on her and raised our granddaughter with the same responsibility. She made us happy with high scores, she didn’t think of boys…”       Scarlett sniffs loudly and brings the glass to her shaking lips to take a sip of water.       “However, Roger and I didn’t watch her enough since Helene wasn’t always sweet and fluffy. I am still ashamed of all the tricks she did.”       “Don’t worry, dear Mrs. Marshall,” Letitia says softly. “Our children and we forgave Helene for all her actions a long time ago. Nobody blames her for anything.”       “We told her, ‘God sees everything! He will punish you for what you’re doing early or late!’ But she just waved her hand. She didn’t fear the karma. She didn’t fear the serious consequences of her behavior.”       “Sadly, God is not powerful and can’t protect everyone and everything,” Lilian sighs heavily. “He was with your granddaughter until the very end. If He hadn’t been, Helene would’ve died much earlier.”       “And who killed her?” Scarlett sobs loudly. “Who! Marcus Longbottom! The criminal, who managed to take at least one person from all of us. Who terrified the entire country and committed as many crimes as nobody else before.”       “And the criminal turned out to be Peter’s father,” Jamie says thoughtfully. “Who tried to kill his own son and harm him as much as possible.”       “Oh, I still can’t accept this fact,” Victor raises his hands. “But I am much more horrified because that man sold his child for a lot of money to slavery for some rich people…”       “Since his wife wanted to have a child and risked consciously, the questions should’ve gone to her,” Letitia adds. “Since she knew it was dangerous for her to give birth, why did she do this? If you want a child, there are many other ways: IVF, adoption, surrogacy…”       “Not just her, but also Marcus,” Adriana adds. “If you don’t want to have children, take measures! Why do some people do something before they think twice?”       “I hate Marcus…” Scarlett states in a low, shaking voice. “I hate… He took the last thing I had. He took the meaning of my life.”       “Don’t worry, Mrs. Marshall, I can assure you that the criminal will be punished in the harshest way,” Victor says confidently, caressing Scarlett’s hand. “Marcus Longbottom will pay for Helene’s death and his other crimes.”       “Do you think I care about it now, Mr. Johnson? Who cares what’s going to happen to him? Would it bring my granddaughter back? Would it bring back all his victims to life?”       “It would not. But he will no longer harm anyone.”       “I want just one thing – to bring Helene back. I want to hug my granddaughter tightly and see her alive and healthy. I need nothing more.”       “Please, Mrs. Marshall,” Maximilian pronounces softly. “You’ve been suffering from health issues and barely left the bed over this whole week. If you ended up in the hospital and died, it would be too much.”       “I do want to die.” Scarlett sniffs. “I want to go to my granddaughter.”       “Jesus Christ, honey, don’t say that!” Alicia horrifies. “Fear God!”       “I no longer have the meaning in staying here, Mrs. Middleton. I don’t wanna live all alone. May God take me with Him. I wanna go after Helene. I wanna find peace next to her. Next to my sweetheart.”       Scarlett inclines her head, crying bitterly, while Lilian hugs her tightly, and Lydia and Rebecca caress the woman’s hands softly.       “Listen, Mrs. Marshall, we’re here,” Frederick says quietly. “You can count on all in everything.”       “Yes, darling, if you need something, feel free to let us know,” Anthony adds. “Food, cures, money, clothes, or something else – we can buy and pay for anything.”       “I don’t need anything now,” Scarlett chokes on tears. “I just want to die and reunite with my granddaughter.”       “We completely understand your pain,” Jamie replies softly. “And we will be near to help you get through it as well as the guys.”       “I know Helene wasn’t perfect and made Roger and me upset often. I know she didn’t always behave the way we wanted. But did she deserve to be killed? Should have that psycho burned her so she paid for her sins?”       “Sadly, Helene became a victim,” Victor says with sadness. “Marcus Longbottom was going to use her to make Peter hysterical. He wanted to take revenge on his son for allegedly killing his wife.”       “And he did it!” Lydia exclaims. “Judging by the fact that the boy went insane after he saw her death with his own eyes.”       “Yeah, poor guy…” Maximilian pronounces thoughtfully. “He’s so good, but he suffers so much. One showers him with mud, another betrays… And now his own father tried to get rid of him.”       “God, I would never dare to kill my sons!” Jamie exclaims. “Shiver me if I just think about it!”       “I can’t even imagine what kind of pain the boy feels now,” Scarlett replies in a shaking voice, wiping tears under her eye with her half-wet handkerchief. “He loved my granddaughter so much. He took care of her. I was dreaming of the day they’d announce their wedding. But now it will not happen…”       “I’m afraid to think what he wants to do after fighting with his friends and blaming them for Helene’s death,” Adriana shakes her head. “He is gonna withdraw into himself and may do any stupid thing.”       “The guys are worried, too, but they are powerless yet because he doesn’t hear them,” Rebecca sighs heavily. “Though knowing what was happening to Peter before, he must not stay alone at all now.”       “I think nothing will happen to him for two or three days,” Victor assumes. “He will spend time alone, reflect, calm down…”       “Who knows, Mr. Johnson…” Lilian sighs heavily. “It’s very dangerous to leave someone alone when they have a condition like this. When someone loses a close person, they become very vulnerable and may not survive it if nobody helps them.”       “Oh, losing him would be too much…” Scarlett sniffs. “I have been tightly attracted to Peter for as long as I’ve known him. He is like a son to me. My granddaughter was happy with him, and Sammy loves him.”       “Yeah, it’s a shame that he doesn’t understand it,” Rebecca says with sadness in her eyes. “He doesn’t understand how many people love and value him. How many people need him. But he thinks everyone wants to harm him and give him as much pain as possible. Though even if one person or two people hurt you, it doesn’t mean everyone is gonna do that.”       “It’s not so easy, Mrs. MacClife. Peter’s case is much harder than it seems. Mr. Johnson once said he could’ve had such a serious trauma that his brain kind of protected his mental health and erased the memories from his memory. Though the voice of that event still doesn’t let him live well.”       “I guess it’s true,” Alicia assumes thoughtfully. “Raquelle somehow said Peter was kind of distant at times and didn’t kind of trust his friends completely. And it always happened, it had done before the story of Marcus.”       “He should visit a good psychologist,” Anthony says thoughtfully. “Work on his psychological traumas. That’s bad he’s such a withdrawn man that is silent all the time. Yes, I know he’s a man and must keep everything inside. But it doesn’t mean he must be silent about the pain. Any problems must be discussed and solved.”       “Yeah, but it’s gonna work in case he wants it,” Frederick notices. “It’s like healing an alcoholic, a drug addict, or a gambler who is sure they are healthy. Until someone aims to change nothing, any effort and money are wasted.”       “Agree, but that boy definitely has a bunch of psychological traumas,” Lydia notices. “How is he going to live with it? Is Peter going to keep seeing everyone as enemies and be afraid to get out of his hole?”       “I’m afraid he’ll no longer want to live,” Scarlett sighs heavily. “Peter won’t take the death of my granddaughter. He will never accept it. It took so much effort for him to reveal his feelings, but later, he got a new hit. The most powerful one.”       “I hope the guys will find a way to reach out to him,” Alicia expresses hope. “If the men can’t do this, the girls can try to talk to him.”       “Yeah, but we will help them a little and take care of you, Mrs. Marshall,” Letitia promises.       “My whole world went around Helene for many years,” Scarlett sighs heavily. “I lived just for her after Roger died. I wanted to live until she got married and gave birth to a baby. I would've calmed down in this case and thought my mission was completed. I would’ve been able to go to the afterlife quietly. Knowing that my granddaughter would never be alone.”       “Even if your granddaughter died, she can see and hear you anyway,” Adriana says softly. “You don’t know it, but her spirit is probably somewhere in this room and watching you.”       “Yes, sweetie, Helene will always be near and become your guardian angel, while you live here,” Alicia assures. “Just like my late husband. In the evenings, I often feel that someone is watching me. And at these moments, I call the memories of Dominick. The thought about having him somewhere behind me always warms up my soul.”       “Anyway, I don’t believe that Helene gave up so easily,” Scarlett replies, looking at everyone with wet eyes. “I am sure that she was fighting until the very end. Because she didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to leave her close people.”       “Nobody wants to die, Mrs. Marshall,” Maximilian notices. “But you know that life can be a really unpredictable thing.”       “When I think I have to organize her funeral, I feel bad.” Scarlett sniffs and squeezes the handkerchief tightly. “Funeral… The funeral of my own granddaughter. Who was so young. Whose life lay in front of her. Who should’ve lived long!”       “We will surely help you with it,” Victor promises. “We will be responsible for at least a part of it. I think the guys will not refuse to help, either.”       “When should we get ready for the funeral?” Jamie specifies.       “When the investigation is over, and we get the official documents stating the reason for Helene Marshall’s death. After yesterday’s questioning of the arrested men, we found out where they held Helene all the time. Where the house that they burned down was. The operative group went to the crime scene today and started working on clarifying what happened and searching for the girl’s body.”       “Is that true all the accomplices of Marcus but one were arrested?” Anthony specifies.       “Yes, we caught all of them except one. Elijah Hartley.”       “The one who owns the car, on which Helene was taken away?” Rebecca rounds her eyes.       “Yes, the one.”       “Hasn’t he shown up since that day?” Letitia asks. “Didn’t you catch him?”       “Sadly. Mr. Hartley has literally been swallowed by the ground, hasn’t shown up at his apartment, and his neighbors still know nothing about him.”       “That cad probably went somewhere,” Maximilian assumes. “He felt that he was in danger, took his stuff quickly, and went to another city or abroad.”       “We made requests in all the instances and sent his photos everywhere, but we found out nothing. No information about his trips to another city or another country yet.”       “Yeah, but Edward said Elijah was among those who started the fire in the place where Helene was,” Jamie recalls. “Marcus called him from the computer via a video call.”       “It’s kind of strange, don’t you think?” Lydia frowns slightly. “There was a man, but then there was no man!”       “Agree, but I can’t say anything to you yet,” Victor shakes his head.       “I’m sure that Elijah knows some awful secrets of Marcus,” Alicia assumes. “Raquelle said he was someone like the right hand of that stinker.”       “But what if he died in that house, too?” Lilian gives a version. “What if… Couldn’t he get out? Or did Elijah do something that made Marcus really mad and panicked?”       “Do you think Marcus decided to get rid of Elijah so nobody knows his dirtiest secrets?” Anthony frowns slightly.       “Agree, Mr. Rochester, it’s dangerous when someone knows what nobody should know. And Marcus probably tried to murder his accomplices not only because they betrayed him but also for many other reasons.”       “You know, Mrs. Seymour is right,” Lydia says thoughtfully. “Those people knew too much. And Elijah especially did. So, we can’t exclude that Marcus could get rid of him.”       “And it’s weird that all the criminals acted like nothing happened,” Rebecca notices. “Nobody cared about Elijah. Nobody cared that he didn’t show up. Either he had his things to do or…”       “I wonder if Marcus’s accomplices were really so afraid when the crazy Peter started to run after them with a gun and beat them with no shame?” Frederick asks. “I mean, was it a trigger? Or did they plan to tell the police about Marcus?”       “Oh, hard to say, Mr. Cameron,” Victor sighs tiredly, rubbing his forehead. “But everyone was afraid of Peter at that moment: Marcus’s accomplices hid in the corner, Marcus put his tail between his tail for a while… Even Edward, Terrence, and Daniel were confused and didn’t know what to do. They were shocked by what their friend was doing.”       “You talk about Peter’s craziness, but I refuse to believe it,” Scarlett confesses in a little shaking voice. “I don’t want to believe that such a sweet and shy boy could run after someone with a knife and, heaven forbid, shoot.”       “As far as we know, Marcus turned him against Helene and against these guys,” Alicia recalls. “He often told him that they were waiting for the moment to betray him. But if you keep saying the same thing, someone will start to believe against your wish early or late. And sadly, Peter could not resist.”       “Yeah, just like Edward…” Rebecca pronounces thoughtfully. “When Michael washed his brain so hard and said nobody loved and valued my son, and his birth was a curse for all of us.”       “Marcus definitely knows what Peter started to treat people with mistrust,” Adriana assumes. “The case is not only about the school bullying. As usual, children choose quiet, withdrawn guys with a low self-rating, who can’t stand up for themselves and differ by appearance, by brain, or by physical data, as victims. And as we know, you can’t be born and become like this if your family is healthy. Which means… Peter was made the one.”       “At least, Peter doesn’t differ from other people by appearance,” Scarlett shrugs. “Young, beautiful boy. Tall, slim, athletic… He does have an intellect. He's a musician, he earns enough money. Though his self-rating is really low.”       “Words have a much stronger power than we think,” Maximilian notices. “You just need to say one or two words to make someone feel confident or humiliate them as hell. Since Peter has been humiliated and showered with mud for years, literally since his birth, no wonder he’s waiting for something bad even from his close friends.”       “And it’s explainable enough that he went crazy,” Frederick adds. “Everything has a limit. Peter kept everything inside for too long. He kept the offence, claims, and hatred for years. He tried to hold on, but Helene’s death revealed it all. And until the anger is gone, that guy will not calm down. Until he figures himself out and recalls what became the reason for all his problems.”       “It’s amazing that he let himself fall in love with my granddaughter,” Scarlett sighs heavily. “Who, as we all know well… Bullied the innocent girls by the order of the one, who hated them.”       “The important thing is that she understood her mistake and fixed it,” Anthony notices.       “Let’s not talk bad things about the late person,” Lydia says. “We should positively think of her. Remember what that girl was like.”       “She was my treasure,” Scarlett replies with tears in her eyes and sniffs. “The meaning of my life.”       “Scarlett swallows nervously.       “Helene… Why? Why was it you, my baby? Why did God punish you like this? Why?”       “Her doggy is missing his owner so badly, too,” Lilian notices thoughtfully, glancing aside and seeing Sammy lying in the corner as he curls up.       “Sammy felt something terrible for a long time. He eats nothing, drinks nothing, he doesn’t play… He barely sleeps… He even screamed at one of the nights. A nightmare, I guess.”       “What’s going to happen to him?” Jamie asks. “The death of the owner is a real tragedy for a dog.”       “I’m not sure if I have the strength to take care of him. Yes, I love Sammy so much, but now it’s even harder for me to get up from my bed.”       “He must not stay alone now,” Alicia notices with sadness in her eyes. “Sammy needs our attention so badly.”       “Maybe you should talk to the guys and ask them to take the dog with them, while you aren’t able to watch him?” Victor suggests. “I’m sure some of them will agree to!”       “We can watch him, too!” Letitia exclaims. “Sammy can quietly live with Anthony, Mother, and me.”       “Rebecca and I can watch him, too,” Jamie promises. “Our house is large, we’ve got enough space. And while Edward is living with us, he can help, too.”       “It doesn’t mean I reject him,” Scarlett explains. “It doesn’t mean I will kick him out after the death of my granddaughter. Helene asked Roger and me to let her get a dog since she was a child. But I didn’t let her do this initially. And my husband didn’t especially want any cats or dogs at home. But when the dog of her workmate gave birth to puppies, my granddaughter started to persuade me to let her take one. She was too stubborn. She spent a lot of time. And I gave up in the end. On the condition that she will be the only one to take care of it. And she will not make me take care of it if she gets sick of the puppy.”       “Don’t worry, Mrs. Marshall, we completely understand it,” Lydia calms down, caressing Scarlett’s hand. “We will take care of the doggy, you, and the guys.”       “We will talk later and decide on the days when we go to your home and watch you,” Maximilian promises.       “Thank you so much for your effort, ladies and gentlemen, but nothing can help me anymore,” Scarlett sighs heavily.       “First, you need to eat and drink a little,” Adriana says. “You started to take an example from the doggy, and you are only lying in your bed all day long.”       “No, food gets stuck in my throat.”       “You should, darling, you should eat,” Victor insists. “We understand it all, but that’s wrong.”       “Listen, maybe one of us should take you with us?” Lilian suggests. “So, you are under our view all the time!”       “No!” Scarlett cuts off determinedly. “I will not leave! I will stay home! I will be lying here and waiting for death to come for me. When I can reunite with my granddaughter. With my husband. And maybe, even my daughter.”       “Fear God, Mrs. Marshall!” Rebecca horrifies.       “I am old already, Mrs. MacClife! I have hit my sixties. What’s waiting for me in this life now? No husband, no children, no granddaughter!”       “You and I are almost the same age!” Frederick exclaims. “And I have lost almost everyone from my family! I buried my wife, I buried my son, my daughter-in-law died. Yes, it was hard for me, but I found the strength to survive and move on.”       “You’d say different things if something happened to your granddaughter. You have Raquelle. But I only had Helene. And the cad named Marcus killed her. So, what’s the meaning of living and waiting for something?”       “We all somehow lost at least one close person,” Maximilian replies. “Someone lost their parents, someone lost their grandparents… Someone lost their wives, someone lost their husbands…”       “If I were thirty or forty years younger, I could try to find the strength to keep moving on. But why would I do this when I only have two Mondays to live? Who do I take care of? Who do I think of?”       “Sammy,” Alicia suggests. “Let him be the one to comfort you. Helene would hardly be happy to know you left him. She hopes her grandmother will take care of him.”       “Sammy doesn’t aim to live anymore. He will not live for too long without food and water.”       “Just like you,” Adriana replies.       “I’ve said I will be waiting for death to come for me. I, an old woman, have nothing to lose, but the guys are young, they will get through it and keep moving on.”       “Don’t hold anything down, Mrs. Marshall,” Letitia advises, caressing Scarlett’s shoulder. “Say everything you have on your mind. Let your pain out. Cry, shout, speak… Do anything that can weaken your pain. But we will be near to help you accept the loss.”       “God, end my suffering,” Scarlett begs desperately and makes a couple of loud sobs. “Please, take me, old, sinful idiot… Bring me to my granddaughter and husband. I want to be with them. My place is next to them. Please, Merciful God, don’t make me suffer anymore. Please… Take me with You…”       Scarlett lets her emotions get control of her and starts crying bitterly, closing her pale, exhausted face with shaking, wrinkled hands. All the women rush to hug her tightly and caress her head, hand, or shoulder, but the men try to comfort her with encouraging words. Though they understand completely that they will hardly do this, while Mrs. Marshall is in a strong stress and suffering over the death of her deeply beloved granddaughter, which she does not want to believe at all.       The dog Sammy sees clearly what’s happening in the room of the grandmother of his late owner, but does not come to her and just watches what’s happening with wet eyes full of sadness, whining quietly at times with his face put on the paws folded in front of him. And he keeps being indifferent when some visitors come to him to caress his head and try to feed him something, knowing early that it’s going to be a worthless attempt.       

***

      Even though it’s not a late time, and it’s not dark outside yet, Peter did not notice that he fell asleep after lying in his bed and looking into the distance for a long time. Though it can hardly be called good sleep because he twirls often, moans, mumbles, and wakes up at times, but then closes his eyes again. And his dreams do not let him relax and make him sad, panicked, and fearful, even if he cannot remember what they were about after waking up. Nevertheless, the organism, exhausted and tortured by the long-time stress, keeps telling Rose to sleep a lot to protect it a little from the rapid destruction.       It’s a gloomy, windy day outside. It does not cause a wish to leave home. It’s deeply silent in the room. Even cats that live in the apartment on the up are amazingly quiet today, even if it’s usually vice versa. And it’s cold enough here due to the heating issues that all the people living in this house complain about. That’s why Peter wearing a dark t-shirt and pants on elastic suffers from coldness, which is also the reason why he sees dreams that make his heart beat much faster and breathes heavily. The fingers squeeze the pillow tightly, the legs shake slightly, and the muscles are tense with pain.       At some moment, the quiet voice sounding like through a deaf wall breaks the silence in the room. It calls the name of the sleeping Peter. Who does not react to this and keeps moaning quietly due to the nightmare that he is seeing now. The voice that comes with a repeated echo calls him for the second time – no reaction. It sounds much louder and closer the third time, but it still cannot wake up the guy. But it works for the fourth time. Wincing slightly, Rose opens his eyes slowly and looks around the whole room, which gets kind of lighter with the thought that someone called him. But after waiting for some time, he hears nothing more and decides to fall asleep again. But the voice does not let him do this and calls him by name and asks him to come to him.       Being a little suspicious, Peter sits up slowly, looks around again, and rubs his cold arms energetically with his hands, not being able to warm himself up. Although his room has always made him sad and bored, this feeling gets much stronger now. The view of the walls makes him panic, tense all his muscles strongly, and feel that his breath becomes slower. It’s so freezing in the room that he can see the vapor from his mouth, and his fingers and toes become numb. The guy tries to find something to warm himself up, but he sees that there is just a mattress without a sheet and a couple of pillows that now look like something like pancakes.       After another call, Peter turns on the one sharply and then gets up from the bed determinedly, takes a few steps on his weak legs, and looks into the distance with widely open eyes for a long time, not breathing and barely moving his hands squeezed by the frost. The squeak of the window that opens by itself makes the guy shake sharply, put his head on his shoulders, and feel that his heart is squeezing painfully. However, the voice that is calling him for itself wakes him up from the trance and tells him to follow it much more determinedly. But the problem is that Peter does not know where to go because he hears it from one side and another. Besides, he later hears the second voice that calls him after itself in a much more evil way. While the first one does it softly and tenderly.       After listening, Peter understands that one voice is obviously female, and another is male. And… It even sounds like his own. That’s why he suddenly gets a mild pain in his stomach that he grabs. And he just realizes that he has been standing like a column all this time. The voices calling him make Rose move off, even though it’s really hard to do this since his naked foot freezes to the old, rotten laminate. They become heavy, something like a stone that is impossible to lift and just move off.       Nevertheless, Peter makes a great effort to take a step. And then another, another, another… Thus, he comes to the closed door. Pressing the door handle, he finds out that it’s locked. The blond tries to push and pull it, but it does not work at all. It makes him breathe heavily. To understand that he is in a trap in his own home. That barely reminds him of the one. Yes, this is really the small room of him, but it’s kind of… Strange… So cold… So weird… The wall kind of presses on the brain and squeezes it like something soft more and more. A sense of loneliness and helplessness gets stronger and makes Rose feel like a little, unprotected child locked in a tiny box that he cannot escape, no matter how hard he tries.       “Hey…” Peter pronounces in a hoarse, quiet voice and hits his fist hesitantly against the door, while echoes spread throughout the whole room. “Can someone hear me? Someone’s here? I’m here…”       Peter knocks at the door with a heavy breath again after the evil male voice calls him again, so that blood runs cold in his veins.       “Let me out of here… Please… Someone… Boys! Girls! Can somebody hear me? Help me!”       Peter shakes sharply when a small chandelier suddenly falls off the ceiling, breaking against the floor with a crash along with bulbs, pieces of which end up in different corners. In fear, he holds his breath and freezes as he looks at the fallen chandelier with widely open eyes as if it’s his biggest enemy that wants to harm him.       “Daniel… Terrence… Edward… Can someone hear me? I need your help! Help me! I can’t get out of here. I’m in a trap!”       “Peter…” the evil male whisper spreads with unclear echoes throughout the whole room. “Peter… Come here…”       “W-w-who’s here?” Peter asks in a much louder, shaking voice. “W-w-w-w-who are you?”       “Peter…” a soft and calm female voice pronounces. “I’m here…”       “Is this some kind of a j-j-j-joke?”       Peter presses his back to the door much more tightly when he glances down and sees that thick smoke is getting closer to him.       “Guys!” Peter breaks in a desperate cry. “Please, help me! Someone! I’m so scared!”       “Come here…” the male and female voices pronounce at the same time. “Come here… Peter…”       “Please, don’t… Don’t do this! Don’t kill me…”       Then the invisible power breaks the window in the room with a crash, making Peter tense his muscles much stronger and squeeze the handle of the door that still does not open. And then he hears the voices that tell him to come to them.       “It’s not funny!” Peter exclaims. “The one to decide to joke at me like this is an idiot!”       “Come here…” the low male voice pronounces. “Come here… Theodore…”       Peter opens his eyes widely and freezes sharply when he hears the name of Theodore, which he hears one more time in a defeated way.       “I’m not Theodore!” Peter states in a high, excited voice. “My name is Peter!”       When the loud and stubborn sounds start spreading behind the door, Peter jumps back sharply and looks at the one closely for several seconds. Then he hears the female and the male voices in all the corners of the room. They call him to follow them again. And random things on the tables start falling on the floor by themselves.       “Peter…” the female soft whisper pronounces.       “Theodore…” the male voice joins.       “Where are you?” Peter asks loudly. “I can’t see you! I don’t know where to find you!”       Peter hears a quiet evil laugh that makes him tense all his muscles in pain and put his head on his shoulders. After turning aside at some moment, he feels that his heart misses a beat when he does not see the door in its place and understands that he is locked in the room like a box. Even though he does not have claustrophobia, he feels madly afraid to be in a confined place where there is no way out. The one that kind of contracts and gets filled with weird smoke.       “Can’t anybody hear me?” Peter asks in a shaking voice full of fear. “Someone! Guys! Get me out of here! I’m scared! I’m so scared!”       Realizing how hopeless his situation is, Peter starts getting a stronger panic. His weak legs can barely hold him, everything goes blurry before his eyes, and he feels a strong dizziness. An attempt to pump much air into his lungs meets failure, forcing him to choke. The invisible rope squeezes his neck tighter and tighter, and his heart starts beating like crazy so that its echoes hit his temples determinedly.       “Somebody…” Peter whispers resignedly. “Please… Help me…”       The thick smoke fills the room rapidly so that it’s barely possible to see anything. So, when the black silhouette of the tall person shows up out of it suddenly, Peter opens his eyes widely, starts shaking and gasping for air as he presses his back against the wall, the coldness of which gets into his skin like needles. He does not try to run since his legs are kind of glued to the floor and become numb. The guy looks at the black spot that gets close to him rapidly, getting through the thick smoke and wishing to swallow him up. At some moment, tears show up in his red eyes and roll slowly down his cheeks, and a sense of loneliness makes him feel a much stronger panic attack.       “No, please…” Peter begs quietly and starts waving his hands to try to get rid of the smoke. “Please, no… Leave me alone… Don’t do this…”       Crying like a little child, Peter slips down the wall powerlessly and looks at the black spot with widely open eyes from the bottom to the top, while it does not even think of leaving him alone.       “No…” Peter presses his knees tightly to his chest, choking on his own tears. “Leave… Leave me… Leave! Don’t take me with you!”       Peter grabs his throat sharply with the thought that something is strangling him tightly, and winces strongly from pain in the chest squeezed by something.       “GUYS, PLEASE!” Peter screams from the last forces. “HELP ME! DON’T LEAVE ME ALONE! I DON’T WANT TO DIE!”       Swallowing greedily the air that he lacks catastrophically, Peter closes his ears with his hands with another scream, closes his eyes tightly, and puts his head between his knees. At this moment, he feels like something small that may be crushed and starts coughing to the nausea because of the smoke, through which he cannot see anything. He thinks the black hole is about to swallow him up, but everything goes silent at some moment. Suddenly. Instantly. Just like by the click of the fingers. It’s like the smoke has never appeared, the door is shown again, the stuff is in its place, the window is not broken, and the room reminds him of his own again.       Peter does not find the courage to open his eyes for a long time and is afraid that everything may start again. And then he does it very slowly and hesitantly, looking around with a heavy breath. Maybe the chaos stopped, but the panic attack is still strong. Thinking he kind of chokes at this place, the man gets up carefully on his weak legs and leans on the wall with his weight when he almost falls with a sense of dizziness. When he comes to the door, he tries to open it again, but it’s still locked, and any attempts to reach out to someone with loud knocks do not lead to anything.       “Peter…” the soft female voice pronounces very, very closely again.       After tearing his forehead off the door, Peter turns around slowly and looks around. And he pays attention to something white with bright sparkles. At first, his blurry vision does not let him understand anything, but later, he manages to look at it better and sees a short, young girl wearing a white, flowing dress that shows her naked shoulders, on which short, jet-black, glossy hair falls, and gracious collarbones. Although she does not smile and does not frown, her hazel eyes do spread kindness and tenderness toward Rose. Whose heart stops for a moment, and whose breath gets heavier when he sees her.       “H-h-helene?” Peter pronounces in a shaking voice, not believing what he sees. “Is that y-y-you?”       “It’s me,” Helene assures with a slight smile, sharing a tender smile with Peter.       “My gosh…” Peter closes his mouth with a hand, looking at Helene from head to foot with widely open eyes, while a bright white light shines around her. “My gosh…”       Peter stands in the same place like a column for several seconds, while tears roll down his cheeks slowly. And then he comes to Helene quickly and takes her in a strong hug, putting his arms around her waist and snuggling his nose in her shoulder with closed eyes, while she puts her hands on his back with a blissful smile.       “My girl…” Peter sniffs quietly, caressing Helene tenderly on the head. “My baby… I missed you so much. You can’t even imagine.”       Two seconds later, Peter steps away from Helene and grabs her face, looking into her eyes with a heavy breath caused by excitement.       “You’re with me…” Peter pronounces with a slight smile and kisses Helene on the forehead. “With me, my little star…”       “Yes, sweetie, I’m here…” Helene confirms.       “But…”       Peter steps away from Helene and takes her hands.       “How did you end up here? How did you get in here? What are you doing here?”       “I’m here because you wanted it,” Helene replies quietly. “I heard your voice. I heard your prayers.”       “Hell was happening here… A chaos… I thought I’d die here.”       “What chaos?” Helene rounds her eyes surprisingly.       “Awful! It wanted to swallow me. It wanted to take me with it. It wanted to kill me. Erase me from the ground.”       “Sorry, Peter, but I don’t understand what you’re talking about. It’s calm and quiet here.”       “No! Hell was happening here! But you came and ended it.”       “Look around, sweetie.”       Helene looks around the entire room where she and Peter are now.       “It’s your room. At your own apartment.” Helene comes to the bedside table, takes the frame, and looks at Peter and herself in the photo. “As always, it’s clean, it’s in order. Everything’s in its place.”       “I…” Peter pronounces hesitantly in a shaking voice, looking around. “I d-d-d-don’t understand… What was that?”       “It seemed to you,” Helen assures with an innocent smile, puts the frame in its place, and starts walking slowly but confidently through the whole room. “Nothing was happening when I came.”       “No at all! I was kinda locked in the tight dark box! The black hole was haunting me! There was smoke everywhere! I was choking! I couldn’t get out! The door was gone! It was gone! And the space around me was getting smaller!”       “You were sleeping tight when I came here. I tried to wake you up many times, but you didn’t answer.”       “But I didn’t sleep…” Peter opens his eyes widely, understanding that everything is mixed in his head. “I was looking for a way out! I tried to open the door! It was locked! I tried to call someone to help me, but nobody came! The men didn’t hear me! Nobody heard me!”       “Nobody came because nobody screamed,” Helene replies quietly, running her fingertips over the writing table. “Because there were no black holes or anything like this.”       “And the voices? Female and… Male… They… They called me! They called me to follow them! You must have heard them!”       “I didn’t hear any voices. Because there weren’t ones.”       “There were!” Peter protests. “I heard them! I do know it, for sure! One of them was similar to yours, and another… Another sounded like mine. I… I was calling myself!”       “I guess you’re a little exhausted, sweetie,” Helene assumes. “Stress has never done anything good to people. You’re hallucinating already. You see what doesn’t exist and has never existed and hear voices that nobody hears.”       “Don’t tell me you’re fake, too! Don’t tell me I’m talking to myself now!”       “No, I’m real…” Helene caresses Peter’s cheek with a slight smile. “That neither is the real one.”       Peter exhales with a shake, looking at Helene’s face with widely open eyes and starting to ask himself if he is really alright.       “But… You entered here somehow…” Peter swallows nervously. “You did…”       “I did,” Helene nods. “Through the door. Just like any normal people.”       “How? It was locked!”       “Everything was open!”       “Please, Helene, don’t make me think I went insane.”       “Did I say it? I think I just said you got too exhausted due to stress.” Helene starts walking in circles in front of Peter, locking her fingers tightly and keeping her back straight and her shoulders spread. “The last few weeks have been too stressful for you.”       “You’re right…” Peter agrees thoughtfully. “I feel like a squeezed lemon.”       “Then go to bed, close your eyes, and sleep enough. Sleep is the best cure that can heal you from any illness.”       “It can fix the broken heart, too? A sense of loneliness? Fear?”       “All the problems are in your head, Peter. Until you figure yourself out, peace will never be yours.”       “What do you mean?”       “The chaos that was happening here is what you have on your mind. It shows your thoughts that you must put in order.”       “You said there was nothing!”       “You are so confused about your thoughts that you literally lost the real you. You stopped understanding who your friend is and who your enemy is.”       “Not at all!” Peter exclaims. “I know well that my name is Peter. It’s what I’ve always been.”       “You’re sure? Are you sure you’ve always lived the life you were destined to live?”       “I don’t wanna be another man. I wanna be me.”       “Who’s the real you? Who are you? Peter Rose or Theodore Longbottom?”       “What?” Peter frowns slightly.       “You know what happened to the part of you that you’re missing? You know what you lost? You know what you’re missing?”       “Sorry, Helene, but… I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”       “Your subconscious can give you the answer. Reach out to it and remember what you forgot. What impacted your entire life. What made you shut yourself away from the world, call it cruel, and believe that everyone wants you dead.”       “What? But… How do you know this? I… I’ve never told you that!”       “Trust me, sweetie, I know much more than you think.”       “I don’t really know what’s happening to me,” Peter throws his hands up. “I… I can’t remember.”       “Right. Your brain decided to subdue these memories to protect your child's psyche. But the question is whether it was good for you. The voices of the past have been chasing you. You can’t trust people. You fear the pain they can give you.”       “I ain’t sure if I’m ready to talk about it.”       “You have to.”       Helene turns on Peter and stops.       “You have to understand why you can’t trust even those you consider your close people. Why you expect a knife in the back from your friends. Why you fear a betrayal of mine.”       “Yeah, Helene, I know,” Peter replies with sadness in his eyes. “But I can’t. Can’t do anything to me.”       “No, you just don’t want to. You don’t want to get into the depths of your consciousness and ask yourself what made you withdraw from the whole world. Why you show aggression toward those who don’t deserve it.”       “I’m sorry about doing something that people don’t deserve at times.”       “Now you’re literally in the cocoon that you consider your safe place. This room is like a refuge from the whole world. This is the place where you feel comfortable. But you’re choking in it, though. It’s getting tighter. You wanna get out so badly, but you can’t.”       “I… I do really feel like I’m locked. Like… I’m… Locked in myself. Can’t get out of my own trap. And… I’m starting to choke… In my own body. It’s tight… I can’t breathe…”       “You need help then. Someone must help you get out of the trap.”       “I can't. I can't break free. They don't let me go. It's like someone doesn't want it.”       “You really want it?”       “Very much.”       “I guess I can help you.”       “Really? You can help me?”       Helene steps aside with a mysterious smile, turns to Peter, and gives her hand to him, suggesting softly:       “Come with me.”       “Where?” Peter asks hesitantly.       “You do want to get out of this room where you’re kinda choking?”       “I do.”       “Follow me then. I shall lead you to the light.”       Peter looks at Helene’s face hesitantly for a few seconds, while she smiles tenderly at some moment. But then the man comes to the girl very slowly and hesitantly and gives his hand, which she takes. She opens the unlocked door quietly and leads her boyfriend somewhere, while he turns around for a moment and looks surprisingly at the open room that starts fading into the infinite darkness.       When he moves his eyes forward, Peter opens his eyes widely and feels that his heart stops for a moment when he and Helene end up on the wide, half-ruined asphalt path that leads straight, somewhere into the unknown. That gets kind of swallowed by the thick smoke in the air. There are tall century-old trees on the edges with sweeping sticks, no street lamps work, and the sky is covered with thick gray clouds. There is nobody around – no people, no birds, no animals. It’s some kind of dead zone.       The bitter cold keeps bothering Peter and makes him shake and squeeze. Besides, he has just started to realize that he walks on the asphalt with naked feet. Just like Helene, who, unlike him, does not feel any coldness or heat and moves quietly in her open long dress without shoes. And she leads him after herself quietly but confidently on the path that seems kind of endless.       “Where are you taking me to?” Peter wonders.       “Freedom,” Helene replies quietly, still holding Peter’s hand and leading him after herself.       Helene passes some distance before she stops, lets go of Peter, and looks around.       “So, we’ve come!”       “What?” Peter opens his eyes widely. “Is this… A joke? Where are we? Where did you take me to?”       “You wanted to break free. So, I helped you.” Helene turns on Peter, locking her fingers. “Or did I get it wrong?”       “And where do I go? What do I do here?”       “You’re the only one to find a way to the real you. You’re the only one to decide where to go.”       “What?” Peter frowns strongly.       “C’mon, Peter, what are you waiting for? You have a wonderful chance to end all of this!”       Helene starts going straight in a slow step, while Peter starts following her, embracing himself with both arms and rubbing them energetically.       “You said you could help me. You said you’d help me get out of this nightmare.”       “I didn't say anything like this,” Helene protests. “I said I guessed I could help you.”       “Please, Helene, help me! Help me get out of here! Help me become myself!”       “Sorry, but it’s beyond my strength. I can’t look into your head and read your mind. Your heart is locked for me, and I don’t know what it’s trying to tell you.”       “Trust me, I don’t understand myself, either. I don’t understand who I am, what I am… I… I’ve been living all my life with the feeling that I’m missing something. That I’m not myself.”       “I got it…” Helene replies thoughtfully and looks at what she sees before her eyes. “This place is the reflection of your soul. The reflection of what you feel now. Emptiness, darkness, loneliness, fear, coldness… A wish to lock yourself in the whole world. A wish to lock your heart away.”       “I’ve been living with it all my life,” Peter sighs resignedly. “A little shoot of the sun was able to reach me, but it was gone quickly.”       “When a person doesn’t try to change anything, it means they’re happy with everything. They’re afraid to move because any movement may ruin the illusion of calm.”       “You think I like what’s happening to me?”       “No, I understand you don’t see the meaning in your life. You don’t understand why you were born, for what goal, or what your destiny is. But if you’re here, it means you came into this world for a reason.”       “I doubt.”       “If you served your purpose, you would leave this world. You would’ve hardly survived after your suicide attempt if you hadn’t had anything to finish. It means someone in heaven wants you to do something you should do.”       “I’m like trash in this world. Trash that becomes something that people use for some time. They’ve always treated me like this. Everyone wanted and wants to give me pain. They want me to suffer. As if I don’t deserve to be happy. As if I’m paying for someone’s sins.”       “Everything’s in your hands, Peter. The world will stop being your enemy if you want it. If you don’t hide from it, if you get out of your hole, spread your hands aside and say loudly, ‘I don’t fear you! I am strong! I am brave! I will be happy no matter what!’”       “Alas, I’m not strong enough to fight this world alone. I am weak, broken, and vulnerable.”       “Nobody can fight evil alone. Even heroes need someone’s help at times. They don’t fear people. They aren’t afraid to ask for help. They don’t pretend to be those who always do everything on their own.”       “I’m asking you for help!” Peter exclaims. “Asking you to help me! You’re the only one to be able to do this.”       “Nope, I’m not able to do this.”       “Please, Helene, help me! Help me find my place in this world. Help me become myself and find my peace.”       “If you want to find your peace, you should start with yourself, first of all. With what you’ve got on your mind. What you’ve been trying to deny so hard for a long time. With what you’re trying to subdue inside you.”       “But I…”       “You fear. You’re afraid to let the real you out. You’re holding him down. You’re making him sit somewhere deeply in your mind and make no sound.”       “You’ve saved me many times before. You’ve pulled me out of the hole where I could be. Why can’t you do this now?”       “I’m so sorry, Peter. I swear I would really be happy to help you, but it’s beyond my strength.”       “I know you can do this. You can! I believe in you!”       “But I believe you can do this by yourself.”       “Please, Helene…”       “Sorry. But I can do nothing. I can’t help you.”       “Why?” Peter asks desperately. “Why can’t you do this?”       Helene closes his eyes for a few seconds and says nothing before she looks into Peter's eyes confidently and says quietly:       “Because I’m dead.”       Peter opens his eyes widely, holding his breath and feeling that his heart misses a beat.       “What?” Peter barely moves his lips.       “I died,” Helene pronounces quietly. “I’m gone. I will never come back.”       Helene stops quietly and turns on the discouraged Peter.       “No…” Peter shakes his head. “No, it cannot be the truth. You’re not dead. You’re alive.”       “Can’t you remember?” Helene asks surprisingly, rounding her eyes. “I burned in the fire. I burned right before your eyes.”       “No… I don’t believe it. You could not. You could not leave me alone.”       “I tried to fight until the very end, but alas, I could not make it. The fire spread rapidly throughout the room where I was locked. I was in a trap. I was choking. I was helpless and scared. Just like a little child who lost their mom. Nobody could help me.”       “But you’re with me now!” Peter takes Helene’s hands. “I can see you! I can touch you! I can feel you! Talk to you!”       Grabbing Helene’s face tenderly, Peter leaves a short kiss on her lips.       “I can even kiss you, you see.”       “Yeah, but I’m not what I seem,” Helene replies with sadness in her eyes. “I am tangible, but I am dead.”       “Then…” Peter goes two steps away from Helene. “Who are you? What… Are you?”       “I’m just a spirit,” Helene pronounces quietly. “Helene’s spirit. Sent to you by Gods.”       “Please, don’t tell me you’re dead. Don’t tell me I lost you. I will not take it.”       “Alas, it’s the truth.”       “Please, Helene…”       “You weren’t near, you could not save me. Though I was waiting. I was hoping. I was hoping you’d come until the very end. And take me with you.”       “I’m sorry…” Peter starts crying bitterly and sniffs quietly. “Please, sweetheart, forgive me. I swear I didn’t want it. I didn’t want everything to end like this.”       “I believe you, sweetie, I do.”       “I tried to find you. I tried to find out where you were held. But I could not…” Peter makes a quiet sob. “I let you down. I didn’t meet your expectations.”       “Don’t worry, Peter, I don’t blame you for anything,” Helene calms down softly, caressing Peter’s cheek. “You did everything you could. Though it wasn’t enough to save me.”       “I will never forgive myself for that mistake. I will never be able to live with this. Never, hear me.”       “You’ll have to. You’ll have to accept it and keep moving. But without me.”       “No…” Peter pronounces in a low, shaking voice. “No, please, don’t leave me. Please, don’t leave me alone. I can’t live without you. I need you!”       “Don’t worry, I will watch you. I will protect you when you need it. I will never forget you.”       “Take me with you…” Peter takes Helene’s hands. “Please, my love, don't leave me here. I wanna go with you. The world without you means nothing to me. I don't wanna live in it. I wanna be with you!”       “Your time hasn't come yet, Peter,” Helene shakes her head. “You haven't fulfilled the purpose you were given when you were born."       “I don’t care about everything. I don’t care about all the duties I have. Things mean nothing to me if I know you’re not with me. If I have to check on your grave one beautiful day.”       “There are people who need you in this world. There are friends who have great hopes for you. You’ve let them down once, and you can’t do this again.”       “I don’t care about them. I don’t care about anyone. I want nothing but to know you’re alive and healthy.”       “Time heals, Peter. You will accept the thought that I’m dead. And someday you will meet another girl who will take care of you.”       “I don’t need another girl! I need you! Just you!”       “I can help you choose the best one and won’t let you be with the one who wishes to hurt you. When you meet your true love, I will give you a sign. The bright sun will suddenly light up the whole city in the gray sky covered with thick clouds. And a couple of little birds will fly by you, sit on a stick next to you, and sing the most beautiful song in the world.”       “Please, Helene…” Peter begs with tears in his eyes, falls to his knees in front of Helene, takes her hand, and leaves a few kisses on it. “Don’t leave me all alone… I won’t survive without you… You’re the only one who can protect me from this cruel world that has hurt me again and again before you came into my life. It’s going to keep harming me when you’re not near.”       “Oh, c’mon, sweetie, don’t cry…” Helene wipes tears carefully under Peter’s eyes with her fingers. “Death is always a hard thing, but it doesn’t mean the end of the world. It takes a person with them, but it keeps the memories of them in the hearts of those who remember them.”       “It means for me!”       “Don’t be sad, Peter.”       Helene puts her hands on Peter’s chest, looking into his eyes with a slight smile.       “Any time can be time someday: a physical and a mental one. You just need to get through it.”       “I’d sacrifice anything for you to be with me,” Peter states desperately. “For you to come back to life and never leave me.”       “Really?” Helene rounds her eyes.       “Anything! I’d give the most valuable thing I have for your life! I don’t need anything! Take everything!”       “Everything, everything?”       “Absolutely!”       “Alright then…”       Helene goes a few steps away from Peter, changing a little and not looking as tender and nice as she was before.       “If it’s so… There’s a way…”       “Which?” Peter asks excitedly, wiping tears under his eyes and getting up slowly.       “If you want us to reunite, you have to sacrifice something you have in your world. Something that has been giving you the strength not to go insane for a long time.”       “I said, take everything!” Peter exclaims with a heavy breath. “Anything! Leave nothing to me! Just come back to me! I’m begging you!”       Helene closes her eyes for two seconds silently and puts her hand on her heart, but then she looks at Peter again, saying:       “Your sacrifice is accepted.”       “What should I do? Speak! I’m ready for anything!”       “You have to come with me and see something. See what’s going to happen to those you just preferred to betray and destroy.”       “What?” Peter frowns slightly. “What do you mean, who?”       Peter does not say anything else because Helene gets out of the path in a quick and determined step with a wish to get into the thick woods.       “Helene!” Peter starts running after Helene. “Helene, wait! Where are you going? Helene!”       “Just shut up and follow me,” Helene pronounces a little coldly. “You will be taken to the right place.”       “But…”       “I told you to follow me!”       Helene takes Peter under his arm and pulls him after her by force deeper and deeper in the woods, going by the trees with sweeping sticks and thick trunks. Even if the thick smoke is in the air, it’s dark enough outside, and no lamps light up the street, the girl obviously knows where to go and does not change course. While the discouraged man breathing heavily looks around and is squeezed by coldness that possesses his body more and more, and becomes the reason why the vapor gets out of his mouth. The inexplicable fear gets stronger and makes Rose feel a panic attack getting closer and provokes a lack of air, drops of sweat on the forehead, and a strong pressure on the chest.       “I’m scared…” Peter pronounces hesitantly. “It’s dark. It’s yearning. And it’s too quiet.”       But Helene does not say anything and keeps taking Peter somewhere as she keeps being indifferent to the coldness that literally makes the man turn inside out. At some moment, he glances aside and shakes sharply with a quiet shout when he sees the black hole gets closer to him, but suddenly disappears two meters away from him. And he jumps aside when a medium-sized stone falls over his head somewhere from above.       “Fuck, when will all of this end?” Peter whispers under his nose. “When will I get out of here? This is a nightmare!”       Again, Peter jumps aside with widely open eyes when a large piton shows up near him, gets close to him with a quiet hissing, and disappears at some moment. He starts feeling dizzy due to the strong tension and closes his eyes with a heavy breath for two seconds, not holding back the tears. And when Rose opens them and looks forward, he sees a brick box with the only door that Helene brings him to. She opens it silently, takes the man under his arm painfully, and pushes him strongly enough forward, making him enter the room first.       Things are barely seen here, but the girl keeps taking him down the long, wide, half-ruined halls for a long time, while some living things like mice, rats, cockroaches, and bugs run by. When he turns back at some moment, Peter sees the darkness, in which the endless hall kind of disappears. The evil sounds can be heard periodically close or far, and the male voice starts calling Peter again, saying he is very close to the goal, and making him put his head on his shoulders with a wish to be small and invisible.       But some time later, Helene comes to the end of the hall where there is a wooden door that she opens after making some effort. When she enters the other room that is poorly lighted, the girl grabs the scared and discouraged Peter under his arm much more determinedly and much more rudely and passes some distance with him. Next, she stops sharply and looks around before she clicks the fingers of her hands, while the blond looks at her surprisingly with widely open eyes, seeing that the color of her dress changes to a total black, the light around her gets the same shade, and her nude, fresh makeup changes to much brighter and darker.       After the click of the fingers, one of the walls rises sharply, and Peter can see the scene in which several people are fighting each other cruelly, not caring about the blood on their hands, giving powerful hits on the face, and using any objects that they see. It’s easy for him to understand that this is the fight of Marcus, Ronald, Luther, Darwin, David, Shawn, Bob, Terrence, Daniel, and Edward. Both sides use all the possible dirtiest tricks to protect themselves and their buddies. Rose’s friends are covered with bright red blood from head to foot, and their clothes are ripped in some areas. At first, they dodge their opponents successfully, but then they start to miss a lot of hits due to the strong tiredness and can barely stand at the moment.       “It’s…” Peter pronounces hesitantly.       “It’s correct,” Helene replies without emotions. “This is the fight of your father, his accomplices, and your friends.”       “My gosh… They can barely stand! They’re choking from tiredness!”       “They were doing all of this for you. Just to save you. They were afraid to start a fight with Marcus at their wish.”       “But… I…”       “How many things they had to get through. Which tortures, which horrible things… But they held on bravely. They held on to help you.”       “I know…”       “But in the end, they did not get any thanks from you. No good word for saving your pathetic life.”       “Not truth!” Peter protests. “I thanked them!”       “The guys can hardly remember this. Because it did not happen.”       “Watch out, guys!” Peter shouts, seeing that Daniel, Edward, and Terrence are tried to be attacked from behind, while they are fighting others. “Behind you!”       But it does not help because the opponents tighten the ropes on the necks of Peter’s friends as tightly as possible and start strangling them, depriving them of the ability to breathe. Screaming in horror, Rose moves off to help them, but he kind of gets through all these people and falls to the floor in the end. He is not kind of here. Nobody can see or hear him.       “Let my friends go, bastards!” Peter racks his vocal cords, getting up sharply from the floor. “NOW! DON’T DARE TO HURT THEM!”       “Don’t tense like this, sweetie,” Helene laughs quietly and evilly, locking her fingers. “They can’t see or hear you. You don’t exist for them.”       “What?”       “You cannot help them. You cannot save them from what’s going to happen now.”       “What do you mean? I don’t understand you!”       “The guys have a little time to fight. No matter how hard they make tornado kicks and hit their hands to the point of bleeding, they are about to die.”       “No!” Peter screams desperately. “No, please, not this! It cannot be the truth!”       “I’m sorry. You only have to stay aside and watch. Watch the fall of those you betrayed.”       While Peter shakes his head in mistrust and watches what’s happening with a heavy breath, Marcus standing aside starts laughing evilly with a widely open mouth.       “You will give up, bastards!” Marcus states. “I shall kill you early or late!”       “Never!” Daniel cuts off sharply as he boxes with Luther and Shawn after he gets out of the grip of the latter. “We will not give up! And we will not give our brother to you!”       “We will be by his side until the very end!” Terrence states and hits Ronald and Darren strongly on the face with a shovel. “Whatever happens!”       “We came here to take a victory, and we will leave this place as the winners,” Edward swears, strikes David down with a powerful hit of the foot in a jump with a twist, and smashes his fist against Bob’s jaw. “With our heads proudly raised!”       “Your song will not be so long,” Marcus assures. “You have a little time to wave your wings. Your friend betrayed you. He decided to sacrifice your lives to keep himself and his gal alive.”       “What?” Peter opens his eyes widely and looks at Helene with horror. “Me? Decided to sacrifice them?”       “You said you were ready to sacrifice anything to keep me alive,” Helene shrugs.       “I didn’t mean I was ready to sacrifice my friends! I’m not ready! Not ready!”       “Sorry, but you made your choice. You can’t turn time back upon.”       “NO!” Peter breaks into a cry.       “However, you rejected your friends a long time ago. You pushed them off yourself, even if they had done so much for you.”       “It’s a lie, I didn’t push them off! IT IS A LIE!”       “Alright, I will help you remember.”       Helene clicks her fingers to change the scene before Peter’s eyes. And now he sees himself starting a cruel fight with Daniel, Edward, and Terrence, whom he beats shamelessly to the death with his hands and feet, ignoring their prayers to stop and wake up. That’s why Rose himself starts breathing heavily with a catastrophic lack of air and the pain in his squeezed heart.       “So, you remember now?” Helene asks without emotions. “You remember what you did to them? You tried to kill them! You tried to kill Daniel, Terrence, and Edward. You blamed them for my death. Blamed them for wishing to hurt you.”       “I…” Peter pronounces with a shake. “I didn't want it! I swear… I wasn’t myself! It wasn’t me!”       “No, Peter, it was you. You beat your friends to half-death. They could barely creep after that. But even after that, the guys kept showing nobility and weren’t gonna leave you. The guys were ready to forget everything and forgive you. But you chose a different way. You turned your back on them.”       “I’m sorry about hurting them.”       You are not sorry. You still think they’re betrayers. You have never let them get too close to you and have been waiting for their betrayal all the time.”       “Please, Helene, save them. Don’t let them die! Don’t my father do this!”       Peter takes Helene by the shoulders and shakes her, looking into her eyes with wet eyes full of pity.       “I’m begging you, do something! I don’t wanna lose my friends! I don’t wanna lose my brothers! They mean a lot to me. I can’t do without them!”       “You made your choice,” Helene replies coldly. “You preferred my life over their lives. They don’t mean so much to you.”       “No! I love all of you! You all mean a lot to me! I live just cause I still have you!”       “Since you sacrificed the lives of your close friends so easily, I don't think the deal we concluded may be valid.”       “What? What do you mean?”       “Watch and enjoy the show, Rose.”       One more click of the fingers before Peter sees the fight between Marcus and his accomplices with Terrence, Edward, and Daniel, who look much worse than before and are not able to answer the opponents’ attacks. They can barely stand, while these people beat them with no shame, with hands and feet. The guys look at each other desperately with a silent plea for help, but are not able to do anything. Crying bitterly, Peter tries to do something again to save his friends, but now there is an invisible wall between them, against which he hits his fists so hard, while he makes heartbreaking screams and begs of not letting their death happen.       “You’ve always said you fear loneliness,” Helene recalls coldly. “Nothing can make you shake stronger. But you did your best for this fear to come true.”       “NO!” Peter screams heartbreakingly and tries to break the wall with his foot. “PLEASE, DON’T DO THIS! DON’T DO THIS! DON’T DO THIS!”       “Nothing will change even if you rack your cords.”       “Don’t be so cruel and cold to me. HELP THEM! THEY’RE ABOUT TO DIE! I CAN’T LET IT HAPPEN! I DON’T WANT!”       “You say you don’t understand who you really are? So, I can tell you who you are!”       Helene turns on Peter sharply and starts getting closer to him, making him step back in panic.       “You are a bastard,” Helene states in a much lower and ruder voice. “A heartless bastard that is ready to sacrifice his close people so easily. The bastard who does not appreciate everything people do for him. You wanted to be good for everyone so badly. A sweet, innocent angel with a pure soul and a big heart. But it was an act. You did not understand that your real side showed up at times. You attacked people for nothing and showed aggression even if they were not guilty. The whole world became your enemy. Because you turned it against you. You missed all the chances to be with just one loving person.”       “Helene, please, don’t say,” Peter begs in a shaking voice with tears. “I’m not like that! I’m not a monster! I’m not bad! I’m just broken and happy!”       “A good person would never sacrifice someone’s life for another. They would find a way to save all their close people.”       “I tried! But I could not! I could not save you!”       “And friends?” Helene asks a little louder. “Weren’t you going to save your friends? They did everything for you, but you turned your ass on them!”       “Helene, listen…”       “I see everything about you. And I do regret getting in touch with you. Regret loving the one who doesn’t deserve it.”       “No, please…” Peter makes a sob.       “You deserve to be alone,” Helene states in a demonic voice. “You deserve everything that’s happening in your life. It would be much better for everyone if you killed yourself. If Daniel and Terrence hadn’t gone to your home and saved you. It would be much better if they had let you die. You’re taking someone’s place in this world for nothing.”       “Stop it, please… Stop… Stop this nightmare! Please! I wanna get out of it! I wanna wake up!”       “Oh, no, this is just the beginning of your nightmare. The beginning of the torture you deserved.”       Grabbing Peter by the collar, Helene pushes him so that he almost loses his balance, but he keeps it magically. And at this moment, they see a cruel one-way street, in which Edward, Terrence, and Daniel are losing, while Marcus’s accomplices beat them heartlessly and as strongly as possible, twist their arms, and burn their skin with fire, literally enjoying all their sufferings and screams.       “Please, guys, hold on…” Peter begs with tears in his eyes. “Don’t give up! I need you… I will always need you…”       Peter’s heart stops when Daniel, Edward, and Terrence move their begging eyes to him at the same time, as if they say goodbye to him and this world. And at this moment, Luther runs the blade of the knife sharply over the throat of Edward, and Ronald breaks Terrence’s neck with one movement. The brothers fall dead with widely open eyes, making no sound. And while Peter gets pale from horror, putting his hands on the invisible wall, Marcus himself takes a pistol and takes a determined shot at Daniel. The bullet gets into his chest – the area where the heart is. Bright red blood starts getting out of it immediately. No attempts of Perkins to hold down the flow lead to anything good, and he falls dead two seconds later with dead eyes staring into the distance.       “NO-O-O-O-O-O-O!” Peter screams emotionally, grabbing his hair with his fingers. “GU-U-U-UYS!”       “YEA-A-A-A-AH!” Marcus laughs evilly. “THE FRIENDS OF MY SON ARE DEAD! YEAH!”       “Tell me it seemed to me!” Peter begs desperately, shaking Helene by the shoulders. “Tell me I just went crazy! Tell me it did not happen!”       “Your sacrifice has been accepted,” Helene replies without emotions. “Though it was worthless because nobody is going to give you what you want.”       “NO-O-O-O-O-O!”       Grabbing his head with a heavy breath, Peter opens his eyes wide in horror as he looks at the dead bodies of Daniel, Terrence, and Edward. While Marcus walks by them like a winner and keeps laughing evilly with a wide smile.       “BASTARD!” Peter explodes, starting to hit the invisible wall. “I HATE YOU! YOU TOOK EVERYTHING FROM ME! YOU RUINED MY LIFE!”       “You must blame yourself for it,” Helene replies coldly. “You chose to take these guys’ lives. The guys, who were guilty of nothing and just tried to save one nasty betrayal.”       “Please, do something!” Peter takes Helene’s hands, looking at her with wet eyes full of pity. “Save the guys! Don’t let them die! Give me a chance to fix it all!”       “You wished them to die, did you forget it? Did you forget you said it would be better if they were instead of me?”       “I didn’t say it! Never! IT IS A LIE!”       “But the guys did remember. The guys heard you wished them to die. That was what you said. You devalued their effort. You devalued everything they had ever done for you.”       “Not true! I do value their effort! I would be dead without them. The men mean a lot to me.”       “When you turned evil, you were ready to kill anyone in your way. It didn’t matter who it would be: your friend or your enemy. You crushed everyone.” Helene gets her hands sharply out of Peter’s grip and goes two steps away from him. “And after all of this, do you dare to pretend to be innocent? Dare to say you are very sorry?”       “If I could, I would come back to the past and fix it,” Peter states desperately. “And I’m in despair. I’m in despair because I lost those I needed so badly.”       “Tell these stories to someone else, but I shall never believe it.”       “Helene, please… Save me… Save me from this nightmare… I wanna wake up… I wanna get out of here.”       “You will never get out of it,” Helene replies in a low, rude voice. “This is the cost of your heartless attitude toward those who wished you the best.”       “PLEASE, DON’T DO THIS TO ME! I DON’T WANNA STAY HERE! I DO NOT WANT! IT’S SOME KIND OF HELL!”       Crying bitterly, Peter covers his face with his hands, squats down, but then sits on his knees and doubles over. At some moment, he makes a heartbreaking scream that expresses his unbearable pain. He starts lacking air more and more, something is pressing on his chest strongly, and his body is freezing. The guy feels as lonely, lost, and unhappy as never before, not having any meaning to fight for something and losing hope for help from someone.       “Wow, what a funny picture…” the male voice pronounces not far. “At first, you murdered your friends with your own hands, but now you’re lying on the floor, pretending to be so unhappy, and crying bitterly like a girl.”       Peter moves his eyes sharply to the source of the sound and opens them widely with the thought that his heart stops for a second when he sees… Himself standing in front of him?! With deathly pale skin, dark eyes with heavy black makeup, and messy hair. Wearing total black, spreading coldness… Looking at him with an icy glance that has literally never had anything good.       “What the fuck?” Peter pronounces and gets up quickly, barely keeping his balance on his weak legs and looking at himself surprisingly. “It’s…”       “So, ya put your tail between your legs?” Peter’s copy sneers evilly, putting his hands on his hips. “Your pants are wet from fear already?”       “Who are you? What are you doing? Where did you come from? Why do you look like me?”       “Are you really an idiot who understands the fuck nothing? Or are you pretending to be the one?”       “Huh?”       “I am you! And you are me! The part that you have been rejecting for so many years!”       “No way! You cannot be me! It’s not actually you! You don’t look like a kind man!”       “Kind folks make me sick,” Peter’s copy winces strongly. “I am sick of those who try to be sweet, loyal, kind, and save someone all the time.”       Peter’s copy glances at the dead Edward, Terrence, and Daniel, walks by them with a look of the winner, kicks every guy with his foot, and sneers evilly.       “Just like these bastards. They decided to play fucking heroes. But I did not believe this lie and destroyed them with my own hands. I mean, your hands.”       “What do you want from me?” Peter asks scarily in a high voice. “What do you want? What does it all mean?”       “I want nothing, huh. I am just your dark side that you have been trying to deny all your life. You refuse to accept me. You like being a pathetic ninny that everyone uses as a rag. Whom everyone humiliates and betrays.”       “I am well aware of who I am! And I did not want, do not want, and will not be like you.”       “Come on?” Peter’s copy surprises falsely, looking at the real one from head to feet and making him feel that the goosebumps run over his body. “Do you want to pretend that you and I didn’t become one piece for a while? Do you want to forget that you temporarily became the one you should have been since birth? Forget that your name is Theodore Longbottom?”       “I shall never accept you, Theodore,” Peter states determinedly. “You will never be a part of me. You will never make me change.”       “Do you like to lie to yourself? Do you like to live the life that shouldn't have been yours? You were born as Theodore, but you became Peter.”       “Yeah? Are you having a nice life? Having a good life as a heartless bastard that takes revenge on the whole world for not being loved by just several people?”       “Revenge is cool!” Theodore notices with a wide smile. “Thanks to revenge, anger, and crimes, I can assert myself. I can feel that I control the situation. And killing people for nothing turned out to be a very interesting thing.”       “Do you think I should become Theodore and turn to Marcus Longbottom 2.0 that takes it out on innocent people after his own father spent half of his life beating him with a jump rope?”       “But Father was mad for the reason. He lost the most important thing he had – our mother. I mean, your mother. That he loved so much.”       “Julia is not my mother. She is nobody to me! An absolutely strange person!”       “Yo, do ya love that fucking alcoholic that didn’t miss a chance to beat you as fuck when she had delirium tremens?” Theodore sneers contemptuously.       “None of your fucking business!”       “Stop pushing me off, Peter. Now you know the truth and understand why I’ve been chasing you. Why I come to you in dreams and reality. All I need from you is to turn you on the post part of you. Make you accept what you’re rejecting. You do know you’re missing something. You feel like you’re deprived of something. So, you lack me. You lack everything you locked under lock and key in your childhood and refused to let it go.”       “Leave me alone…” Peter demands with tears in her eyes. “Leave! Don’t tell me to accept you! I don’t want! I don’t wanna be like you! It’s not me! Not me!”       “Oh, no, I shall not leave…”       Theodore comes confidently to Peter, who starts stepping back as he keeps looking closely at his copy.       “I shall not leave you until you and I become one piece. Until you remember everything you should remember. Until you make a choice. Decide which side you want to be on. Which side you want to kill once and forever.”       “I have made up my mind! I do not want to and will not make any decisions!”       “Do you want me to chase you until the end of your life?” Theodore raises his head proudly. “Do you want to hear my voice in your head and see me in front of you? Do you understand you’re gonna be called crazy if people know you see me?”       “Don’t make me! I wanna know nothing! I wanna remember nothing! I don’t wanna know the truth! I JUST WANT EVERYONE TO LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE AND LET ME LIVE A QUIET LIFE!”       “Did you feel so bad when I possessed your body and your mind?”       Theodore starts waking confidently around Peter breathing heavily and setting his widely open eyes into the distance, while vapor gets out of his mouth.       “Didn’t you get pleasure when calling yourself Theodore? When you were avenging on everyone for the death of your beloved girl? You and I got along so well.” Theodore brings his face very close to Peter’s ear with a sly smile. “And all our plans could have been real. If your friend hadn’t hit you with an electric gun.”       “Stop…” Peter pronounces in a shaking voice with tears in his eyes. “Please, stop… Stop torturing me. I can’t take it anymore. I do feel so bad!”       “You know, if I were the same cowardly and weak freak, I would prefer to shoot myself down. For me, it would be a real shame. It’s a shame when you let some pathetic people mock you and tolerate all their cruel mockeries silently.”       “Yes, I don’t like to be like this. But I don’t want to be a killer. I don’t want people to fear and hate me.”       “And why? Why do you need some friends, girlfriends, and someone else? It’s much better to be alone! You do what you want, you go anywhere you want… Nobody tells you what to do!”       “If you and your father do not need them, it does not mean everyone should do the same.”       “But there’s no threat that someone may wish to give you pain,” Theodore smiles innocently. “No threat that someone may agree against you. You can prevent it immediately and murder all your enemies with lightness in your heart. Murder anyone who looks at you badly.”       “I’m not a killer!” Peter screams desperately. “I will never be the one!”       “Come on? But don’t you have to do with your friends who are lying there dead?”       “It’s not true! They didn’t die! They are alive!”       “They are dead, Peter. You killed them. You and I killed. Because they were waiting for a reason to agree against you. But we didn’t let them make it happen. They finally got what they deserve.”       “I CAN’T LOSE THEM! I CANNOT! I NEED MY BROTHERS!”       Theodore thrills with a loud, evil laugh with a widely open mouth.       “Dude, stop this show! You don’t walk on the same way as they do, get it. Nobody can walk with you. The only person you have is you. This world is cruel, and you can only count on yourself. People are mean, nasty, and egoistic creatures that only think of their comfort and do everything to please themselves.”       “You say it because you’ve never loved anyone!” Peter exclaims with tears in his eyes. “You don’t know what it is. You don’t know that not all the people are against me. There are those who take care of me truly and wanna help me.”       “It’s dangerous to love someone since there’s always a possibility that your beloved person may hurt you or you may lose them due to unexpected circumstances. Father loved Mother to death, but she died, sadly. Though nobody wanted it. You know why? Because she should not have given birth to you!”       “Did you mean yourself? Since you are me!”       “No wonder he stopped trusting the world after everything he’d gotten through. Grandfather beat him cruelly, Grandmother cared about his brother suffering from schizophrenia, and Mother died because of her son. And when he started to kill people, he felt much better!”       “And I see, you decided to go after him!”       “And I don’t regret it at all. I hope you will understand it and let me kill your weak yobbo that cries like a girl because of everything and cannot even kill himself.”       Theodore sneers contemptuously, crossing his arms over his chest and stopping in front of Peter.       “Ugh, I do hate people’s tears. Especially when a man cries. It’s such a great shame!”       “Leave me alone, I’m begging you!” Peter begs desperately with pity in her eyes. “Leave me alone! I am sick of all this shit! I am sick of living in permanent stress!”       “If you want to end all of this, remember what happened many years ago and decide which side you want to be on. If you want to be Theodore, we will become one piece, and all the bad memories of bullying will be erased. But if you want to die as a weak boy, alright, I shall leave. And some bastards will be using you as a rag and making you hysterical until the end of your life. And it will bring you to a mental hospital or the roof of a high building early or late.”       “I DON’T WANT! I DON’T WANT! I WANT YOU TO GET OFF ME ONCE AND FOREVER!”       “Theodore is right,” Helene says confidently, coming closer to Peter and looking at him with such a cold look that everything inside him squeezes. “If you decide to be Peter, your sufferings will not end. And one day, it will lead to the logical enough closure for the mentally ill man.”       “I’m not crazy!” Peter cries. “NOT ILL! NO! I’m just a lonely, unhappy guy that wants real enough things – love and care.”       “Stop denying the real you. Being a nice and kind guy is not your destiny. Your destiny is to be Theodore. Heartless and revengeful.”       “I DO NOT WANT!”       “You’re not such an innocent angel,” Theodore notices. “There have been many cases when you turned evil. When aggression took control of you. When hitting your best friend in the face for mocking you was absolutely fine. These are attempts of the real you to take control of you. At these moments, you looked like the one you should have been more.”       “STOP!”       Peter closes his ears with both arms with an emotional scream, not even thinking to hold down the tears.       “STOP THIS NIGHTMARE! I WANNA ESCAPE IT!”       “You were told what you should have done,” Marcus says quietly with a sly smile, coming to Theodore and hugging him around the shoulders. “Accept the second part of your soul and become the one you should be.”       “And become someone like you?” Peter surprises loudly. “NEVER!”       “You had a wonderful chance to find all your bullies and take revenge on them. You know what kind of relief you will feel when you put a knife in their heart or shoot down at least one of them. If my father were still alive, I would be happy to take revenge on him for the years he spent beating me with the thought that he would educate me and make me stronger.”       “Did I deserve it? WHY DO I HAVE TO TAKE THESE MOCKERIES? WHAT DID I DO?”       “This is the destiny of Peter Rose. The destiny of the cowardly yobbo that cries for a reason and without. If you had a different name, everything would be changed.”       “I DO NOT WANT TO BE THEODORE!” Peter screams at the top of his lungs. “I DO NOT!”       “Just one little thing holds you down from it,” Helene says. “Something that is the thread that leads you to the little shoot of the sun. But it will be cut right now.”       Helene clicks her fingers with an evil smile. The identical copy of the girl wearing a long white dress and having much kinder eyes and nude makeup shows up next to Theodore.       “Go, Theodore.”       Not thinking a lot, Theodore presses the kind copy of Helene to himself with a sly smile, putting his arm around her neck and putting the knife deeply into her heart. The girl not resisting once has her face squeezed painfully, opening her eyes and mouth widely, while a heavy flow of blood starts getting out of her chest and getting down her long dress.       “NO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O!” Peter screams heartbreakingly, closing his mouth with his hands, with eyes full of horror.       Peter ends up next to the wounded copy of Helene immediately, while she starts falling on the floor. He grabs her in time and gets down to the cold, stoned floor along with her, pressing the girl to himself with tears in his eyes, while she starts shaking strongly.       “Helene, my girl, hold on…” Peter begs with a heavy breath, pressing Helene’s head to his chest, caressing it tenderly, and kissing her on the top of her head with his shaking lips. “Please, hold on! I will save you…”       “Y-y-y-you have n-n-no time…” Helene’s copy replies in a dying voice. “Don’t do… Don’t do anything…”       “No, no, I’ll save you… Save… Just hold on!”       “I’m dying…” Helene coughs up blood quietly as she chokes on it. “Dying…”       “It’s gonna be okay, sweetheart.” Peter caresses Helene’s cheek tenderly. “Wait a little. I will find a way to help you.”       “I… No… I didn’t get… Help… You… Didn’t… Come… I… Died…”       “No! I’m here! Here I am! Next to you! I did it! I did it! I found you!”       “You are… The best… Thing… That I’ve had in my… Life… Best…”       “Helene, please…”       Helene starts choking on a cough much more, while blood keeps getting out of her wound on the chest strongly and covering her white dress with red.       “No, my baby, hold on…” Peter presses Helene as closely to himself as possible and kisses her on the cheek several times, while drops of his tears fall on the girl’s dress. “Hold on! Don’t leave me. Don’t die. I need you. I can't do without you. I can’t!”       Barely being able to pump a little bit of air into the lungs, Helene does her best to raise her shaking hand and puts it on the cheek of Peter, into the eyes of whom she looks in a dying way. As if she says they will never meet again. And at some moment, she puts her second hand on it and starts crying quietly when he leans on her forehead with his forehead.       “I love you, Peter…” Helene whispers in one breath. “You and I will meet very soon… Just wait for a while…”       Helene’s hand falls to her chest like something heavy, her dead eyes stop into one point, and a quiet, tormenting moan flies high to the ceiling, taking her soul away. The deathly pale body of the girl gets sharply limp in the arms of Peter, even though blood keeps leaving it at a fast rate.       “No…” Peter chokes on tears and caresses Helene’s cheek tenderly, holding her head suspended on his elbows. “No, Helene, please, don’t die… Don’t leave me… Please… Don’t do this to me… No…”       After pressing Helene’s head to his chest and hugging the cold girl tightly with both arms, Peter runs his fingers through her hair on the top of her head.       “Please, my little girl… My sweetheart… Please… I can’t lose you… I couldn’t be late! I could not! I couldn’t screw it up! I COULD NOT!”       Peter spends some time crying bitterly, snuggling his nose in the shoulder of the dead Helene and pressing her tightly to himself before the body in his arms glows with white lights and then melts in colorful sparkles for two seconds. Then the man keeps sitting on the cold floor, covers his face with both hands at some moment, and doubles over, screaming heartbreakingly and pulling out the hair on his head strongly.       “IT CANNOT BE THE TRUTH!” Peter screams. “I COULD NOT LOSE YOU! I COULD NOT! I COULD NO-O-O-O-O-O-O-TO!”       “And now you have lost absolutely everything,” the dark Helene replies with a smug smile, putting one hand on her waist. “All the ends of the roots are cut. And it means… Being Peter does not make sense.”       “STOP TORTURING ME! I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”       “Well, if you can’t, Theo will be happy to end your suffering,” Marcus says confidently and claps Theodore on the shoulders. “Don’t let me down, sonny.”       “Yes, Father!” Theodore exclaims and moves his evil glance to Peter, raising an axe above his head. “Now I am going to end my pathetic copy. So that only Theodore Longbottom remains. The one I have always been.”       Peter moves his eyes to Theodore when the axe is very close to his head and rolls aside in time. He gets up on his feet sharply and grabs the weapon with both hands, trying so hard to take it away. He does it by stepping on the foot of his copy and getting this thing sharply out of his hands. But Peter has to throw the axe aside and start a hand-in-hand fight with Theodore. They press each other against the wall, share strong hits on all parts of the body with hands and feet, push each other off, and actually use all the dirtiest tricks they know.       “I will destroy you,” Theodore hisses through his teeth, pressing Peter to the wall and squeezing his throat tightly with his fingers. “Destroy… No Peter will exist. There will be only Theodore.”       “I will not lose myself!” Peter states, hits Theodore against the groin with his knee, and smashes his fist against the opponent’s temple. “I will not let the pathetic copy take a victory over me!”       “No, you are my pathetic copy! BUT I AM REAL!”       Theodore hits Peter against his face with his foot in a full-twist jump, literally striking him down. Then the blond grabs him by the collar and hits him strongly against the wall with his head a couple of times, still feeling weird at the thought that he had to fight with himself.       “Come on, Theodore, do this!” Marcus encourages, hugging the dark Helene by the shoulders. “Come on!”       “I think we need to help him a little,” Helene says thoughtfully. “So the copy has no smallest chance.”       After Helene clicks her fingers, Theodore catches an electric saw that falls somewhere from the ceiling and tries to tear Peter into small parts. The blond has to protect himself with the axe that he takes from the floor and runs in circles from the opponent waving the weapon that he magically gets. Some time later, Rose raises the axe above the head of Longbottom, but gets into the wall where it gets stuck after the copy jumps aside. But Peter does not have time to get it out and has to run after Theodore, whom he pushes strongly in the back with his foot at some moment. That’s why the copy lets go of the saw on the floor and does not manage to take it because the guy uses a chokehold on him from behind, squeezing it tightly in his elbow and not letting his opponent pump much air into his lungs.       “So, are you now going to say I am a whiny, cowardly, and weak guy that can’t stand up for himself?” Peter surprises.       “You just woke me up inside you,” Theodore replies with a heavy breath. “So, that’s why you’re waving your hands and feet.”       “That’s what's called the instinct of self-preservation.”       “That’s what's called the reunion with the real you.”       Theodore throws Peter easily over his shoulder with one easy movement and lays him on his back. Then he steps on his stomach with his foot and hits it against his nose, making him scream and bend his back backward in pain. But Rose does not let it happen, pushing Longbottom off himself with a sharp hit of the foot against his chest, raising above him and starting to fight him hand in hand. They roll from side to side, share hits generously on all the parts of the body, and try to strangle each other, while Peter tries not to think that he is attacked by the man with an identical appearance and physical strength, but with a much nastier character.       “Oh, no, bastard, I shall never be me,” Peter hisses through his teeth. “I’d rather do my best for you to become me. Theodore Longbottom to be just a memory of Marcus.”       “Are you calling yourself a bastard?” Theodore asks surprisingly, getting up on his feet at the same time as Peter and continuing to box with him. “The one to have the same physical strength as mine?”       “You are not like me. You are much uglier and much nastier. You are too far from me.”       “It’s funny to hear these words from my copy.”       “Oh, yeah, I’ve never fought myself yet. It’s weird, I admit. But I will not let you erase me from this world and take my place.”       “Who’s talking, freak!” Theodore sneers evilly. “You’ve been taking my place all your life. Only Theodore Longbottom must exist in the world. The birth of Peter Rose was not planned by anyone.”       “But since I'm still alive and healthy, it means someone in heaven has a plan for me.”       Peter hits his foot against Theodore’s solar plexus in a jump and smashes his fist against his jaw. After taking the baseball baton that shows up out of nowhere on the floor. The guy shouting loudly hits his copy determinedly on the head, which the opponent grabs with both hands after falling to the floor. Not wasting time, Rose moves off and starts running fast down the long, wide hall that is poorly lighted, breathing heavily enough and looking back at times, while he is chased by several black figures, not his opponents. The guy cannot leave them behind, and the hell seems literally endless. There is just a way straight – no turns on the left or the right. Besides, after a long and intense run, he starts choking from a lack of air and feeling pain in his legs that can barely move due to the coldness that possesses them. Nevertheless, Rose does not stop for a second and keeps moving on, where his eyes look, not going to give up on the dark forces that want to swallow him.       The hall behind him starts fading into the infinite darkness, and the dark figures keep chasing Peter and start to sing an evil song in male and female voices at some moment. The song that wakes up a much stronger tension in Rose’s soul. The song that is about him being a heartless and bloodthirsty monster who would not hide wherever he runs. Even if he decided to turn around and come back, they close the way and run after him at high speed. It seems that something is about to catch the pale from fear and loneliness and despair and take him in a tight hug. Moreover, after trying to fasten a little, he starts moving so hard as if he ends up in the middle of a hurricane or is about to be swallowed by snow. At first, there is some poor light in some places, but everything goes dark at some moment and deprives him of the ability to understand where to go and when he can see at least one door.       Peter’s fear gets much stronger because big pieces of concrete start falling over his head from the ceiling. A miracle is the reason why they do not kill him since he stops, jumps aside, or presses against the cold, stoned wall in time. And at some moment, a pale hand suddenly shows up out of the floor and tries to grab his foot, making the guy scream with widely open eyes and tense all his muscles. The hand does it several times, but he goes around it or just jumps over it. Later, shouting ghosts fly by him and suddenly disappear, and the visions of him fighting cruelly with his own friends and trying to kill them with his own hands push the blond close to a hysterical condition, while drops of tears show up in his eyes.       Peter starts losing hope of managing to reach the end of the hall since it seems abnormally long. Literally endless. It seems like he is going to be running here forever. Listening to this evil song, which the familiar voices of his friends sing louder and louder. He has to accept the fact that the black figures still chasing the guy and starting to make quiet, evil sounds are about to catch him. Things that make Rose scream hysterically with a sense of the fast heartbeat show up on his way again and again: the corpses of his friends and girlfriend, or some bloody parts of them are hanging on the ceiling. A ghost laughing deafeningly gets through Peter’s chest, and one of them flies after him for some time. The longer this kind of senseless way lasts, the more surrealistic things are getting. The more desperate screams his shaking lips make. The stronger he starts to feel forgotten and left by everyone.       Who knows how long Peter is running down the endless hall and moving forward determinedly, while the invisible force kind of pushes him off and pulls him back. But after squeaking at the sight of the pale zombie showing up with his head down, smiling unnaturally, and waving his hands with loud shouts, he presses his back to the wall with hysterical shouts, a shaking eye, and heavy breath. He opens his eyes much wider and closes his face with his hands when the black spot shows up in front of him, and then Theodore shows up out of the one, giving him an evil smile and coming to him determinedly, along with Marcus showing up out of nowhere, as well.       “No…” Peter whines in a hoarse, shaking voice full of pity. “No, please, don’t do this… Don’t kill me…”       “Aw, look, the boy peed his pants in fear…” Theodore laughs contemptuously. “My pathetic copy has just peed himself.”       “This nightmare will never end!” Marcus states, hugging Theodore around the shoulders. “You will never escape from here! There is no way out, no matter how desperately you search for one.”       “Pity me, please…” Peter cries bitterly. “I can’t take this anymore…”       “There cannot be two versions of Theodore,” Helene states as she steps out of the black cloud, looking much paler and coming to Peter with her head proudly raised. “It leads to something like a disbalance. That’s why one of his versions must die.”       The dark Helene grabs Peter’s face and connects her lips with the lips of the blond for several seconds, while he feels that his whole body is squeezed in a bitter cold immediately. As if he went outside in his underwear when everything freezes for a couple of times, just like in a disaster movie. He is so frozen that Rose’s skin gets a pale blue color, and every part of his body is literally squeezed and loses the ability to move.       “And it’s going to be you.”       When the dark Helene puts her hand on his heart, Peter winces strongly and barely holds down a loud shout caused by pain that gets through his body to the bones.       “P-p-please, leave me…” Peter begs in a dying voice, embracing himself tightly with both arms and rubbing his goose skin with icy hands. “Stop t-t-torturing me…”       “Since you refuse to remember what you should and do not want to make a choice about which side you want to kill, we will make a decision for you,” Helene replies coldly, stroking Peter’s cheeks with icy hands so that he feels colder and colder. “Peter Rose will be erased from the world once and forever. And nobody will regret it.”       “Don’t do this… I want to live! Want to live! LIVE! I DON’T WANT TO DIE! NO!”       “Live in the world where nobody the fuck needs you?” Theodore asks surprisingly, coming to Helene, hugging her by the waist, and giving the girl a continuous kiss on the lips. “I would love it, but it would be torture for you. You are our pathetic and weak guy. The weak guy who must have someone to wipe his mouth. Always needs someone to hug him, kiss him, and pity him.”       “It’s all an illusion! A lie! You don’t exist! NONE OF YOU EXISTS!”       “You’ve been living with these illusions in your head all your life. And you are probably happy with everything since you don’t want to change anything. You have a chance, but you don’t use it. You do like drowning in the shit. You like suffering. You like the fact that everyone goes around you, comforts you, wipes your tears, kisses your ass, and spends hours listening to your fucking whining.”       “I CAN’T!” Peter screams desperately with tears in his eyes. “I CAN’T CHANGE ANYTHING!”       “There's nothing that can't be done. There's just a reluctance to face your fear and a desire to keep hiding in your comfort zone.”       “I don't know how to do this! I do not know! I can’t remember my childhood! I do not remember! And I don’t know what happened back then! I don’t know! I don’t know!”       “Well, if you don't remember, you will stay in this nightmare forever," Helene replies indifferently. “It’s going to be a more awful torture for you as long as you are here. We will obviously take care of that.”       Helene clicks her fingers to fill the hall with a big black cloud. Two seconds later, Daniel, Terrence, and Edward show up out of the one, wearing total black, looking deathly pale, and spreading a much stronger feeling of coldness and alienation. Their eyes with a thick layer of black eyeshadows on them are black, full of evil, hatred, contempt, and many other negative emotions they show toward Peter squeezing in far and pressing his back much tighter to the wall.       “So what, pitiful bastard, are you happy now?” Daniel asks in a low, rude, and demonic voice. “Are you happy with what you have done? How much pleasure did you get from murdering your close friends, who considered you literally a brother?”       “Can’t believe you really decided to sacrifice us to keep your girlfriend safe,” Terrence states in the same demonic voice. “We thought you’d always stand by us. But you, asshole, turned out to be a fucking betrayal. The bastard that only thinks of himself and does not value anything people do for him.”       “What’s happening to you is a cost of all your sins,” Edward adds in the same demonic, icy voice. “Though I think this is a too soft punishment for you. You deserve nothing more than death. A long and tormenting death.”       “Please, guys, don’t do this…” Peter begs desperately. “Don’t do this to me… I didn’t betray you, I swear! It’s a mistake! I didn’t wanna sacrifice you! I did not want!”       “Yeah?” Terrence pronounces surprisingly and crosses his arms over his chest. “Should we remind you of how you tried to kill us? How you were running after us with a pistol or an axe? How shamelessly you were beating us? How you gave us wounds incomparable to life so that we turned out to be doomed?”       “I’m sorry… I’m really very sorry…” Peter sniffs loudly. “I didn’t want it, I swear!”       “You wanted!” Edward raises his voice, making the walls of the hall shake. “Because our lives did not mean anything to you!”       “No! You all mean a very much to me! You’re my closest people, without whom I see no meaning in living in this world!”       “Oh, yeah, close people, whose corpses you wanted to lie one on another and burn in the fire?” Daniel surprises loudly. “The people who the fuck died FOR NOTHING! BECAUSE OF ONE PATHETIC BASTARD!”       Daniel runs to Peter for just one moment and, grabbing his throat tightly, presses him tightly to the wall, while the blond starts choking from the lack of air.       “Oh, how powerless you are…” Daniel laughs with mockery and squeezes his cold fingers much tighter on the throat of Peter, making him feel a horrifying fear with his burning look that makes his panic grow fast. “Is it hard to do something when you can’t breathe, huh?”       “Don’t do this…” Peter pronounces barely and coughs quietly. “You’re gonna regret this…”       “Why would I regret this?” Daniel squeezes Peter’s throat much tighter, raising him from the floor with some incredible power with one hand, while the blond tries to move his hand off his neck. “You tried to kill me. Not for the first time. I can remind you of how you tried to stab me with a knife once and didn’t look like you were sorry.”       “I didn’t want it, I swear! I don’t know what I was thinking of! I don’t know!”       “I give a fuck about what you were thinking of. You wanted to bury me in the ground. And I think this is the real betrayer. A much worse betrayer when someone steals your girl.”       “No, please, don’t do this… Don’t make a mistake.”       “We’d make a mistake if we kept you alive,” Terrence cuts off rudely and puts the burning stick against the arm of Peter screaming hysterically. “Keep alive the killer that must actually be executed.”       “I don’t want to die…” Peter pronounces with tears in his eyes. “I don’t want…”       “We didn’t want to die, either! We wanted to live! But you, bastard, took this chance from us. You thought you would bring Helene back. But in the end, you lost absolutely everything.”       “Sorry… I didn’t want…”       “We will not close our eyes to what you did,” Daniel states. “We will destroy you. You, bastard, will be dying with awful tortures. YOU ARE DEAD, PETER ROSE! YOU ARE DEAD!”       Squeezing the knife tightly that he suddenly gets and shaking the walls with his demonic shout, Daniel gets it deeply into the stomach of Peter. Who has his face twisted in an agonized grimace and tenses all his muscles in pain with widely open eyes, looking at the dark demonic version of his friend as if he did not expect anything like this from him.       “Why are you doing this to me?” Peter shouts heartbreakingly.       “The one to get used to parasitizing on someone’s kindness would stay alone early or late,” Daniel states. “Because even the most patient person gets sick of being a bucket with a lot of shit.”       “So what, do you like it?” Terrence sneers evilly and twists the knife sharply in the stomach of Peter, who screams painfully and winces from pain. “LIKE IT? Feel everything you were doing to us! Torture! Die! Do not dare to resist!”       Terrence gets the bloody knife sharply out of the stomach of Peter, who doubles over and covers the deep wound with both hands after Daniel lets him go.       “I didn’t do this!” Peter shouts. “I didn’t kill you! It wasn’t me!”       “Do you think people are forever doormats that would kiss your ass and swallow the shit you shower them with?” Terrence sneers. “Not the fuck at all! One beautiful day, they get sick of this and kill those who hang on their necks. Burn down the throne, on which the bastard is going to burn and whining like a fucking dog.”       “You will tell these stories to the boss of hell,” Edward cuts off sharply. “You will tell them what you did to those who considered you a friend.”       After getting a silver pistol from behind, Edward shoots determinedly at Peter, who grabs his thigh tightly with a heartbreaking scream after the bullet gets into it.       “You are monsters!” Peter cries loudly, grabbing his leg. “Why are you doing this to me? What did I do to you?”       “It’s funny that someone who fears staying all alone to death runs into their fear face to face,” Edward comes closer determinedly. “You are supposed to avoid it so hard, but no. Vice versa, you did your best to make everyone turn their backs on you. You rejected everyone, you hid from everyone, you were mean to everyone, you feared everyone…”       “I don’t know what’s happening to me! I don’t know why I don’t trust people and why I run from them! Though I really want to have many friends! I don’t like to be an introvert! I want to communicate as much as possible, I dream of it all the time!”       “When a person wants something, they do it. Instead of sitting on their fucking ass and waiting for them to go to their home. They do not treat people like a doormat with the thought that they can close their eyes to it. People get sick. And someday, they will throw you in your own shit where you belong.”       “I’ve never treated you like doormats!”       “Fuck, I cannot believe I decided to talk to such a reject like you,” Daniel says coldly. “I can’t believe I decided to choose the wrong man as my best friend. All my former friends were way better than you. They never betrayed me and were near. And they never… Hear me… THEY NEVER TRIED TO KILL ME TWICE!”       “Not true!” Peter protests. “I’ve always been near! I’ve always comforted you when you felt bad! I listened closely, never stopped, gave you pieces of advice, and took you somewhere to help you distract yourself.”       “M-m-m, it’s so sweet and nice that I cannot the fuck remember that.”       “And I made a great mistake when I decided to befriend you and play in the band with you,” Terrence says rudely. “You are talentless! A pathetic parody of the talented drummer. And you sing terribly! I do see people have their eyes and ears bleeding when they see you on the stage and hear you.”       “Stop, please…” Peter begs, closing his ears with his hands. “STOP! I DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT!”       “You know, we feel nausea at the sight of your face,” Edward replies. “And we are mad that you are still alive and do not want the fuck want to die.”       “You’re not real… Not real… You’re just a pathetic illusion… The real guys wouldn’t do that to me. Never…”       “We are happy to tell you that we are real,” Daniel smiles evilly. “And we will not calm down until you die and give in to the one, whose place you’ve been taking for twenty-seven years.”       “Let’s burn this bastard as fuck, guys,” Theodore suggests and points the pistol at Peter. “It’s my time to bring my place back.”       “With pleasure, Theodore!” Daniel puts his hand on Theodore’s shoulder. “With great pleasure!”       “I can’t wait to destroy this asshole,” Terrence raises his head proudly, putting his hand on the other shoulder of Theodore.       “We’re ready, friend,” Edward strikes a fighting position. “I do really want to warm myself up and kill him with a powerful tornado kick.”       “Go, my son!” Marcus exclaims. “Go, my loyal friends! Destroy this bastard.”       Theodore, Daniel, Edward, and Terrence start coming confidently to Peter, who steps away from the wall and starts stepping back down the hall backward, while his widely open eyes look at one or another scarily. At some moment, the men start singing the evil song again that was chasing him when he was trying to hide from the black figures. They walk around the blond, burn him with their icy looks, and show up out of the black cloud when he tries to escape. Some words sound in the language he does not know, but they add much more horror to the song about the monster with a criminal soul, all his tricks, his forthcoming pay, and his poisoned soul his friends came for. The friends who do not look like themselves and do not sing in their own voices.       “It’s…” Peter pronounces in a shaking, quiet voice. “Just… A nightmare! I WANNA GET OUT OF HERE!”       A pale hand suddenly shows out of the ground and tries to take the foot of Peter scared to death, while the demonic versions of him and his friends keep singing the song.       “NO!” Peter shouts, jumping aside sharply, and screams again when the defective zombie shows up from the ceiling behind him and tries to grab him by the hair with a scaring squeak. “A-A-A-A! LEAVE ME ALONE!”       Again, tears roll slowly down the cheeks of Peter when he breathing heavily and feeling a fast heartbeat can barely move as he tries to run away from those who get close to him with weapons in their hands: a knife, a pistol, or an electric gun.       “Pity me, please…” Peter begs. “I don’t want to die!”       “You have no place to run, Peter,” Theodore states coldly. “Do not even try to run.”       “Helene, sweetie, help us a little,” Marcus says softly. “Do your best for Peter to go crazy and wish to die at his wish.”       “I have one idea,” Helene smiles slyly. “The more people are against one, the less chances of surviving he has.”       After Helene clicks her fingers, three black clouds show up in the air, and Anna, Raquelle, and Natalia get out of them, wearing long black dresses with a deep décolleté and sequins. Their dark eyes with heavy makeup made with a black eyeshadow are full of hatred and evil, and their skin is not less pale than the skin of everyone here. They join everyone who comes to the unprotected Peter starting to suffering more and more from a bitter cold that got deeply into every single cell of his body and a strong dizziness, sweaty hands, weakness in his legs, nausea, and the thought that his heart is about to stop since it works at its maximum capacity.       “No, please, DON’T DO THIS!” Peter cries bitterly. “LEAVE ME ALONE! LEAVE ME! GO AWAY!”       All the girls join the men, who keep singing their demonic song. Thus, they form an evil but truly harmonic choir, the members of which communicate with each other very well. The girls flirt with the men, send them mysterious smiles, and dance around them in a seductive way, but they do not leave them without a passionate kiss. All of them walk around Peter, pull his arms from side to side, try to rip his t-shirt or actually take it off him, hit him with a foot or a fist, push him rudely, and perform a so-called devil’s dance. Wherever he runs, all these people close the way and get him caught in a small circle and reach out their hands, looking at him the way they tell him to give them his soul and accept the fact that they are about to tear him apart.       “Please, guys…” Peter barely moves his shaking, numb lips.       “Don’t be afraid, sonny…” the voice of the blonde-haired middle-aged woman standing next to Marcus pronounces. Just give up. Give your soul in. So that you and I can reunite. I miss you so badly.”       “I have regretted a thousand times taking him from that man, who gave me a fucking baby,” another dried-up, pale woman with brittle dark hair meddles. “My husband left me because of you. Because of you, I lost the last chance to live a happy life. A chance to become a mother. You are the only one to be guilty of it. Just you!”       Blood runs cold in his veins when Peter recognizes the voice of Cornelia, who raised him, and understands that he sees Julia, the woman, the photos with whom he saw in the house of Marcus literally in every corner.       “You would feel much better with me, my little Theo…” Julia pronounces, reaching out her hands to Peter. “We would live in the best place where nobody would dare to hurt you.”       “Nobody would care about you if you died!” Cornelia states. “You were never my son! And I never thought of you after I left home.”       “So what, my boy, you know what to do…” the voice that belongs to the stranger pronounces through the deaf wall, making Peter shake slightly. “I will not let you go until I get what I want.”       “Hey, Rose, look here!” another voice pronounces far from here. “Don’t turn back! Look! Look, I said! Hey, blond-haired freak, shut the fuck up! Do what you are told!”       “Do you really think I could love such a freak idiot like you?” the echo of the female voice pronounces. “Ha! The guys and I bet you! We bet that I could seduce you for several days.”       “Don’t dare to run from us!” the boy’s voice exclaims. “We will catch you anyway!”       “Come on, Peter, you were told what to do!” another voice pronounces much further. “Do this if you don’t want to feel bad. You know that joking with me is bad.”       “Picture this, picture this, guys!” a girl exclaims. “So, we can show it to the others! So, they see what this idiot can do!”       “Ha, he can do nothing without commands!” another voice pronounces. “Until you point his nose in something like a cat in the box, he won’t understand what people want from him.”       The voices that belong to those he knows and does not sound in all sides more frequently every second, pushing Peter to a hysterical condition and making his eye shake from strong tension. He is still surrounded by Theodore, Daniel, Edward, Terrence, Raquelle, Anna, Natalia, and Helene singing the song that the man cannot hear anymore, since the friends repeat some lines several times in a row. But at some moment, he gets sick of this and, grabbing his hair with both hands, makes a heartbreaking, piercing scream, which makes him shake slightly due to the dizziness and weakness in his whole body and spreads a powerful vibration throughout the entire room. It easily strikes all the demons down and makes them fall into silence immediately.       “SOMEONE!” Peter explodes. “SOMEONE! SAVE ME! TAKE ME OUT OF HERE! PLEASE!”       “You asked me to take you with us so we’re always together,” Helene recalls, coming to Peter determinedly along with everyone after they get up on their feet. “So, I fulfilled your wish. We are together now. Together forever.”       “LET ME OUTTA HERE! DON'T LEAVE ME! PLEASE! HELENE! BOYS! GIRLS! PLEASE! SAVE ME! I NEED YOU SO BADLY! I DON'T WANT TO DIE!”       Peter doubles over with a painful scream when Daniel shoots at him from a pistol with no hesitation and wounds his shoulder. Edward gets into his chest with a knife he throws, and Terrence releases the arrow from her longbow so that it gets deeply into his throat, from which a thick flow of blood starts getting out immediately. But even though the man is bleeding and suffering from a strong weakness and dizziness, he does not fall to the floor and keeps stepping backward from everyone. Though he slows down as long as he takes a step, since the invisible strength pulls him on itself determinedly, leaving him no chance to deal with it easily.       “I SHALL NOT GIVE UP!” Peter screams and gets the arrow sharply out of his throat, while a hole is made through which a thick flow of blood starts getting out. “I WILL NOT DIE IN SPITE OF ALL MY ENEMIES!”       “This is the inglorious end of the inglorious bastard,” Theodore says with a sly smile. “Who will bring me back to my place, no matter if he wants it or not.”       After running to Peter in a sharp and fast step, Theodore gives him a powerful hit of the foot in the face in a full-twist jump along with the evil, unnatural laugh of Daniel, Terrence, Edward, Helene, Anna, Raquelle, and Natalia. He cannot keep his balance and starts bending back with a heartbreaking scream. Since the guy does not see what’s happening behind him, his heart literally stops when he starts falling into the infinite, dark hole, getting further and further from the little shoot of the light he reaches out his hand so hard. Peter tries so hard to scream out for help with a wish to ask someone for help, but his lips become kind of numb, and he suddenly loses his voice so that nobody can hear him. And during this free fall, Rose can clearly hear the evil laugh of those who mock him and the voices that keep terrorizing his mind by reminding him of some events from the past that still do not let him live a quiet life.       

***

      The sense of this free fall makes Peter shake sharply and open his eyes. He lies on the side in the same pose for several seconds, breathing heavily, feeling a fast heartbeat in his head, and drops of sweat on his forehead, and not understanding what happened and where he is. His widely open eyes look around the dark room, where it’s too quiet but terribly cold. This feeling gets stronger because the man is not covered with a blanket, and his toes and fingers double over from the unbearable frost. At some moment, the blond sits up so sharply that he feels a strong dizziness. Nevertheless, he tries to ignore it and looks around his whole room, still thinking his nightmare has not ended yet.       After coming to himself a little and realizing that he just saw a bad dream, Peter exhales with relief, runs his cold hands over his pale face covered with recent bruises and wounds, wipes the drops of sweat off his forehead, and rubs his arms energetically, putting his icy naked feet under himself and putting his head on his shoulder. He pulls the collar of his t-shirt slightly when he understands that this is the reason why he chokes, puts his hand on his heart that works at the maximum of its capacity, and checks the pulse on his neck. The man feels horribly exhausted as if he just came back home after twenty-four hours of work. His hair is disheveled, and the stomach pain that he suddenly gets makes the bad condition of this man much worse.       When he spends some time in his bed, Peter moves to the edge of it and places his feet on the cold floor. And he immediately feels that the wave of shake possesses every single cell of his body much more determinedly. He moves his eyes to the window and understands that it’s a late enough time, judging by the fact that it’s too dark outside. He understands that he slept for a long enough time because he lay on the bed and fell asleep during the daylight. He gets truly surprised that the cats living with the neighbor on the upper floor are unusually quiet, even though they sometimes do not let him spend time in silence, even in the dark.       At some moment, Peter gets up slowly from the bed and almost falls due to the weakness in his legs. Still, he manages to keep his balance and shakes his head slightly, swallows up, and exhales loudly before he finally gets straight and decides to go to the kitchen. But it turns out to be hard enough because he can barely control his legs, and everything that surrounds him seems something surrealistic to him, being obsessed with fear that the nightmare he just saw is not over yet. Nevertheless, Rose reaches the right place, presses the switch near the door to turn on the light that hurts his eyes immediately, and comes to the counter with a jug of water on it, literally in the automatic mode. He takes a high class from the high shelf, gets some water, and drinks it all to wet his dry throat and get rid of the sense of nausea that exhausts him a lot.       “No matter how much he wants to forget his nightmare, Peter just cannot do this and thinks of every single detail of it that he remembers very well. And after he barely comes to himself and calms down, he starts falling into a hysteria and feeling despair, loneliness, and unhappiness as he breathes heavily and understands that every beat of the heart gives him unbearable pain. His red, puffy eyes water with tears at some moment at the realization of the fact that Helene died and the fact that he lost his friends, whom he pushed away himself when he was under the influence of the evil spirit that possessed his mind after what Marcus had done right before his eyes.       “Do I really deserve it all?” Peter wonders in a quiet, shaking whisper and sniffs. “Did I really deserve it all? Why did I stay all alone?”       Crying much more bitterly and closing his face with both hands, Peter falls powerlessly to his knees and doubles over, shouting desperately at some moment. And he does not care that it’s nighttime when people sleep tightly and see dreams. Pain never sleeps. It literally suffers from insomnia, torturing the one who is supposed to have it twenty-four hours per day. Leaning on the kitchen counter with his back, the blond lets it keep giving him hits again and again, literally stopping to notice them since he is beaten black and blue already.       This nightmare reminded Peter of his bad years when he was a toy for everyone. When everyone wanted to give him pain. And he thinks about what happened in his childhood and what ruined his mental health so much. What he has been trying to subdue so hard for years, with the hope that this is how he can live much better. Besides, he starts asking himself about who he really is. Who he wants to be. Whether he should continue to be the vulnerable, sensitive, and unhappy Peter or he should better accept the side of Theodore, for whom taking revenge on his friends and killing them is super easy. No matter what, sometimes he gets this wish – to take a gun, find all his offenders, and kill them. Well, or at least beat them strongly, so that he can take revenge for all his tears, suffering, and the years of loneliness.       “Who am I?” Peter wonders. “What am I? What am I acting as if two people live inside me? What’s wrong with me? It’s not normal… It’s not fine to be kind and nice but aggressive, bad, and heartless. Sometimes I don’t even understand what I’m doing. I don’t understand that I may hurt someone. Sometimes I have a goal and don’t see barriers to it.”       Peter presses his knees tightly to his chest, setting his wet eyes into the distance.       “I’m starting to be afraid of myself… Not someone, myself. Nobody can be a more serious threat than me. If I don’t understand what’s wrong, my identity will be erased and forgotten one day forever. I will lose myself. I’ve already lost all my close people. It’s gonna be too much, though.”       Peter hides his head between his knees and cries bitterly for several seconds before he hears the voice near him that sounds like his own:       “You noticed right. People aren’t a threat to you. You are a threat to yourself.”       Getting sharply pale from fear, Peter almost jumps and sets his widely open eyes on the man who looks the same as him and is wearing the same clothes as he did in his nightmare: a black t-shirt, black jeans, black shoes, and a black leather open jacket, with a choker on his neck. But his skin is not so pale, and his eyes are amber – just like his own. And Rose quickly understands that he sees Theodore Longbottom, his dark version, which he tries to deny so hard.       “You again?” Peter puts his head on his shoulder with a heavy breath.       “So, boy, did ya think your nightmare is over?” Theodore puts his hands on his hips. “You thought you’d wake up in your bed, understand it was a dream, and exhale with relief? Not at all!”       “Go… Leave me alone… Stop torturing me… Accept the fact that I don’t wanna accept you.”       “I shall leave in just one case: if you remember the past and decide to be Peter Rose. Before then, the game is on. You and I are inseparable for now. I am going to walk everywhere after you and fuck your brain. To drive you crazy more and more. So, you gave people a reason to think your mental health is not fine since you have been hallucinating for a long time. Especially when you feel bad.”       “I’m not crazy! I’M NOT CRAZY! YOU DON’T EXIST! YOU ARE JUST A PART OF MY IMAGINATION!”       “Not quite. I am a part of your soul that you will have to accept sooner or later. Since you know who I am and who your father and mother are.”       “NEVER!”       “Don’t worry, Peter, even if you’re put in a mental hospital, I will go with you. While you’re wearing a straitjacket, I shall be mocking you with impunity and speaking anything I want. And people will think you are out of your mind and feed you sedatives all the time. So, you always see the nightmares similar to the one you just saw.”       Theodore squats down in front of Peter and squeezes his jaw with his fingers, looking into the guy’s eyes closely.       “And now, when you’re broken, lonely, and unhappy, it’s gonna be much easier for me to annoy you and control your mind. Sometimes I shall get into your body to kick the ass of some pathetic people. Just like you and I did to your friends and those cowards who served Father. Those got out shortly, but these held on ‘til the very end. They thought they’d bring you back. But it’s impossible. Because I shall not leave your body until I want it. So, they must accept it.”       “I don’t wanna be alone…” Peter says in a shaking voice with a scare in his eyes and sniffs. “I don’t wanna lose the guys. I need them. I can’t accept the death of Helene without them.”       “You’ll not be alone, dude! You have me! You will always have!”       “I need my FRIENDS! Not the non-existing asshole, who was the reason why I behaved like a bastard toward those I loved!”       “It’s alright, you will overcome all five stages of acceptance of the situation and start to live well with the demons on your mind. You will become a new schizophrenic along with your relative named Felix, whom you’re gonna join in a mental hospital very soon when men in white robes take you under your arms, get a sedative into your ass, and lock you in a quiet room where the total silence is gonna drive you crazy as fuck.”       “I’m not crazy…” Peter hisses through his teeth. “NOT SICK! I AM ALRIGHT!”       Theodore says nothing more and just laughs evilly, looking contemptuously at Peter crying bitterly and breathing heavily with the thought that he cannot hide from the hallucination in the form of him. The one who has been adding fuel to the fire all this time and turning him against his close people. Rose having horror in his eyes looks closely in the eyes of his dark version twirling his ring with a pedant in the form of a volumetric skull, and not stopping to look at the one, whose sufferings he literally enjoys. Theodore looks like he is going to put Peter under awful torture again and again, and does not want to leave his copy alone until he makes the guy make a choice that is going to change his future.