Alice was dead to the world. Marcel watched her warily. She had changed. Since he’d met her, she had been changing a little every day. At first, it was barely noticeable. He didn’t pay much attention to her different behavior or the things she said. She was still young; her character was still forming; the process of her convictions solidifying had only just begun. That’s what he told himself, what he repeated the entire time they lived together. But those were just pretty lies. Now he was sure of it.

  He stood over the bed, watching the sleeping witch, and wondered when she had stopped being a girl and become a woman. When had she lost all her freshness? When had the gentleness vanished from her eyes? When had she become so… powerful?

  Honestly, it was predictable. The demon who looked after her wasn’t raising some fragile little bird for his bedplay. He had a goal, and he needed Alice as a tool. A strong, stable tool. He had been teaching her all this time. Even if he didn’t appear often, even if he didn’t talk to her regularly, he was still shaping her somehow, still pressing her into the mold he’d prepared.

  Alice, why did you agree to this? Were you even aware of it?

  The moment of reflection dragged on. He looked at the witch and saw, in her face, the shadow of that still somewhat naive girl, slightly overestimating herself but full of potential. That sight hurt him in its own way.

  They hadn’t lived together well, but he liked her, just as she liked him. They argued, they kept hurting each other, but in the end… No. Actually, that was a lie. He tolerated her because he had to, and she had sadistic tendencies, and that was the end of the story. On the other hand, his heart wasn’t made of stone, so he pitied her for this monstrous transformation. In his eyes, she was becoming less and less human, less and less alive. As if her existence was a necessity, and the only pleasure in life was achieving the next goal set for her, reaching for an absurdly high bar.

  He had no right to criticize it, but it shouldn’t work like that. He couldn’t quite pinpoint what the real problem was. He just looked at her, felt sick, and his mind was a mess.

  Hours passed. The sun slowly rose. Alice still slept, but the energy around her began to lazily even out. Marcel was tormented by a vague premonition that the immense power he sensed from the witch was really only a fraction of her true strength. The thought terrified him.

  He felt movement. First, a twitch. Then a jolt. Then the energy in the room rippled. He knew this feeling, or rather something close to it. Someone had entered their world. Someone who shouldn’t be here. Power flooded in. The might that revealed itself was enormous compared to anything Marcel possessed. Something was approaching.

  Anxiety climbed higher and higher. He should wake Alice, he should warn her, but he couldn’t. He stood paralyzed. Some part of him screamed that there wasn’t much time, that he had to act, but the other part, the one buried very deep, forced him into inaction.

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  “This is better,” he thought. Before she loses what’s left of her humanity. Before she becomes a monster.

  The thing that entered Alice’s bedroom didn’t seem even remotely human. It was maybe five feet tall, with a sinewy body and yellow-gray skin. It was bald. It had no earlobes, only indentations on both sides of its head, probably auditory organs. Huge, night-black eyes and a mouth full of razor-sharp fangs. Its arms nearly reached the floor, its legs grotesquely short and deformed.

  How could something so caricatured carry such an energetic charge?

  Marcel held his breath, a reflex from a life he no longer had. He waited, tense, to see what it would do. Somewhere deep inside him, a seed of guilt sprouted, but it was already too late to act.

  Alice, as if sensing the approaching threat, groaned quietly and slowly turned onto her other side. Every movement seemed to hurt; exhaustion was written all over her face. The creature noticed. Its distorted snout twisted into a grotesque smile, and drool dripped onto the floor. Claws extended from its bony fingers.

  Marcel tried to scream, but he couldn’t make a sound.

  A thought flashed through his mind: this is all bullshit. Who ever heard of being afraid even after death? It’s vile of God to arrange the universe so that even death brings no relief.

  The creature approached the bedside, stood over Alice, and watched her patiently. It looked as if it were savoring its meal, admiring it before consumption. At the same time, it seemed to be waiting for something, though nothing could be read from such an inhuman face.

  Alice groaned again, and her eyes moved restlessly beneath her lids. She was waking up. The tension grew, becoming almost unbearable for Marcel. The witch groaned a second time and tried to lift her eyelids, but quickly closed them and covered her eyes with her hands, curling into herself on the bed.

  The creature tensed the muscles in its arms.

  Alice felt someone standing over her. She wanted to ignore it, but her intuition told her to wake up. She felt vile, as if someone had put her through a wringer, broken all her bones with a hammer, crushed her skull in a vise, and poured acid into her stomach. Was this heartburn? Good God, was this heartburn? She’d never had heartburn in her life. The world should burn.

  She tried to open her eyes, but the light hurt. Sounds hurt too. Her own breathing seemed grotesquely loud, like someone had strapped a giant ventilation duct to her nose. Had she always breathed that heavily? That loudly? How could she not have noticed before?

  She didn’t have time. Her intuition was howling, warning her harder and harder.

  Alice lifted her eyelids once more, then immediately closed them and covered her eyes. No. Whatever was threatening her could politely wait until she pulled herself together. She hadn’t felt this shitty in a long time. On top of it all, her stomach was twisting itself into knots.

  She had to get up, whether she liked it or not. Sure, she could puke on the floor, but then she’d have to clean it up herself, so that would be stupid, right?

  She sat up, and it was easily one of the hardest decisions of her life. The effort was enormous, and the simple act of lifting her torso was downright heroic. Still, she managed it.

  Her intuition was still screaming, but she ignored it without much trouble, because the priority now was keeping the contents of her stomach where they belonged, and that was getting harder by the second.

  She shuffled to the edge of the bed, knowing she wouldn’t last long. The bathroom was calling louder and louder. She swung her legs to the floor and the room tilted. She rested her head in her hands and took a few deep breaths. The world spun around her.

  Stomach flu, or some aftereffect of her last trip? Whatever it was, it was finishing her off, second by second. The nausea intensified. Alicja lifted her head and…