That park again. That night again… The full moon hung overhead, two powerful women speaking in hushed tones. But this time, something felt different. She could feel it in her bones. She knew now it wasn’t just a dream. It was a memory. And she had control. She could choose to learn more. She had stepped onto a path of enlightenment, becoming the master of her own fate. She repeated it to herself like a mantra: I am ready for the truth. When the moment came, when the two women finally began to speak, she held her breath and listened.

  At first, there was nothing. Their voices were swallowed by the rustling leaves, but she wanted to hear them so badly, willed it so fiercely that she managed a small step forward. Then another. And another. The words, still soft, began to take shape.

  “I came to make sure you’ve made your decision, and that you don’t intend to change it,” said the woman with black hair.

  Her companion took a slow drag from her cigarette and replied,

  “It’s done. I knew from the start what I was agreeing to.”

  Silence. Alice’s heart pounded. She didn’t understand what they were talking about, but she knew a crucial choice had just been sealed, one demanding complete sacrifice from the weaker of the two. It was a sign. It told her she had to stay the course, that her path, the path to salvation, was the right one. She felt the weight of two lives on her shoulders. Failure was not an option.

  The despair lingered for days. That nagging feeling, that something in the order of the world had been thrown out of balance, would not go away. Eventually, though, her reserves of sadness dried up, and her guilt, as it so often did, curdled into childish resentment. She kept telling herself she wasn’t really responsible, that things could have turned out differently. In her mind, she replayed that day over and over, each time with new scenarios, new endings, until she began to forget how it had actually happened.

  The Not-a-Doctor never contacted her. Not once. She’d called out to him, begged repeatedly, but he never answered. Eventually, she gave up. Instead, she resolved to prove the black-haired one wrong. Completely wrong. She trained harder than ever before, gave more of herself than she thought she could. Day by day, the results became visible, but then came the real question: what was she supposed to do with all that potential? Where should she channel her energy? She wanted to be good… didn’t she?

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  Sometimes she dreamed she was a great healer of souls. The Not-a-Doctor would return and beg her forgiveness, and, in the kindness of her heart, she would grant it. Then she would heal him, cleanse him of the darkness festering in his heart. Reborn and radiant, he would look at her with such gratitude, as if she’d woken him from a nightmare he hadn’t known he was trapped in. His love for her in those dreams was pure, beautiful, limitless. But she… she could never accept it. Of course not. In those dreams, she was too good for that. Her actions were always noble, never driven by revenge or anything as petty as personal pain. No. Never that.

  And the more she dreamed these things, the more she felt the need to find her true path. She would spend whole days searching, diving deep into endless websites about energy cleansing, spiritual healing, and the purification of the world. And the deeper she went, the stronger her longing grew to attend a course or spiritual gathering. Would those devoted to God and the Universe recognize her energy? Naturally, she told herself, her interest came only from sincere personal growth. Never vanity.

  She attended her first parapsychology gathering a few months after that fateful trip. Helena and Walery objected; Gregory kept his opinion to himself. But Alice had made up her mind. The meeting was nearby, barely an hour’s drive from home, so if anything felt wrong, she could always turn back.

  It began in a warm, elevated atmosphere. The session opened with a collective cleansing meditation, followed by short introductions. As the youngest person in the room, Alice felt strangely important, different in the best possible way. So young, and already she had come so far. Naturally, her potential didn’t go unnoticed. The instructor immediately chose her as a partner for the exercises. They worked well together, though not because of the instructor’s skill. Alice ended up doing most of the work, but it didn’t bother her. She absorbed every word her new mentor spoke, soaking it up like a sponge. Open, trusting, uncritical… until she realized something was off.

  At first, she blamed her discomfort on nerves. Maybe it was just the intensity of learning something new, or maybe she was simply overwhelmed by contact with higher forces. But whatever it was, she felt tired, strangely sluggish. Her concentration slipped. The exercises, though simple, began to crumble. Still, she didn’t give up. She dug deep into her reserves of energy, until even those were draining at an alarming rate. Then she slowly opened her eyes. She knew this feeling. It was exactly how she’d felt when she slept in that cursed room. And within minutes, the certainty set in: someone was draining her life force. An hour later, disappointed but resolute, she discovered who the vampire was. And when she made the accusation publicly, she was thrown out of the workshop for allegedly defaming the instructor. Defeated but not broken, she went home. And she had no intention of giving up.