It had been a long process, and one she barely understood. It had gone on for years, so the changes inside her came slowly, almost imperceptibly. But as everything crept toward an end, even she began to notice the difference. When she looked in the mirror, she could no longer pretend nothing had changed.

  It’s normal. There’s a child with ideals. The child grows older, and its dreams grow with it. Then comes adolescence. Everything flips upside down. Hormones go wild, no one understands anyone, and the world is just plain stupid. Old ideals seem outdated, new ones take their place, but they’re still ideals. Then comes a kind of calm. The process begins to wind down. You care less. Believe less. Everyday life starts creeping in. That’s when the culling begins. It’s the massacre of ideals. They fall one by one. There’s no time for grand funerals, no time for grieving. Graves appear side by side. Then adulthood comes. Whatever ideals survived until now… well, they won’t survive much longer. There’s no room left for sentiment. One grave remains—a mass grave.

  Alice was still young, but the days kept passing, and with them came years and experience. Her brush with hypnosis taught her to be extremely cautious, but it didn’t kill her hunger for knowledge. Everyday life did. She kept searching. She traveled, faced disappointment after disappointment, and came back home. It was a vicious cycle that lasted two years.

  Her eighteenth birthday passed without much celebration, without much joy either. Of course, her loved ones celebrated. They were happy. The three spirits who had raised her felt the occasion far more deeply than she did. Her mind was still buzzing with an endless list of failures and disappointments. That day brought yet another, because nothing—absolutely nothing—changed after that so-called amazing eighteenth birthday, except that the state handed her a piece of paper confirming she was an adult. Well. She wasn’t exactly surprised.

  She’d traveled the entire country looking for people with extraordinary gifts. After turning eighteen, she expanded her search abroad. But she felt desperately alone in her mission. Not a day went by when her thoughts didn’t drift, even if only for a moment, to the black-haired man she had once called the Not-a-Doctor. What was he doing? Did he still remember her? Of course, she tried to control it. The harder she tried, the worse it got.

  Her constant disappointments only made it worse. She’d set off to meet people praised as saints, only to find frauds or individuals so weak it was pathetic compared to her own potential. Some of them had knowledge that seemed useful. Some could even perform remarkable feats, but still, there was no true talent. They were charismatic, but she didn’t follow any of them. None were good enough.

  A few times, she crossed paths with cults. She came dangerously close to serious harm the first time. They took her away, confiscated her documents, and tried to brainwash her with their magnificent stories. Luckily, one of the girls in that group, a long-time member, committed a murder. The police arrived. If not for that, maybe she never would’ve made it out. After that, a question surfaced: Was the world really that cruel, or was she just that stupid?

  She started working on herself—on her mind, her resilience. She still sought goodness. Still wanted to save the world. Still kept stumbling into more trouble. She didn’t even realize when her heart stopped believing so fiercely. She tried to protect her ideals, but they no longer held the strength they once did. One day, she looked in the mirror and realized she was no longer the same Alice. What a shame she had no one to share that with.

  One time, she traveled to the other end of the country for yet another course. It wasn’t nearly as interesting as advertised. The instructor left much to be desired, though, in fairness, he had some potential. After just a few hours, she seriously considered heading home early.

  But then she noticed a man sitting nearby. He was a few years older than her, fairly handsome, and something about him piqued her interest. Unconsciously, instinctively, she kept glancing his way. And when their eyes met, she flushed crimson and scolded herself silently: Don’t act like this is some cheap romance novel. Still, she couldn’t stop looking at him.

  When they announced a break, he walked over to her as if it were the most natural thing in the world. They started talking. He had a pleasant voice, a gentle gaze, and he smelled good. For the first time, Alice met a man who truly interested her. For the first time, she felt something awaken in her. It was something that, years later, she would confidently call desire. She didn’t understand why, but she couldn’t resist him. He wasn’t model material. He wasn’t a genius. He didn’t surpass her in any meaningful way. But he looked at her as if no one else existed. As if she was the only one who mattered. She forgot the whole world. She saw only him.

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  After the course, she gave him her email. With a pounding heart, she checked her inbox multiple times a day. She knew it was madness, but what did she have to lose? He appeared in her dreams. She thought of him constantly. She daydreamed, sighed… Was this love? At least, that’s what she thought it might be. How could she know? No one like that had ever been in her life before.

  He talked with her, laughed at her jokes, admired her intellect, gave her compliments, called her, and texted her until he was all that mattered. Only him. Only what he said. Only what he wanted.

  Madness.

  A quiet voice deep inside her warned that it was all happening too fast, too suddenly, but she ignored it. She was a good person now. She gave love, and love came back to her in the form of her dream man. That’s how she justified it all. The man of her dreams. A prince on a white horse. The one who would free her once and for all from the tyranny of the evil demon and…

  No.

  She wouldn’t think about that. About Him. Her Not-a-Doctor. He was gone.

  She met the dream man during another course. She didn’t hesitate to accept his invitation to dinner, then drinks, and finally to his room. She knew where it was heading. She didn’t feel ready, but she didn’t feel unready either… She was torn, but not because this would be her first time. No, that wasn’t it. She had been waiting for this moment, thinking about it for weeks on end, imagining it in detail. Different versions had played in her mind, day and night. But every time, she ended up in that bed with someone entirely different… and she was ashamed to admit it even to herself.

  Unlike the Not-a-Doctor, this man was gentle. He was tender. He was warm. He was completely devoted to her. She had no right to do this to him. No right to hesitate now. No right.

  “Bullshit,” she whispered in the shower just before. “The Not-a-Doctor is gone.

  And I’ve found a fairy tale prince. There’s no point in picking at old wounds.”

  And she kept repeating it like a mantra. Over and over. While he touched her, undressed her, kissed her, stroked her, put on some awful music, and scattered rose petals on the bed.

  The Not-a-Doctor would never do something so cheesy, she thought, and then added: But he’s not here.

  The dream man kissed her breasts, licked, nibbled, gently squeezed. He smiled when she moaned.

  The Not-a-Doctor would know I was faking it. He’d know I felt nothing.

  He kissed her stomach, her thighs, touched her, teased her…

  The Not-a-Doctor wouldn’t slobber all over me, she snarled inwardly, feeling revulsion swell inside her. But he wasn’t here.

  He hadn’t been there for a long time. Meanwhile, the man began to touch her labia, slipped slender fingers inside her, whispered in her ear.

  Stop it, she begged silently. Stop! Come and stop it! Don’t let him be the first!

  He entered her, and she felt pain. That’s it, she thought, disappointed. It’s over.

  She went to the bathroom to wash herself again. It was just an excuse to flee for a moment, to avoid looking at him.

  “You were supposed to stop it,” she whispered, as softly as she could. “You were supposed to show up at the last moment, take his place, give me pleasure. From you, I would’ve accepted even the worst pain. If only it had been you…”

  And she said nothing more. There was nothing left to say. Because the truth had finally hit her. She had been lying to herself all along. There was no fairy tale prince. No perfect man. There was only her desperate desire to get the Not-a-Doctor back. That’s all. Only him. Only for her. He was the only one she thought of as she fell asleep in a stranger’s arms that night.

  She saw a bar on the outskirts of town, a few drunks reeking of cheap vodka, and her—tucked into a dark corner, playing with a lighter. She pushed open the barely-hinged doors and glanced at the bartender. He was a mature man in a white shirt and black vest.

  Inferno, she thought.

  Then her gaze shifted to the woman sitting in the corner of the room. The stranger was watching her, studying her. The tension began to build, the atmosphere thickened, and although no one seemed to pay special attention, something about it felt so dangerous it silenced the men’s conversations.

  Pyromaniac, thought Alice, still staring deeply into the madwoman’s eyes.

  The dream man never called again. They met a few more times during later courses, ended up in bed a couple more times, but it meant nothing to either of them. No pain, no pleasure. It wasn’t love, and he wasn’t a prince from a fairy tale. Eventually, the truth hit Alice hard. He wanted her body; she wanted freedom from the curse of the cold eyes of the man she had lost. Another grand illusion died. Another ideal ceased to exist.

  Ultimately, she saw it as a fair exchange. She gave him satisfaction; he gave her the chance to test, in practice, the knowledge she’d gained about manipulating life energy during intercourse. When both had finally had enough, it all faded away naturally. They never saw each other again.