But Nikto beat him. Having seized her hands, he forcefully threw Emba away from him. Falling, she hit the bed, hissed.

“What a pity you weren't there, in the alley,” said Arel, looking down at her from the bed.

“What is he saying,” she asked.

“He regrets that he did not kill you in his time,” Niktoanswered, getting up from his chair.

Emba laughed nervously.

“Good boy! Oh, he would never think to harm you and spoil himself!”

“Feed him”, ordered Nikto and took a step towards the bed.

Emba recoiled.

“No!”

Very quickly, Nikto approached and yanked her up, hurled her at Arel.

“No!” Emba screamed, fear now clearly visible on her face without expression before. She looked around nervously, and her gaze fell to the door.

“Don't even try,” said Nikto.

Emba rushed to the door. Nikto sharply threw forward his hand, trying to grab her? Emba was incredibly fast, lightning like a snake. She was halfway to the door when she fell, collapsed like a bag, clumsily entangled in a dress? Raising her head, she opened her mouth, closing her eyes, it was possible to decide that she would now scream with all her strength, scream wildly, loudly. But any sound came from her lips.

“It’s useless to scream, Emba,” Nikto chuckled. “No matter how loud you scream, the “unclean” will not hear you here. This castle was built by literate people, and these walls are suppressed by the cries of people like you!’

“So that's why you lured me here!” she darted around the room, clawing at the walls in desperation. Not letting Nikto go to her.

“Your own curiosity lured you here! I just invited you to come, and if you can, to help me.”

“I helped! I did everything that is necessary!”

“This is not enough for me!”

“Do not come close! Do not come to me!”

“You don’t have to do anything that I ask!” despite her fierce resistance, Nikto still managed to grab her, writhing, splashing her saliva. He was stronger, wringing her hands in several precise movements, grabbing a knife and slashing Emba around her wrist. Dark, maroon, almost black blood spurted from the cut.

“It will cost you a lot!” she hissed, choking with rage and pain, it seemed that only her full of hatred not blinking eyes can destroy.

“Do what I said!” Nikto again threw her on the bed to Arel. Arel recoiled in horror.

“Well, you regret it! Take it!” Emba held out her cut, bloody hand to him. “Eat, little bastard!”

And then Arel felt Nikto grabbing his hair, putting pressure on the back of his head and pushing him forward to that nasty hand.

“No!” Arel tried to escape. His lips touched warm and dry skin and something else cold and clammy. He felt his stomach bouncing to his throat from stupefying disgust. He felt Nikto throw his head back up, not letting him expel that mucus that had already fallen into his mouth.

Already flowed on his throat. And already IT was pressed to his lips again, and Arelshouted, vomiting IT out of himself, and each time his mouth was filled with IT again and again.

Chapter two

Recovery

He walked down the street; it seems that it was Lower City. Too narrow streets and pressing clutter of houses. The streets did not rise up and down, and did not loop. It looks like it was already a flat level. Arel has never been here, and now was he really where he thought he was?

And was this him? Arel did not understand. He could not even imagine that such streets exist. He never thought about what the city looks like there, on the plain. There was no difference to him? But now, now everything looked too plausible, really, and for some reason he believed that the Lower City plain was like that and no other. He just knew it, knew without a shadow of doubt and hesitation. Did his diseased brain or inflamed imagination create this world? Create everything so carefully, to the smallest detail, to every stone, every crack on a peeling wall? No, that would be too much! He could not imagine all this. It was all real, it was all real. And if he comes to himself, wakes up and goes there, for example, tomorrow, he will find these streets, see them again and find out. However, to see them, he had to peer. Vision let him down, he could not understand what was happening, at another moment, completely losing orientation in space.

It was a bright sunny summer day. He understood this and felt, and at the same time he knew that now it was not summer at all, but only the beginning of spring, and he could not be there, on the Lower City, and even on a summer day. And yet he was there.

Arel like a mole slowly walked an unknown destination, all the while keeping a hand on the walls. The houses here stood close to each other, and when one house ended, the next one started – it helped him. Several times he pressed against the saving wall, letting the horsemen pass by. They flashed in his mind as completely indistinguishable silhouettes, vague shadows, and he rather heard their approach and therefore pressed into the wall than saw them. And yet, despite all the precautions, he nearly fell a couple of times, his legs did not obey him any less than his eyes. Gods, he was lame! “All this only seems to me! It only seems! It seems to me that I am Nikto! I am he!” – thought Arel, with a kind of horror and at the same time delight.

It was so weird. The whole world around was different, it was his world and at the same time not his, completely alien. But this is probably even more attractive. His body also became different, denser, heavier, wider at the shoulders. A very strong body, but some kind of clumsy, it didn’t seem to work, because it needed “water”, “water”, “water”, “water” …

Now he felt that he had not eaten or drunk for a long time, but these feelings were somewhere in the background. Perhaps his body needed it, but the brain did not care. His brain was empty. No thoughts, feelings, emotions, just some echoes of thoughts, vague fragments that he could not catch and realize. And sheer indifference. Where is he going? What for? Arel did not know. Did not understand. And he didn't care. When he was himself, he always knew what he needed or at least he thought he knew. He knew where to go and why. What he has to do. He always went somewhere, toward a goal, did something, or did not, but also thought about it, at the same time already thinking what he would do

next, what he would do tomorrow, and what he must do. And that he had to do necessarily, but did not. And only now he understood how all this knowledge weighed and limited him.

His legs were confused, he had never walked so slowly in his life, and vague spots around him were frightening. He did not see what was happening, and it was dangerous. And if they attack him? Strangely, these thoughts did not cause any emotions, just as the thought that he was hungry and dying of thirst. Such aloofness in Arel caused some kind of incomprehensible pleasure, some kind of perverted sense of freedom. He probably still fainted for a while, as if falling out of this continuity, and then regained consciousness and realized that it was dark in the street and he could see better! And he hears nearby the murmur of water.