The leaves were gleaming silently in the pale light of dawn. It created a strange atmosphere of loneliness: never before had I appeared to be in such a nothingness. To hear the quietest sound of anything was impossible. All the world around me seemed to have been immersed in endless dream of death. Peculiar silence around me was – however - in marked contrast to the obnoxious chaos in my mind. Weird anxiety swept over me. For some reason troubles appeared to me to be imminent, thus I had an irresistible feeling of impending disaster. Indeed there was something disturbing in the air.

After a moment thought I realized that I don’t really know where I am and how I’d got there, therefore the premonition of something bad, coming was quickly disrupted by an irrepressible desire to know the reason of my condition.

At the one moment two things struck me: first that I was tied to a chair and secondly that the dead body was lying next to me. I screamed inadvertently however nobody appeared.

I still couldn’t bear the silence around me, but the intensive smell of blood made me realize that I’m not dead (or at least that I’m not in nothingness).

At the time I fully regained the awareness, thus I was able to see everything clearly (nonetheless it was also my curse in that moment). I was in an old dusty room, with one small window and dirty, mouldy walls. The long stairs was in front of me (and presumably the door somewhere at the end). The leaves weren’t leaves really. They were just projections of my imagination. I could see a twig however. It started tapping on the windowpane gently disturbing (at last!) the silence. I looked at the dead man. ‘I wish this silent tapping could awake him.’ I thought to myself ‘He’d be able to tell me why we’re here.’.

His mouth was wide open, which expressed the last futile attempt of screaming. With all his facial expression full of despair and a kind of misunderstanding he seemed to be asking ‘Who had the audacity to kill me?’.

I was looking at him thoughtfully for a while. And then it hit me: He was Ryan Noblin – a detective involved in solving the mystery of an old house we were in. And to my horror he was also my mate.

I remembered that the old house on Tithebarn Street was a ‘residence’ of a serial killer.

Someone must have hit me, as I remembered also an all-encompassing pain engulfing my head and that I’d seen darkness then.

‘My name’s Merrick’ I whispered it to myself like if I wanted to hear any assurance of this fact.

It came to me that I had underestimated the difficulty of the task coming there. Having wished to find my brother I forgot how dangerous such a venture is.

Fortunately for me I coped with releasing myself – after a long struggle however. I began to climb up the stairs. Then I kicked the door with a furore. It went out of hinges, thus I was able to leave the cellar. As I did this I saw a dim shape emerging from darkness, so I placed myself very close to the wall. The corridor was such narrow that there were only a few centimeters left between me and the killer. The smell of death struck me with all its power.

These were the most horrible minutes in my life. The criminal must have been standing beside me not very long, but it was an eternity. At last to my relief that person started going down the stairs. I slid out of there, as quietly as I could. I began to run not taking care about direction. Meanwhile my eyes got used to dark. I saw another stairs. The faded daylight cast onto the last steps. I went towards it: a large yard was in the front. My brother was standing in the middle of it, scowling at me.

‘Lucas!’ I exclaimed. He didn’t answer. There was something strange in his eyes, something that made me tremble. But the thought that he was alive made me happy. I decided to run to my brother. I stopped two meters before him. He didn’t change his position. We stood in silence gazing at each other. The coldness of fear started to dominate over the rational thinking. Then Lucas whispered with a hoarse voice:

‘You know Merrick? It’s so hard to resist the darkness, which is inside of us. It’s so hard, so hard he was repeating and then screamed ‘Why??’

I didn’t know. I just asked with increasing agitation:

‘Who’s the killer?’

‘I am.’