It was already midnight, and in that grime of town in which he was condemned to live, there was no longer a human wandering by the streets. But the streets were not desert...

In the distance the plaintive howl of a dog was heard, afraid of something that could not be seen by mortal eyes.

He locked the door of his room with the key and prepared everything for the ritual. Once drawn those strange symbols in the walls, he lit the lamp and covered it with a red screen, bathing the room with a bloody light.

With the eyes closed and the mind empty, he began to intone a strange melody, without words, but which talked about fear, despair and death. He allowed his sensations to wrap him, and he suddenly disappeared in the darkness.

Some swear that they heard him scream while a shade escaped through the closed windows, but nobody could assure anything, because the dark night without moon nor stars, confused the mind of the men and the women suddenlly pulled off from their sleep.

When the morning arrived, he woke up surrounded by people whose faces seemed to recognize, but that in fact didn't remember. They called him for a name that seemed to be kept in a corner of his memory, now forbidden for him. -What happens here?- Asked once and again. -What am I doing in this place? Why don't you leave me alone!!- he shouted. He took his clothes and got dressed to leave the place. He went out to the street and ran, ran for hours until his body could not stay on foot, and there, in middle of the desolate, dry and inhospitalle hills, was surprised by a new night.

He stood up when the moon just was showing from behind the Hill of the Cross, so distant now that it hardly was distinguished the shade of the symbol that gives it its name. Going away of the town, bound to the cemetery, he was seen for last time that week. Many believed that he had run toward his end among the cliffs, beyond the creek of the Sweet Water, near the Vicuña Hill.

Suddenly, he appeared one day in front of his house. Exhausted, sweaty and with an expression of great fear, he let himself fall on the stairway by the entrance. He didn't speak to anybody, but he clearly understood all that they were saying.

Who knew him better, said that something lacked in his gaze. No longer there was passion neither cunning. There was not pain neither pleasure. In fact, a spark of life was scarcely noticed.

What have happened in those days, when was he alone in the desert? Nobody could know but from his own lips, that remained invariably closed when they tried to talk about it.

One day one of his friends went to look for him at his house and found him writing in a notebook. He didn't say anything, but the expression of fear that deformed his face indicated that perhaps he was remembering something, something that truly was not easy to support. Finally, he left the pen at one side, closed the notebook and gave it to Edward, his friend, crossed his arms on his cheast, leaning on the desk and his head fell over the wooden surface, while a harrowing cry shook him completely.

Although the curiosity was eating him inside, the sight of his friend in that condition distracted Edward from the notebook that had between his hands. He tried to animate him, of consolate him, but without any result. He took him out, together with other friends, to eat some sandwiches, to drink something and to see some movies, anything that could distract him. When the calm and the serenity returned to his gaze, they led him back to his house and they left him when he was already sleeping.

Now they were all together. The notebook burned in the hands of Edward and in the eyes of the others. Everyone, with a feeling of strange morbidity, wanted to know what had happened in the head of their friend, what was what had transformed this happy person, full of vitality and enthusiasm, always in search of adventures (all the ones he was allowed to have in the enviroment that surrounded them) in little more than a zombie without emotions nor feelings.

Edward opened the notebook and began to read aloud:

"I finally could remember all that happened, from that night in which, playing with an unknown ritual, I invoked the black magic that lies inside me, as well as inside all humans. Something was liberated inside me, something that could not control and that stole all what was really mine: my dreams, my memories and my feelings. I saw it going out by the closed window and get lost in the night, beyond the cypresses."

"I don't know what happened during the day, but I remember clearly how, the next night, I woke up halfway between the town and the cemetery. The light of the moon appeared and, I believed, projected shades that deceived my imagination. But the shades moved and one of them approached to me. When it was right by my side, I could not refrain the surprise, much less the fear: the shade was identical to me. It took my hand and dragged me to the cemetery. Next to an empty hole, he indicated me to sit down, because we had to speak. I was paralyzed and was not able to react, I only looked, with the eyes outside of orbit, at that spectre that with its single gaze was mocking of me."

" what are you afraid of?- the shadow asked. - Were you not the one who called me, who liberated me of the ties that kept me binded to the most hidden corner of your thoughts?"

"I Now understood why, when I read the book that contained the rite, a dark fear dominated me, and also seduced me, when I read the warning: ' Who initiates the ritual, should be prepared to face the worst of the fears, because will have to face the Dark being that dwells in the deep'. I believed it would be a story about invoking spirits or something similar, and I continued ahead... But now I realized that it was what dwells in the deep of each one and that since we are born we try to hide... our own Dark side."

" -And well, what does it happen?- did he say staring at me. - do you understand now what happens?- he laughed with malice."

" - Now you will know why you have always tried to hide me, of forgetting me inside your big and empty head avid to know me, and you are going to do it because you asked for it.-"

what happened then I am not able to put it in words, but at least I'll make an attempt."

"I Saw a body at the bottom of the tomb. I looked at it with detention and I realized that it was mine, with clear marks of a violent death. The pain as last expression was all that there was on my face. - What does it mean all this?- did I ask him.
- And what do you think? - he said with irony - you're seeing your future - he added. - But don't be afraid, that your body won't suffer that torture, but what you call soul will! - He laughed, deceiving of me during a time that seemed infinite."

" I Woke up in my house, surrounded of people that, the same that myself, wanted to know what had happened. But who could understand it, if I was not sure about anything? My mind is but pieces, fragments. My reason is about to disappear, because the Dark that's inside me is free, consuming until the last of my energies. There's nothing to do now, just surrender and stop it on the only way that I believe possible..."

There, a tear marked the end of the writing. Scared, they looked at each other and ran to the house of their friend. They found him in his bed, his eyes closed. He breathed calmly, like they had never seen him, but his skin was pale and cold. He opened the eyes slowly and a smile tried to be drawn on his colorless lips. He whispered something that only Edward was able to hear, and after that, he never breathed again...

Edward turned to the others and repeated, among sobs, the last words of their friend: "I did it..."