The feeling was unfamiliar. But so enjoyable. A combination of confidence, intuition, anticipation, a premonition of a chic game, passion into one pattern. It was as if all the good that was in me before I got into this terrible place was imprinted on the polished surface of black obsidian and acquired a shocking meaning in the reflection. New me. Vika, her fingers scalded in milk, floating on the crests of cold waves. Vika, who did not realize that her mind could be used for evil, as she had previously wanted.

I will stand. This is natural selection. And I will not become one of the victims, giving way to...