The path to the castle was barely visible – covered by bushes and trees, yet it was there. Faint, stubbornly still getting by, it’s purpose still fueled by foots of those who were looking down on it. To not trip.

That was my mistake. Every time a bookworm in the shape of me went out, he stared up and sideways, instead of minding the way. While the way always had its hidden agendas and on one of those agendas I stubbed my toe.

I didn’t dare to cry out in pain, no, not in the castle’s presence so near. I could see its empty, windowless eyes, numbered in hundreds, gazing into nothingness… I hissed. Loudly. Adam looked behind his shoulder with visible discontentment.

“First you don’t wanna go, then you go, now you injure yourself, a minute after pointing out we should be back before it gets dark?”, he said.

“I sssstubbed my toe.”, I replied.

“Oh.” - discontentment didn’t really vanish completely, leaving a distinguishable note in his voice - “Let me see.”

He hopped over the tree trunk which was lying there, fallen, for so long, it was crumbling slightly with every attempt to walk on it, and examined my foot. Still in my sock. In the shoe.

“Nah, you didn’t even shout, it’s okay.” - was the verdict. He added: “Come on, if you want to be back before dark, you have to move.”

He kicked the trunk. It did not kick him back. Then he turned slowly towards me, trying to clad on a villain-like expression.

“Or you can lie there and wait till some gang comes at dusk and eats your fears alive.”

I graced him with a frown for such a blatant disregard of my worries, then stood up and limped to him. After crawling over the tree and being concerned with the plethora of life it had thriving inside noticing my existence, I quickly forgot about the whole occurrence involving my foot.

The main entrance was closed and all the windows on the ground level had been shut with bleak wooden planks. With lots of splinters. After going around through knee-deep mud, we discovered an entrance to the cellars behind some furniture junk. As I leaned into the dark gaping mouth of the unknown, Adam pushed me.

As you can imagine, I didn’t die. At that moment. Not physically, at least.

The interior was as dark as could be expected from a sub-ground-level cellar without any light sources other than the hole I came in from. The bricks were damp and in-between them dwelled ancient layers of dead and alive moss, their fate intertwined. But I couldn’t see too well, because Adam was blocking the entrance.

As I glanced back at him, standing with his hands on both sides of the opening, I almost felt his grin being placed on me by his stare. I couldn’t validate my assumption, though, as to me, in that moment, he was made of shadow, with his contour lined by color, on the background of light.

Little did I know then that later I would bundle up all the meaningless details and label them as omens. A foreplay to a tragedy, for which I would blame myself, even though I had no gift of premonition clear enough to make me know how to tune my actions accordingly to generate an output that would better the small world I lived in. A world I perceived as enormous and unknown, yet familiar to the extent of boundaries I wandered to – the neighborhood and it’s inhabitants. I was a fool to fear everything, but I was an equal fool for discarding the fear that so far had kept me alive till then.