Althea felt, more than saw, the shade moving along her spine, a sticky sweat ran down her back, but she had just one thought on her mind, "It's not that painful, what's wrong?" Her father was trying to reach the shade with his swords, coming around Althea, but the shades were swift, and there were many of them. Althea noticed one touching her father's foot, another – reaching for his arm, and one more bubbling around his neck. She looked around – her father's soldiers each were fighting with two or three shades, getting burned from time to time, and trying to come closer to their leader, alas, they didn't move as quickly as the shades.

Althea let a scream of anger out, as she saw her father's clothes smoking, while he still tried to reach for the shade behind his daughter.

She felt the shade's warm touch on her shoulder, then sliding down to her waist, and further down. It was coiling around her legs and arms, trying to wrap her tighter, down her hands and feet – until it reached her fingers and toes, where it started dripping, turning into a puddle of thick stinking dirt around her.

Althea looked at the puddle surrounding her and jumped out of it, dropping a few of the bottles with potions and ointments on the ground. She looked around – the shades started sliding to the center of the village, leaving behind a trace of their wrath – a sleeve of someone's shirt, still smoking at the edges, and a shoe – seems, it was the bright red shoe of a little girl. Some of the shades slid around Althea's feet, tried to crawl up to her knees – she felt warmth for a moment before the shades seemed to have been pulled to the large cloud. Shrinking in size, they've collected now into one...