17

The night, saturated with the smell of blood and fear, tormented me, mercilessly dragging me through all the circles of hell again and again.

I was afraid to sleep, I was afraid to lie in the dark, but I was also afraid to turn on the light so as not to give out that I was not sleeping, which means that something was wrong.

Through the sound of the rain, I occasionally heard footsteps outside the door. Uncertain and cautious, they most likely belonged to Alyosha, in the role of a faithful nanny I now doubted, as I doubted everything in general.

Pasha... The young doctor who took care of me paid with his life... For what? For silence? But about what?

"You mustn't believe..." I heard him say over and over again.

The answer was obvious: I shouldn't have believed Boris.

Even then, in the hospital, Pasha did not want to let me go home, he wanted me to stay there, perhaps to protect me, to tell the truth about what happened to me, or rather, who did this to me.

Boris told me that there were