"It is not an easy tale to tell: I was in my room, putting pen to paper in order to write a letter of farewell to my friend Ahiru, a girl who had been almost as a younger sister to me. Master de Bergerac had recommended that I write it in order to ease my spirits," Titus relates.

"I had paused, wondering how this could have happened, how she could have vanished, and I tried to take comfort in the thought that perhaps she had merely found her way home to her own world. But then a voice spoke out of the darkness of the room, an unpleasant voice, which claimed that it had taken her. I challenged the voice, telling it to unhand her. It mocked me and I gave it an angry retort: instead it laughed at me, and that is when my hand moved as if pulled by invisible strings which another controlled. My hand opened a drawer of the desk and drew out a paper knife, which it started to stab toward my free hand. But somehow, by an act of the will, I forced my hand to obey me and I dropped the paper knife.

"After that, I could not bear to be solitary any longer, nor could I bear to sleep in case I should dream something horrible, and so I descended to the kitchen where your companion discovered me."