A child of two worlds can only live in one. That meant two choices that he could make: suffer a life of hardship in this miserable world, or cross over to the next. The second choice was a seductive one, one more preferable than the first one, and it had a catch.

To enter that world, he would have to die in this one. The thought of death was not a comforting one . . . Not after witnessing that of his father. His father had been a good man, but he had taken up with a woman from the other world . . . As soon as the truth had come out he became a dead man. His son would be the next.

“Come join us,” his mother said in her soft voice, reaching toward him. She was offering him a sword. “There is no pain or suffering, no death . . .”

He took her silent offering; then, holding his breath, he did the inevitable: he impaled himself upon the sword, his sword, crumpling in a heap. As he bled out, he realized that there had never been much of a choice.

It was all inevitable.

“Life is a horror,” he thought.