I wake up to find myself in a very dark place. Around me, three other women huddle together sobbing, and I recognize them as the women from Rivodutri. I failed to rescue them from the Ghibellines. Omero! I silently call out, but I sense a void inside my head where my tiny bird Chimaera should be. The distance between us is much too great. If I have any hope of escape, it must be by my own hand.

I scramble around the small jail cell, searching in the dark for anything at all useful. Within the jail walls, I find a small pile of dirt, some broken bits of the stone wall, and a wooden bench. My brain rushes with possibilities. Finally I decide on my course of action.

"What are you doing?" a woman finally asks me.

"Escaping," I say in a confident whisper. "Keep your voices down, everyone!" I hiss.

I spread the dirt in a circle and trace my finger to create a Reduction Circolo. "Listen everyone," I whisper. "I shall shrink you down so you may slip between the bars of the cell. There is no need to fear, as you will remain small for only a moment. Trust in me, my friends, and we shall escape."

"What sorcery is this?" a woman asks, eyeing my Circolo suspiciously.

"Not sorcery. Alchemy," I explain in a quick hush. "It is no more evil than your own children, I assure you. Trust in me and you shall see your families again. Quickly now, you first." I point to the nearest woman, but she shakes her head furiously.

"Is anyone brave enough to go first?" I ask. The women all shake their heads. "There is nothing to fear!" I insist in a quiet raspy voice. "I cannot shrink myself first to prove to you all that it is safe. You must trust me! I beseech you!"

Finally, the third woman approaches, breathing in shuddering gasps. "You promise it won't hurt me?"

"I assure you! Come!" I wave her over, grab the nearby stones and once she is situated over the Circolo, I say, "Minuo!" and she shrinks down with a flash of orange light. The women all gasp, and the noise and light alerts someone on the far side of the room.

He approaches, and I recognize the man who kidnapped me.

With a gasp, I urge the next woman to step on the Circolo as I pick up the first one in her tiny state and move her. "Minuo!" I say again, and another rock on my hand disappears as the orange light shrinks the lady. Then there is only one left, but our kidnapper has been struggling with the door and will be in here any moment.

I urge the last woman to stand on the Circolo as I move the second tiny woman to stand with the first. "Minuo!" I shout, and my Anima completes the Conversion with a blast of orange light, just as the cell door swings open.

"How dare you!" the man bellows. He easily scoops up the shrunken women immediately and takes them with him, banging the door shut behind him. I try to go after him, but it is too late. The locked door won't budge. In the blink of an eye, the three women disappear in the ugly man's hand.

"What will you do with them?" I ask, my voice shaky in the silence of the dark room.

"You'll see," he says. "I, Salvatore, will show you my might in Alchemy." Then he starts a fire in the fireplace and lights a few candles with the flame. He puts the women in a small birdcage on his table. I can hear their small voices screaming for help, and it pains my heart to see that I have failed to save them again. Salvatore sets about drawing a Circolo on a large piece of parchment, which I cannot see from this distance. Oddly enough, he finishes the Insignia by piercing his finger with a blade and tracing over every line of the Circolo in blood.

Salvatore steps toward the dark corner, where a large cage sits amid shadows. He opens the cage, and the noise of flapping wings beating against the cage fills the room. When Salvatore comes back into the light, I can see that he has a tiny creature in his grasp. I step up to the bars and peer into the darkness.

Salvatore holds the animal in one hand and a Component in another, and says, "Navitas!" In a flash of yellow light, he sets the creature still on the Circolo drawn on the bloodstained parchment, and it doesn't try to escape. I can distinguish it in the darkened room: a bat with brown fur and gray wings.

In eerie silence, the man takes one of the women from the birdcage; her screams claw at my heart. "Stop! I beg you!" I call out in a wavering voice.

Salvatore pushes the woman down onto the bloodstained parchment beside the bat, which leaps on top of her back amid her frantic shrieks. "Unesco!" he calls out, and to my horror I realize what Salvatore is doing. He is making a Chimaera! An Alchemical beast. But unlike my bird Omero, this monstrosity will be made out of a human being and a bat! I scream as I watch the tiny woman slowly transform before my eyes.

The bat slowly sinks down into her flesh, making her skin gray and connecting her arms to her sides with webbed wings as her clothes rip away to reveal her gray naked body. Her fingers elongate into claws with long nails. The woman's ears grow and come to points, and her teeth turn into razor sharp fangs. With a shriek that sounds remarkably like a woman's but different at the same time, she turns to look at me, her pitch-black eyes glaring.

To my horror, the evil man creates a second and a third Chimaera with two more bats and the other two women. I crumple to the floor of the jail cell as I watch the monstrous act. Tears drown out the images so that by the third woman, all I can see is blurry orange light while the woman's screams turn into the shrieks of the bat-like Chimaera.

What's worse is that the monstrous women now seem to adore the evil man. They fly around him, land on his shoulder, and stroke his back and chest with their webbed wing-arms. Then Salvatore returns to that dark cage in the corner and takes out one last bat. My heart jolts as I realize what he is going to do.

Salvatore holds the bat in his hand and says, "Navitas!" Amid yellow light, the bat stops flailing its wings and goes still in the Alchemist's hands. He reaches for a potted plant at the end of his table and yanks a leaf free. "Augendi!" he says, and with a shimmer of orange light, he enlarges the bat; in its enlarged state, the bat is a gruesome sight. Deep black eyes, long fangs, snub nose, giant ears. It lays on the floor, its wings spread out to either side of it, so large they fill the room.

Salvatore finds an open space in the room, where he kneels with a pot of something black. He begins to draw a Circolo using soot from the pot, and I recognize the Unification Sigil. Then he takes his knife and proceeds to slit his palm open, and I realize what will become of me.

My heart races, and I return to my Reduction Conversion Circolo, scramble for a stone in the jail cell, step onto my Circolo and say, "Minuo!" My Kundalini stirs at my spine. I chant the Code Word as I cajole my Spirit to rise through my Chakras. Finally, with a rush, my Kundalini bursts through my Crown Chakra and swirls toward the Circolo I drew in the dirt. In a flash of orange light, I shrink myself.

"You shall not escape me!" Salvatore bellows, and he points at me. I run as fast as I can to the door of the cell and crawl through the bars. But the dark Alchemist sends his new bat-women Chimaeras to stop me. They fly around me on their bat-like wings, land so they are surrounding me, and hiss in human-like voices. They mostly look human, but with bat-like fangs and large ears that come to a point. Their solid black eyes peer at me, and though I can recognize the faces of the women they used to be, there's no humanity left in their eyes.

Before they can get close to me, I grab at the coil of my Energy that is keeping me small, wave my hand, and remove the Conversion. In the blink of an eye, I enlarge to my regular size. But Salvatore rushes forward to me.

A flash of panic hits me, and I suddenly go jittery with adrenaline. I have no hope of wielding my Kundalini to do any Alchemy now. I turn to run, but he gives chase. I scream as I race for the door, but Salvatore catches me easily, grabs my hair, and yanks me back. I scream and twist my body away from him, fighting to keep as far away from that Unification Circolo as I can. He yanks me back, and I clench my jaw from the pain in my head as he holds onto my hair. With a sneer, he grabs my arm, cuts my arm with his knife, and smears my blood into his hand. "Praesum! Stop!" he commands me.

My stomach reels as I realize I cannot move. His dark Alchemy has ensnared me.

"Get down!" he bellows, and I drop to the floor just like that. Unable to do anything, I watch from the stone floor as Salvatore returns to his Fusion Conversion Circolo and uses his blood to trace the black lines, completing the Circolo.

I feel a tug on my mind. Gaetana! We found you!

Omero? Where are you? I feel a rush of relief to feel my bird Chimaera's consciousness flood my mind.

Hold on! We're coming as fast as we can! Dante is here, and a few others from the gildacasa. I can see where they've captured you.

Hurry Omero! My heart hammers in my head as I lay on the floor shivering, unable to run.

"Now, come here," Salvatore says calmly, and against my will I stand and approach. "Stand on the Circolo," he tells me, and I do.

"Please don't do this to me," I say around gasping sobs. Hurry Omero! I call out silently.

We're nearly there! Omero replies.

"You will be my most glorious creation!" Salvatore says with a triumphant grin. He waves his hand toward the enlarged bat, and it scrambles onto my back. I scream again as its warm body covers me and holds me still on the Circolo.

Salvatore holds his hands out and in a commanding voice, he says, "Unesco!" The bloody Circolo beneath my feet flares orange.

Gaetana! Omero's mental voice cries out in my head.

I feel the bat slowly sink down into my skin. My clothes rip away from my body as the Alchemy makes me grow wings spanning from my arms to my legs. My hands elongate and become part of my wings with webbing between my fingers, which turn into claws. My ears grow and suddenly, I can hear everything like I'm in a cave and the sound of the world is reverberating off the walls and echoing in my brain. My teeth grow sharp in my mouth, and I bite my lip by accident. The blood tastes metallic and sweet on my tongue. My vision in this dank dark room somehow crystalizes so that I can see details in the dark corners, though everything seems to lose its color. Finally, my brain squeezes aside to make room for the bat. And deep in the recesses of my twisted mind, I can feel a tether connecting me to a dark evil.

I turn to the man who is now my master, and my last thought as Gaetana the human diminishes to the savage instincts of a beast.

"You are glorious!" he says, holding his arms out to me. "I shall call you Shtriga!"

I feel my lips curl into a smile.