“Why do you think people are drawn to the darkness?”“Well, I’m not sure,” answered Diana, looking around first as if the question had been addressed to someone else in the room instead.“I’ll tell you why. It’s because the devil has tricked them into seeing no future for themselves in the light. The darkness . . . it just makes more sense when you’re lost and tired of wandering aimlessly with no purpose. It’s . . . knowing you’re different in a bad way, like maybe you’ve seen too much to be pure or have done too many misdeeds to deserve peace. If you feel like the light doesn’t want you, you turn the other way completely instead of being an orphan. You find a place to . . . belong.”“Everything has a dawn and a dusk. True to the sun’s nature, the beginning was bright—dare I say promising. Toward the end of it all, the darkness consumed, and all the goodness weakened like the dusk’s devouring. I felt the thunder long before I saw the lightning but it was too late—too late to run and hide and too late to take shelter. All that was left to do was brace yourself and hope for the best. It was the twenty-third year of my life. It was the longest year I’d ever lived—365 days, just the same as all the others but far longer in terms of growth. I learned so much about the world and its strange people. I think back to when I was just a little girl. I’d lie in bed and scream for my mother all because I was too afraid to swing my feet over the side of my bed. I feared a monster would grab ankles and pull me under. And if I was lucky enough to outrun that monster, then surely the one in the closet hiding behind the coat hangers would get me. Back then, those were my worst fears. Simple, irrational, but easy to understand if you consider the mind of a child. But that was a very long time ago. When you grow up, you get scared of other things, and those things are far more difficult to make sense of but twice as hard to overcome.”It’s the place where deceptive beauties gather to play for entrance and profit. Enter Malicious, a wicked game unfit for the weak and immature. “If they just wanted to get drunk, they would have gone to a bar. They came here to see beautiful women, and since you are beautiful, you possess all the power. You’re not here to make friends. Your only objective is to make money. Now get on stage and dance, they’re waiting.”