The Sun had set, in the small town of Pietrasanta, near the Apuane: the young adults were hanging out in the bars, chatting and drinking alcoholics; the couples were sitting on the benches and on the stairs of the Duomo, whispering in their ears words of love and affection; the families were sitting at the restaurants, eating abundantly; and the old people were watching everything from the balconies.
In the Carboni household, however, something of completely different was going on: a very skinny kid, his name Goffredo, was lying on a cardboard bo in the basement, moaning of pain and wrath.
Goffredo was a seven years old boy that, in his short life, had suffered a heavy loss: his father, Patroclo Carboni, died in war two years before.
Now he was rolled up for the physical pain, and was crying: after refusing to make the dinner for his aunt, and clean the whole mansion for her, Goffredo was punished by bludgeoning: the woman took a bludgeon, and started to beat the kid both with the club, and insult him.
Before going in the basement, Goffredo bite the ankle of Lisistrata, and locked the armoured door of the underground floor, in order to block the access to his aunt and his weapon.
He left his last tears to form, and fall down from his eyes, then he slowly rolled up, and, while pointing the ceiling, Goffredo barked:
"To Whoever is in the sky; to Whoever is beyond the stars, and controls the World from the Aether.
Please kill for me that scum of my aunt: make her melt in a puddle of shapeless goo; make her die chewed up by dogs; make her die of heart attack..."
Then he averted his eyes from the ceiling, and looked at window: on the outside, the waning moon was high in the sky.
Took by inspiration, he clasped his hands in prayer, and continued his supplication:
"Or just carry me away from her.
Away from this putrid basement; away from this hell hole. If it is needed, kill me, and carry me to the place where my father enjoys his afterlife. But, please, free me from this pain.
I never knew nothing, but pain, anger and hunger, for this two years. Free me..."
After saying that, Goffredo returned to lament his pain: after a while, the desire to sleep, united with the satisfying sensation of Lisistrata trying to break to no avail the armoured door and insulting Goffredo for his reaction; made the child relax, and slowly drift into a healing sleep.
After a while, Lisistrata gave up, and stopped her attempts to break the door: she just left, saying that, sooner or later, he would need to go out from the basement, if he wished to eat his ration.
Later that night, a white aura engulfed the body of Goffredo: that aura slowly lifted in the air the child's body, then, in a flash of light, the kid vanished, leaving behind him a flattened box, and a echo.
The echo of a feminine voice.
"The Night made flesh will carry out your orders... Goffredo.": those were the words of the echo.