MARTIN WOKE UP THINKING it was just another average Saturday morning, nothing extraordinary. After breakfast, he planned to cut the lawn, as usual, and when he finished the yard work he would relax in his hammock, have a cold beer, and fall asleep smelling the freshly cut grass clippings. But when he got up that morning, he noticed a bright red spot on his right hand, which made him think perhaps something had bitten him.

He felt sick to his stomach. He hated spiders and killed them every chance he got. If a spider had bitten him, he hoped it wasn't a brown recluse; if that was the case, he'd better see a doctor to have it examined.

As he looked closely at the mark, it didn't look or feel like a spider bite. It looked more like a rash. He felt light-headed and dizzy without warning, so he held onto the bathroom counter to stabilize himself. Then, taking him by surprise, he heard a commanding voice in his head saying: Taylor, you have been chosen to fulfill your destiny to sacrifice the innocent.

He shook his head to regain his senses, but nothing seemed to work; he felt his body and mind being taken over by the intrusion of a dark force.

Taylor, I command you to obey.

He felt his will and control start to wane. As he looked at his reflection in the mirror, a blackness appeared inside the bathroom. It completely enveloped him, and he couldn't resist its power.

He was no longer himself and surrendered to whatever evil had captured him. Soon his words and thoughts were no longer his own. There in the mirror, instead of his reflection, he saw something evil looking back at him, something that moved within his consciousness. He knew all was lost. Words flowed from him without his conscious will, and without any resistance, he said, "What is your command, Master?"

Once he surrendered his consciousness, he began to see things he couldn't have believed possible: what was once invisible such as time and other dimensions. He also saw humanity through the eyes of his new guest. He began to understand the frailty of man, who was a weak, pathetic, selfish creature. Being empowered by the darkness gave him a new understanding, and the world in which he lived became nothing to him.

Only now did he know what the creature was, and he accepted his guest with a willing admission of defeat. While this evil one named Tobias haunted his thoughts, he received a history lesson from the ancient source, who was prone to curse man as he talked freely about what he planned to do once set free in his new body.

After Martin surrendered to his new master, something unexpected happened. The dark creature was no longer just a faceless voice in the blackness. Martin started to see the figure of a wretched old man. From behind the curtain that separated the two worlds, he was able to barely discern the shape of his master as he spoke-this creature who now inhabited Martin's existence.

The Family Curse Book Two of The Bishops' Sacrifice: The Family Curse - nidottu, Englanti, 2022