Don't Sleep Under the Fig Tree

They say that whoever falls asleep under a fig tree will be taken by devils. But that summer I didn’t want to think about it. I rehearsed a lot, wrote songs, loved my Saika, and dreamed of worldwide fame. That summer the wind smelled of earth and blooming honeysuckle. That summer I died. An ordinary joke, a harmless prank that very soon turned into the most terrifying nightmare of the night. I didn’t want to believe what was happening. But when my death became public knowledge, and my songs started playing on the radio, I understood that I could no longer change anything. I stood in the dark, surrounded by ghosts and otherworldly creatures, and couldn’t go out to people. And then the black hounds—servants of Hecate—came for me, because I wasn’t going into the afterlife myself…