With every beat of my heart my life was getting shorter. And the dreaded moment was coming closer.

A black cloud of despair suddenly engulfed me.

I could have said yes to Angelo and I would not be going through this… Maybe even now it’s not too late…

This voice, this small cowardly voice, was whispering into my ear again. My heart burst into a wild gallop and I broke out in a cold sweat.

What am I doing this for?

What’s the point of standing my ground, refusing to recant, to bend, to lie?

I’m about to die a slow and very painful death—for what?

For a few moments there was a deafening silence inside me, black and menacing like a storm cloud, and then I heard a clear voice to give the answer: For the sake of all those who will come afterwards.

And the voice continued, ringing loudly in my ears, making my whole body tremble like a plucked string:

Burning

Shining

Keeping darkness at bay

Showing others the way

Giving them courage to be

who they are.

This voice was calm and strong, like a cliff in the middle of the storm. It came from the deepest part of my soul, from the roots that were connected to all the other souls, to all the people, beasts, plants and even stones. For we are like mushrooms: seemingly separate, but in fact growing from the same roots.

How can I die if I am in everything and everything is in me?

Nothing dies, everything is just changing shape, forever metamorphosing, transforming and transmuting.

This body will die anyway, if not today, then some other day. The time will come for me to move on, to become something or someone else. So, this death is nothing.

But if I bend my knee, if I betray my beliefs, this will be the real death of me.

Never ever betray your self. Always stand by what you believe in.

And I believe that this Universe is infinite, with lots of suns just like our Sun, with lots of earths just like our Earth.