Annika looked at him and knew at the same time that her look would hardly help, because she looked at him like a madman. She hadn't really taken in what he had just said yet, she just looked at him and tears ran down her face, tears that dripped onto his pajamas and ran down his hands, which he wiped and still wiped with trembling hands she looked at him and he stared back. "You ... don't believe me," he hissed and for a fleeting moment his eyes turned green and cold and flashed in the darkness. Annika believed him, after all it was she who jumped out of bed screaming and ran away from him and she had heard the crazy laugh and seen the grin and the glow in the green eyes. But why? "Why was the devil in you?" she asked in a trembling voice. "I don't know ..." Marc whispered hoarsely. "I do not know."Annika took him in her arms, the bundle lying on the floor that was Marc, and she felt the warmth return to his body and she shuddered. It was very quiet around her, as they sat there in the hallway, in the darkness and the silence that only Annika's suppressed sobs broke, Marc's breathing and the ticking of the wall clock that pounded the silence like an eternal metronome, again and again, mercilessly and relentlessly. Hours seemed to go by and they let go of each other when the clock boomed for the hundredth time, once, twice, three times, four times, then stopped again and the eternal ticking continued. Annika and Marc had closed their eyes and were lying next to each other in the hallway. "Annika?" Voice, "the devil should take me; should he really come and get me you have to know: I love you more than anything else. I will always love you, there could be a hundred devils, I will love and love you and if the devil himself kills me again he will not be able to do anything against this love that will always be there. Always."Annika squeezed his hand." I love you too. ", she breathed so softly that she hardly understood it herself, but Marc seemed to have done it, because she could hear his regular breathing and knew that he had fallen asleep.