- I suppose I shall not tell you anything, my friend. - V said and, waiting while some disappointment would show on Erik's face, ended mysteriously and promisingly: - You know what they say a picture is worth...

Saying this, he approached a wide and long, from ceiling to floor, black velvet tapestry. The one about which Evey asked once why it portrayed nothing, and V objected to her: "This time your powers of observation have betrayed you. It portrays darkness!" Erik, intrigued and a bit perplexed, came up to him. Picking the flap of his cloak, V stretched it behind the Phantom's back so that this black veil separated them from the rest of the Gallery. Then he made a small step forward and, catching Erik's inquiring glance, nodded silently at the huge black cloth. And they stepped forward. A bystander could see how blackness faded slowly into blackness.

The corridor, which looked as if upholstered with black velvet, stretched endlessly to both sides. One could identify this space as a corridor only by high, spacious rectangles, gleaming at both sides, fading in the perspective as if doorways. This place made a particularly strange impression on Erik due to the following circumstances. Firstly, the light from the doorways did not penetrate into the corridor and wasn't reflected on the opposite walls. Secondly, though V's silhouette blended with the pitch darkness, his mask was showing up white in front of Erik's eyes, like a lonely smile of the Cheshire Cat. Looking down, the Phantom distinctly, as if in broad daylight, saw his white shirt – but lower, where the black trousers should have been, his body ended abruptly, as if it did not exist.

- Welcome to the Blackness, – V uttered in the same tone he greeted his guest at the threshold with, - that connects the infinity of realities. Parallel and, due to the lack of a more appropriate antagonistic term, perpendicular.

From the very moment his body was absorbed into black velvet, as if into pulsing-warm, palpably thick fog, Erik decided not to be surprised at anything and not to ask anything.

- First of all, I'd like to acquaint you, my dear friend, with the danger you should know by sight and beware of, - the mask continued in the tone of a good lecturer. - Exactly the one you were so unhappy to encounter.

He went forward unhurriedly, which one could tell by a deafened sound of boots and the moving away mask, which flickered ahead, flashing like a now growing and now waning half-moon: V cast glances on the reality doors. Or, more precisely, on the small, contrast-white, softly glowing signs beside them. The doorway in front of which V stopped, was marked with a lightning to the left of it, the kind that stand conspicuously under an inscription "Danger, high voltage".

- Here you will see the most dangerous representatives of the kind that call themselves "fangirls", - V pronounced thoroughly, as if guiding a tour to a zoo. - It is hard to distinguish them at the sight from other representatives of this kind, mostly consisted of young lasses. The most reliable sign is their habits, which I now shall demonstrate you, my friend, in all their glory.

The view presented on the foreground of the panorama that unfolded to the one who glanced into the doors of this reality, really did not betoken anything good. From the nearest wall, which occupied nearly a third of the view, a portrait of Shakespeare gazed lamentably. The great playwright was so sorrowful because he sported an uneven, terribly neglected beard occupying half of his face, or maybe because out of his high forehead for some reason grew little crooked horns, or still because somebody had neatly given him two black eyes, - one couldn't tell for sure.

The other two thirds of the panorama was occupied by the view of a hall with a TV set, a massive sofa, two armchairs, a coffee table, a grand piano with a bench and an infinite row of bookstands along the walls. Unfortunately, the setting was by far not limited to these objects. On the stained table and on the grand piano lid crowded dirty dishes, everywhere there were scattered half-open books, empty DVD cases and the disks themselves, crumpled bright packings, rinds and peels. The apotheosis of all this Bedlam were three ungainly girls in jeans and bright t-shirts, jumping on the sofa and self-forgetfully engaged in pillow-fighting, which made white flasks float lazily around the room.

Following V's example, Erik stuck his head into the doors of the space – and regretted it right then, when his fine ear was attacked with laughing, squealing and Bloodhound Gang:

«You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals

So let's do it like they do on the discovery channel…»

The Phantom chose not to listen to the rest even to find out to whom and what exactly did these foolhardy guys propose to do.

- Ah, what barbarians! - Erik shook his head as if trying to shake the cacophony out of his ears. And an awful guess, as if a traitorous dagger, stabbed his heart: the visible half of his face froze as a pale mask of terror, all his body trembled and an agonizing moan: - What are they going to do to my organ?!

- You'd better not think about it, my friend, – V answered, perfectly calm. If he had made another meaningful pause, Erik would probably have had a heart attack. - I warrant you also have hundreds of doors – and hundreds other organs... and that there is a more pleasant sort of guests, – with these words the mask floated to an adjacent reality, and Erik's downcast torso sailed after it.

- Please let me present you miss Violet, - V announced at the door marked with an elaborate G clef.

At the grand piano's keyboard sat a sunny-curled wonder in a low-necked blouse, appetizingly upholding D cup amenities. Erik glanced into the reality with caution, as if a beast trainer into a lion's mouth. This experience, though, did not turn out to be in the least bitter: the musician's face blossomed with a blissful smile as soon as he heard a crystal-pure, like a mountain stream, without a speck of playing out of tune, "Moonlight Sonata". But the most surprising thing was that the "wonder" without any hindrance to her playing chirped into a mobile phone speaker which she pressed to her shoulder with her cheek, and meanwhile observed a fashion show on the silent screen.

- In fact it is just a mediocre specimen of a subtype called mary-sue, - V told to the amazed sightseer not without irony. - She is akin to the musical machine that had the pleasure of surprising you: she'll flawlessly sing and play to you any piece imaginable. But, unlike the machine, she'll often be unable to name its author. Moreover, she cannot uphold a conversation that does not concern herself and draws any talk to a monologue on her own exceptionality and inimitability. You'll be able to check this yourself: you shall have more guests of this sort than I have. And I can bet their names will begin with a C, - there was an impression that he flickered an eye beneath the mask.

They passed several other doors, peering into which, Erik noticed different variations of Evey: long-haired and shaven-headed, in a dress and in a nightgown, and even one chestnut-haired. V stopped near the passage, next to which was written - "Viola".

- It is my daughter's name, - V said in a soft and quite, a bit guilty tone. - Here she is.

On the sofa, half-turned to the lookers, sat a girl around ten years of age, wearing a plain white dress, slender and neatly built, quite tall for her age. Light, thick, a bit wavy hair streamed across her shoulders and fell onto the pages of a book she was reading by the light of a lamp standing on the coffee table. Light danced on her pale, fine profile, giving an impression that it was carved from white marble.

- What an angel! - Erik whispered, unable to hold himself. But however soft his whisper may have been, the girl lifted her head and cast a piercing gaze of big bright-blue eyes at him.

- Is that you, Darkness?

- Quiet! She has inherited my sharp hearing, - V explained, driving Erik from the door so that the girl wouldn't have time to notice their faces on the tapestry background.

- Why did she say "darkness"?

- In this reality I've died, – V said a bit sadly. - Neither she nor her mother know that it really isn't so. But curiosity is my sin and I once started talking to Viola, saying that it was Darkness talking to her. Lonely children often make up imaginary friends, and her tales don't make her mother suspicious.

- Why wouldn't you simply come back to them, – Erik asked with a trifle of reproach.

V sighed and started the explanations.

- A father is the one who protects and shows the way – that means, deprives the child of the freedom of choice. That's why I wish her to think she has no father and grow up strong, free and self-dependent. She contents herself with little and doesn't feel lonely since she has her Darkness, which listens to her and gives her advice. Advice, my friend, not directions, like a father! The latter will come back to her to train her when she grows older. And when he will be morally prepared to a hysterics her mother will make to him, - V ended, chuckling bitterly.

Vague grief showed in Erik's eyes: obviously this talk had touched on some sensitive strings of his soul. Unwilling to demonstrate his emotions, he turned away and pretended to be looking somewhere in the distance. But the omniscient V guessed everything and said sympathetically:

- There's no reason for sorrow, my friend: you will find thousands of worlds where happiness and beauty will smile to you. Look!

There was a screech of a glove pulled off and a burnt hand blossomed in the blackness like an exotic flower. V approached another door and slowly immersed his hand into it.

Erik watched with amazement how while penetrating into that reality the reddish, scabbed crust on V's hand was changing for normal human skin. And this sight filled his soul with rapture and hope.

The glove was back in place and the heroes headed further.