Night had fallen.
Kallen sat at the desk in his bedroom. A sheet of white paper lay spread across it, with a brand-new box of paints on top.
After hesitating repeatedly,
Kallen finally decided he could not bear to use the paints. Instead, he picked up a sharpened pencil he had asked Lunt for earlier and began sketching idly on the paper.
He drew a person's eyes first, then expanded outward to the other facial features, before drawing down to the neck and shoulders.
Soon,
a "person" even Kallen himself did not recognize appeared on the paper;
even the distinction of gender was somewhat blurred. Kallen himself could not tell whether it was a man or a woman.
Once he finished, he could not be bothered to admire it. He simply flipped the sheet facedown.
Had another psychiatrist been standing there, they could have analyzed Kallen's present mental state through the drawing, but Kallen had no interest in psychoanalyzing himself.
"Want me to get you a glass of water, Kallen?" asked Lunt, who was lying in bed playing with cards.
"Sure."
Lunt got out of bed and left the bedroom. Shortly afterward, he returned with a glass of ice water and set it on Kallen's desk.
"Are you in a bad mood?"
"No." Kallen shook his head. "Maybe I'm just feeling a little cooped up."
"Then you can have this card."
Lunt placed a card in front of Kallen. It was rather finely printed, depicting a full moon, with the description [Moonlight Purification: dispels all negative magical effects.]
Lunt had a whole stack of cards like this. They were among the most popular toys with schoolboys his age in recent years, and he spent more than half his monthly allowance collecting them.
Kallen could understand that. As a child in