Katharina II

When the dark star rises devoid of light and evil rules the moonless night

When fear and loathing take control and father sells his firstborn’s soul

St.Petersburg Russian 1678

Katharina Brochev was born on a cold and snowy winter’s night to a fairly well to do family, with some small political connections to the Royal family of the Russian court. Her mother welcomed her arrival as a great joy and blessing, and she had no recollection of the events surrounding the birth and certainly did not recall her death and resurrection. The attending doctor at the birth was disturbed and confused and finally convinced himself that she was not dead, but only in a deep coma and begged forgiveness for his faulty diagnosis. He died very suddenly the very next morning of a supposed heart attack. Her father on the other hand was full of dread and guilt and would spend the next twenty years drowning in vodka and fear.

20 years later; Happy Birthday

Katharina was born to dance and soon after she learned to walk, she started to dance. Soon after that, she started to study ballet, and eventually she studied at the Royal academy for dance.

Katharina was in love with being a ballerina; it was her passion and obsession to dance. She would spin, and twirl and move as if floating across the floor. Dancing was in her soul. She had always dreamed of a grand command performance at the Royal Court for the Czar himself, and her dreams were just about to come true…until tragedy snatched them away from her on the very day; she was to dance for the Czar at the Royal Ballet. She was extremely excited and happy, for today was also her 20^th birthday. Katharina was a supreme ballerina but, her dream was about to turn into a nightmare, and she would never preform at the royal court.

She hurried as she dressed for this morning; were rehearsals for her grand performance tonight. She bade her parent’s farewell and climbed into the carriage for the trip to the capital.

After breakfast as her mother cleared the dishes, her father washed his hands in the washroom basin and splashed his face with water and glanced in the oval mirror over the basin. His refection changed for just a brief second into a most hideous looking demon, and then back to himself again.

He tried to convince himself that it didn’t happen, but deep in his soul he knew it did! And he knew what he did all those years ago, he sold his daughters soul for the love of his wife. And his life was deflated by shame and despair ever since. The father went back to the basin and picked up his straight razor and looked in the mirror again, and again the demon flashed, the father raised his straight razor and cut his own throat, the demon flashed again and chuckled! When his wife came in to check on the commotion of him collapsing onto the floor and took in the horrific scene, the stench was unbearable and the buzzing of the flies that covered her husband’s face was deafening, she looked into the mirror and then into the eyes of a demon who crashed through the looking glass and ravaged her, he ripped her heart out and bit into it before she could fall down dead on the floor. More and more of them came from the shattered washroom mirror, the minions of hell to defecate, and copulate, breaking and shattering, rotting all and destroying everything in the house. Painting a message in blood- when the last demon went back through the mirror it un-shattered itself and was the only item left undamaged.

Katharina stepped out of the carriage onto the snow. She looked in awe at the architecture of the grand rehearsal halls of the “Royal Russian Ballet” light hearted with joy at her achievements, she hurried inside! The halls were full of activities what with ballerina’s twirling about, musicians tuning instruments tailor’s fitting costumes, stage hands moving scenery and fire tenders readying the torches for the lighting of the evening’s performance.

Katharina was full of excitement when she finally caught up with the ballet director who told her she should go get fitted and be back on the main stage by eleven o’clock this morning for rehearsal of her movements. She hurried along to try and find her tailor!

Katharina had her costume fitting and was back on the main stage at five minutes to eleven working with the choreographer. The director arrived to discuss the movements for the grand finale.

Performance night; The Royal Ballet

Katharina was nervous, but she was also confident and ready for her big moment this is what she had worked for. This was her life. She took a deep breath and poised herself still very un-aware of her father’s betrayal!