It never occurred to me that I was in a cult, but now I realise there’s no other word for it. It’s all over the papers. It’s all over the news. Right now, I don’t know what’s real except this one thing: Silas is gone. They burned him alive.

I’m truly stunned. Only this afternoon was I telling him about the dissonance among the followers, and he just didn’t believe me. I should have tried harder to make him see, to make him understand. I know I’m not to blame for his death, but perhaps I could have saved him.

As I write this, I’m hiding. It seems one of the followers has already divulged details to the press. I don’t know who it was (although several people come to mind who I believe would be capable of such a thing).

The police are looking for the followers now, and they keep saying Silas was a murderer. I wish I could explain, but I know they won’t be able to see it from our point of view. The truth is that the sacrifices volunteered themselves, they wanted to contribute their life to a greater entity. They weren’t victims; they chose their path. I wish I could tell everyone this, but I’m sure the public would never believe it.

I can’t get this word out of my head… cult. They say a cult is defined by its deviant behaviour. I can’t deny our deviant beliefs, but it was our objective to inspire people to move away from the static mediocrity that seems to have taken hold in this country. That was our goal and, deviant or not, our intentions were good.

The one thing I do contest is that Silas was “disturbed.” They’re wrong. I’m certain he was a good man.

In our last conversation, Silas reminded me of his vision. He dreamed of making things better for parapsychs, and therefore the world. I truly believed he wanted to change the world for the better. And I honestly thought he was capable of doing so. If I tell anyone this now, I’ll surely be arrested. I probably shouldn’t even be writing this.

To protect my own life, I will no longer go by Lissy. I never felt a connection to the nickname anyway, but Silas took quite a liking to it. In his honour, Lissy dies here too.

I don’t know what to do. I suppose the only thing I can do is move on. I started this diary as a record of our enterprise, so that when the shift finally happened, we would be able to look back over our story. Instead, our tale has been prematurely and violently aborted.

This will be my last entry.

I know the world is not a bad place, but we wanted to make it even better. I suppose I will do my best to make positive changes in the small ways I can. Maybe one day, someone will change the world.

Today is not that day.