I was tired. My throat was dry. My heart was pounding, yet I kept running.
I felt no pain, no heaviness. Only a dull, incomprehensible fear. I had to run. Run fast, run far.
There was nothing familiar about the sky above me. It was an immense crimson curtain, in the center of which dozens of stars swirled like a hungry siphon.
So I ran with all my might.
I had to warn Father. We were in danger.
This thought looped round and round, the only thread holding me to something real. My body, on the other hand, was slow, numb, as if trying to run through water. Every movement felt foreign.
I ran for what seemed like hours, or maybe only a minute. I fell, again and again, hurting myself with each fall, but eventually I made it.
Before me, my city. Proud, bright, standing like a last hope.
But in an instant, everything collapsed. The high walls that protected it sank into the ground, swallowed by an invisible force. The scenery had changed. Everything had changed.
Tears welled up in my eyes.
"No... No !"
I resumed my run, this time through the ruined streets.
Around me, dozens of identical men were grabbing Zannah.
They were tall, draped in thick dark capes that floated gently in the air. Their black hair, slicked back, gleamed like glass in the bloody light. And their faces... cold, impassive. They acted as if they were somewhere else, as if the carnage was just routine.
They burned. They killed. They erased.
I couldn't stop. I wasn't supposed to stop.
All the streets were in chaos. Everyone was dying.
I clenched my fists to hold back my tears.
Behind the gutted windows of the buildings, I could see silhouettes. They had no faces, no voices. But their eyes... Their eyes were white, motionless, glowing in the shadows.
They were watching me flee.
I was afraid. Deep, animal fear.
Then, without understanding how, I arrived in my father's courtroom.
He was there. Or he could have been.
What I could see was his body. Pale, suspended upright by dozens of iron bars embedded in his flesh.
I froze. My stomach clenched. A fireball in my throat prevented me from breathing.
A noise behind me. I turned around.
My sister.
Her body was there, enthroned in the center of an ocean of flames.
I screamed. I ran towards her.
But it was too late. She was already dead.
The flames subsided as I approached, as if respectful. I took her body in my arms, slowly, without understanding.
Her skin was warm, almost alive.
I was terrified. Helpless. I began to tremble.
"I'm sorry..." I whispered, unable to say anything else.
I couldn't see, my face drowned in tears and covered in her blood.
And then, a voice.
"Why are you apologizing, 37?"
I froze.
I let go of his body. I stepped back.
There he was. A man. A strange figure. His head, as if badly sewn onto a too-thin body, tilted slightly to one side. He looked familiar. Like something out of a nightmare I'd already dreamed.
"Give it back to me... give it back to me... give me back my soul..."
A pain rose in my chest. Sharp, brutal, burning. It intensified, spreading throughout my body.
I screamed.
Around me, the shadows had closed in. Everywhere, they were watching me.
They looked like me. They whispered. They touched me.
I wanted to run away, but my legs wouldn't move. I was a prisoner.
They took hold of me. They devoured me.
I fell. A bottomless void. A sky in the shape of a drawing.
I was suffocating. I felt as if the air itself was escaping me.
The fruit burned under my skin. It vibrated. It screamed.
And, amidst the tumult, the scientist's voice still echoed.
"Give it back! Give it back!"
I was falling, endlessly. Overwhelmed. Crushed.
A hiccup of dry air tore me from the darkness.
And I awoke.
Panting, shaking and sweating.
My eyelids lifted suddenly, I refused to stay immersed there any longer.
I was suffocating. My lungs were gasping for air as if they couldn't remember how to breathe. My heart was beating in my chest so violently that for a moment it felt as if it would break beneath my ribs.
I was awake. At least, I wanted to believe it, despite the feeling of unreality that enveloped me.
The ceiling above me was cracked, moldy and covered in dark ooze. The light was dim, yellowish, filtered through dirty, rusty lamps.
I lay there for a moment, unable to tell whether I was back in reality or just another illusion. Everything was too quiet. Too sharp. As if frozen.
I put a hand on my chest. The pain was still there, but different. A dull heat, deeply rooted, beat gently under my skin. It seemed to follow a rhythm that wasn't my own. Slower. Deeper. Like a foreign heart grafted into my flesh.
My breath slowly calmed.
I turned my head. And I saw him.
The boy.
He was sitting in the shadows, still curled up against the wall. But this time, he wasn't asleep. His eyes were open. Fixed on me. Empty, frightened, almost accusing. A shiver ran up the back of my neck.
I tried to speak, but a hoarse rasp answered me. My throat was so dry that even the words seemed painful to utter.
"You... you're awake?" I asked at last.
The boy didn't answer right away. His gaze never left me. He seemed to be looking for something in me, wary.
Then, in a barely audible breath, he whispered:
"You've been screaming for a long time."
My lips remained parted. I didn't know what to say. I wanted to scream too. I wanted to scream some more. To scream, to hit the walls, to get out this poison that was devouring me from the inside. But I did nothing. I just sat there.
My muscles were heavy, ankylosed, and my arms were trembling.
I looked down.
My left hand... It was covered with something. A thin, gray, powdery layer. Ash? I rubbed, but nothing would come off. It had embedded itself in the lines of my skin.
I felt a shiver, a weight in my chest.
The fruit.
It was still there.
Invisible, but there. Like an inner burn, like a glowing seed nestling behind my sternum. I closed my eyes for a moment. And in the darkness, I thought I felt a deep, visceral, green pulse run through my veins.
He was dissolving inside me.
Then all was quiet again.
Footsteps.
I sat up abruptly. The boy was startled, too, then he shrank back against the wall in terror.
"They're coming back..." he breathed.
My blood ran cold.
They are.
My eyes scanned the room. No way out. No hiding place. Just cold stones and another trembling child in a corner.
I stood up. Part of me screamed to run, to strike, to do something. But I knew I didn't have the strength. Not now.
I stared at my hand, stretched out in front of me. Nothing.
Then I closed my eyes, searching... for something. That warmth I'd felt earlier. It vibrated. Discreet. Distant. As if the fruit were reacting to my panic.
Footsteps came closer. Then the sound of a key.
My heart leapt into my throat.
The lock clicked... but the door didn't open.
Voices.
Two voices. Maybe three. They whispered behind the door, indistinct sounds, as if smothered in a mist. I understood nothing. Yet I had the impression that someone was talking about me.
The fruit pulsed again.
Harder.
I felt my fingers clench unwillingly. A dull light danced beneath my skin, too faint to be seen, but bright enough to be felt.
Then everything stopped.
Footsteps retreated.
The key was removed.
Silence.
I didn't move. I waited again. A minute. Two more. Then I let my body fall back against the wall.
My breathing was jerky. My gaze shifted to the ceiling, where the humidity was drawing strange, shifting shapes.
"Am I still dreaming...?" I whispered, barely audible, to myself.
The boy in the shadows didn't answer.
But his eyes never left me.
I closed my eyes for a moment, hoping to calm the fire inside me. And in that instant, I thought I saw the silhouette of a man in the room, but after rubbing my eyes, he was gone.
I heard a voice that seemed to echo in my head, soft and unearthly. It sounded... sad?
[Congratulations on your first absorption, Abel, may the light help you to complete it] and for some reason, tears began to roll down my cheeks again.