Beyond our four villagesstretch forests, mountains, plains—all the banal geographyof a rural worldI've read a hundred times.Yet beyond those docile façades,this land bears the marks of the Angel.Gifts—chances—scattered like stones,not for us to survive,but to prove we deserve to live,and perhaps, to reach higher.
He didn't just offer a roof and a task;he sowed the seeds of striving,of conflict,of rivalry.And the more I look around,the more I see it bearing fruit—leading to results.For where some see mere stones on an empty plain,we search for thresholds.Cracks in the rockleading to forgotten caves,underground tunnels filled with mysteries,encrypted knowledge,impossible relics.Sometimes, through luck, patience, or audacity,we find caves inhabited by arachnoids.Their venom kills within a night,but mixed with other ingredients…it births elixirs.
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That's how it all began. Evolution. Dependence. Malcontent.
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Further still,at the very edge of this circular world,the forests open onto chasms—bottomless creviceswhere strange seeds slumber,granting strength, speed,or more.There are rivers, of course—but above all,there is the lake.That immense lakeof unknown depth.
They say it teems with life,though few dare disturb it.And yet,it offers the rarest of rewards.For in those depthsdwell the hippocampi.
Some ordinary.Others diseased—infected by a parasite we call the cordyceps.Those hippocampi—so rare and dangerous—provoke in whoever consumes themthree possible outcomes:
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First: death.The body rejects, collapses.Too weak, too unfit.A swift end.
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Second: nothing.The body accepts—but has not been chosen.Emptiness after the gamble.No awakening, no gift.
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Third: the particularity.Something happens.A slow transformation—sometimes visible, sometimes not.They say those who survive itare never the same again.
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Some call it a blessing.I see only a fracture.Before, I might still have been, in part, one of them.But recently,they brought back five hippocampicorrupted by the rot.They organized a race,like a festival through the forest—and against all odds,I found myself drawn in.
Not because I preferred the smell of paperto that of sweat—but because I was capable of striving too.I didn't care if I died chewing one of them.It was more exhilaratingthan anything I'd reread a thousand times—it was new.Risk.Life.The only momentwhere my desirecrossed paths with their way of living.
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And I won. Well—fifth place.Out of twenty participants.
We celebrated.
They gave me a few looks, but none truly believed it.After all, the first four were already part of the system's machinery.And one of them, my age, checked all their boxes.
One by one, we swallowed our reward.Three died—their hearts too wild to bear the charge.Another survived, but on his knees, drooling, mad with rage.And me?I both lost and won.Felt nothing—except the satisfaction of having obtained what I wanted.
I saw him, gripping the grass,all his hatred condensed into a stare that pierced me,as if my very existence were an anomaly.I understood his turmoil.I had anticipated it.But I didn't rejoice.I simply watched.
For a few moments,I remained a spectator of my own body—unable to move,unable to act,except to endure.
"That's not possible… right?"he spat, eyes twisted between madness, pain, and hate."You were never one of us… and yet… No. No."…"IT'S NOT POSSIBLE! YOU'RE JUST A RAT! EVERYONE HERE KNOWS IT!WHY AREN'T YOU DEAD? WHY AREN'T YOU SUFFERING?!"…"EVERY TIME I SEE YOU, I UNDERSTAND THE FAILURE THAT HAUNTS US…YOU ARE NOTHING. YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL."
He gripped the blade at his belt, trembling in incomprehension.
"THEN WHY…"
When he lunged to cut the armwith which I'd seized the cordyceps,I had understood his intentlong before he acted.And yet—I could do nothing.
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It was the result of a deep disgust—and the revelation I'd been waiting forto sever myself from the group once and for all.
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Still, surviving that ordeal brought an advantageno other trial could grant:peace.Even without an arm,none of them could touch me anymore.None could match me.
Simply because I had survived—and they… had lived nothing.Faith, taken to its extreme:even in hating me,they were forced to keep me among them,to preserve the façade.
And after that,no one could oppose my decision.Because there exists a placeone can only reach after surviving that trial.Or rather—a place that appears at the center of the Hall,once you are deemed worthy.
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From the outside, it looks like a cathedral.You can see it from afar,but there's no use trying to approachwithout being approved—for it repels those who aren't.
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I know this decision is frowned upon.It creates a difference,a break from the others.But that was the least of my worries.In my lifetime, I'd only heard of this place.They say death roams there despite its welcome,and that to enter itis to renounce peace.But that, too, was the least of my worries.
I remember only two things from my time there.
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First: upon entering, I felt my heart beat as never before.Second: upon leaving, I felt my heart beat… as always.
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Since then, I have only fragments.Shards of memory.I don't know if they are reflections of what grows inside me,or remnants of a dream.All I can sayis that this placemade me prefer wanderingto any form of persistence.
The Hall began to whistle.The roof drew closer.The grass began to dance.And little by little,nothing meant the same thing anymore.
At first, I stayed in the village.I wandered sometimes, without expectation.I existed.I had no new books,but I had gained something else:the ability to read preciselywhat surrounded me—to interpret, to feel,to understand what had escaped me.
I was allowed to revisit my life,my choices,my priorities—them,the other,the Angel.Just by laying my eyes on the frescoes,my thoughts deepeneduntil I could open as many perspectivesas I had bits of knowledge.And I understoodwhy all those who had taken my pathhad ended up choosing suicide.
But above all,I understood why they were wrong.
That—that was what it meant to access what comes next.No more, no less.While they exhausted themselves,killed themselves with labor,I touched the strings of thingsthey couldn't even imagine,at the combined speedof each of their minds.
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It buzzed constantly.It was euphoria.It was fever.
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And then—
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It ended.As suddenly as it had appeared—as everything that happens to me always does.
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"Solitude."
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That was the word chosen.If I had never needed anyone,I had—without knowing it—needed all those wonders before my eyes.And the instant they vanished,I felt their absence with unbearable sharpness.
Was it because I was no longer worthy?
I don't think so.Or at least, I no longer knew.
And after that, I walked—incessantly—mulling it all over.I ended up graspingthat it was the backlashof having learned to lovefor real.
So yes,it's the truth:I walked.
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Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
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Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
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Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
Walked.
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"And that's where I found you—curiously close to a tree I had never seen before."
It was there—at that heartbeat—that you becameeverything that matters.
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Ophelia.