It was 10:42 PM. Victor was lying on his bed, still on top of the covers, inside his small, square-shaped quarters, with gray walls and mold spreading across the ceiling. The room was lit only by a lamp on a plastic desk fixed to the wall opposite the left side of the bed, and a chair that held nothing but the boy's clothes—folded, yet still wrinkled. Beside him was a nightstand made of the same material.
He lay on his back, his right arm resting on his chest, lightly scratching himself, and his left arm tucked behind his head beneath the pillow. He stared at the ceiling. He had been doing so for several hours, turning roughly every ten minutes to check the digital clock positioned slightly to the left, which made it somewhat difficult to read the time.
Victor turned at that moment.
"10:43..."
He sighed. He stared at the clock for a few seconds, wearing the exact same expression. Suddenly, he moved, rolling onto his left side, face down, pressing his cheek into the pillow, which partially obstructed his vision due to the blur in his left eye. He placed his left hand on the pillow near his head. His right arm dangled off the bed, barely brushing the polished yet dirty floor.
It felt to Victor as if he had been staring at that clock for hours, frozen at 10:43. Even while awake, time seemed stuck, unmoving. The room was silent. The only thing keeping him company was the soft, constant hum of the lamp, which flickered occasionally.
Suddenly, it was 10:44 PM.
Victor rolled back onto his back.
"I'm not sleepy..." he muttered irritably, dragging his left hand across his face and rubbing his eyes for a few moments before sitting up on the edge of the bed, placing his hands on the mattress, his gaze fixed on the desk.
More specifically, he was staring at the lamp's light as it continued to flicker. He studied its frequency carefully. At irregular intervals—every seven or eleven seconds or so—the light trembled briefly. Then sixteen seconds passed, and this time it flickered for half as long as before. Then four more seconds went by, and there was only a faint "tick."
Victor remained like that for several minutes before leaving the room and walking down the corridor, lit as always but deserted, empty and silent, as if he were the only one living there. Only his heavy footsteps accompanied him, occasionally producing a slight squeak against the floor when the rubber soles of his boots made contact, echoing briefly through the hallway.
With his hands in his pockets, Victor didn't know where he was going. He wasn't sleepy. After a few minutes, he didn't even know why he had come out. He didn't even know where the corridor led, and yet he had been walking down it for quite some time.
We live in terrible times. Wherever I look, I can only see human beings as objects—tools, weapons, slaves serving a master that doesn't exist. On this world, we are all abandoned. Anyone can die or kill without remembering. Become monsters without having any memory of it.
I fight, I pass out, I wake up...
I fight, I pass out, I wake up...
I fight, I pass out... I wake up.
What am I fighting? What makes me fight? Why do I pass out? Why do I wake up? What happens before I wake up? Why don't I remember anything? Does no one really remember? Or is the machine the one that doesn't want me to remember? I haven't forgotten anything. I try to forget, but I'm not the one doing it. I have sinned, and I constantly forgive myself for it. I'm disgusting... but everyone tells me I'm not. We're all disgusting... and I tell them they're right. We live days we forget. A life made of uncertain memories, of memories that don't exist.
All I know is that in this suffering, violent world, I have done nothing but become like it. And yet... the more I think it, the more I say it, the less it feels true. But I know it is. It forces me not to think it, because it wants to protect me. From what? From inevitable death? Everyone dies here. Coming to Earth is like entering hell. The only difference is that you don't know you're inside it.
Angels use Demons to fight their wars.
After wandering the corridors for quite some time, Victor didn't realize he had returned to the door of his recovery room.
The door was slightly ajar. Someone had probably forgotten to close it properly.
At that moment, staring at that thin crack between the door and the frame, Victor felt a series of strange thoughts cross his mind. Almost like voices urging him on.
"I have to find out if it's true."
He took the doorknob and gently pushed the door open. It creaked faintly.
Inside, everything was orderly. The bucket that had once been filled with vomit had been cleaned and disinfected, resting beside the nightstand. The bed was neatly made, sheets changed. Next to it stood the respirator, placed atop the machine it was connected to. It, too, had been cleaned.
Victor approached it.
He simply stared at it, looking at his faint reflection in the metal, broken by the black engravings running vertically across it. Its shape mirrored the head of the Kariudo. A thick, dark plastic corrugated tube, worn near the mask's connection point, extended from between the mouth and chin area. Unlike the Kariudo helmet, however, it left the eyes, forehead, and hair exposed—everything except mouth, nose, and cheeks. Elastic fabric straps hung behind it, fastening behind the ears to secure it to the face.
He tried lifting it with one hand.
Too heavy.
Despite the room being around 75 degrees Fahrenheit, the surface felt freezing cold, as if freshly removed from refrigeration.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, pulling his hand back. "What the—"
He kept staring at it, more confused than before. The longer he looked, the more unsettled he felt. Small shivers ran down his spine. The room was completely dark except for the light filtering through the window.
The only figure keeping him company was his own silhouette reflected in the metal—and even that disturbed him, with its fixed, vacant, almost unsettling stare.
"What is this thing...?"
He had come into this room for a precise reason. Curiosity—no, a hollow, almost confused memory—had driven him there, determined to find the answer to a question he had never consciously heard.
"Does it really come from there?" he whispered, agitation evident in his tone. He was curious and terrified at the same time.
It was just a mask. A hospital respirator. Used on Kariudo pilots after every mission. Its main function was to oxygenate the lungs and brain, improve neurological functions through specific airborne chemical stimuli. It was rehabilitative. Almost a savior.
To Victor, it looked like another monster.
"What was that smell...? Why does it come from here?"
He approached again, placing his trembling hand on it. The same cold shock struck him.
He ignored it.
He tried lifting it again, this time supporting it with his other hand and turning it around. Everything looked normal. Black cushioned padding lined the inside for facial adherence. But what caught his attention was the opening connected to the tube.
At first, Victor lost himself staring into that hole, seeing it as a deep, endless throat, the darkness growing denser toward the center. A grotesque, unknown cavity he felt himself slowly being drawn into.
It wasn't just an impression.
He was slowly bringing it closer to himself, as if his muscles no longer belonged to him.
"What am I doing? What do I expect to find?" he kept asking himself.
Finally, he inhaled.
Cold metal and faintly scented skin were the only smells he could detect.
"That wasn't the scent... or was it?"
He sniffed again. Same result. Maybe the only thing that changed was a faint persistence of the smell of skin—the most abundant element inside the mask.
He kept sniffing, analyzing, as much as he could, every detail that might remind him of that aroma. No use. Each result was more disappointing than the last.
"What the fuck are you doing...?"