I heard the female voice echoing inside my head. It was soft, but this time clearer ... closer, as if I was a span of my ear.
The echo did not belong to the forest. They were not birds or wind. It was a murmur that leaked directly into my thoughts, as if someone had gone through the walls of my mind and had sneaked into the deepest.
I closed my eyes, just an instant, and the world fell apart.
I was transported to a completely dark place. There was no land, neither horizon nor shadow. Just nothing. A black vacuum that extended in all directions, overwhelming, eternal. I could not see absolutely anything, but I felt everything: the cold that climbed my skin, the silence that oppressed my chest, the loneliness that weighed in my bones.
It was similar to the site where I woke up for the first time, before leaving the capsule ... but this was even more empty, colder, more lonely. The air - if there was air - was dense, as if each breath steal pieces of my own essence.
Suddenly, a metallic sound broke the stillness. A dry crunch, like the groan of a forgotten hinge. And then I saw it: a gigantic door emerged from darkness.
It was not a common door. It was colossal, so high that it was lost in blackness, so wide that it seemed impossible to surround. Covered by thousands of rusty chains that creaked when moving, it stood like a wall between worlds. The chains vibrated with an almost alive rhythm, as if they breathe, as if they were anxious to contain what was behind.
In the center of that door, a female figure was tied.
He had long and dark hair, which fell into bullshit tufts on his face. Her body was wrapped by the same chains, as if she herself was the lock that sealed that threshold. The bonds surrounded his arms, legs ... even his neck. His skin was pale, covered with marks and wounds that seemed old, but still fresh at the same time.
His gaze, lost and off, reflected a deep pain, suffering older than time. There were no tears in his eyes; Maybe he had no strength to cry.
I approached cautiously, every step echoing as if walking on the heart of darkness itself. She murmured something, barely audible. His voice was so weak that he was confused with silence. I had to bow, force my ears, almost stop my breathing to distinguish it.
When I was finally close enough, she raised her head. His eyes, dark and deep, stuck in mine. And with a visible effort, he bowed his face towards mine, until I felt his cold breath brushing my ear.
"Everything's power is behind this door ... you must stop him."
The phrase fell on me like a lightning.
I did not understand what he meant. Who was that power? Who was he? And why she, chained in that impossible place, spoke to me?
"Who are you talking about!?" I shouted, altered, trying to get answers, my voice reverberating against nothing.
But she did not respond. He was silent, as if my words had been lost in a vacuum, absorbed by infinite blackness.
I couldn't hold his gaze after shouting. I felt that I had desecrated something sacred, that my questions were too small for the weight of their chains.
I apologized in a low voice, with a knot in my throat, but my eyes refused to meet his own. There was something in that woman, in her pain, that broke me inside. I tried ... but something inside me prevented me.
So I turned around and walked away, walking towards the dark, without knowing where I was running or why. The soil nonexistent under my feet seemed to get rid of each step, as if walking on liquid shadows.
I didn't know why, but something inside me was pushing me walking, as if moving away from her, it was the only way to get out of that dark and ice cream. Each fiber of my being shouted to run, not to look back.
Then, his voice broke the silence.
"Kurayami!"
I stopped dry.
No ... It wasn't my real name. It was the name that I had given me. The same as that woman, in that blurred memory, told her son. The name that I kept resonating in my mind ... as if a part of me tried to remember everything.
That voice, that memory, came again ... but this time in a faint way, like a distant whisper that stirred something deep inside me. A sleeping grill burning suddenly.
I turned slowly, my heart beating violently. She was still there, chained, but now her gaze was not off. There was a fire in his eyes. A weak, but real fire.
Before I could say something else, he spoke again, with a firm and desperate tone:
"Listen ... I know you don't understand anything, you're lost, but you must remember this: don't let him take control."
His words pierced me as blades.
-He…? "I tried to ask, but she continued, as if the time ended.
"And above all ..." His voice trembled, torn, as if every word was a sacrifice, "don't let anyone go through your heart." Do not let it be damaged ... because if that happens, everything I am doing ... no, everything we are doing, it will not help.
I wanted to approach again, break those chains, release your fragile body. But my feet were stuck to the ground. My hands trembled. Something invisible retained me, as if the same darkness told me: it is not the time.
And after those words, his figure vanished, swallowed by darkness as a reflection in the water. The door crumbled with a deaf rumble, the chains dissolved as a smoke, and everything returned to nothing.
When I opened my eyes, panting, I was no longer in that dark place. He had returned to the forest.
The smell of the wet earth, the distant song of insects, the light filtered between the treetops: everything once returned, as if awakening of a dream too real.
The pain had disappeared. My wounds were completely cured. My skin did not show scars.
I sat up slowly, still confused, trembling from head to toe. I looked at my hands, I turned them, touched them again and again. It was impossible.
And at that time, a sword fell to me, burying slightly on earth.
The impact resonated on the ground as a beat. The leaf was polished, glowing, with such a perfect edge that seemed to drink the light. The handle, ornate with symbols that it did not recognize, shone under the leaked light between the trees, as if nature itself would like to frame it.
It was beautiful. And at the same time ... dangerous.
Then I heard a known voice shout in the distance, strong, clear, loaded with authority:
"I lend you for now!" Don't break it!
It was the gentleman.
He appeared among the trees, his armor stained with mud and blood, but his firm steps like those of someone who never doubts. The sun, or how little it was left of it, was reflected in its shoulder pads, giving it a solemn air.
I looked at him, confused, my breathing still agitated.
The gentleman smiled just, with that mixture of mockery and respect that seemed natural in him.
"Leave yourself, Kurayami," he said, using that name he had only heard in my mind. The battle is not over yet.
And for the first time, I understood that that name ... It was no longer just a memory. It was a destination.