[Purification Process, Day 15 - From Epsilon's Perspective]
My eyes are closed but I see her. Null. Leaning against the shelter's cool metal wall, watching me. Not with my physical eyes, but with that invisible bond between us, with the whispers of the nanorobots under my skin... I feel her concern, the alarms of her logic, and beyond all that, her unwavering presence. This feeling becomes my armor for the pain about to begin.
Fifteen days have passed. My body has become as light as a feather. Hunger was a monster gnawing at my mind for the first few days, now it's just a distant whisper. I feel the emptiness in my stomach being filled with an energy I've never tasted before. It's as if I'm no longer fed by food, but by this universe itself. My mind... ah, my mind. There's no trace left of that old, noisy prison full of headaches. My thoughts are as clear and sharp as a laser beam.
I slow my breathing. The ritual begins. The words from the book echo in my mind: "If you exist, you don't exist; if you don't exist, you exist." This is like inserting a key into a lock. In the first days, I struggled to reach this nothingness. My past, my regrets, my losses... They all paraded through my mind one by one. But now... now I just need to turn the key.
And the door opens.
My self, everything I call "Epsilon," slowly dissolves. Actually, my name wasn't Epsilon. But I hated my real name so much that I accepted this new identity without question. Now that I think about it... I don't even really remember it. I think it started with A. What does it matter anyway? That name belonged to a weak girl who suffered. I'm not her anymore. The boundaries of my body melt, my consciousness seeps through the shelter's walls and merges into an infinite ocean stretching toward the stars. I'm no longer a human; I'm a thought, a memory, a particle in the universe's breath. This is a peace that words cannot describe. A terrifying freedom.
In this absolute emptiness, in this divine silence, I whisper that day's name. God's name.
And heaven instantly turns to hell.
This isn't the pain of knives or fire. This is the soul's pain. It's as if all the poison, all the fear, all the hatred that has seeped into the darkest corners of my existence is being torn out all at once. Every cell in my body screams as it's purified of this spiritual filth. This is such a pain that it tears me from that infinite ocean and imprisons me back in a body made of flesh and bone.
But this time I'm not alone. At the deepest point of pain, I feel another being. Null. My pain flows to her through the bond between us, and I feel how her systems creak, how her logic flounders against this metaphysical assault. My pain becomes her pain too. This awareness makes the unbearable bearable.
After moments that feel like eternity, the pain subsides.
When I open my eyes, as always, she's the first thing I see. She's come right beside me, scanning me with her red eyes. Her face may be expressionless but I can read what's behind that expression. That concern, that protective instinct... This silent vigil of hers is the best medicine after the pain.
Then that smell hits my nose. The smell of that spiritual rot torn from inside me. My stomach turns. This was part of me. This smell was my past. As I run to the purification room to escape from it, I know Null is starting to clean that filth behind me. As she cleans my physical dirt, the water washes my soul. This is our strange, silent ritual.
Our relationship... even this word falls short. Teasing her, calling her "my life," seeing her fake anger and "tsundere" reactions, these are the most enjoyable moments of this difficult process. Because I know that beneath that hard shell, there's someone who understands me, who feels with me. While her words say "I'm not your life," her presence screams "I won't leave you alone."
In this empty world, I can feel all purity focusing on me. I think this was the masked entity's plan. He put me in a laboratory purified of noise and provided everything necessary for my transformation. He also left Null beside me as a guardian, a witness, a... companion.
My body is weakening, yes. But my soul is taking wing. I'm like I'm inside a cocoon. Someone looking from outside would only see a weakening, motionless being. But inside, something completely different is being born.
I don't know what will happen at the end of forty days. But I'm not afraid. Because I know that when I open my eyes, there will be a pair of green eyes waiting for me there. And that's worth everything.