What if the noise of the world had made you forget what matters most?
Rain had begun to fall over Biel. From the apartment window, the towers of Skyward seemed to float in the electric mist. Numa still hadn't moved. The black screen of the terminal still reflected his tired face... and the silhouette standing behind him. A few seconds passed before he finally sighed.
"You always do that?"
There was no immediate answer.
Then the person behind him slowly removed their damp hood and the mask with the long rabbit ears.
It was Soren.
Her red hair clung lightly to her temples. Her clothes smelled of rain and of the gas from the technical tunnels beneath Groundward. She quickly looked over the dark screens.
"You left too many traces. Now the little hackers are using our messages."
"Thanks for the moral support."
Soren ignored the remark. She walked over to the terminal, placed two fingers on its still-warm casing, then looked back at him.
" Kaïssa is speeding things up. She identified me."
Numa ran a hand across his face.
"Ah... that's really not good."
Far away, another dull explosion echoed through Groundward. Not strong enough to worry Skyward, but enough to make the windows vibrate slightly. Soren briefly turned her head toward the bright heights.
"The gangs are taking advantage of the chaos," she said. "They think Biel is beginning to fall."
"Biel is falling?"
"Not yet."
Silence passed between them before her gaze drifted toward the old photo of Sophie that was still open beside the terminal. Soren studied it for a few seconds.
"A new conquest?"
Numa immediately looked away.
"No... she's not a new conquest."
"Of course."
She smiled.
He didn't answer because, deep down, he knew she was right about one thing.
The most dangerous thing for him wasn't Kaïssa, nor her drones, nor her analysts, nor even a system capable of turning an absence into an anomaly.
The most dangerous thing... was beginning to want to save someone personally.
Soren took a small data key from her pocket and placed it on the table.
"We lost two relay points last night."
"Because of the explosions?"
"No. Because of the panic. People are talking too much, moving too much, posting too much. Since Kaël's live broadcast, everyone wants to go and see for themselves what's hidden inside that fracture."
She sat on the edge of the desk. She looked tired too, but in her case the tiredness remained elegant, almost intentional.
"Some groups want to go to the Wall. Others think Biel has been hiding something for years."
"And are they wrong?"
A faint amused breath escaped Soren.
"You know very well they aren't."
"Sometimes... I still wonder what the Alliance really wants. Here we jam networks, open passages, protect people... but after that, what happens?"
This time Soren hesitated for a moment, as if some answers became dangerous the moment they were spoken aloud.
"Some simply want to live outside the system," she finally said. "Without badges. Without thresholds. Without needing permission to exist. Others believe people must be awakened before they completely forget that they are more than profiles, data, and predictable behaviors."
Numa remained silent.
Soren watched the lights of Biel through the rain.
"The system gradually cuts people off from themselves," she continued more quietly.
Silence.
"From their deepest emotions. From their intuition. From certain things they no longer even know how to feel... from that part of themselves they no longer even know how to name."
She paused.
"Look at them. Most of them live inside an illusion without even knowing it."
"Each generation forgets a little more than the one before. One day, they will have completely lost the memory of what connected them to the three worlds. When that day comes, finding the way back will become almost impossible."
The rain slowly slid down the windows.
"You mean humanity has forgotten part of itself?" Numa asked, looking back at her.
"Yes."
A faint smile crossed Soren's face.
"You're speaking just like them now."
"Maybe because they aren't completely wrong. Maybe because I'm with them. And maybe because it's time to wake up."
Another silence passed.
This one was heavier.
"And now more than ever," Soren added, "we have to stop Kaïssa from finding everything that still exists outside her control."
"Because if she finds it?"
At last Soren turned to look at him.
"Then she'll give it a name. She'll classify it. She'll install sensors everywhere. And whatever she doesn't understand... she'll try to lock it away, silence it, or make people believe it's madness."
Her gaze drifted back to the rain.
"And when there's no room left for the unknown... there will be no balance left. Nothing."
Numa felt a faint shiver run down the back of his neck.
"Do you really believe that?" he asked.
"I believe Biel is turning people into functional machines."
She lowered her voice slightly.
"And a human being wasn't made only to function."
Numa remained silent.
Far away, another siren rose above the noise of the city, then a second one. Biel was slowly beginning to lose its calm.
"And you?" he asked. "Do you still believe the forest is going to save anyone?"
Soren gave him a small, tired smile.
"The forest doesn't want to save anyone. That's exactly why it's different from Biel."
She paused.
"The forest simply is."
Numa didn't answer because he didn't really understand what she meant.
And because part of him didn't like admitting it.
Far away from there, deep beneath the immense forest, Sophie added a few dark branches to the small fire Neris had built between the roots. Almost no flames, only a low heat, muffled beneath black stones to avoid any visible smoke.
A soft light still danced there, blending with the pale blue reflections of the moss covering the gigantic trunk of the tree beneath which they had settled. The place felt unreal. The trunk rose so high it almost disappeared into the darkness of the canopy. Its roots emerged from the ground like ancient arches. They formed natural hollows large enough to set down their bags, shelter from the wind and the rain, and believe, for a few minutes, that they had found a shelter... though not yet a refuge. After the serpent, none of them would have used that word so easily anymore.
But for tonight... It was enough.
"Diagnosis: humidity level catastrophic for my metallic elegance."
Aria let out a small laugh.
Neris did too. Despite herself, she was beginning to enjoy Jazz's humor.
The low fire crackled softly. Around them, the forest breathed differently from Biel's artificial green spaces. Here, nothing tried to reassure them. Nothing pretended to be decorative.
Sophie pulled her knees a little closer.
"It's strange..."
"What is?" Aria asked without fully opening her eyes.
"I'm less afraid here... than I was there."
The silence that followed seemed to gently agree with her.
Neris watched the glowing embers.
"Because here, things don't try to be anything other than what they are."
She picked up a small piece of wood and slowly turned it between her fingers.
"Animals, at least, remain themselves. A bird is a bird. Even a snake is a snake. But a human being... sometimes they smile at you, they're kind... and the next moment they become someone else. Someone terrible. Someone you no longer recognize."
Sophie slowly turned toward Aria.
"That sounds a lot like... what I thought I heard near the stream. And also like what your mother wrote, in a way."
Aria frowned slightly.
"As if certain feelings, guided by a word, opened the door to a spirit that came to live inside a human being."
Sophie nodded slowly.
"Yes... one word, one fear, one feeling... and suddenly someone changes so much that you no longer recognize them. As if the spirit of anger had taken up all the space inside them."
She hesitated for a second before adding more quietly,
"And in the invisible world... the one I sometimes perceive... those spirits really exist, like the ones I saw in my dream."
She rubbed her arms.
"Well... I hope I don't see them all the time, because that would honestly be horrible."
Neris looked at her, then said,
"I don't even know what you're talking about. I'm really hanging around with some strange people."
"Me too now," Jazz confirmed.
This time, Aria really laughed.
For a few seconds, something relaxed a little more between them. Not enough to forget Biel. Not enough to forget the serpent.
But enough for the night to feel a little gentler.
Sophie watched the reflections dancing across the roots before finally saying,
"When I was little... I used to have the same dream over and over again. It took place in a forest, and every time... it made me feel safe."
Neris looked up slightly.
Aria came out of her weariness a little.
"I was sitting on a branch, in an enormous tree. Not an artificial forest. Something much older... almost sacred."
Her voice slowed as the images came back.
"The tree was huge. Even bigger than this one. Or maybe it only seemed that way because I was little... I don't know. There were two luminous presences with me. I couldn't see their faces."
The low fire crackled softly.
"The first one was close, a little above me. It spoke to me... explained things. I think I understood them at the time... but when I woke up, everything slipped away."
Sophie looked up toward the dark branches.
"The other light was higher. More golden. More radiant... like a glow. But it was far away... unreachable... as if I wasn't yet able to come close to it."
Aria listened without moving.
Neris did too.
Even Jazz had stopped making comments.
"What I remember most," Sophie continued,
"What?" Aria asked.
Sophie hesitated.
"I wanted to stay there... with those luminous presences... on that tree... in that magical forest. It felt like... returning to a place I already knew... but had forgotten."
A deep, immense silence returned.
The wind gently crossed the giant leaves above them.
Neris exchanged a discreet glance with Aria.
"When I grew up, I stopped talking about it," Sophie said. "Everyone told me they were just childhood dreams."
Aria looked at the embers.
"My mother used to say that some people come into this world with certain doors already slightly open."
Sophie let out a small nervous laugh.
"That sounds like another one of those unsettling sentences you don't really like."
"Yes," Aria replied with a smile. "She had a lot of those."
The fire cast moving light across Neris's face.
Aria looked at her more carefully.
Something was still rising inside her... slowly... like an old image.
Then she quietly said,
"Kaïssa... she's your mother, isn't she?"
The fire seemed to draw in slightly.
Neris didn't answer right away.
Her gaze remained fixed on the embers, as if she had hoped to keep that truth away from them just a little longer.
"Yes."
There was no anger.
No defense.
Only that quiet weariness they were beginning to recognize in her.
Sophie slowly looked up.
"Wait... what?"
Aria straightened slightly.
"I think I remembered... without being able to make the connection. The Biel workshops... my mother worked with Kaïssa's teams."
She looked at Neris.
"I knew you pretty well."
Sophie looked at Neris differently now. Not with fear, but with that strange feeling that the world had just become even more complicated.
Neris focused on the embers for a few seconds before speaking.
" You know what's the worst part?"
Her voice was calm.
"A lot of people think people like my mother control everything because they love power."
At last, she looked up at them.
"But most of the time... they're simply afraid."
The wind gently moved through the enormous leaves above them.
"Afraid of losing control. Afraid of what existed before Biel. Afraid of what still exists outside. Afraid of what they are."
Sophie felt a slight shiver run down the back of her neck.
"And why cross the Wall?"
"To join the Alliance," Neris simply replied.
Something changed in Neris's eyes.
This time, there was neither suspicion nor hesitation.
"Some people believe Kaïssa's system has cut human beings off from something essential."
"From what?" Aria asked.
Neris looked around them.
The immense roots.
The pale moss.
The water they could hear without seeing.
The branches hiding the stars.
"From themselves," she finally whispered.
Her gaze returned to the embers.
"And perhaps... from those lights you were talking about in your tree."
A long silence settled once again.
Sophie didn't know how to explain it, but it was as if this place wasn't just a forest.
It was a passage toward a different way of feeling the world.
Even technology seemed less certain of itself here.
Jazz's sensors hesitated.
Signals disappeared.
Even sounds themselves seemed to travel differently between the trees.
And despite the tiredness...
Despite the serpent...
And despite everything that still awaited them...
Sophie had the feeling that this place was already changing them.
Slowly.
Without asking their permission.
A branch cracked somewhere in the darkness.
Aria immediately straightened up.
Neris reached for her case...
Then stopped.
Jazz slowly rotated his dome.
"I'd like to point out that I didn't say anything."
No one spoke.
High above, among the branches...
Something seemed to catch the firelight for a brief moment.
Then...
Nothing.
And yet Sophie kept looking.
She would have been unable to say why.
The Guardian Angel : What humanity has forgotten is its soul. When we come into this world, our soul never descends in its entirety. One part incarnates to learn, to love, and to grow within the material world. The other remains in the World of Light, untouched and eternal. The true path is to rediscover that eternal part of yourself that has never left you.
To those who come back every Sunday…
Every chapter is a meeting. With my characters, of course, but also with you. Knowing that some of you take a little time out of your Sunday to continue this journey truly means a lot to me. Thank you for walking this path with me. Elea 🤍