Araque woke with a sore body, heavy eyes, and his mind spinning in a dense fog. His chin trembled, vision still blurred. Everything felt distant, as if he were watching himself through dirty glass. Sounds, images, and memories swirled together, impossible to separate.
First, he saw a field. Wet earth, broken branches, seeds being planted. But it wasn't just that. Amid the green, flashes of orange and red cut across his vision—bodies falling, wounds, blood scattered across the ground. His hand—his own hand—gripped something glowing: an electric sword, pulsing with energy as if it had a will of its own. He swung it with force but couldn't understand at whom or at what.
Explosions erupted from undefined places. Pain was alive, spreading through his body, as if the spikes piercing his flesh multiplied with every second. Electric shocks ran through every muscle, every nerve. His vision oscillated: one moment, trees and a clear sky; the next, fire, stingers embedded in bodies, metal fragments flying in slow motion.
He tried to scream, but nothing came out. He tried to move, but his legs were stuck, invisible, as if the ground had turned into sticky liquid. Each flash of memory came with excruciating intensity: hands gripping his flesh, the impact of blows, iron piercing the body, fire burning all around.
He saw his own skin being torn, yet at the same time he was planting trees, tilling the soil with his fingers, performing simple tasks like breathing that felt as hard as working the land. It was impossible to reconcile.
Amid the flashes, he noticed colors: bright orange, deep red, even shades of profound black. Sounds of metal twisting, explosions, screams, and crying.
He tried to make sense of it, but it was all layered and overlapping, impossible to decode. A sense of emptiness mixed with extreme pain filled his mind. He wondered if he was alive or dead.
The last vision before his senses cleared was a fist enveloped in black flames mixed with red. The impact reverberated in slow motion, vibrating through every cell of his body. The ground shook, the explosion burned everything around. He didn't know if it was him attacking, the monster, or just a memory of someone watching from the outside.
When he finally opened his eyes, Araque was in a bed, covered, breathing with difficulty. The hospital light was still too bright, the sounds too sharp. He blinked several times, trying to organize what he had seen, but nothing made sense.
"I… where am I…" he murmured, his voice weak, almost swallowed by the room's silence.
He looked at his hands, still marked by trauma, felt his entire body aching, but what frightened him most was his mind. Nebulous fragments kept spinning in his head: fire, explosions, blood, trees, hands he didn't recognize, movements he didn't remember making.
Araque closed his eyes again. He tried to remember: "What happened? Did I do this? Or did someone do it to me?" But the confusion was total. Every memory seemed to contradict the next. It was as if he had been through a war inside himself, and now he was alone, trying to piece together a story he couldn't comprehend.
The room felt too small for the weight of his memories. He took a deep breath and murmured to himself:
"I… damn it, fire… I need to rest… argh… it hurts so much."