I was sitting with my back against one of the cold walls of the cell.
I felt myself being drained of energy, as if an invisible leak had opened somewhere inside me.
My body seemed immersed in icy water, my limbs heavy and numb. My eyelids were drawn together like magnets.
A yawn escaped my mouth, involuntary, and my eyes closed.
The room around me seemed to dissolve, replaced by violent, familiar images: the red sky, the gutted buildings, the corpses, and the gruesome scream of the man with the twisted body. It resounded in my head like an infinite echo.
I jerked my eyes open again. My skin was covered in cold sweat, my heart pounding violently in my chest, in rhythm with the sharp pain in my temples.
It must have been a day-from my point of view-that I'd been locked up here. And ever since that nightmare, I hadn't been able to get back to sleep.
The memories stuck to my skin like a second layer of flesh, sticky and impossible to tear off. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw those looks again-the scientist's-and his screams from the darkness.
Give it to me... give it back to me...
These words still haunted my thoughts, mingled with the heat under my ribcage.
I lay down on the filthy floor. It was damp, slightly sticky, and a smell of rust mixed with mold lingered in the air. I stared at the cracks in the ceiling as if they were about to whisper a secret to me.
My cellmate was awake too. But neither of us had broken the silence.
He simply wandered his gaze from wall to wall. Sometimes our eyes would meet. And he'd look away.
Is he afraid of me?
I didn't know, and to tell you the truth, I wasn't that interested.
So I started to dive inside myself.
I put my hand on my sternum, where the foreign energy was still burning.
From there, I slowly tried to separate it from mine, to understand what was mine and what was not.
I devoted all my concentration to this, until a blurred image took shape in my mind.
The fruit.
It was there, inside me. Caught in the skein of my essence, yet distinct.
I could feel it slowly crumbling. Thousands of colored particles escaped every second, mixing with my own energy like a drop of ink in a pool of water.
It had taken on the shape of a flame, floating in a space without contour. A warm, undulating, unreal glow. It was connected to me by a tenuous, invisible thread that I had never consciously stretched.
But it wasn't just an image.
It was a place. A deep recess in my being, an intimate, hidden place where essence had been stored and absorbed without my knowing how.
I'd never learned to do this. And yet, I was doing it.
The hunger that had consumed me yesterday seemed to subside as the fruit dissolved inside me.
But the heat didn't abate. Quite the opposite, in fact. It spread slowly through my veins, like a lazy lava flow.
Yesterday's voice came back to me, whispered on the verge of oblivion:
[Congratulations on your first absorption, Abel...]
Was this voice coming from absorption? Or something else?
A shiver ran through me.
"I think I'm becoming a monster," I murmured in a low voice.
More to myself than to my cellmate, still as mute as ever.
But he had turned his head towards me. He was listening to me. Even though he wasn't saying anything.
Maybe I didn't mind becoming a monster so much... as long as I became strong enough to make them pay.
But it was too much to bear now. Much too much.
I sat up slowly. My muscles were stiff. My left arm trembled slightly, an unpleasant shiver running through it.
A black line seemed to run beneath my skin. Invisible to the naked eye, but terribly clear in my sensations.
I tried to summon that warmth.
It vibrated. Trembling.
The fruit reacted immediately. A dull glow pulsed in my mind.
And then I saw it.
Not with my eyes.
With... something else.
A sphere of energy, folded in on itself, floated in that inner space. It turned slowly, like a beating heart.
I reached out for it. Mentally. Instinctively.
It burned me.
A sharp pain exploded in my skull.
I couldn't hold back a muffled scream. My breath caught, my arms froze and I fell to my knees.
Flashes went through my mind: my sister's voice, an explosion, a field of flames... I didn't know whether it was the fruit or my memories.
A voice echoed in my head, a distant whisper, soft as a sigh:
[You aren't ready].
I recoiled, torn from the vision. My breath was short, my chest aching.
I felt drained. Drenched in sweat.
The boy was staring at me.
He had backed up against the wall, his arms wrapped tightly around his knees. His face betrayed fear.
"What are you doing...?" he asked in an almost inaudible voice.
I looked down at my hands.
Golden flames danced there. Tiny. Silent.
I didn't know what to say. I myself didn't understand what I'd seen... or done.
So I looked up at him, still gasping for breath, and let out a broken smile.
"I... I think I'm becoming a monster."
He didn't answer. Silence fell again.
But in his eyes I read something I knew well, the fear of being next.