I couldn’t say how I ca back. Not exactly. Not in the way we describe returning sowhere consciously, like retracing a path or crossing a door.
No. It wasn’t a decision, not even a will.
I hadn’t tried to co back. I hadn’t called, or prayed, or scread. I hadn’t demanded anything. I hadn’t triggered anything.
And yet, sothing — or maybe nothing, precisely — had brought back.
As if space had gently led back to myself, without warning, without flash, without explanation, as if I had returned not into a place, but into a remnant of presence, into a forgotten breath of myself that the world had decided, for a mont, to give back to .
The Fern Plateau.
Still suspended in that matte, unreal light, where nothing cuts, where everything caresses.
Still soft, in that strange way places can be tender without intention, as if they had been shaped not to welco, but not to hurt.
Still alive, yes, with that slow, vegetal, almost maternal breath, which seems to rise from the soil itself.
The tall leaves quivered at the slightest breeze — not like a chanical reaction, but like a mory; a tender, silent echo, almost grateful, as if they recognized , as if they rembered ... not as I had beco, but as I had once been.
And I, in that suspended world, was no longer the one fleeing in urgency, in fear, in crawling sha.
I was no longer the one screaming his hatred to fill the void or terrify love.
I was just there, standing without strength, present without will, short of breath as after a race against oneself, shoulders lowered, relaxed more by surrender than by rest, eyes open but empty, staring without seeing, absorbing without understanding, as if everything in was still floating between too much and nothing.
And I... I listened.
Not like you listen to a curious sound or a familiar echo, but with that silent, full, almost vulnerable attention you reserve for things you’ve long refused to hear.
The song was there, resting on the air like an ancient truth, and yet I had never grasped it this way.
It wasn’t louder, nor more present, nor even changed in form or rhythm, but sothing in , this ti, had opened differently.
For the first ti... I truly heard it.
Not just the lody, not only the harmonic curves or the suspended shivers of the notes — no, beyond the music, in the very hollow of its breath, there were words.
Very faint at first, almost dissolved in the light, almost swallowed by the gentleness of their birth.
Very blurred, like written in fog you don’t dare to wipe away.
But clear.
Clear enough for to know they were ant for .
Clear enough that I could no longer pretend not to understand.
The words vibrated in the air like a truth whispered for too long, one of those sentences you no longer dare speak because it burns the lips, because it rings true — too true.
— You were so little...
And that simple whisper went through entirely, raised a shiver that had nothing of an alert, nothing of fear, but carried instead the strange texture of recognition.
It wasn’t a mory, not yet, but an old imprint suddenly regaining its shape.
— ... and yet...
Another note rose, barely perceptible, but I felt it vibrate sowhere in my belly, in my ribs, in the quietest fibers of my blood, as if it had always been there, buried under gestures, under defenses, under noise.
— ... everyone was waiting for you.
I stopped.
Imdiately.
Not by choice, nor by fear, nor because my body gave out, but because I couldn’t do otherwise.
My legs buckled beneath , not like under pain, not like under a blow, but simply because that truth — there, before , around , within — was too simple, too bare, too direct for to resist it.
It slipped under the armor. It didn’t skirt sha, it embraced it.
And I didn’t know how to defend myself against it.
I fell to my knees, slowly, almost naturally, as if the ground had stopped being support and beco a refuge — not a collapse, but a return, a soft fall into sothing truer than standing.
The ferns approached, yes, as if guided not by wind but by an intention I couldn’t na.
Their leaves brushed my cheeks, my neck, my arms, with that strange tenderness, vegetal, silent, as if they were trying to recognize with the tips of their veins, to comfort without asking questions.
And I stayed there, motionless, deeply, without tension, without fleeing.
Not out of resistance, no.
Not out of fear either.
But because I no longer knew how to move without risking breaking this fragile mont, this rare silence, this embrace of the world around which, for the first ti, did not judge .
Because sotis, the slightest gesture is enough to make everything collapse.
And I no longer had the strength to rebuild.
And then, the voice returned.
Softly. Without burst, without clash, as if it had never truly vanished, as if it had simply fallen silent for a mont to let breathe.
It wasn’t loud, nor cruel, nor commanding — it was there, simply there, resting in the air like an old, familiar, almost maternal presence, woven into the silence with that rightness you don’t question.
It didn’t say what I feared.
It said what I no longer dared to hope.
— You thought you ca alone...— But we were already waiting for you.
I closed my eyes.
Not to shut out the world, but to feel it differently, from within, with that new acuity that is born in monts of shift.
And tears ca.
Not violent. Not wrenching. Not those tears you push out of yourself like a rupture.
No.
Slow tears, warm, silent — tears that didn’t explode but settled, patiently, like a truth finally allowed to flow.
And they weren’t there for what I had lost.
They weren’t there for the dead, nor for the faults.
They ca... for what I had never believed I had.
That sothing which, against all odds, had been there from the beginning.
I wasn’t yet ready to accept it.
Not entirely.
Sothing in still resisted, out of habit maybe, or fear of what it would change if I truly gave in.
But a crack had opened, discreet, thin, almost imperceptible, and yet irreversible — not a brutal split, not a tear, just an opening, fragile, tenuous, enough to let pass sothing other than refusal.
And in that opening, almost shy, almost restrained, the song slipped in again, slowly, patiently, like an old breath co to the surface, like an inhale I had not yet dared to take, a first breath the body hesitates to claim, afraid it might be the last — or the first of a life one doesn’t know how to inhabit.
So, for the first ti in what felt like an eternity, I let go — not in the surrender of a fall, not in the fatigue of a body giving way, but in that more intimate, more vertiginous kind of release, the one that consists in no longer holding back what rises, in no longer locking the inner doors.
I let my old mories resurface, those fragnts of emotion denied for too long, those blurry, trembling images I had buried under layers of silence and rage.
Everything was still confused, drowned in a mist of distorted mory, but I felt it — viscerally, undeniably — that it was there, that everything ca from there.
That it was in that place, in that precise hollow, that sothing had broken without ever truly healing.
That it was there my original fracture had taken root, that mute breaking point around which my whole life had been built without seeing it, without admitting it, without even knowing how to na it.
I knew, deep down, I couldn’t flee forever.
That if I wanted to grow — truly grow, not just survive or change masks — I would have to face it, dive into that wound instead of continuing to avoid it.
So I listened to that lullaby, strange, soft, troubling, that song that vibrated all around like an echo of what I should have heard all along.
And I tried — clumsily, painfully — to grow, not by surpassing myself, but by opening up, by ceasing to fight against what had been offered without demand.
I tried to beco better, not for others, not to redeem myself, but simply so I wouldn’t be a prisoner of what I had been.
And I felt, with every breath, every note, that this world, despite everything, had changed .
This world I had hated, that I had rejected out of pride or fear, this world I had treated as an enemy or a trap, this world was maybe there... to help .
It didn’t judge . It didn’t punish . It waited, simply.
And maybe it was ti, finally, to begin accepting it.
And then, as if to confirm what I had just accepted, as if the world itself had heard that inner trembling and decided to take it at its word, I let my fatigue take over, without fighting this ti, without startle or resistance.
I let myself slip, slowly, into that sleep I had always dreaded — not because it scared , but because it implied letting go of control.
Morpheus ca for without violence, with warm arms, muffled gestures, and I let myself be reached, rocked by the warm breath of the earth, to the rhythm of that lullaby which, paradoxically, stung my heart as much as it ward it.
As if each note rubbed a still-open wound while laying down a warmth no longer expected.
And for the first ti in far too long, I surrendered to a true sleep, deep, restorative, without fear of what I would find there.
As if sothing, at last, had loosened its grip inside —
And that I could, for just one night, simply... sleep.
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