I had continued the climb, tirelessly, until the steps ceased. Until a landing appeared—bare, silent, with no step above. Like a pause the world itself offered . Or maybe... a limit. A threshold. Sothing else began there. I felt it, without yet knowing what.
Suspended in the fog, a shape floated. It wasn’t a room, nor a human construction. It was a cocoon. A living shelter, organic, as if woven by sothing older than the world.
It seed made of misty fibers and interlaced roots, thick and translucent at the sa ti, as if even the light hesitated to pass through them. Its surface rippled slowly, animated by a discreet, almost imperceptible breath—a calm, irregular beating, like that of a heart no longer beating to survive, but to rember.
The cocoon rested on nothing. It floated, suspended by invisible filants, anchored sowhere between emptiness and mory.
Its skin, veined with pale glows, vibrated faintly under the layers of mist, as if it responded to my presence without defending itself.
The opening at the front wasn’t a door but a living, pulsing slit that breathed slowly. Like a mory one doesn’t dare to na. Like an old wound waiting to be looked at without trembling.
The silence around was not dead—it was sacred. Everything seed to hold its breath, as if this cocoon sheltered sothing even the world didn’t dare disturb.
I approached. One step after another, eyes fixed on the cocoon, senses alert, but strangely calm.
The child in my arms didn’t flinch. He didn’t shiver, didn’t tense, didn’t even look away.
And that simple fact—his silence, his tranquility, his mute trust—reassured a little. As if, despite the unknown, despite the mist and the irregular beating of this living chamber, sothing in him recognized the place. As if I wasn’t approaching danger... but a threshold.
Then, slowly, I placed my free hand on the entrance. It offered no resistance. On the contrary, it opened on its own, in a soft quiver, almost docile—like an eyelid gently brushed.
A sigh of mist escaped from it, warm and filled with a scent I couldn’t na: a blend of moss, ash, and sothing older... maybe forgetfulness.
The air that ca out seed to have waited. A long ti. Too long. And now that it breathed again, it was it passed through.
I entered. And imdiately, everything changed. Inside, everything was warm, soft, suspended. The air had no weight.
The ground was no longer truly a ground, but a living, supple, almost pulpy matter, which welcod my steps without sound.
Nothing rested on anything, everything floated—the walls, the shapes, even the light, diffuse, as if filtered through layers of organic mist.
It was like walking inside the belly of a mory. A place without gravity, without ti, where everything seed to wait for sothing to be admitted.
Thin veils floated around , suspended in the air without being held by anything.
They undulated slowly, as if carried by a breeze that didn’t exist, brushing space without ever truly touching it.
Between the living walls of the cocoon, filants of light stretched—long, taut, fragile—like violin strings vibrating in absolute silence.
They seed to play a lody no one heard, but that the whole place, sohow, made resonate. A suspended music. An awaiting.
And at the center... a scene. Not alive. Not dead either. As if frozen in between, fossilized in a matter that even ti no longer dared to touch.
It didn’t move, but it still breathed—barely.
Under a low table, with slender legs, sat a little boy. Curled up, folded into himself, arms around his legs.
He didn’t tremble. He didn’t cry. He was there, whole, focused, eyes wide open. He listened.
With that raw and fragile attention children have when they already know the world can break—and they want to hear exactly when it will snap.
Behind him, out of fra, there were footsteps. Slow. Heavy.
Then muffled screams, strangled by walls too close or fears too old.
A woman’s voice. Weak. Too slow to stop anything. Too distant to change the course of what was coming.
And then... a dull sound. Flat. Final. And silence. The real kind.
The one you breathe like a punishnt. The one that leaves no space, not even for prayer. The one that settles in the bones. To never leave again.
I didn’t move. I watched. Motionless, frozen not by fear, but by that painful form of recognition one can no longer deny.
It wasn’t , that boy. I knew it. I had no doubt about it. And yet... I recognized myself.
Not in his features. Not in his story. But in his posture. In his wide open eyes, empty and full at once.
In the way he made himself small. Shrinking his presence. As if he thought, very hard, that if he didn’t exist too loudly, the world might forget him. Spare him.
I knew that reflex. That withdrawal. That mute prayer. It was mine. Or had been. For a long ti. Too long.
My throat tightened. Slowly. As if every mory had piled up there, blocking breath, swallowing words.
A tear. A single one. Slid noiselessly and died on the warm cheek of the child in my arms.
He didn’t move. But after a mont, he looked up at .
Not to judge. Not to demand. Just... to look at .
And in that gaze, there was nothing but sharing. A silence for two.
A bare space, offered without reproach, without explanation. As if he said: I know. I know too.
I wanted to speak. To open my mouth, find a word, any word. But there was nothing to say.
Nothing that wouldn’t betray the truth of the mont. It wasn’t my story—I knew that.
And yet... it was my pain. An adopted pain. A mirrored pain.
As if sothing in had recognized itself in another’s echo, without fully understanding it, but enough to carry its weight.
And then I understood, without really thinking it: crying for another... might be the only way to start getting closer to myself.
So, simply, I decided to leave. Without noise. Without averting my eyes.
My steps guided to the opening, and behind , the cocoon closed. Slowly. Naturally.
As if it had understood I couldn’t stay any longer. That what it had to show had been seen. Felt. Carried.
It held nothing back. It didn’t imprison. It folded in on itself, like a mory that agrees to wait. Patient. Silent. Respectful.
In the climb that followed, the weight was still there. Unchanged in its mass, in its place against .
But... sothing had changed. It was no longer as hostile. No longer as sharp.
It no longer slashed at every step—it accompanied .
As if it had seen. As if it had sensed I had recognized sothing. In . In him. In the shared silence.
It wasn’t easier. But it was less violent. And sotis, that was enough.
Not yet everything. Not the full truth. Not the screams, nor the mories to their end.
But... the outline. The fragile edge of what I fled. The blurred shape of that thing I didn’t dare to na.
It was no longer hidden. It existed. There, sowhere, behind.
And even if I still couldn’t face it, I could no longer pretend not to have seen it.
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