Anthesis of Sadness Chapter 205: The Rain Was a Memory

The rain had changed. It was no longer that soft veil, those timid drops that slide without insisting. No. It no longer caressed. It stung. Not like needles — that would be too simple, too physical, too obvious. No... it stung like acidic mories, like liquefied fragnts of the past, falling from the sky to blend with the skin and awaken what we thought forgotten.

Each drop, now, seed charged with an ancient weight. And even if they remained invisible to the eye, even if they didn’t mark the flesh, they still left a burn — discreet, diffuse, but stubborn. A fine, nervous heat that seeped under the skin, like a muffled truth rising through the pores, drop by drop, until it smothered thought. The rain was no longer weather. It was a mory. A wet mory falling back down on .

And the railings... lted. Literally. The tal seed to ooze, deform, unravel under an absurd heat, as if the world itself were losing patience. Their curves collapsed slowly, drop by drop, without a crash, in a discreet agony, almost modest. Like arms held out too long toward another, toward a call, toward a promise, and that end up letting go. Giving up. Not out of weakness. But because they understood there would be no answer.

I was still climbing. One step after another, without rhythm, without real will. As one climbs not to reach sothing, but because there’s nothing else left to do. The staircase, deford, lting in places, undulated beneath my feet like a living matter in agony, and yet I continued. Not out of strength. But because stopping would have been worse. Because each step taken held in balance, fragile, between falling and surviving.

Each step forced to find a new balance. Nothing was stable. Nothing repeated. As if every gradient, every irregularity, every sagging was placed there intentionally — to challenge . The world wasn’t trying to make fall out of cruelty. It wasn’t a punishnt. It was a test. A silent trial, almost benevolent in its brutality. As if it wanted to know. If I truly wanted to continue. If I was willing to move forward even when nothing held. Even when everything wavered.

All I knew was that without my regenerative ability — that anomaly gifted by my race, that poisoned privilege grafted to my cells — I would already be dead. Not once. But a thousand. Dead for far too long, consud, crushed, abandoned in pieces on one of the landings of this world that forgives nothing.

And what chilled , beyond even the pain, was this certainty: he was the most terrifying enemy I had ever faced. By far. By a long, long way. A chasm between him and the others. More crushing than Anarael, despite his divine light. More devouring than Xylorath, despite his theater of omnipotence. He... was sothing else. A presence that could not be contained. A horror that could not be nad. An end that did not announce itself.

The child in my arms stirred. Barely. A shiver. A breath of movent against my chest. He hadn’t said a word, all along. Not a cry, not a whimper. A silence of stone, or of fear — I no longer knew. But now... he was crying.

Not loudly. Not like usual, those cries of fatigue or pain we learn to ignore to survive. No. This ti, it was sothing else. A new nuance, fine, unsettling. In each sob, one felt an expectation. A tension. A demand. As if his tears, instead of fleeing, were bringing back to him. As if he wanted sothing. Not comfort. But an answer.

A discreet sob. Rhythmic. Like a pulse. Not a sharp complaint, not a tantrum. Just that broken breath, regular, painfully contained — a child’s grief too used to not being heard. Too used to crying alone, in the void, without hope that anyone would co. It was a soft sound, almost imperceptible, but that seeped everywhere. It vibrated against my skin. It knocked against my rib cage like an ancient reminder. A foreign mory. Or maybe... not so foreign after all.

I... without aning to, without even realizing it, I was crying too. Not in response to him. Not as a tender mirror. Not even in silent solidarity. I cried without knowing why. Without precise emotion. Without a defined cause.

The tears flowed, slow, warm, absurd — as if my body, having held everything in for too long, had finally burst on its own. There was no sobbing. No moaning. Just this water falling, stubborn, impassive, from too far away to be stopped. As if a part of , buried deep, had decided this was the mont. Without asking for my permission.

One tear. Then another. Without sound. Without jolt. They slid down my cheeks like thoughts no longer dared to be ford, like mories dissolved in salty water. All in silence. A thick, respectful, almost sacred silence.

There was nothing spectacular. Nothing dramatic. Just this slowness. This intimate trickle. As if the body, itself, rembered what I had tried to forget.

My shoulders began to tremble. Suddenly. Without warning. As if sothing inside had snapped. A dam. A tension held for too long. It wasn’t a shiver from cold, nor a jolt of fear. It was deeper. More organic. A nervous release, brutal, irrepressible. As if my body, despite , was finally allowing itself to crack. To confess. To let it out.

My chest rose. Once. Then again. In jerks. As if each breath ca from a well too deep, too clogged with unspoken things. It wasn’t a regular breath, nor a controlled motion. It was a jolt. A brutal, jagged wave of emotion I couldn’t control. My body was relearning how to breathe... or maybe it was collapsing.

A sob, a little too loud, caught in my throat — an uncontrolled spasm, torn from my guts, like a hiccup of mory. It wasn’t intended. Not even conscious. It was a shake, a jolt from elsewhere, from a place in I thought long sealed. And it rose, that sob, without elegance, without modesty, raw and rough, like a repressed truth that no longer asked for permission.

I wanted to hold it back. Truly. Out of reflex, out of sha, out of habit too. I tried to swallow the sound, to contract my throat, to block my stomach. But it was too late. The body had already spoken. I had already given in, inside. Perhaps long ago. There was no dam left, no barrier. Just this open, gaping breach, through which finally escaped what I had never known how to na.

It was there. Not the mory itself — not a clear image, not a scene replayed in loops. No. It was there differently. In what it did to my body. A contraction. A dull, stubborn burn, lodged sowhere between ribs and belly. An inner surrender, as if sothing in was slowly withdrawing, in layers, leaving hollow, vulnerable, naked.

A horrible sensation, almost impossible to locate, but total. It possessed . And this rain... this insidious, continuous, relentless rain, was no longer a simple phenonon. It was a tornt. A stretched agony. A tornt that didn’t strike hard, but long. Long. Always. Until it eroded everything still standing.

I dropped to my knees. Not to beg. Not to implore so grace from elsewhere. No. Just to hold on. To not collapse entirely. My legs had given way, yes, but not as a symbolic gesture — it was chanical, instinctive, almost animal.

The ground beca a necessity. A point of support. The only one still able to contain without crumbling. I wasn’t praying. I was resisting. On my knees, yes, but not in submission — in survival.

The pearly ground was cold. Wet. Unstable. Beneath my knees, it barely slid, like a living, hesitant substance that no longer knew whether it should support or swallow . The moisture clung, sticky, soaking into my clothes, my skin, maybe even to the bone. And yet... it was still the only place I could hold on.

The only place real enough, tangible enough for to cling to, even while trembling. It didn’t offer comfort. But at least, it didn’t flee.

The child, curled up against , still said nothing. He didn’t move, didn’t even sniffle anymore. But his tears... they had stopped. Slowly. Without us noticing. As if my collapse had cald him. As if he were listening — not to my words, there were none — but to what my body was saying in my place. My sobs. My tremors. My broken silence.

And sowhere, in the hollow of that mute fusion, I felt that my pain... reassured him. Because it resembled his. Because it spoke the sa language as his. Because in , he perhaps found the echo of what he didn’t know how to express. And that was enough. For him to stay silent. For him to remain. For him to hold on.

I rested my forehead against the hollow of his shoulder. Gently. Almost with sha. It wasn’t a thought-out gesture, even less an act of comfort. It was a surrender. An imdiate need for contact, for warmth, for sothing that truly existed.

His small shoulder, thin, fragile, still wet with rain, was that anchor point. A derisory refuge, but real. And in that silent closeness, sothing in cald down. Just a little. Not because I was better. But because I was no longer completely alone.

Then, without even thinking about it, without deciding, I murmured:

— I’m sorry...

The words slipped between my lips like a breath too old to be held back, too heavy to remain silent. It wasn’t an apology. Not a justification. It was a fracture. A confession escaped from the heart, addressed to no one and to everyone at once — to him, to , to those I had left behind, to that past I still carried like an open wound.

I didn’t even know what exactly I regretted. But it was there. True. And it was all I had left.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t cry either. He just stayed there, against , motionless, silent, as if my words no longer required a reaction. As if, for once, silence was enough. He didn’t move, but I felt his breath, slow, steady, almost peaceful, pass through like a silent reply.

He didn’t need to speak. Nor to cry. His presence said everything. And that everything... broke a little more, but differently. More gently.

And the rain, around us, kept falling. Relentless. Acid, soft, real. A liquid contradiction, as if the sky itself no longer knew whether to punish or console.

Each drop carried sothing ancient, sothing honest. It was no longer an enemy. Nor an ally. Just a presence. A deep and steady song that enveloped us both, washing without erasing, burning without condemning.

It fell. Simply. As if it knew that was all we were capable of now: to stay there, and let the world cry with us.