On the Path of Eternal Strength.

And with the world ahead, without permission to stop it… Sebastián walked.

There was no ceremony. Only steps. One after another, sinking into a new land, damp, softer than the last, as if the ground itself breathed beneath him.

The air grew colder, thinner. There was no wind… there was waiting. As if something lingered, waiting for him to say the wrong word.

At his side, Virka stayed close.

Her new human form was fragile and silent. She was no longer the beast of skin and claw, but neither was she a common child. She still didn't know how to speak. She communicated the same way she always had: with gaze, with closeness, with weight. Her arm brushed against Sebastián's, as if afraid she might vanish if she strayed away.

Narka followed behind.

Huge. Silent. Almost invisible, if not for the heat radiating from his body. His shell seemed to absorb the gray of the environment. He didn't speak. He never had.

Until then.

First, the sound changed. It wasn't a foreign voice. It was his voice.

—What will you do now?

The same question Draila had asked him in the previous biome. Only this time it didn't come from her. Nor from outside. Not even from memory.

—…will you do now…? —…now… —…now… —…now…

The echo dragged itself like liquid shadow. It didn't fade. It remained.

Sebastián stopped. The world ahead of him blurred. No trees, no mountains, no clear sky. Only thick fog and broken shapes, as if reality itself was decomposed, waiting to be forgotten.

Virka stopped beside him. She said nothing. Only looked at him.

He listened again. His own voice, younger. More broken.

—Mom! —Don't close the door! —Please, don't…! —…please… —…ple…

The valley did not return words. It returned wounds. The ones one throws at the world, and also the ones one thinks in secret.

And then, something new. Something that was not memory.

A voice. A phrase he had never spoken, but which pierced him as truth:

—You were not born to live. Only to endure.

Sebastián stood frozen. He didn't know if it was his own. Or if the valley was beginning to think for him.

And then, something impossible was heard. A different voice. Deep. Grave. Like stone cracking from within:

—This place… does not lie.

Sebastián turned sharply. Virka also looked, eyes narrowed with bewilderment.

Narka… had spoken. For the first time.

The boy took half a step back. In all the time they had been together, Narka had been silence and presence. A living mountain. A guardian without tongue. But now… that voice had just broken something.

—You… can speak? —whispered Sebastián.

The colossus didn't respond immediately. He only lifted his head slightly. The single eye fixed. Yellow as an old root.

And then, with the voice of a weary world:

—I do not lie. I only wait. And when silence weighs heavier than the body… I speak.

Sebastián didn't know what to say. For a moment, even the echo seemed to fall quiet. As if the valley itself wished to listen.

And in that instant, Sebastián felt something unknown:

Astonishment.

Not for the place. But for realizing that even those who walked beside him still had secrets.

And that he wasn't the only one who had begun to hear his own voice within.

And with that astonishment still throbbing, Sebastián walked again. The ground seemed to pulse under his feet. Not like a heart, but like a memory refusing to die.

The echo no longer repeated only phrases. It repeated intentions.

—What… will you do now…? —Now… —Now…?

Each word returned as if time had tangled into itself. As if the past tried to speak with its own shadow.

Virka walked pressed to him. But her gaze was tense. Her eyes, for the first time since her transformation, did not shine… They trembled.

Sebastián felt that something in her, too, was beginning to fracture.

—Do not trust what sounds —murmured Narka behind—. Nor what does not.

—What is this place? —asked Sebastián, without looking back.

—It is the mirror of what you silenced —answered the colossus.

And then, they saw them.

Not creatures. Not humans. Shapes. Twisted. Like bodies made of smoke, bent inward. Their mouths were open… but no scream came. Only the echo of things Sebastián had thought in solitude.

—"I'm not enough." —"If I die, no one will notice the difference." —"Why do I keep breathing?"

Words he had never said. Words he never dared to say. But there they were. Floating. Repeating.

Virka clutched his arm. Her touch was colder. Her eyes… were beginning to cloud with fog too.

And for the first time, Sebastián thought something he hadn't wanted to since Draila:

"If she doesn't endure here… she will be lost."

The valley did not roar. It didn't need to. Because the noise was already inside. The valley did not roar.

It didn't need to.

Because the noise was already inside.

There was no wind. No ground. Everything was solid thought, flesh of memory, bone of error.

And from that abyss where echo blends with self, he emerged.

The child.

Five years old. Bare feet, filthy hair, a gaze worn out from waiting too long. Not a memory. A truth. An absolute presence.

But this time, he did not bring tenderness. He did not bring tears. He brought judgment.

He advanced without fear. As if the valley belonged to him. As if he had been there before all things.

—I am you. But without the masks.

And then Sebastián saw it:

The red bracelet. Tied firm, clean, still alive, coiled around the thin arm of his five-year-old self. Full of meaning. Full of hope. Full of what he once believed could save him.

Sebastián lowered his gaze to his own arm. Not the wrist. His bicep.

There was the same bracelet. But it wasn't the same. It was a ruin of what it had been. Worn, blackened by blood, earth, and decisions. It didn't look like a memory. It looked like a scar that never healed. A symbol that survived, but deformed.

The child looked at him with eyes that did not tremble. And spoke. Not like someone broken. Like someone awake.

—You did not forget me. You turned me into something else. Something that survives, but does not live. Something that moves forward, but without direction. Something that says "I am Sebastián"… but does not know what it means.

Sebastián tried to speak. But the air became sand in his lungs. His thoughts tangled within the fibers of the child's voice.

—I wanted love. You gave me strategy. I needed comfort. You taught me to harden my back. I hungered for a home… and you gave me mountains of bones.

—And now what are you?

A silence.

And then:

—You are a body full of fury. A weapon that does not know its target. A monster that weeps when no one sees. An emperor of scars, without throne or land. A memory of what we could have been… if someone had loved us in time.

And Sebastián fell. Not from muscular weakness. But because something in his axis had broken. The invisible line that separates the one who survives… from the one still waiting to be saved.

The child approached. And touched the bracelet on his arm.

—Do you know what this is?

Sebastián swallowed.

—It is my symbol. My bond…

The child shook his head.

—No. Now it is your chain. You wear it not to remember who you were… but to justify what you became.

And the final phrase descended like a verdict that had always been written:

—You did not kill me. You used me.

And there was no blood. No scream. Only the exact sensation of a soul splitting in two. As if the real version of Sebastián —the one who cried, the one who needed— walked away slowly. Not fleeing. Simply unwilling to return.

And the child's final echo was more philosophical than human:

—You seek strength. I only wanted to live. You trained the body. I… am what was left behind. Which of us… is still real?

And Sebastián, for the first time, did not know if he deserved that answer.

And while Sebastián collapsed, broken by the voice of his inner child, the valley moved. Not outward. Toward her.

Virka.

Still pressed to him, still without words, but she was no longer the same. And the valley knew it.

Her human body was weak, new, still incapable of bearing the roars she once released with a simple gesture. And within that soft, vulnerable body, something stirred.

A presence.

A form.

The one she had been.

The one she still was, beneath that skin.

The beast.

Dark. Deformed. Majestic. Covered in muscles as hard as stone, eyes as hollow as night, claws that had torn without hesitation. It was her. Not a vision. A memory that refused to be replaced.

The valley tore at her with the same violence as it did Sebastián, but not from judgment. From instinct. From betrayal of origin.

Virka did not tremble. Not because she was strong. But because she did not know how to tremble. Her human mind did not yet understand fear. But her body did.

And then she heard it. Herself. Before language. Before name. Before everything.

The beast.

And that voice did not speak like Sebastián. It was not reason. It was roar. Brutal. Pure. Born from the center of the earth itself.

—Why did you lock me in this flesh? —Why did you give me fingers that tremble, eyes that cry, lips that do not bite? —Why did you place me at his side… if I can no longer protect him?

The beast did not hate. But neither did it understand. Because what she was… had not been made for tenderness.

Virka shrank. Her body began to burn from within. Not fire. Conflict.

Humanity against essence. Softness against structure.

And then she saw her: Herself. The true Virka. As in the image she had forgotten. Crouched. Red. Savage. Claws out front and a white light in her eyes that never asked permission. That never asked at all.

The creature watched her from the valley's shadows. And growled.

—I was roar. Now you are his sigh. —I was fear for others. Now… you fear losing him. —I was your truth. And you… chose to be his shadow.

Virka fell. Not from pain. From truth. Because everything that creature said… was true. And she didn't know how to defend herself.

And in that surrender, the beast drew closer. Not to kill her. But to undo her. To take the place that was stolen.

One last phrase pierced her, in the tone of a world that does not need words to wound:

—If you cannot bite, if you cannot protect, if you cannot kill… then why do you exist?

And her human form began to fracture. Not from the valley. From herself. From the crack between what she had been… and what she could never cease to be. The valley did not stop.

Because the valley was not a place.

It was a process.

A slow truth.

And in that process, in that mental rot dragging the soul from within, Virka and Sebastián dragged themselves too.

They did not walk. They fell. Inward. Without noise. Without words. Without end.

He, with guilt still burning in his bicep.

She, with her human form fractured, as if her flesh no longer knew what to be.

And between them… a void.

Not of distance. Of meaning.

But even in that abyss, something remained. Instinct. Trace. Presence.

And that was what made them, without looking, without thinking, without deciding, reach for each other's hands.

Not as an act of redemption. As an act of shared pain.

As if saying "me too" without voice… was the only thing they could do.

Their fingers brushed. Trembling. Stained. Alive.

And that contact did not heal anything. It only proved they could still feel. In spite of everything. In spite of themselves.

It was then that Narka approached.

He made no sound. Because he never interrupts pain. He only observes.

The figure of the child kneeling before his own self.

The figure of the beast made girl, defeated by what she once was.

And without a word, he took them.

One with each claw.

And set them upon his shell.

Not inside. On top.

Exposed. Under the open sky.

Like incomplete offerings.

And then, the living minerals covering his back—black, reddish, rough as old mountain—moved.

As if they understood. As if they felt.

They rose. Twisted but precise. And slowly wrapped Sebastián and Virka, holding them.

Not as an embrace. As an anchor.

So they would not fall. Not from his shell. From themselves.

And Narka advanced. Slow. Silent.

With his steps marking the rhythm of a mourning that had not yet begun in full.

And inside, in that shell that was more altar than refuge, Virka and Sebastián kept falling.

But no longer alone. Nor so far.

The dialogue would come.

Not with voice.

But with what remains when the soul stops pretending.

The path did not change. Nor the air. Nor the fog. Nor the weight.

What changed… was the way they were carried.

Upon Narka's back, among mineral spines and red veins that pulsed like veins of living earth, Virka and Sebastián kept falling.

But this time, together.

Their bodies did not speak. But their hands remained intertwined.

Not with strength. With insistence.

With need.

With the certainty that, if they let go… there would be no return.

And their eyes, empty, open, did not look at the world.

They looked at each other.

Not out of tenderness. Out of fear.

Out of recognition.

Out of the reflection of the same ruin in two different faces.

Narka walked.

His legs weighed more than the ground.

His steps were like ancient clocks that did not measure time, but existence.

And as he advanced, with his two human burdens upon his shell, he spoke.

Not to them.

To the world. Or to himself.

—The rock is not born knowing how to be mountain. It fractures. It splits. It unravels. And only then, when it accepts its cracks… does it become firm.

His crystals—dark, broken, beautiful—moved faintly.

As if exhaling. As if whispering something in a language that needed no words.

And that murmur… entered.

Not through ears. Through the chest. Through the mind. Through the wound.

Neither Sebastián nor Virka noticed at first. They only felt their thoughts grow heavier. Slower. Deeper.

Not like one who falls. Like one who begins to listen within.

What they never wanted to hear.

And Narka continued, with the voice of old stone:

—The boy does not become a man when he kills. But when he remembers he once wished to stop existing… and chose not to.

The crystals pulsed. Not to heal. But to open.

Like invisible hands that did not mend… only pointed where to look.

—Do not fear the fall —said the colossus—. The deepest cave is not beneath the earth. It is beneath the soul. And only upon touching its bottom… does one decide if they still wish to return.

And then, the valley grew more silent.

Not because it calmed. But because it waited.

It waited for the first free thought.

The first not born of pain… but of the desire to live.

And Narka walked.

Not as a bearer. As a bridge.

Between ruin… and root.

And upon him, Sebastián and Virka remained silent.

But silence was no longer protection.

It was passage. Held by rock. Surrounded by fog. With the weight of one hand in his, and another he no longer remembered.

Sebastián fell.

But not to the ground.

To the bottom of his mind.

To the place where one no longer names oneself by what one does, but by what one has lost.

And there, where consciousness was not a line but a spiral, he began to unfold. To listen. To confuse himself.

It was not one voice.

It was many.

Different.

Disordered.

Like thoughts fleeing… but all wearing his face.

—"I am not a monster… I was only a desperate solution to a world that spat me out."

—"Do you remember when you thought being alone would make you invulnerable? And now… you cannot let go of that hand."

—"How many bodies must be pierced… to pierce oneself?"

Each word struck him like a blow without direction.

Each idea was a dirty mirror.

And every mirror returned him differently.

One showed him as a child. Another, as a warrior.

One gave him Draila's eyes. Another, a bloodied mouth, screaming like a beast.

And all the "me's" he saw… hated each other.

—The child wanted love.

—The warrior wanted oblivion.

—And you… became both. And neither.

He felt the crystal throb beneath his back.

It didn't push. It absorbed. It read.

As if Narka's minerals weren't holding his body, but his layers. Stripping them. Unveiling them. Thinking him.

And then it appeared…

Not a figure.

A place.

A long corridor. Infinite.

Made of bones and broken mirrors.

Where every step he took pulled him away from himself… but not forward.

In circles.

As if every attempt to walk only brought him back to the same point: the wound.

There, every reflection was a fragment of past.

—Here you screamed for your mother.

—Here you saw her die.

—Here you killed without reason.

—Here you wished to die yourself.

And at the center of the corridor, there was a table.

An altar.

A body.

His own.

Lifeless.

Like a version that hadn't survived the journey.

And on that altar, a phrase, written with voice:

—Who are you… when you can no longer rely on pain to define yourself?

The air thickened.

Time became liquid.

His soul… hollow.

Because all his story, everything he had lived, was sustained pain. Nothing more. Never more.

And one last voice, more his than all, more honest than any:

—If I stop suffering… do I disappear?

Then he understood:

He wasn't afraid of dying.

He was afraid of not hurting.

Because without that pain… what was left? Who was left?

Who would Sebastián be… if he ever healed?

Held by rock. Gripped by minerals that did not bite, but pressed like ancient roots.

And with Sebastián's hand still trembling next to hers…

Virka fell.

But not like Sebastián.

Not into ideas.

Into sensations.

Into a form she had never asked for.

The human body.

The one that had learned to touch, to breathe, to tremble.

The one that now weighed on her like alien skin, sewn with guilt.

Every heartbeat felt strange.

Every inhalation, a question without answer.

—Who was she?

—What was she?

—Where was the creature she once had been?

And then the world changed.

Not the outer one.

The inner one.

Everything was white.

But not peace.

A white that hurt.

A void that weighed.

A silence she had never been taught to hear.

And there, in that nothingness of floorless ice, without walls, without limits…

Herself.

Not the girl.

Not the companion.

But the beast.

Her true form.

A body covered in dark fur, deep as coal.

Texture rough as living stone.

Four muscular limbs, tense, drawn with predatory precision.

Her long, curved claws seemed more part of the ground than of her body.

Her face sharp and elongated, with horns rising like crossed spears.

And her eyes…

A white light in the dark.

Not a gaze.

A threat.

A truth.

That form did not roar.

It did not need to.

Because its very presence was a roar. The beast advanced.

Her paws were pure balance.

Her shadow larger than her body.

And she looked at her.

Not with fury. With disappointment.

—Why did you give me this prison?

—Why did you renounce the only language that kept us safe?

—Why do you bleed without fighting?

—Why do you tremble… for a broken boy?

Virka wanted to speak.

But her mouth no longer worked as before.

Words were soft objects in her throat.

They were not roars.

They were not commands.

They were pleas she did not know how to pronounce.

And still, something inside her wanted to answer.

And she did. With memory.

She remembered the moment she first breathed as human.

When her skin was not skin, but discomfort.

When the cold did not wound her… but did not strengthen her either.

She remembered Sebastián.

Trembling. Bleeding. Alone.

And something in her chest, at that moment, became home.

The beast growled:

—That was not our duty. Our duty was to protect, not to belong. Our duty was to bite, not to touch. Our duty was to roar… not to grow attached.

And the vision changed.

They were no longer two figures.

They were one.

Split in half.

Beast on one side.

Human on the other.

Joined by a common vein: Sebastián.

And the vein pulsed.

Not from love.

From need.

From contradiction.

And the voice repeated.

Not from the beast.

From within herself.

—Is it worth feeling, if every emotion undoes me?

—Is it worth loving… if every heartbeat makes me less myself?

And for the first time, she did not flee from the answer.

Yes.

And that "yes" broke her more than any blow.

Because it did not come from instinct.

Nor from fear.

Nor from the story of flesh and bone.

It came from a possibility.

The possibility of being something different.

Incomplete.

Contradictory.

But… alive.

And that did not bring peace.

It brought vertigo.

It brought loss.

It brought humanity.

And then she fell deeper.

And there, in that second fall, she discovered something more terrifying than the beast:

The emptiness where the beast once roared.

A new space.

A warm cavity.

A place where she no longer knew if she was Virka… or if she was only just being born.

And that sensation was not freedom.

It was birth.

It was nakedness.

It was promise and punishment.

At the same time.

Silence was the only thing that seemed to settle.

But it was false silence.

Like the one that precedes the crack of bone.

Narka walked.

Not like one who advances.

But like one who resists time.

Each step made the ground creak as if he carried not only two bodies, but two pasts, two futures… and a story that still does not know if it deserves to be told.

Upon his shell, Sebastián and Virka remained lying.

Not asleep.

Not awake.

Suspended.

Like thoughts on the verge of being forgotten.

The mist of the Valley grew thicker.

It did not fall from the sky.

It rose from the earth.

As if the world itself tried to cover what was happening.

And Narka, old as stone, said nothing.

He didn't need to.

His steps were the prayer.

His body, the offering.

His silence, the testament.

The crystals that jutted from his shell vibrated with every voiceless thought.

Tiny lights… not of magic.

Of memory.

And then, it happened.

The hands of Sebastián and Virka touched.

Not by decision.

By impulse.

By instinct.

By a reflex deeper than consciousness.

And in that instant, the Valley reacted.

Not with an attack.

Not with an illusion.

With a song.

A long echo, deep, as if the mountain itself had begun to chant a melody only the condemned understand.

A vibration that did not pass through the ear, but through bones. Through wounds. Through the hollows life leaves behind.

And Narka stopped.

His paws dug into the earth, like roots unsure if they should keep growing.

His eyes—those two extinguished suns—looked into the nothing as if expecting to see the impossible.

And then he felt something strange.

Not urgency.

Not fear.

Envy.

Silent.

Deep.

Painful.

Not for wanting what they were.

But for having forgotten what it felt like to belong to something.

Because for a long time he was rock. Strength. Shadow. Guardian.

And now… he saw two broken creatures holding each other.

And he wished to be inside that circle, not as equal, but as home. As root. As soil where those two might rebuild.

The Valley heard that wish.

It absorbed it.

It recorded it.

And in response, everything stopped.

The air.

The fog.

The echo.

Only the step not taken remained.

And Narka, the colossus, silence made flesh, closed his eyes.

Not from weariness.

Nor from contemplation.

From something more intimate.

From the sting of knowing himself useful, but not part.

And without saying it, with all the weight of the world upon his back, he made a promise:

—If you fall… I will fall with you.

And now… the Valley was changing.

Not to punish.

To witness.

Because something was being born, not among gods, nor among savages, but among ruins. Among remains.

And those remains… were beginning to burn. Time became formless.

There was no day or night.

Only that perpetual gray that did not change, but now… began to breathe again.

First it was the ground.

A pulse.

Not visible. But felt.

As if the terrain beneath their feet had a heart of its own.

An old one.

Slow.

And now it was awakening.

Sebastián lifted his head.

His eyes were still red.

The spiral spun, but deeper, denser, as if something invisible began to pull it inward.

Virka did not move away.

But her body tensed.

The heat that once surrounded them became something else.

Not cold.

Not fire.

But expectation.

As if the world around them were holding its breath.

The deformed statues—witnesses of the pain they had left—began to… change.

They did not move.

But their shapes blurred.

As if they were no longer only memory, but ingredients.

Raw matter.

And then, the landscape cracked.

Slightly.

In the roots.

At the edges.

In the formless sky.

—It is… preparing —murmured Sebastián.

Narka did not look at him.

But his crystals pulsed with a deeper glow, as if absorbing the intention of the environment.

—The Valley does not attack on impulse —he said—. It is a place of harvest. First it opens the flesh. Then it plants the seed. And now… will come what sprouts.

Sebastián swallowed.

Virka leaned her forehead against his arm, as if trying to keep her thoughts from escaping.

In the distance, new shapes began to emerge.

They were not solid.

Not shadows.

They were ideas.

Mental forms searching for body.

They walked without legs.

They rose without mass.

They were what they had not wanted to think… but now sought to be born.

And in the center of the horizon, a fissure opened.

Slow.

Black.

Deep.

Not as threat.

As summons.

The Valley had moved again.

And this time, it would not attack them with what they had already lived… but with what they still feared to become.

The fissure opened without warning.

Without thunder.

Without violence.

Only a dull tear in the fabric of the world, as if reality had decided to exhale through a crack.

Sebastián was the first to notice.

Not with his eyes.

With his chest.

A pull.

Not physical.

Spiritual.

As if something inside him answered a call he did not understand… but could not deny.

Virka clenched her teeth.

Her skin bristled.

The fog that surrounded them was no longer just air.

It was intention.

It was direction.

It pushed them, without pushing.

The fissure widened.

Inside, there was no darkness.

There was depth.

A blackness that was not absence, but concentration of something so ancient that even pain did not know how to name it.

Sebastián took a step back.

—No —he whispered—. Not again.

But his feet did not respond.

As if the ground no longer recognized him as its owner.

Virka tried to rise.

Her legs faltered.

Not from weakness.

From emotional fracture.

From a resistance that could find no anchor.

Narka's crystals vibrated with a grave hum, a sound like tectonic plates resonating inside a living animal.

—It is not a choice —he said—. No mind survives intact when its roots are still weak.

The fissure glowed briefly.

And then, it happened.

They were not dragged.

They were absorbed.

Their bodies remained behind.

Their physical forms dissolved into vapor before the fissure.

But what they were—consciousness, memory, desire, fear—was swallowed by the abyss.

Everything happened in silence.

There were no screams.

Only the red spiral in Sebastián's eyes spinning faster.

Only the veins of Virka burning with the light that had once made her human.

And then… nothing.

No ground.

No sky.

No words.

Only falling.

Not downward.

Inward. He fell.

Not toward the ground.

Not into the abyss.

He fell into a calm he did not remember.

But there was no vertigo.

No impact.

Only something worse: Peace.

He opened his eyes.

And the world was clear.

Not perfect.

Just… normal.

A modest room.

With an open window where the wind entered softly, carrying the smell of toasted bread and the sun warming the wood.

A small desk.

An open notebook.

A pencil without a tip.

Everything so ordinary… it hurt.

Sebastián sat up.

He had no wounds.

No blood.

No battle scars.

His body was that of a boy of eight or nine.

No tense muscles.

No red eyes.

No weight.

He stood.

His feet touched warm ground.

And on the other side of the house, a voice:

—Sebastián! Are you awake? Your breakfast is getting cold…

That voice.

He knew it.

But not as memory.

As desire.

The door opened by itself.

He walked without thinking.

There was no blood.

No echoes.

No shadows.

Only a house he did not fully remember… because he had never fully lived it.

In the kitchen, a woman with dark hair was finishing serving coffee.

Her movements were precise.

Not like someone who loves you with madness.

But like someone who is simply alive.

—If you keep leaving your things lying around, you're going to lose everything —she joked without looking at him.

Sebastián stood in the doorway.

He didn't know whether to cry.

He didn't know whether to scream.

Because that woman… that back… that voice… was his mother.

The same figure he had last seen through tears… the same image he had pierced with his own hands when Draila forced him to break everything so he wouldn't break himself.

The woman he left behind to be born as something else… and who now, without logic, looked at him with a gentle smile.

And the world did not break.

Everything was fine.

Everything was… as it never was.

—Come, son —she said simply—. Don't just stand there like a scarecrow.

He walked.

His feet did not tremble.

His chest did.

Not like that of a human.

But like that of that dark heart of the forest, the one that beat with roots clinging inside, the one that fed on the pain of his versions.

And now… that heartbeat was in him.

But disguised as tenderness.

As home.

He sat down.

The plate steamed.

Bread, egg, a piece of cheese.

And then, without thinking, he ate.

Not from hunger.

From fear.

With the kind of fear one feels when convinced something cannot be real… and yet, one needs it.

The woman sat across from him.

She smiled.

She had soft wrinkles at her eyes.

Short nails.

An old burn on her wrist.

It was her.

So alive that Sebastián's soul shrank.

—Did you dream again? —she asked—. Of that strange world you used to draw?

Sebastián stared at her.

He opened his mouth to say something.

But there were no words.

Only one thought:

"I don't want this to end."

And for the first time in a long while, he did not feel the need to be strong.

Nor to protect.

Nor to endure.

Only… to exist. The spoon trembled in his hand.

Not from cold.

Not from doubt.

From something that had no name… and came from too far away.

The rice tasted good.

The bread was crunchy.

The butter melted just like in a memory that had never been.

But his chest… beat as if it were being devoured from within.

Not like the fear of a child.

Not like the trembling of an orphan.

Like the heart of a monster remembering it once was human.

Like that black organ of the forest, throbbing among dead roots, that did not beat to live, but to drag others to its center.

The woman—his mother—looked at him from across the table.

—Sebastián? Are you feeling alright?

That voice.

So soft.

So clean.

It pierced him.

Not like a knife.

Like a caress over a poorly closed scar.

He did not answer.

He only lowered his head… and cried.

He cried in a way he no longer remembered.

Without screams.

Without words.

Like one who opens a wound to let out what has been stagnant for years.

And while the tears fell… the world did not react.

The mother leaned toward him.

—Tell me what's wrong, love… Did you have a nightmare?

And then Sebastián understood.

This place was not wrong.

It was… incomplete.

False.

Because his crying did not smell of salt.

It did not feel warm.

It brought no relief.

It left marks.

Red.

Dense.

Hot.

When he touched his face… his fingers returned covered in blood.

Not from a wound.

From what he was.

Because he could no longer cry anything else.

And the blood began to run down his cheeks.

Down his neck.

Until it dripped onto the table, like thick ink spilled over a lie too white.

The woman stood.

—Sebastián? What is that? What are you…?

But she did not finish the sentence.

Because Sebastián looked at her again.

And in his eyes… there was no child.

No victim.

Not even a son.

There were spirals.

A red one, intense, spinning perpetually toward its center, like a wound refusing to close.

And at that center… the pupil, black, still, like a pit that reflects nothing, because it exists only to swallow.

And behind those eyes… there was no innocence.

Only what remained after losing it.

And the illusion… collapsed.

The table vanished.

The plate.

The kitchen.

The voice.

The woman.

Everything.

Only he remained, on his knees, in a space without time.

Without sky.

Without bottom.

Without light.

Only a white void, like a page waiting for someone to write.

And there, stained with his own red weeping, he understood the worst:

There was nothing left to return to.

Not even illusions.

Because even lies break before the truth of what one has become.

And he… was ruin.

But still alive.

And now… alone. When the world swallowed Sebastián and left him alone with his silence, Virka was not swallowed.

She was isolated.

Not in darkness.

Not in white.

In a limbo without form, without edge, without temperature.

There, the first thing she lost was not her body.

It was instinct.

The roar that had accompanied her since forever… disappeared.

It wasn't taken from her.

She herself had silenced it.

And that silence was not peace.

It was emptiness.

An emptiness her bones did not know how to inhabit.

Because Virka was not made for silence.

Nor for stillness.

Nor for looking at herself.

And yet… that was all she could do.

She observed herself without mirrors.

Without eyes.

Only presence.

Only… being.

Being with a form she did not understand.

The human form.

The one that could not smell.

The one that did not hear well.

The one that did not remember precisely, only with vague pain.

The one that felt emotions for which she had no names.

And in that non-place, that form weighed more than the beast.

Not by size.

By discomfort.

The skin was not hers.

The breathing was not hers.

The fragility she felt… was new.

And it terrified her.

She saw no images.

But she remembered, unwillingly.

She remembered Sebastián's warmth when he slept beside her.

The touch of his arm.

The sound of his voice when he called her by name.

The moment he saw her as something more than a creature.

And what should have been comfort… tore her apart.

Because she did not know what to do with it.

Because she had never been taught to belong to someone.

And there, in that space without walls, something inside her spoke.

Not with tongue.

Not with voice.

With essence.

—What do you do with this skin?

—Why did you become soft?

—Did you believe you could feel without breaking?

The question did not demand an answer.

It only opened more holes.

She did not remember her name.

She did not remember how to speak.

But she remembered one thing with monstrous clarity:

The roar.

The roar that once filled mountains.

The roar that now would not come.

Because her throat no longer recognized it.

And in that instant, she remembered her original form.

Not with her eyes.

With her blood.

The creature she once was.

All spines.

All muscle.

All fury.

With burning veins and a gaze without mercy.

And she understood…

It wasn't that that form was gone.

It was that her current body no longer had space for it.

She had locked it away.

She had sealed it with affection, with caresses, with companionship.

And the beast, now confined to some inner corner, wept.

Wept without sound.

As if it too were lost.

And for the first time, Virka knew what it meant to be divided.

Not between good and evil.

But between what she was… and what she could never stop feeling.

There were no tears.

But her chest became hollow.

As if every breath lost its anchor.

And in that emptiness… nothing held her.

Not Sebastián.

Not instinct.

Not form.

Only herself.

With a skin she no longer knew if it was prison or promise.

And the Valley, like one who watches a tree crack from within, did nothing.

It only waited.

Because sometimes, there is no need to destroy.

Only to let someone recognize themselves.

And break. Narka walked.

Not like one who advances.

But like one who resists time.

Each step made the ground creak as if he carried not only two bodies, but two pasts, two futures… and a story that still does not know if it deserves to be told.

Upon his shell, Sebastián and Virka remained lying.

Not asleep.

Not awake.

Suspended.

Like thoughts about to be forgotten.

The mist of the Valley grew thicker.

It did not fall from the sky.

It rose from the earth.

As if the world itself tried to cover what was happening.

And Narka, old as stone, said nothing.

He did not need to.

His steps were the prayer.

His body, the offering.

His silence, the testament.

The crystals that jutted from his shell vibrated with each voiceless thought.

Small lights… not of magic.

Of memory.

And then, it happened.

The hands of Sebastián and Virka touched.

Not by decision.

By impulse.

By instinct.

By a reflex deeper than consciousness.

And in that instant, the Valley reacted.

Not with an attack.

Not with an illusion.

With a song.

A long echo, deep, as if the mountain itself had begun to chant a melody that only the condemned understand.

A vibration that did not pass through the ear, but through the bones.

Through the wounds.

Through the hollows life leaves behind.

And Narka stopped.

His paws dug into the earth, like roots unsure if they should keep growing.

His eyes—those two extinguished suns—looked into nothing, as if expecting to see something impossible.

And then he felt something strange.

Not urgency.

Not fear.

Envy.

Silent.

Deep.

Painful.

Not for wanting what they were.

But for having forgotten what it felt like to belong to something.

Because for a long time he was rock.

Strength.

Shadow.

Guardian.

And now… he saw two broken creatures holding on to each other.

And he wished to be inside that circle, not as equal, but as home. As root. As soil where those two might rebuild.

The Valley heard that wish.

It absorbed it.

It recorded it.

And in response, everything stopped.

The air.

The fog.

The echo.

Only the step not taken remained.

And Narka, the colossus, silence made flesh, closed his eyes.

Not from weariness.

Nor from contemplation.

From something more intimate.

From the sting of knowing himself useful, but not part.

And without saying it, with all the weight of the world upon his back, he made a promise:

—If you fall… I will fall with you.

And now… the Valley changed.

Not to punish.

To witness.

Because something was being born, not among gods, nor among savages, but among ruins.

Among remains.

And those remains… began to burn.

_____________________________________________

FIN DE CAPITULO 9