Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 149: Too Much Gentleness for a Monster

Chapter 149: Too Much Gentleness for a Monster

Something caught me, but it wasn’t a rope springing from a last-minute miracle, nor a hand reaching out at the edge of the abyss, nor even a cry of redemption hurled from the other side of the world. No. It was something else. Something archaic. Organic. Deep. A root.

Not a root of soil, gnarled, rough, familiar. No. A root of another order, older, stranger, like a living vein rising from the depths of the void, winding through the very fabric of emptiness, crossing the invisible layers of what I had just betrayed. It didn’t appear suddenly — it was already there, it had always been there, hidden beneath the silence, curled in the darkness, lurking like a memory one refuses to name.

It had emerged from the void with that sovereign slowness, that quiet certainty that belongs only to inevitable things — as if the world, in a final spasm of mute will, refused to let me go, refused to let me flee, refused even to let me fall. There was no urgency in its movement, no rush, no violent impulse. It hadn’t leapt toward me, it hadn’t burst forth to save me: it had simply revealed itself, as if it had always been there, nestled in the folds of the void, patiently waiting for me to stop fighting what it had come to reclaim.

At first thin, timid, almost invisible, it seemed made of a vegetal yet alien matter, vibrant, semi-transparent, like a fluid root from the dream of a forgotten tree. It trembled gently, as if it breathed — not with air, but with intention, with diffuse awareness.

Then it began to thicken, to branch around me with a methodical slowness, almost maternal. It didn’t bind: it embraced. It didn’t tie me: it wrapped me. It didn’t pull: it encircled. Filaments sprang from all directions, weaving into neural networks, into pulsing arteries, coiling around my wrist, my forearm, sliding to my ribs which they brushed like an obstinate caress, winding around my ankles in a slow, possessive, almost affectionate dance.

It wasn’t a hostile vine. It was an embrace.

A warm, full, muffled, imperious embrace. A promise without words, a silent injunction one has no right to break — not because one is imprisoned, but because deep down, one knows one already carries it within.

...and that smell turned my stomach.

It didn’t assault me. It infiltrated. It flowed into me like liquid memory, a scent laden with images I had never wanted to see again, but which my body had never forgotten. It wasn’t a mere perfume, it was a fragment of past made tactile, an essence so sweet, so nourishing, so archaically comforting that it became unbearable, as if my flayed spirit could no longer receive even a sliver of tenderness without turning it into torture.

Every beat of the root vibrated through me, slowly, deeply, with that calm regularity that recalls a mother’s heart — or worse, the heart one wished to forget. It was a uterine rhythm, yes, but reversed. Not the one that gives life: the one that recalls it. A cadence from before birth. A pulse of silence.

And under my fingers, the texture became clearer. No, it wasn’t smooth, not vegetal in the way I would have imagined. It was alive, but above all, sensitive. Covered in thousands of soft micro-hairs, nearly imperceptible sensors, these fibers reacted to my every movement, to every vibration of my skin, as if they were listening to the song of my nerves. As if they sought, in my trembling, a trace of truth. They felt me. They read me. They knew me.

I felt the sap, warm, sweet, slide along my wrists, slowly descending to my elbow. A sticky substance, almost maternal, with a scent so sweet it became obscene. It smelled like dawn, warm milk, the rubbed skin of childhood... but in a world where innocence had been gutted. A warmth that does not comfort. A softness that clings. A peace that stains.

And I, in the middle of that embrace, trembled. Not with fear. Not with shame.

But with refusal.

I fought, yes, with all my strength, all my muscles, all my teeth. But my movements were only sad jerks, unworthy convulsions, the reflexes of a wounded animal being washed in a bath too lukewarm. It wasn’t pain that made me retch, nor fear, nor rage — it was that softness. That fucking softness that refused to judge me. That warmth that took me despite what I was, despite what I had done, despite what I had become. It lifted me like a child who had fallen too far, too deep, but with that infinite slowness, that disarming tenderness, that absence of reproach that pierced me far more violently than any punishment ever could.

I wanted it to strike me. To condemn me. To crush me while screaming. But no. It enveloped me, raised me, restored me, with that unacceptable tranquility. A mute compassion, a gentle strength, unbearable.

And that’s when the shame rose. A drowned, thick, viscous shame, rising from my gut like a reflux of truth too long suppressed. It wasn’t in the words, nor in the memories. It was in the contrast. In the gulf between what I was and what it still offered me. It was pulling me from death, not like one exorcises a demon, but like one picks up a forgotten child from a shadowed corner. It treated me like a son. And I knew. I knew I did not deserve that hand.

It didn’t hold me back. It accepted me. And that acceptance was a poison. A mirror one can no longer break. A silent forgiveness that no scream can refuse.

And as it brought me back to the world, to that light I had fled, I no longer had the strength to hate it. Only... this self-disgust, burning, absolute, incurable.

And yet, I was laid there. Not abandoned, nor thrown away like a useless weight, but truly placed, with that exasperating care used for fragile things, for things one still cherishes, still hopes to save despite the damage. I felt the ground beneath my knees pulse slowly, perhaps breathe, as if every fiber welcomed my presence with a silent tenderness, almost respectful, and that simple contact gave rise in me to a deeper unease than any agony.

I wasn’t a being to preserve. I wasn’t a soul to comfort. That strange cradle, that soft cocoon, that bed of pulsing organism was not made for me. It vibrated with implicit love, with absurd warmth, like a promise being made to me despite myself, a promise I had not asked for, that I didn’t want to hear.

This world — again — treated me like a child. It offered me a respite, a refuge, a chance to start again... but everything in me refused. My body may have let itself be laid down, but my mind still roared in refusal, in rejection, in denial of peace, of tenderness, of return. That flesh carpet burned me, not with physical pain, but with the dissonance it created. It said to me: rest. It whispered: you can still live.

And I wanted to scream.

— You’re wrong...

But my voice didn’t come out. It remained stuck somewhere between my clenched teeth, between my clogged breath, between two heartbeats too heavy to be sincere.

Because I knew.

This world... kept believing I could be saved.

They burst forth like one vomits pain too long swallowed, too long compressed between the clenched teeth of a being who still thought they could endure. They no longer asked permission. They no longer apologized. They no longer held back. They were there, unleashed, indomitable, and in each of them vibrated a note I had never wanted to hear: weakness. Not the kind that humiliates, but the kind that admits. The kind that reaches out in the dark and whispers "I can’t take it anymore," even if no one listens, even if no one will answer.

I collapsed onto that too-warm ground, that bed too soft for a monster, and let my body fold, close in on itself, like a fetus lost in a world it does not understand, that it never wanted. My chest rose to the point of breaking. My ribs screamed under the pressure of each sob. My face trembled. My throat was a chasm of bone and salt.

There was no more anger.

No more hatred.

No more escape.

Only... that hole. That rift within me that had finally opened, gaping, muddy, spewing out everything I had held back. Everything I had denied. Everything I had killed in myself to remain standing. And now, it all rose again. Love. Shame. Abandonment. Fatigue.

And at the bottom of those sobs, in that painful drowning, maybe for the first time... I was finally starting to see myself. Not as an executioner. Not as a father. Not as a hero, nor as a beast. Just... a broken man.

And in that explosion of tears, of shattered cries, of screams hurled into the void like stones into black water, I no longer sought an answer. It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t a plea. It was a discharge. A purge. A visceral scream born from an overflow of silence. My shoulders shook as if in gusts of wind. My nails dug into the flesh of my arms. My breath scraped my lungs. And everything in me collapsed in a loop, like a cathedral rotting from within that keeps ringing its bells as the walls crack.

— Why?...

The word came back, softer, more intimate. A wet breath. A child’s moan lost in the throat of a man too old to still call for his mother. Why... had they let me become this? Why had they saved me, brought me back, warmed me, only to abandon me here, without explanation, without hand, without voice? Why had they torn me from the void if only to plunge me back into the burning of what I am?

I wanted someone to answer.

I wanted someone to see me.

Not the monster. Not the father. Not the murderer. Me. The one who remains when there’s nothing left. The one who suffocates. The one who doesn’t understand.

And yet, I already knew there would be no answer. No divine voice. No whispered forgiveness. Nothing but my sobs, mingled with the dust of the ground, with that warm and almost affectionate matter that kept welcoming me like a promise I didn’t want to hear.

And in that inner storm, in that breaking point where being cracks and reveals itself, I felt almost naked. Stripped of all role, all mask, all function. Laid bare. Screaming in the soft cradle of a world that only knew how to love unconditionally.

And I didn’t want that love.

In that moment, there was no more shape, no more name, no more destiny. Only a body curled up against a ground that breathed beneath it like a warm belly, and a torrent of sobs so violent, so hoarse, they seemed to distort the air around. Nothing distinguished the tears from the breath, the spasms from the shame, the heartbeats from the voice’s pulses. Everything vibrated on the same frequency — that of a ruined soul, of a being who no longer even tries to survive, but just to disappear into something bigger than itself, calmer, more neutral. A soft disappearance, without drama. An inner end.

I didn’t want to explain anymore, nor justify, nor understand. I no longer wanted to face world, nor god, nor love, nor gaze. I was tired. With a fatigue that had nothing to do with the body. A fatigue of being. Of thinking. Of carrying. A fatigue so deep it became matter. That enveloped me. That dissolved me.

And under my fingers, that dust clinging to my skin — warm, almost tender, saturated with a sickening sweetness — reminded me, despite myself, that this world didn’t want to abandon me. That even in my worst denials, even in my worst silences, it still offered me that abominable thing: a form of love.

But I couldn’t receive it.

Not now.

Not after this.

So I stayed there, lying down, crying in the shameful intimacy of an island that did not judge me, and my sobs, little by little, stopped resembling screams. They became tremors. Rattles. Then simple hiccups. And finally... almost nothing.

A beating silence.

A rare breath.

A heartbeat, still irregular, in an emptied body.

And that was perhaps worse than the screams.

Because in that silence, nothing fought anymore. No more voice to say no, no more muscles tensed in effort, no more wounded pride to stand against the world. Just a weariness so deep it seemed to hollow out the flesh itself, to make it slack, porous, helpless. A fatigue that oozed from every pore, seeped into the bones, until it left no room between thoughts — only that idea, heavy, slow, repeated like a tolling bell: "I just want to die."

There was no more flame in my throat. No more sob in my lungs. Just that inertia. That weight that was neither a chain nor a sentence, but the absolute absence of strength to keep carrying what I was.

I looked at nothing anymore. I no longer saw the ground. Nor my hands. Nor even the strange light of that nameless island. I was there, suspended between two breaths, half-erased from the world. Neither alive. Nor dead. Just... too much.

And in that too much, something waited. Not a being. Not a presence. Not a god. A faceless waiting, without will, like the silence of a room after a child has screamed all night. A waiting that didn’t await my decision. Only... my fall.

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