Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 173: She Does Not Burn, She Reveals

Chapter 173: She Does Not Burn, She Reveals

She extended her hand.

Slowly. With a sacred, almost unreal slowness, as if every gesture had to cross several dimensions before reaching me. But there was no haste. No tension. Not a single spasm in her movement. Not the slightest hesitation.

And I felt it instantly: it wasn’t to hold me back.

She would never have done that.

She didn’t grasp. She didn’t demand. She wasn’t trying to stop me, or convince me. It wasn’t a hand offered to block me. It was an offering. A possibility. A gesture so pure, so free, that it erased any idea of constraint before it could even form.

She offered.

Simply.

Like light offers its warmth to those who choose to approach it. Like water offers its surface to those who decide to dive in. Like true love: without demand, without price, without expectation.

And that offering...

It broke me.

Not all at once. Not in a scream. But like a slow, intimate, invisible crack that begins in the belly, rises into the chest, quietly bursts behind the eyes, without a sound. Because there are no words. Because we don’t know how to receive something so vast without feeling guilty for still standing.

What she offered me...

I couldn’t take it.

Because it was too much.

Because it was true.

And I no longer was.

I laughed.

At first.

Not an honest laugh. Not a laugh of joy. Not even a laugh of relief. Just... a small dry breath, torn from the back of my throat, like a reflex, like a hiccup of absurdity I didn’t see coming. A brief burst. Sharp. Nervous.

A little laugh.

Just a crack. A sound too human in this sacred silence. A laugh that rang false from the very first note, but that came out anyway, because it had to, because something in me didn’t know what else to do.

It was dry.

Like a discharge.

Then I cried.

Not gently. Not neatly. Not like one cries to be freed. No. I cried with everything my body had been holding back for too long, with acid tears, burning, coming from very far, from a place I had never dared to touch. They flowed without order, without rhythm, without mercy.

Acid tears.

That tore the throat in silence.

Joyful tears, too. Incomprehensible. Insolent. As if something, deep inside, was starting to breathe for the first time. As if pain and beauty had become one. As if everything had mingled.

Impossible tears.

Because no emotion was enough anymore.

And I started to scream.

With joy. Yes. That terrible, raw, unbearable joy that resembles madness, that resembles death, that resembles birth. A joy that screams because it has no other outlet.

And I laughed.

From fear.

A broken laugh, a trembling laugh, a laugh that grits its teeth between sobs, because you finally understand you will never control anything. That it’s too late. That it’s now. That it’s here.

I fell.

Yes. I fell into everything I had fled. Into love. Into lack. Into shame. Into beauty. Into giving.

And I un-fell.

I don’t know how else to say it. Something in me... let go of the darkness. Just a little. Just enough. For the span of a breath. The span of a scream.

All at once.

And it was unbearable.

And it was perfect.

I thrashed.

Like a puppet seized by spasms, shaken by a force too great for it, by an emotion that could no longer find a way out, that rose in me like a wave too high, too black, too full. My body no longer responded. It twisted. It struggled. It called out.

I screamed at her.

Shapeless words. Rejections. Maybe insults. Inverted prayers. Everything I had never dared to scream. Everything I didn’t understand. I screamed because she was too much. Because she didn’t back down. Because she saw me.

I begged.

In the same second.

I begged her to go. To stay. To save me. To let me die.

I thanked her.

Like one thanks the rain that drowns everything, because we can no longer distinguish drought from drowning. I thanked her for breaking me. For showing me. For not fleeing.

And in that mad, unbearable confusion, I tried to throw myself back.

To tear myself away from her.

To flee.

To hide from her light, like an insect crawling under a stone, eyes burned by brightness. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t able to. Every movement brought me back to her. Every heartbeat reminded me of her silence.

Because inside me...

Something was exploding.

Something was cracking. Melting. Rebuilding in another language. Another skin. Another truth. I was becoming.

And I hated her for it.

I wanted her to disappear.

I wanted her to stop loving me.

I wanted to destroy her.

To silence her.

I wanted her to touch me.

To finish me.

I wanted to kill her.

And to fade in her arms.

I wanted... everything.

And I no longer knew if I was breathing or burning.

And yet...

I stayed there.

I no longer fled. I no longer screamed. I no longer fought. I stayed there, simply, like one stays after the quake, after the breath, after the fall. Folded. Back broken not by a blow, but by the light. Cracked from within, raw, unable to hide anything. Exposed.

Yes.

Completely exposed.

To her. To me. To what was left after anger, after fire, after tears. Because in her... there was nothing against me. No hatred. No bite. No will to see me fall.

And yet...

There was no forgiveness either.

No absolution. No gesture to erase. She erased nothing. She saw. And she kept. Not to judge. Not to punish. To recognize.

To say: it is there.

She didn’t condemn me. But she didn’t excuse me either.

She existed.

And in that bare existence, in that naked presence, there was a raw truth, a light without speech, without defense, without promise — a truth that didn’t ask to be accepted, only to be seen.

And I looked at her.

Because I could no longer look away.

And I...

I wasn’t ready.

Not for that. Not for her. Not for that light that doesn’t burn but reveals. Not for that truth without weapon, without cry, without anger. I wasn’t ready to be seen without a mask. To be held without chains. To be loved... without condition.

I wasn’t ready to live without fleeing myself.

Not yet.

Maybe never.

And yet, I stayed there.

Broken, but standing.

And then...

She spoke.

Or maybe it wasn’t speaking. Maybe what I call "voice" wasn’t one. Because her voice... it wasn’t a sound. It wasn’t a tone. It wasn’t something that passed through the air.

It was a sensation.

An inside shiver. A touch without skin. A vibrating wave that slipped directly into my marrow, into my throat, into my gut, without ever brushing my ears. It was a whisper carried not by space, but by the very fabric of the world. A resonance rooted in everything that had preceded me.

Impossible for a human to conceive.

Impossible to translate.

Impossible to imitate.

And above all... impossible to endure without cracking. Because that voice, even if it did not scream, even if it pressed nothing, carried in it a density so vast that it passed entirely through me. It was gentle. Yes.

Terribly gentle.

But terrible too.

Not like a blade. Not like rage. Like a warm sea that covers everything, slowly, silently, with no return. A sea that invades every hollow, every fold, every memory — even those we thought sealed forever.

There was, in that voice...

The patience of a thousand mothers. An unshakable love, infinite, ancient. And that patience did not soothe. It frightened. Because it meant she would wait for me. Always. That she would see me. Always.

And there was also...

The cold cruelty of destiny. The kind that does not argue. The kind that strikes not out of vengeance, but out of necessity. The kind that does not ask if one is ready, if one wants, if one can.

Her voice carried both.

And I felt tiny.

She spoke without sound.

And yet... every word resonated in me like a forbidden truth. Not screamed. Not imposed. Just revealed — in its rawest nakedness. Like those things we should never hear. Not because they are secret. But because they burn the mind the moment we let them in.

— So you are Aesvar’s envoy... I see.

And at that precise instant, something opened in my rib cage. Not pain. A breath. Slow. Deep. Ancient. As if her gaze had slipped between my ribs to breathe in my place.

— Your path will not be easy.

She was not warning.

She was stating.

Like one announces rain after smelling the sky.

— You too will know the loop.

The word loop vibrated at the base of my spine. It wrapped around my neck like an invisible promise. A spiral. A repetition. An endless fall.

— You too will be caught in this fate of death.

Not a threat.

A certainty.

Spoken with such quiet gentleness that it struck me more surely than any scream. And in that voice, there was neither hope, nor despair.

There was only... what comes next.

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