Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 200: The Shared Silence

Chapter 200: The Shared Silence

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 me. Or maybe... a limit. A threshold. Something 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 something older than the world.

It seemed made of misty fibers and interlaced roots, thick and translucent at the same time, 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 remember.

The cocoon rested on nothing. It floated, suspended by invisible filaments, anchored somewhere between emptiness and memory.

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 memory one doesn’t dare to name. Like an old wound waiting to be looked at without trembling.

The silence around was not dead—it was sacred. Everything seemed to hold its breath, as if this cocoon sheltered something 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 me a little. As if, despite the unknown, despite the mist and the irregular beating of this living chamber, something 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 name: a blend of moss, ash, and something older... maybe forgetfulness.

The air that came out seemed to have waited. A long time. Too long. And now that it breathed again, it was me it passed through.

I entered. And immediately, 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 welcomed 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 memory. A place without gravity, without time, where everything seemed to wait for something to be admitted.

Thin veils floated around me, 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, filaments of light stretched—long, taut, fragile—like violin strings vibrating in absolute silence.

They seemed to play a melody no one heard, but that the whole place, somehow, 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 time 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 frame, 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 punishment. 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 me, 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 time. Too long.

My throat tightened. Slowly. As if every memory 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 moment, he looked up at me.

Not to judge. Not to demand. Just... to look at me.

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 moment. It wasn’t my story—I knew that.

And yet... it was my pain. An adopted pain. A mirrored pain.

As if something in me 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 me to the opening, and behind me, the cocoon closed. Slowly. Naturally.

As if it had understood I couldn’t stay any longer. That what it had to show me had been seen. Felt. Carried.

It held nothing back. It didn’t imprison. It folded in on itself, like a memory 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 me.

But... something had changed. It was no longer as hostile. No longer as sharp.

It no longer slashed me at every step—it accompanied me.

As if it had seen. As if it had sensed I had recognized something. In me. In him. In the shared silence.

It wasn’t easier. But it was less violent. And sometimes, that was enough.

Not yet everything. Not the full truth. Not the screams, nor the memories to their end.

But... the outline. The fragile edge of what I fled. The blurred shape of that thing I didn’t dare to name.

It was no longer hidden. It existed. There, somewhere, behind.

And even if I still couldn’t face it, I could no longer pretend not to have seen it.