Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 209: The Final Threshold

Chapter 209: The Final Threshold

I climbed the last step.

It vibrated beneath my feet, imperceptibly, as if it hesitated to be trodden, as if it was testing the legitimacy of my passage. A dull shiver, barely more than a breath, rose along my legs — but it did not give way.

It held firm.

And I, standing upon it, understood that it was not the step that trembled. It was me. My body. My story. Everything I carried. It was not a step like the others. It was a threshold. The final one.

It accepted me. Not because I was ready. But because, for the first time, I no longer wanted to flee. Because I was no longer the one who had entered here.

The world, behind me, collapsed. Literally.

I’m not talking about an image, a symbol, an inner impression. No. The ground opened, slowly at first, then with a muffled violence, like a body too long contained finally releasing the tension. The steps I had climbed — one by one, in pain, in silence, in fear — cracked, crumbled, disappeared. The staircase was unraveling, step after step, swallowed by a mist that no longer supported anything, that simply consumed, without return.

It was a calm collapse, without cries, without crash. Like a page that turns silently, but that can never be read again. And I, standing on that final threshold, did not move. I didn’t even turn around. There was nothing left to see. Nothing left to hold on to.

This world was not rejecting me. It was vanishing, because it had finished what it had to do. Because I had finished what I had to go through. Because that place... only existed as long as I refused to leave it.

The stairs unraveled, like knots slowly untied in the fog. Each curve, each link, each spiral loosened gently, without resistance, as if the world was finally releasing a tension it had held for too long.

The railings, they split with a mute sigh. Their lines, once stretched like offered arms or chains, broke with a strange grace, almost delicate — as if they had only ever served to hold back, to slow down, to watch over.

The steps... the steps vanished one by one. Not destroyed. Erased. Swallowed by a dense, silky, total silence. A silence that did not wish to punish. A silence that only wanted to close. To soothe. To end. Each step engulfed in that cotton of oblivion left behind a neat, clean void, with no way back.

I remained standing. Calm spectator of this world detaching from my feet, from my past, from myself. As if all of it, now, no longer needed to exist. Because I no longer needed to stay there.

The weight of the path disappeared.

All at once. Or maybe little by little, I don’t know. But I felt it. Like an old tension finally released. Like an invisible chain one no longer knew they carried — until it broke. That constant pressure in the back was gone, that inner gravity that twisted every step, that fatigue rooted in the bones like a silent guilt.

What I carried no longer pulled me backward. What I dragged no longer screamed in my memory. And the world, by unraveling, by erasing itself step by step, had taken with it a part of that weight. Not all of it. Not the scars. Not the regrets. But the effort to hide them.

All that was left was me. Lighter. Trembling. Alive. That emptiness behind me... was not a threat.

It was peace.

The sky above me turned pale red.

Neither violent nor blazing. Not that furious red we associate with battles, nor the one of overly theatrical sunsets. No. A worn red. Faded. Breathless. Like a light that has cried too much to still dazzle. Like an old wound, too old to bleed again, but not closed enough to be forgotten.

It enveloped the space with a strange gentleness, almost tender in its fatigue. A worn-out sky, watching without judging, tinted with that red that no longer burns, but still beats — barely, by reflex, like a memory left under the skin.

Under that sky, I was not judged. I was simply there. Exposed. And accepted.

There, in front of me... the child. Standing.

He had stepped forward without a sound, without a marked gesture, without me even noticing. He had left me — slipped out of my arms at a moment I hadn’t been able to feel. Maybe during the collapse. Maybe long before. But he was there now, standing on his frail legs, trembling but grounded, as if the ground finally accepted him.

He did not move. He did not speak. He didn’t need to. His silence was enough to fill the space. And his eyes... were the same. Still just as vast, too vast for their size, still just as grave, as if the entire world reflected in them without ever passing through. But this time, they were full. Inhabited.

Not with reproach. No. There was no anger, no judgment in that gaze. But there was no forgiveness either. Nothing comforting, nothing gentle, nothing that wanted to soothe. Just... an expectation.

A straight, bare, untouched expectation. As if he had stood there forever, and had always been waiting for me. Not so I could save him. But so I could see him. At last. So I could decide. So I could say, without detour, what I was ready to do with him. With us.

He did not reach out. He did not run. He waited.

He was there, upright, tiny, motionless, with that strange patience that only wounded children possess — a silent waiting, without demand, without complaint, almost sacred. He did not call me. He did not push me away either. He merely was, whole, offered, in that posture that said everything without a word.

And I understood. As always, instinctively.

He wanted something. But not a truth — he knew them all. Not a memory — he already carried them, etched beneath his skin. Not a confession — I had whispered them all in the silences. No. What he was waiting for... was a hope.

Mine. The one I had never spoken. The one I had never dared believe was allowed. The one I had always avoided, sidestepped, trampled. Because to hope... is to reach. It is to offer something that can be broken. And I, since...

Since that day.

I stepped back. Not out of fear. But out of modesty. As if standing there, facing him, facing what he expected of me, required a respect too great to be taken lightly. I looked at him. His body resting on the mother-of-pearl. His arms at his sides. His hands... open. Not extended, but ready.

And in that gesture... was everything I had never had the strength to ask for.

And I spoke.

Not to break the silence. Not to answer a call. But because it was time. Because that gaze upon me, gentle and grave at once, asked for nothing but gave me space. Because his open hands had disarmed me. And I no longer wanted to remain silent.

My voice came out almost without me feeling it. A low voice. Broken. The kind used when one talks to themselves in the dark, or to someone they love too much to raise their tone. A trembling voice, on the edge of sleep, on the edge of the world.

— I hope...

A word. Just a breath. And already my throat tightened, already my lungs burned. But I did not stop. I couldn’t anymore. Because he was there. And he deserved to hear it.

— ... for days... when I will not be hated.

The words floated, clumsy, fragile, but true. They were not beautiful. They were not crafted. They were bare.

— ... for days when I will not be feared.

— ... when I will no longer fear myself...

My voice faltered a bit. Wavered. But the words, they kept coming, as if drawn from a well too long closed, like wingbeats never allowed to unfold.

— ... a day... when I will no longer fear... what hides... there, in my head.

And that last word hung, trembling in the air. It still vibrated in my chest, in the space between him and me.

I hadn’t screamed. I hadn’t begged. I hadn’t even hoped to be heard. But I had spoken. I had dared. For the first time.

And in his eyes... nothing changed. But I saw it. That tiny shiver. That almost-smile. That invisible breath that said it was enough.

Not perfect. Not repaired. But enough.

And in that silence... I felt the floor close. Not like a door being slammed. But like a heart gently closing. After beating just long enough... to prove it was alive.

He trembled.

First imperceptibly. Like a vibration beneath the skin. Then stronger. Deeper. More completely. It was not fear. It was not pain. It was something else. A tremor from the depths of being, as if his very body, until then held by memory, by stone, by silence, could no longer remain.

And then... everything stopped. All at once. Like a scream stifled at the last second.

The silence that followed was brutal. Unreal.

It was a horrific scene. Truly. A scene that, I immediately knew, would haunt me far more deeply than I had ever imagined. It was not spectacular violence. It was a naked truth. Unbearable. A tipping point nothing prepared for, and yet... seemed inevitable.

But the child... smiled.

Slowly. Very slowly.

A smile without teeth, without sparkle, without joy. A smile from before words. Before fears. Before masks. A smile that had nothing to offer, nothing to ask for — just a kind of peace. An ancestral peace. A child’s peace that knows he can leave. Because he has been seen. Because he is no longer alone.

And then, his body began to fade.

Not in a burst of light. Not in a divine breath. But into the air itself. As if the air was taking him back. As if he was becoming mist again, dust, breath. His contours diluted slowly, gently, without panic. He was not fleeing. He was not truly disappearing. He was settling. He was resting.

His eyes remained a little longer. Fixed. Present.

They looked at me. Still. Just a second. As if to make sure. As if to watch over. As if to say one last time: you can go on. You don’t need me anymore to move forward.

Then they too disappeared.

In their place, where he had been, where his body had faded into the air like a long-held whisper, there was only one thing left.

A tear.

Crystallized. Suspended.

It floated, motionless, just above the ground, transparent like absence, but dense like grief. A clear tear, solid, almost alive. It had not fallen from his eye. Nor from mine. It was not a trace. It was a final heartbeat. A frozen memory. A silent thank-you.

It pulsed once.

Barely. A breath of light in it, soft, almost imperceptible, like the last beat of a tired heart, or the quiet echo of an unspoken love.

Then it dissolved.

Without sound. Without sparkle. Just... gone.

And I remained there. Arms empty. Heart empty too.

Not broken. Not collapsed. Just... hollowed.

There was nothing to celebrate. Nothing to glorify. Nothing to salute. This trial was over, yes. This place had given way, yes. But what it had cost... could not yet be measured. And in that emptiness, in that dull fatigue, I felt that the true victory might simply be... not to step back. Not to fall. To go on.

Even without joy. Even without light. But with that inside me. This emptiness. And this trace.