The room is simple. White.
The walls are smooth, without texture. No pattern. No trace of life.
Silence rules like an invisible layer, almost heavy.
To my left, a gray door. It makes no sound when I open it.
Behind it: the bathroom.
A sink fixed to the wall. A small shower tucked behind white curtains. The toilet, right there, without separation.
Everything gathered in the same corner, as if intimacy had been erased from the requirements.
On the other side, a bed.
A plain board with a mattress too thin. A white sheet. A gray blanket.
Nothing welcoming. Just enough to survive.
Bed. Toilet. Shower. Sink.
That's all.
Nothing more.
— Here's your room. You stay here until further notice.
He points at a tray.
Dubious yellow mash.
Wilting crudités.
— Bon appétit.
The door closes.
I hear him lock it.
I am alone.
Not free.
But alive.
I look at the miserable tray on the floor, that dull yellow food that inspires nothing but emptiness, when suddenly a nausea rises. It isn't hunger, it isn't taste—something deeper. A clench, a block in the throat, an urge to vomit that has nothing to do with what I was served.
I think back to what I just did.
To the ease.
The inevitability.
I killed three men the way you turn off lights.
And I didn't even tremble.
I stand slowly, head to the toilet.
I lift the lid, lean down, and look at my reflection there, at the bottom of the standing water. It isn't very clear, a little blurred, but I see it anyway.
This face is still mine, but there's something in the gaze I don't recognize.
A strange gleam.
A distance.
I won't vomit.
Not for them.
I keep it all.
I keep the nausea, the doubt, the tension.
I keep them as a reminder.
I don't know who that person was, the one who, a few minutes ago, killed with such ease. A clinical coldness. A calm that's almost unsettling. It was the first time I held a weapon, the first time I shot someone, and yet it felt as if I'd always known. As if the gesture had been waiting for me for years.
I acted like a soldier. Like a predator.
And I don't know if I should be ashamed or relieved.
I felt something…
A sense of invincibility.
Of clarity.
Almost of freedom.
I smile, still bent over the bowl.
My reflection gives back a crooked smile, loaded with fear, relief, and a doubt I can't put into words.
Maybe I'm more ready than I thought.
Having no past helped.
It kept me from overthinking.
I didn't hesitate, I didn't brake. And I don't regret it.
I know I'll keep moving forward.
Because that's all I can do.
I straighten. Breathe.
My goal is simple: survive, grow, understand.
I have to play the dog, for now. Follow orders. Enter the game.
But it won't last.
I won't be their tool forever.
I want to be strong.
I want to be Unbound.
And for that, I need time.
Energy.
Control.
There is also that Demon.
He exists.
He's looking for me.
He will hunt me as long as I live.
So I must be ready.
I leave the bathroom, a little calmer.
I sit. I eat.
The food is vile.
Cold. Rubber-tough.
No flavor, just a texture one tolerates.
But I eat.
Because I have to hold.
I lie on the floor. It's hard, but faintly cool. It helps.
And before I expect it… I feel my Word.
I feel my Definition of Soul.
I close my eyes.
And I dive.
Here I am in that place. Still as magnificent. Still as unreal.
An endless meadow, a soft green, mixed with yellow, orange, and blue. The colors look hand-painted. Nothing truly moves, yet everything is alive. The sky, clear and warm, strokes the horizon.
I am at the summit.
As always.
My position doesn't change, but my gaze, each time, goes deeper.
I look far off, the meadow stretching to the horizon.
But that's not what matters.
I turn.
Behind me, the ocean.
Immense.
Unstable.
It never calms.
And before it, still those six golden gates.
The first is ajar.
A thin spill escapes and fills the first lake.
That's where I go.
With a slow, steady step.
And whether the landscape moves or I am simply carried—I can't tell.
I find myself above the lake.
I descend gently.
The water is neither cold nor hot.
It isn't even truly liquid.
I could call it air, but denser.
More alive.
I lie down in it.
I float.
Or I sink.
I don't know.
I feel.
The energy passes through me.
It doesn't drown me.
It feeds me.
I let this energy enter.
I let it mingle with my skin, my bones, my breath.
And the deeper I go, the stronger my heart beats.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
Each beat sends a current of energy into my veins.
I harden.
I stabilize.
And then, suddenly, I touch bottom.
I have reached the limit.
The edge of what I can contain.
And I stay there.
In silence.
I let this energy soak me through.
Define me.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
I close my eyes.
And when I open them again… I'm back.
Nothing has changed.
The tray is empty.
The shower is there, the toilet too.
But I feel different.
Lighter.
Clearer.
As if part of the chaos in me had been filtered.
I get up.
Head for the shower.
It's clean.
Simple.
A stool, a towel, clothes.
I wash.
I dry.
I change.
The T-shirt is gray. The pants too.
There's a small logo, a star.
Looks like a uniform for new soldiers.
Or an inmate's outfit.
I don't care.
I am clean.
I am calm.
I lie down on the bed.
The day was short, but dense.
Too dense.
Each second felt like it held the weight of a month.
I don't even know what day it is.
Nor how long I've been here.
How many hours, days, passed between that moment I thought I was dead—pierced by Évra—and the one when I woke chained, still alive, still bound to this Word.
I think of everything.
The hazy waking.
The cells.
Célia, with her steady voice, her almost divine logic.
The Coliseum.
And most of all… those three men.
The ease with which I killed them.
Before, I was the one being hunted.
A target. A name on a poster.
They sold me. Hunted me.
Mercenaries, Word-hunters, hounds at the Guild's orders to rob me of my Word.
Or the government that prefers to shoot what it cannot control.
And now, I have to be the one who acts.
The one who answers.
The one who strikes.
They mistook me for a pawn, an error to be corrected.
But they're wrong.
I'm not going to just survive.
I'm going to climb the chain back to its source.
I'll wreck their game, shatter their logic.
I will bring down the ones who put a price on my head, the ones who unleashed this endless hunt.
Because they cornered me.
And they'll learn what it costs to awaken a Word like mine.
I'll settle every score.
One by one.
The Guild of Word Hunters will be my first victim.
I close my eyes.
Sleep pulls at me, heavy, patient.
Tomorrow, they'll test me again.
They think they're evaluating my worth.
They have no idea.
I'm the one who's judging them.
And when I'm ready…
I'll be the one doing the hunting.