Chapter 9: The Darkness Under the Sun and the Nameless Beginning
The boy stood like a statue right behind Professor Elara at the entrance of the room.
His eyes were locked on the crimson light hidden under the pile of quilts in the dim corner of the room.
The familiar, warm wave of peace from having found her had ignited once again within his chest.
The gravitational pull within him was drawing him toward the bed like a magnet. He just wanted to go to her, to breathe in the presence of her existence.
However, his feet refused to move, as if nailed to the floor.
In his mind, that painful scream echoing between the cold stone walls of the classroom repeated: "I wish you had never existed!"
This sentence stood between the boy and the bed like an invisible barrier.
He was afraid that if he took one more step, that light would hurt him again, would drive him away again.
So he just waited. Shoulders slumped, head slightly bowed forward, like a silent guardian.
Professor Elara, however, did not seem willing to tolerate this melancholic stagnation any longer.
She stormed into the room. The sound of her high heels echoed harshly on the wooden floor.
Without hesitating at all, she headed to the window and flung the thick, velvet curtains to the sides.
"SWISH!"
The room's gloomy, cavernous atmosphere was pierced in an instant.
The ruthless rays of the noon sun flooded inside, making the dust particles in the air visible.
Elara was not content with just this; she turned the handles and flung the window casements wide open.
The fresh spring wind from outside rushed into the room, scattering the stuffy stagnation that smelled of tears and sadness.
Elara stood in the middle of the illuminated room. She placed one hand on her hip, tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear with the other, and turned to the motionless mound on the bed, to Alicia.
She sighed a deep, weary, yet compassionate sigh.
"How much longer do you plan to live under that quilt like a mushroom, Alicia?"
No answer came. Only the slight rise and fall of the quilt betrayed the breathing of the body beneath it.
And also those stifled, wet sobs breaking the silence...
The Professor hardened her tone a bit more but didn't shout. "Alicia."
This time, a muffled voice, distorted because it was buried in the pillow, rose from under the quilt.
"Leave me alone! Please... Just go."
The determined expression of a teacher encountering a stubborn student appeared on Elara's face. She shook her head.
"No," she said with a clear voice. "I am not moving an inch from here until you come out from under that quilt, look at my face, and talk to me like a proper, adult human."
Alicia's answer was to wrap the quilt tighter around herself.
Elara shrugged. "Fine. As you wish. I'll wait."
She noisily dragged the wooden chair from in front of the desk, placed it right across from the bed, and sat down. She crossed her legs and folded her arms across her chest.
Her stance displayed a resolve that would test the patience of a saint.
The boy was watching this scene from the doorway. Even if he didn't fully understand what Elara was doing, he felt he needed to imitate her authority and method.
He glided inside with silent steps. He came onto the soft carpet spread in the exact center of the room, which bore complex blue and black geometric patterns.
He just sank to the ground. He sat cross-legged, placed his hands on his knees, and fixed his pitch-black eyes on Alicia under the quilt without blinking for even a second.
There were three people in the room, but only the sound of the wind was heard.
After a while, Elara's attention shifted to this strange entity sitting on the floor.
Under the sunlight, the boy's pale skin looked almost transparent. The rags on him stood in such contrast with this clean and tidy room that the boy seemed like he had been cut from another reality and pasted here.
"You..." said Elara, breaking the silence. Her voice was more inquisitive this time.
The boy looked at the Professor by just shifting his eyes, without turning his head.
"Contracted monsters..." started Elara, choosing her words carefully. "Generally possess memories regarding their lives before being summoned. Some are old warriors, some are guardians of a magical forest or completely different things... Do you remember anything from before opening your eyes in this world?"
The boy tilted his head slightly to the right as if trying to make sense of the question. His black hair fell onto his face.
"Previous life?" he whispered. His voice was like the rustling of wind on dried leaves.
Elara leaned forward a bit in her chair. "I mean... where were you before coming to that circle in that classroom? What were you doing?"
The boy was silent for a while. His eyes plunged into the void. He wasn't trying to remember, because there was no sequence of events to be remembered. There was only a state of being.
"Darkness..." he said finally. When the word came out of his mouth, the air in the room seemed to cool for a moment. "An infinite darkness... nothingness... I was always there. Since the moment I came into existence."
Elara's brows furrowed. This wasn't the answer she expected.
In the academy records, most of the entities arriving through soul bonds were either hero souls from this world's past or creatures from elemental planes.
All of them would have a history, a past. Something coming from "Nothingness"... This was unheard of. Moreover, the boy's aura—or the absence of it—was giving Elara goosebumps.
"Well, do you know what you are?" asked Elara, succumbing to her curiosity.
Under normal conditions, the moment the contract was completed, there would be a flow of information to the minds of the summoner and the contracted monster.
The entity's type, abilities, basic features... All would be engraved in the mind like a parchment.
But in Alicia's situation, this hadn't happened. If Alicia hadn't opened her eyes and looked, she wouldn't even have known she had summoned something.
"Your abilities, your power... What are you?"
The boy looked at Elara's face with empty eyes. 'Contracted monster', 'ability', 'power'... These words found no equivalent in his mind.
He had simply heard a call and come.
"I don't know," he said briefly.
He wasn't lying. And this unknown didn't trouble him either.
The boy was answering Elara's questions because his instincts told him this: This woman is the only bridge between you and Alicia. Don't make her angry. Cooperate with her.
Therefore, he continued sitting on the carpet like a well-behaved child.
He turned his head again and continued looking at the focus of all his attention, that silent mound under the quilt.
As long as she was there, it didn't matter what he was or where he came from.
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