— I was a young doctor in Aristia. Known for my diligence, ambitious enough to dream of becoming a scientist in service of the government — Albatross.
That day came after a long wait. My name had been circulating among the officials, and the assignments kept coming. Some of them carried an inhuman edge, but I looked past it. Praise and money blind a man's judgment more than he'd like to admit.
One day I went to a private hospital in Spezia. I was wandering its streets when a child collapsed into my arms. Homeless, ordinary in appearance — but my medical instincts told me something was wrong with him. I took him to the hospital and ran tests.
A child full of energy, yet the results showed cancer in his heart.
I was stunned. I decided to care for him through whatever days he had left.
His last day came. I said goodbye to him with tears I didn't know I still had in me. He had become like a son to me.
The next day I returned to find chaos at the hospital entrance. Press swarming the doors. I walked into his room and found him sitting up, in the best condition imaginable. I rushed to examine him.
Nothing. No trace of the tumor.
I was overjoyed, and began seriously considering adopting him. Then a man walked into the room. He called himself Virüs. He asked me to hand the boy over. I refused. He left, muttering warnings I didn't understand at the time. Afraid for the boy, I gave him to a man I trusted — Dagon.
I went back to Aristia. The strange cases didn't stop finding me. After word spread of the boy who'd been cured of cancer, a new case came my way: a child named Xavier, suffering from some psychiatric disturbance.
He was the complete opposite of the boy from Spezia. No speech, no expression — just two eyes fixed forward, or turned toward the window. He'd stumped an entire panel of specialists before me.
One ordinary day, he spoke a single sentence.
He said: if a bird were given the choice between staying in its cage or leaving it, and it chose to stay — would you call that freedom?
That sentence circled in my head the whole day. Some days, it still does.
The next morning, police arrested me at the hospital doors. The charge: falsifying medical records. I didn't understand any of it — until I saw Virüs standing outside, smiling with those teeth of his. Then everything became clear. The boy from Spezia had died, and I'd been framed for fabricating his cure — and to this day, no one has ever settled whether that cancer was truly cured at all.
On the way to the police station, the car stopped abruptly. I looked up to find both officers dead. Ice covered everything outside the window. A glacier lifted the car off the ground.
Someone opened the door and said:
Get out. You haven't been thrown out of my world yet.
That's the last thing I remember.
Sphinx stopped talking. His fingers were still curled around a cup he hadn't touched once since he'd started speaking.
"The strange thing is, I don't remember his face. Not his name, not even his voice. I know I knew him. But everything from that night on is a blur to me."
"And now?"
"Wanted. I move from place to place. I keep doing my work however I can."
Zenon looked at him with something close to relief — the first time in a long while.
"So that's it. You're the doctor the government used."
He fell silent for a moment, then:
"You mentioned Virüs. And his teeth. We know the same man."
"And you? What happened to you?"
"I don't want to remember what happened. I want to go back to Spezia and take my revenge on Cypher."
"Forget it. Revenge isn't reason enough. And Cypher —"
"Isn't an ordinary human. I know. I've heard it before."
Zenon wasn't listening anymore. He was staring at his hands, turning them over slowly, murmuring words under his breath to no one in particular.
"The light on the shore. The ice. The healing that made no sense. That's not just some technique. And it's not a weapon."
He looked up suddenly.
"There's a power behind all of it."
"Reiki." Sphinx said it after a brief silence, as if forcing out a word he hated to speak aloud.
"How do I use it?"
"Slow down. I don't know much about it myself. But I have an old book that might help you — though I won't be handing it over."
"Then let's make a deal. I'll do anything for it."
"There's nothing you can do for me. Go back to your family. Forget all of this."
"Don't make me beg you, or threaten you. You said it yourself — it's a worn-out old book. Think about it: a young man asking for very little, in exchange for a great deal."
Sphinx looked at him for a long, silent moment, like a man weighing something he couldn't see.
"There's something I can't do alone. I'm working on a cure for heart cancer. I could test it on you."
He paused.
"But no sane man would accept that in exchange for a book. It could cost you your life."
"What are my odds of surviving?"
"You'd die before the cure had time to take effect."
Silence again. Then he added, as if the words slipped out against his will:
"Under normal circumstances."
"Normal?"
"I've lived through strange things in this world. Seen things. But they're rare. Forget I said anything."
"Then to make it fair — forge me a sword out of obsidian. Deal?"
Sphinx abandoned the previous thought entirely.
"Wait. Are you serious?"
"Old man. My standing here in front of you is either a mistake or a miracle. Take your pick. So I don't think logic is in any position to correct anyone's error here. And that sword — you won't take long making it."
He rose slowly to his feet.
"If I survive, my luck improves on every front. And if I just sit here doing nothing, then I'll stick to you until those things out there eat us both."
He extended his hand.
"Do we have a deal?"
Sphinx stared at the outstretched hand for a long time. Hesitated.
Then he shook it.
"I don't know what's making me agree to this. Tell me when you're ready. This is going to be hard — on you before it's hard on me."
"I'm ready. Now."
"Now?"
"I'll wait for you in the room upstairs."
Sphinx raised his head, the astonishment still fresh on his face.
"Are you serious?"
"Your age is catching up with your memory, old man. I said now. Get your tools, and come."
To be continued…