— ERICK HELEN

  After the doctor finished telling us everything, she simply stood up and said we were dismissed.

  Damn it… she didn’t let us ask a single question before sending us away.

  I kept thinking about everything she had told us.

  It was all unbelievable… so absurd that, if I hadn’t seen with my own eyes what he was capable of, I probably wouldn’t have believed it.

  “Hey, Erick… what do you think about all of this?” Luna asked.

  “I don’t know… it’s all insane,” I replied, letting out a short laugh, trying to ease the tension.

  But it really was.Meteors. Men falling from the sky. Impossible things happening right in front of us.Who would be crazy enough to invent a story like that?

  And yet… we were living it.

  “Do you think he’s evil? I mean… he killed Mr. Júlios… I think.”

  “I don’t think it’s that simple. He wasn’t in a normal state—he was about to attack us. In a way… Saklas saved us.He saved you. Whatever he did to you, it doesn’t seem worse than the Mist.”

  “…Yeah. I think you’re right.”

  I replied while reliving the scenes in my mind. Maybe she was right.

  We kept walking back toward the room. Along the way, Luna said she needed to check something and left. So I continued alone.

  When I arrived, my body still exhausted, I threw myself onto the bed.

  And once again… the same dream.

  ---

  — DRA. HELENA RHOADS

  After dismissing the siblings, I immediately went to check the test results.

  The girl’s blood barely contained any Carmine particles. This was completely different from her previous exams, which had actually shown levels above normal. Now… it was practically clean.

  The boy, on the other hand, was even more astonishing.

  His Carmine levels were extremely high. He should already be showing every symptom… even the most severe ones. But I had seen him just minutes earlier, and none of that was happening.

  As I continued analyzing the data, something made my blood run cold.

  His CSF… contained golden particles.

  Aureal compound.

  How did that get there?

  The specimen.That was the only logical explanation.So that was it… that was what was suppressing the symptoms.

  Extraordinary.

  And, at the same time… terrifying.

  My fear and anxiety grew with every new line of data. It was like seeing a light in the middle of the darkness… but a light whose owner could decide to extinguish it whenever he wished.

  Unfortunately, we were unable to synthesize anything similar.Nothing like that compound exists on Earth.

  And now… we depended on him.

  And I would have to face him in just a few moments.

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  After finishing the analysis, I forwarded everything to the General and requested an escort. I didn’t want to take any risks—I didn’t know what he was capable of. We had been monitoring him for some time: he had only taken a shower, gotten dressed, and sat down. He remained there, motionless, sitting on the edge of the bed the entire time.

  I couldn’t understand him. He seemed so human… and yet not.The image of his eyes changing still haunted me. It was as if, for a brief moment, something inside him had awakened—something I couldn’t identify. That being was completely incomprehensible.

  I asked for a droid to go to his room and guide him here. I wanted everything as controlled as possible. I couldn’t leave any openings. Not now. Not after what I had seen in the exams.

  I took a deep breath, trying to prepare myself.

  I would have to face him.

  — SAKLAS

  I still can’t fully comprehend what happened. There are too many gaps in my memory; everything is fragmented.Where am I?And what are these beings?

  The girl’s blood gave me a glimpse… but even so, I had never seen beings like them. So fragile. So easily corrupted. It doesn’t surprise me that it spread so quickly.

  Then I felt it approaching.Something without life.Without essence.A construct…One of the objects they call droids.They rely heavily on such things.

  I stood up and went to the door. The thing was there, standing still—too still to seem real.

  “pip Hello, sir. Dr. Helena is waiting for you. pip”

  The mechanical creature spoke to me. I almost laughed at such audacity… but I wanted answers, so I followed it.

  When I encountered the woman, I recognized her.

  My blood.She was the one stealing it.

  The moment she saw me, I felt it.Her fear. Her anxiety.

  — Thief.

  — HELENA RHOADS

  The droid opened the door… and right behind it stood him.

  My heart faltered.My breathing simply failed.And before I could understand why, he spoke:

  “Thief.”

  The word didn’t come only from his mouth… it echoed.It came from every direction, vibrating through the walls, the floor, my skull.

  The pressure in the air increased so much that my body was thrown back against the chair. I trembled uncontrollably.

  I would have run, screamed, done anything—but my body wouldn’t respond.

  I tried to speak.But my teeth chattered so violently that they cut my mouth. My tongue. I almost bit a piece of it off.

  The lights flickered in frenzy.The droid beside me went into a loop, repeating random voice fragments until its speaker burst.

  Everything was failing…

  I gathered every fiber, every last trace of strength inside me to lift my gaze… and it was a terrible mistake.

  His eyes.Those golden, bifurcated eyes… were locked entirely on me.There was no humanity there.No logic.Only the fundamental, ancestral understanding of what it means to face an absolute predator.

  I felt something burning inside me—as if my own body were fighting itself.

  I spat blood onto the floor.

  I knew it.I knew it.

  That was the end.

  We never stood a chance against something like that.Against the unknown.Against him.

  — LUNA HELEN

  I needed to know how Erick was doing.I needed to ask Dr. Helena about his exams.Even though he seemed better… I felt that something was still wrong. Something trapped inside him. And I needed answers.

  As I got closer to the laboratory, I felt an absurd pressure in the air, as if the energy of the place were being crushed by an invisible weight. The lights began to fail in sequence—first flickering, then going dark for entire seconds.

  I quickened my pace.

  The laboratory door was locking and unlocking on its own, as if someone were forcing the internal mechanisms. I waited for an opening and pushed the door.

  The moment I stepped inside, an invisible impact struck me like a wave. My knees almost gave out.

  And then I saw it.

  Saklas, walking toward Dr. Helena.There was something monstrous in his posture—not physical, but… existential.He was saying something in a language I had never heard, but the rage in his voice was so real it seemed to vibrate through the air.

  “? μιαρ? κλ?πτρια, π?? τολμ?? μια?νειν τ? α?μ? μου.”

  I had no idea what it meant.But my body knew it was a threat.

  My presence there seemed to mean absolutely nothing to him—as if I were just a shadow. Even so, I gathered everything I had and screamed:

  “STOP! PLEASE!”

  He turned.

  His gaze struck me like a sentence.Intense. Cutting. Ancient.

  My entire body trembled.I could barely breathe.

  But… he stopped.

  The pressure began to ease. The air returned to my lungs. His eyes lost that distorted, monstrous shape, returning to their normal golden form—if that could even be called normal.

  When I looked at Dr. Helena, I realized her situation was far worse than mine.

  Blood was running from her nose, mouth, eyes, and ears.When the pressure finally eased, she managed to inhale—

  only to start coughing violently, choking on her own blood.

  The floor around her hands was stained red.

  And in that instant… I realized that, if he wanted to, none of us would have left that room alive.