The child is my age—a few months older than me—with hair even more yellow than the fruit he's holding, tied up in a ponytail. White skin and blue eyes, you'd guess it came from the Ainsworth’s at a glance.

  He notices the machete and frowns. “Huh? What's the matter? Is there an animal here?” He checks his surroundings as if nothing had happened.

  “… No, I just…” I look at the woods. The fruit still hangs high in the trees, and the atmosphere has returned to normal before I knew it. “I saw something, but… never mind. Why are you here?”

  Elron bites into a piece of merigold. He smiles as he chews and enjoys the sweet taste. “I was hungry.” He says with his mouth full. “You're going to eat?”

  Eating. Now that he's said that, I look down at the yellow fruit at my feet. As if it were staring back at me, its shine disappears.

  “No.” I say, then pick it up off the floor and throw it to him. “You can stay with it.”

  “Huh?” Elron says and grabs the fruit with his other hand. “Are you sure? Aren't you hungry?”

  “No, It's alright”

  Elron's smile slowly fades.

  “Eat. You have to.”

  He offers me the fruit again. I snort, then approach him and take it begrudgingly. Satisfied, the boy smiles again and eats another piece. “Are you coming back already? It's still early. Don't you want to go to the pond?”

  I guess ten or fifteen minutes have passed, so I shrug. Following him without saying a word, I walk down the dirt track and turn off to go to the pond. It's not long before the sound of the water crashing reaches my ears along with the excited shouts.

  Elron pushes a vine here and there until the landscape opens up to show a potato-shaped pond. A few weathered, moss-covered stone pillars adorn the pond. Not that it was ugly—but the Fairy Lady's Lake is much prettier.

  The boys who were competing to see who could swim the fastest—the reason for the shouting earlier—were swimming in the water, much healthier than me. On the other side of the pond, the girls laughed as they chatted in the already warm sunlight, even though their mothers wouldn't let them go out in a dress that went past their shins.

  Beer glasses and the occasional exposed thigh of those who dare to disobey their parents are also present. Elron's smile widens at the jovial amusement and cursing of the competition participants.

  Elron swallows another piece of fruit and approaches the riverbank. “Bunch of bums, don't you have a house?!”

  Taken by surprise, a smile breaks out at the sight of Elron. Cloud, the winner of the competition, shouts back. “Are you jealous? Why don't you come here too?”

  Short black hair, white skin, brown eyes. Nothing as impressive as the magic he specializes in. Smiles break out—even though they try not to make it look obvious—when they notice me standing next to him.

  “… Good morning, Sieghart!” He greets me and puts on a forced smile so as not to let the strangeness take over. Too late. I wave back so as not to make the situation worse.

  As they continue to talk amongst themselves, Elron shrugs and sits down by the river. “… Ten seconds. He crossed the pond in ten seconds. My record was twelve. Do you think he used magic?”

  “No. I would have noticed.”

  Elron nods to himself. “Right, I'll sort it out later.”

  I nod, then calculate the distance with my eyes and walk eleven steps to the left, taking Elron out of Chaos' reach. I sit on the edge of the hill and look down at the lake below. Elron squints at me, but says nothing.

  Begrudgingly, I bite into a piece of fruit, but the sweet taste convinces me to eat it all. The hunger I thought wasn't there comes back stronger, and I wonder how I managed to ignore it before.

  Cloud tries to ignore my presence, but his form shows the clarity of his annoyance. He boasts about his victory once again before making up an excuse to get out of the water. Some follow him, others stay out of comfort, others because of the awkwardness that would remain in the air if everyone left at once, others because they think it's too much. The excuse wasn't bad: classes are about to start and, like it or not, they need to get ready.

  Girls aren't so considerate. You can see the look of disgust or disapproval—sometimes both together. In a few minutes, the fifteen in the pond become seven.

  I don't blame them. I can't, even if I wanted to. Not on purpose, that is. Tomorrow would be too important for them to risk being infected in any way. Today is the penultimate day at the academy, where preparation for the final tests would be administered. Taking place a year before we became adults at the age of fifteen, they would serve as a pass from basic, generalized study to the specifics of the world beyond.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  An approval that demonstrated his potential would mean changing the course of his entire life and fleeing the quiet, simple village that many young people hate. Not that it was a moral offense to shy away from my presence, but today, I care even less than usual.

  Of course, being “affected” is the least of the problems. Firstly, those who get close enough--

  “It's getting worse, isn't it?” Elron says.

  I frown. “Huh What?”

  He takes another bite. “You stood there staring at nothing for a few minutes.” He says with his mouth full.

  I stop. “I was thinking.”

  “You think too much.”

  “Maybe.” I scratch my chin. “You shouldn't be on my side today.”

  “Don't worry, I'm immune to your weirdness.”

  “…”

  “You know that It doesn't work a lot against me.”

  “Have you ever thought about why?”

  Elron smiles proudly and points to his chest. “It's because I'm me, of course.”

  “Fat chance. Get over yourself.”

  Gone are the days when I tried to stop Elron from getting close—he always finds a way to do it anyway. Chaos wouldn't infect him that way, and even if it did, it wouldn't be long-lasting anyway. Still, this time,

  “You shouldn't.” I repeat myself.

  He raises an eyebrow. “I managed to get you to insist on something. That's a victory.”

  I stare at him.

  “Did you lose?”

  I withdraw my gaze from him and return it to the horizon for a few seconds.

  “No.”

  “What's the issue? Shouldn't it be better?”

  Elron prepares a bite,

  “I also didn't win. Not alone.”

  But it stops. The smile that always marks his face disappears. He wanders across the lake and wipes his mouth with the wool of his robe.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I dreamt about Aldwyn today. He invaded the Unknown. He helped me.”

  Elron stares at the horizon for a few seconds, clears his throat and inhales. A minute of silence passes, as long as eternity.

  “You can feel it, can't you?” He says. “There's something different about the wind. In the monsters. Something beyond the barrier. I'm not sure. I always thought you could see something.”

  See. When I was born, Chaos tore out my eyes and replaced them with a nicer pair. The grimoires call this individual expression of magic “manifestation”, linked to concepts that reflect its interior. Mine, represented by the crimson eyes that see the veil beyond reality and the things humans were not meant to see, are obviously associated with perception. Magical, I assume.

  The more I research, the less the magic makes sense.

  “I can't. Not Aldwyn. But I can feel it. If I concentrate, maybe I can hear, too.”

  Elron smiles. “It's better if you don't listen, isn't it?”

  I nod.

  “So, what did he tell you?”

  “He shook hands and pointed towards the forest. He must know I'm going to the Lake after midnight.”

  Elron scratches his chin. “You know it's dangerous out there, even more so now. I warned you not to go to the Lake, but you never stopped, did you?”

  “No.”

  Elron breathes in. “Dumbass. Why?”

  “It's the right thing to do.”

  “How is killing yourself the 'right thing to do'? What are you going to do now that Aldwyn has noticed you and is hunting you down? Aren't you afraid he's going to behead you and hang your corpse upside down in the middle of the village?”

  “I wouldn't have my head down if I was beheaded.”

  Elron frowns.

  “It's one of the few times I get the joke right. You should be happy.”

  “I'm worried.”

  “…”

  I know why you feel that way. The son of the military chief of a village of just over a hundred people, a lot of responsibility fell on him and his upbringing had to be very strict. His mother was the boy's safe haven, and a few years ago, when the village chief tried to destroy in a direct confrontation the same Aldwyn who saved me, she was killed. 'It must be easy for you' was the first thought that came to me—but he didn't deserve a resentful response like that.

  In that case, I'll tell him the truth.

  “If I don't do anything, I'm going to die at idle speed. I have a chance of surviving if I keep going to the lake. That doesn't change just because Aldwyn is nearby. It's even better that he's chasing me. I'm strong. More than the others. I can distract him.”

  He agrees to himself, then clasps his hands together in front of his face. “You're going to die, Sieg.”

  “And what's the difference if I stay here?”

  “You don't have those strange nightmares every night, do you? You have time. Even if it lasts a few months, a few years, you'll manage to do something.”

  Time. It's true, I don't go to the Unknown every night. Recently, however, the frequency has increased. A few times a year has turned into a few times a month over the years. How long before I started daydreaming in the middle of the day?

  A three-headed winged lion watches me. Then a snake that encircles the world. Memories that never happened flash by again and again.

  “I don't have a year.”

  “Don't say that.”

  “…”

  I notice the last few people leaving the lake, taking advantage of our immersion in the conversation. It was better that way, so I didn't interrupt them.

  “… Does it work? Do you think you can conquer Chaos if you go to the Lake?”

  I take one last bite of the fruit—I had actually eaten it whole without realizing it, much to my surprise.

  Time. Maybe if I had more time, I could do it. Maybe that's a lie I like to tell myself to avoid admitting that my power will be my death sentence.

  “No. It never works.”

  “… I see.” He says. He opens and closes his mouth, then inhales. “… There is another way, isn't there? You're clever, you'll think of something. Even if you wanted to, if your goal is to survive, you can't go to the Lake anymore because of Aldwyn. He'll kill you as soon as he sees you.”

  I put my hands in front of my face.

  A handshake.

  “Maybe.”

  Elron raises an eyebrow. “Decapitation, petrification or hypnosis. You'll die anyway. What's the doubt here?”

  “I'm strong.”

  “Sieghart.”

  I inhale, then scratch my head. I hate to admit it, but I nod to myself. “Right. I'm not going.”

  “Why do you do what you do?”

  A question that was always easy and, at the same time, extremely difficult for me to answer properly.

  “Because it's the right thing to do.” I affirm.

  “Right—and lying is wrong, isn't it? There must be something else, so-”

  “I get it. I'm not going to the lake, dammit-”

  Elron raises his finger and interrupts me. “Bad words are wrong, too.”

  I frown. “Don't push it.”

  “Right, right. I'm just playing.” He crosses his arms. “Seriously, now. Do not go to the lake.”

  I nod.

  “… So if you don't have that option, what are you going to do?”

  “… The heavens don't forget anyone who trusts them, do they? If that's the only way, then I'll make it.”

  Elron forces a smile. “You have to have conviction when you say that kind of thing.”

  I cover my eyes with my hand and face the sun. “Go home. You'll be late.” I say, then turn towards the cabin. “Right. I'm going to win.”

  I nod to myself and start walking back. Before I enter the woods, however, Elron calls out to me.

  “See you later!”

  I hesitate for a second. “See you later, Elron.”