They no longer speak.

  Elisabeth has sat down directly on the floor, her hands open on her knees. Her gaze has drifted toward an invisible point on the wall, where fragments of mirror still hang, trembling, without reflection. Bolton has withdrawn into the shadows, upright despite the twist in his hip. His cracked mask lets a dull light seep through, but he says nothing. He observes. He waits. Perhaps for his revenge. Perhaps for what comes next. As for Sally, she is no longer here. Or if she still is, it is within the torn plush toy, in the twitch of a forgotten plaything, or in that silent laughter that lingers in the air like the scent of a nightmare. And he, Anon, re- mains standing. He looks at them both. Those two powerful souls, broken, dangerous. And he understands.

  They have not left. They will never leave. This place belongs to them. It is woven from their Ichor. It contains them as much as they contain it. He lowers his eyes. The pendant rests in his palm, where Elisabeth entrusted it to him. It is warm. Alive. It sometimes vibrates, almost imperceptibly, like a sleeping heart. He does not know whether he should keep it. He does not know where to go either, but he cannot stay. The smell of the fight still clings to the walls. A stench of frozen Ichor, thick as tar, still beads from certain fissures in the floor. Black rivulets snake between the slabs, coagulated shapes, fossils of a consumed ma- gic. But everything is inert. As if the fluid, drained of its violence, now served only to stain. Anon takes a step. The other two do not move. He turns back. Slowly. And leaves the room. In the corridor, everything is calmer. Too calm. He moves forward without thinking, as if the simple act of putting distance between himself and that place were enough to keep from being pulled back in. But he already feels it: this world is closed. And if he truly wants to leave, he will have to find a passage. Or create one.

  He walks on, slowly, along the crumbling walls. His finger slides over the bricks, feeling the cracks, the scars, the dead veins in the stone. Some still throb with an extinguished warmth, as if the Ichor beneath remembered. A torn-open staircase, an erased corridor. Carved inscriptions, a crossed-out symbol, a name scratched away. Everywhere, the traces of those who never found the exit. But he… he wants to flee this cursed place. He closes his eyes for a moment. And tries to imagine what might exist beyond. A desert of ashes? A city drowned beneath the sands? An infinite necropolis, crossed by howls? Or… Montreal? The real one? The living one? The world from before? A voice rises. In his head. Sarcastic. Invasive. Ancient. “Montreal?” A laugh. Dry. Serrated. “That’s a name from the world of the living. A word soaked in the broth of memories.” “Here, this is no longer Montreal. It’s the Otherworld, my boy. The rotten reflection behind the postcard. The double. The malformed twin. They call it… Moerial.” The word snaps. Moerial.

  It resonates. It scrapes the throat. Like a name someone tried to erase, but that returns, deformed. Hardly has the word been whispered when a brutal gust of air tears through the corridor. It comes from nowhere, cold, cutting, filthy. It sends dust flying, lifts scraps of fabric, stirs ancient papers like mad birds. A torn sheet spins, then wraps itself around his leg. Anon bends down, picks it up. It is an old, damaged map, gnawed by damp. The ink has run, the edges are torn, but he can still make out the lines. Familiar streets. A river. Bridges. A recognizable dome. And, in a faded cartouche, in old letters: “City of Moerial” He raises his eyes. His gaze probes the void. His hands tighten on the railing. — “Who’s speaking?” Silence.

  — “I heard you before. When I woke up. You were there. Who are you? Where are you?” Nothing. No answer. Only the taste of laughter, hanging in the air. A draft slides along the back of his neck, like a hand pulling away. In frustration, he slams his fist against the wall. The sound echoes, dull, muffled. But… it is not the same texture as before. He turns around. The corridor has changed. Subtly. But enough. Anon freezes. The metal door he passed on the way in — the one with the cross scratched into it by a fingernail — is now on his right. It was on the left. And the crack in the wall… it now runs almost up to the ceiling. Before, it stopped halfway up.

  He squints. His breathing grows shorter, sharper.

  — “I didn’t turn. I didn’t turn…” He turns slowly. The room he just left is no longer there. The door has vanished. In its place: a blank section of wall, smooth, where a single detail remains—a rusted handle, with no door attached. A shiver runs along the back of his neck. The asylum is closing in. No: it is unfolding. It stretches. It spreads, like a confused thought trying to remember itself. Each step becomes uncertain. The walls breathe slowly. The floor creaks in places, without Anon even touching it. He moves forward. Because he cannot go back. At the end of the corridor, a door stands ajar. He reaches out, pushes it. An empty room. Except that at its center, lying directly on the floor: the same map of Moerial as before. Except it is intact. New. As if it had never been damaged. And this time, the ink is fresher. The street names blink softly, as if waiting to be read. He steps back, goes out. The cor- ridor is different again. He takes a step to the right. And reappears in the same room. The same map.

  But this time, one detail has changed: a small red dot blinks at an intersection. It wasn’t there. It couldn’t have been there.

  — “You want to play, is that it?” he murmurs.

  He tears the map from the floor. It rips in silence, as if it refused to be moved. The red dot remains, engraved beneath the tear. He leaves the room a third time.

  And this time, the corridor before him is drowned in a haze. Not a damp fog. A dry haze, dusty, granular. Like a memory in the process of being erased. Anon stops. Something resists. This is no longer a simple distortion of space, nor a visual illusion. It is the place itself. He feels it: the asylum refuses to let him go. Not like a prison. Like an organ. A living womb contracting around him. Every step he takes seems to awaken a tension, as if he were walking against a will, against a consciousness rooted in the stone. He intuitively perceives a kind of slow rejection. A de- sire to pull him back, to merge him with the walls.

  It is not only Bolton. Nor Sally. Nor Elisabeth. It is something older. Something that lives in the foundations. And that thing does not like intruders who want to leave. He has the im- pression that the walls are searching for his name, as if to write it somewhere. To inscribe it. To bind him forever to this place. He brushes the thought away with a sharp gesture, like swatting at an invisible spiderweb.

  A little farther on, someone has written on the wall. In scrawled letters: “COME BACK.” He approaches. Touches the letters. They fade beneath his fingers. But under the layer of cracked paint, another inscription appears, older: “COME BACK TO WHO YOU WERE.” He closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them again, the haze has dissipated. And the corridor is… like new. Cleaned floor. Repainted walls. Ceiling lights. And at the very end, a silhouette. Seen from behind. He cannot see the face. But he recognizes the curve of the back. The shape of the shoulders. It’s him. The silhouette at the end of the corridor does not move. It stands with its back to him. Motionless. But Anon recognizes it. Not the way one recognizes a face. The way one recognizes a habit. A way of holding the head. A tension in the shoulder blades. He reaches out his hand.

  — “Hey…” The silhouette steps into the light. But it is not another. It is him. Himself. Older. Or pe- rhaps younger. The contours are sharp, unambiguous. His own body. His own face. But calm, serene, in a white coat. A beat. The floor falls away. The light changes. It becomes harsh. Cold. Surgical. The smell of Ichor is replaced by that of medical alcohol, latex, glove powder. Anon opens his eyes.

  He is standing in an operating room. Instruments gleam under the neon lights. A large observation window looks out onto a corridor where blurred shapes pass carrying files. He looks at his hands: they are clean, gloved, experienced. In front of him, a body under a sheet. The heart monitor pulses softly. A nurse hands him a chart.

  — “Doctor H.? The patient is ready.” He remains frozen.

  The chart reads: Name: S. Wilkinson Reason: cranial fracture / delirious episode / preventive lobotomy (H.B. protocol) — “Doctor?” He does not understand. But his hands move on their own. He steps forward. Pulls back the sheet.

  And there, on the table: Sally. Alive. Asleep. Restrained. But she is human. Warm skin. Closed eyelids. No fluid. His hands tremble. He steps back.

  — “This isn’t me,” he says.

  But his voice comes out of the mouth of the other him, still seen from behind, standing before the glass. Behind the glass, another silhouette appears. Bolton. Without his mask. His real face is blurred. But his eyes shine. He extends his hand and places a heavy ob- ject on a metal table: an ancient surgical mask, woven from fossilized Ichor. Its seams are knotted with dead veins.

  — “You always knew how to see clearly, doctor. You cut better than I did. And you cut true. You don’t want to remember… but your Ichor remembers.” The other Anon walks along the glass and leaves the operating room. In the corridor, Bol- ton is gone. But the metal table is still there. He approaches. Anon bends over. Looks at the mask. Inside, an inscription is engraved: “Judge them.” He touches it. A surge passes through his chest. His eyes burn. He feels words he never learned. Diagnoses. Syndromes. Technical terms—cruel, cold.

  He understands. Not what he sees. But what he feels: the need to judge, to sort souls, to spot the fractures.

  — “No… This isn’t real.” But already, the floor is stable. Too stable. The light too straight. The objects too sharp. He understands: this is not the Ichoréon. It is a lie. An injected memory. A trap shaped from Ichor. And yet, he likes the mask. He closes his eyes. He screams—or thinks he screams. But no sound comes out. The light flickers. Something cracks in the air—a sound like glass under tension, followed by a recoil, a hiccup of reality. And suddenly… he falls. The metal table vanishes beneath him. The operating room fades like a half-drunk dream. The smell of chloroform is swept away by ancient dust, a cold dampness. He slams against the floor of the Ichoréon. Cracked tiles. Dark puddles. The brutal return to the misty truth. He pants. His hands grope, searching for what is real. And he feels metal. Cold. Hard. His fingers brush against something against his chest. He grabs it. The mask. The same one. The surgeon’s mask from another time. The one from the room. The one from the other him. It is here. Physically. Solid. Woven from coagulated Ichor. Its seams still throb. A dry smell rises from it. A cold authority. Anon recoils. Throws it to the ground. But it does not break. He does not want to look at it. And yet… he steps closer. Watches it.

  — “What are you…?” It is not just a memory. It is not an illusion. It is a fragment. A lure. An object created, shaped for him—or for what he could become.

  — “Bolton…” He murmurs the name like a slap.

  — “Why? Why show me this?” No answer. But the silence seems to weigh heavier. He thinks of the words engraved inside the mask: Judge them. And a shiver runs through him. What if that is the trap? To awaken a role within him. To make him believe he has already been… that.

  He straightens. The mask still rests on the floor.

  Peaceful. Offered. As if it were waiting.

  — “I am not a judge.” He turns on his heel. Goes back. Hesitates. And yet, he picks it up. Without even unders- tanding why. Anon walks. Not fast. Not straight. But he moves forward. The corridor seems to have spat him out without a sound. No scream. No warning. Just a slide. A shift. The floor barely creaks beneath his steps. The mist has returned. Not thick, but constant—like a lukewarm layer of memory. It erases contours, softens angles, swallows perspectives. He no longer really knows what he is looking for. But he knows what he is fleeing. It is not the mask. It is what he felt when he touched it: that urge to dissect, to order, to judge. Like a seed already within him, one that Bolton merely nurtured.

  — “They want to shape me. Give me a role. Bolton… Sally… maybe even Elisabeth.” He freezes for a moment. His fingers absently stroke the pendant she gave him. He did not reject it. Not yet.

  — “That was only the first.” He feels it. A new illusion awaits him. But this time, it will not come crashing in. It will come whispering. And he is not sure he has the strength not to listen. He passes beneath a cracked archway without paying it any attention. And without transition, the world changes texture. The air becomes soft. The walls fade away. The floor beneath his feet is old wood, waxed, warm. The dampness disappears. The smell too. It is replaced by something de- vastatingly ordinary: wax, warm bread, a hint of lavender. He does not understand right away. But when he looks up, he knows. He is in a house. A real one. A living room with light-colored walls, golden light filtering through soft curtains. A worn armchair, an embroi- dered tablecloth, photographs in wooden frames. And the silence… full. Not empty. Peace. Someone laughs in a nearby room. A child’s laughter. A woman sings. Her voice is veiled, unfamiliar. But he knows it.

  Anon moves forward. Each step is fluid. Nothing resists. His heart beats. Slowly. Too slowly to be real. He pushes open a door. A bedroom. A child is playing on the floor. He looks at her, and smiles at her.

  — “Daddy?” The word pierces his chest.

  The child slowly stands up, a small toy car in her hand. She has hair as blond as wheat, round cheeks, clear, calm eyes. She stretches out her arms.

  — “You forgot again, didn’t you? Mom says you’re always lost in thought.” Anon does not answer. He looks at her. Stares. Every detail is so precise. So gentle. Even the dust suspended in the evening light is perfect. The child steps closer and takes his hand, naturally. Her small palm is warm.

  — “Mom said dinner’s almost ready. After that we can keep working on the fort.” He gently tightens his fingers around hers. As if he had always known this touch. As if this sensation had existed before his memory. But he knows that is not true. He turns his head toward the dresser. A photograph. A couple. Him—or almost. More alive. More open. And a dark-haired woman with a gentle smile. She is there, just then. In the doorway. She looks at him, her eyes damp.

  — “Anders… you’re home.” He takes a step back. Anders?

  But a part of him wants to answer yes. Yes, it’s me. Yes, I belong here. Yes, I have always lived here. But he feels it. This is not his memory. This is not his name. She steps closer. The child laughs. And in a corner of the room, in the gentle shadow… Elisabeth.

  She is sitting in an armchair, her hands busy with a piece of embroidery. She does not speak. She watches. Her gaze is gentle—too gentle. She stands up. Comes closer. And in her open palm, she offers an object. The same pendant. But this time, new. Shining. Pure. — “You don’t need to understand. Just stay. As long as you wear this talisman, I will know where you are. I will watch over you. I will keep all of this alive.” He reaches out his hand. The jewel is warm. Alive.

  And with it, the entire world seems to vibrate. The light grows more intense. The child’s laughter rings out. The woman steps closer to kiss him. A perfectly laid-out future awaits him here.

  But beneath the warmth… he feels something. A pull. An invisible line stretched between him and Elisabeth. This is not a refuge. It is a tether. A harpoon driven into his mind. He jerks back. The light flickers. The room trembles. The child’s laughter crackles. The wo- man no longer smiles. Elisabeth fades away. And the floor collapses. It gives way beneath his feet.

  Not in a crash. In a breath, as if the world were holding its breath before letting go. The bedroom vanishes. The light goes out. The child disappears in silence, her hand still outstretched.

  Anon falls. Through a veil. A web. A frozen memory that shatters like lukewarm glass. He crashes to his knees on the cold floor. Cracked tiles. The smell of mold. Back in the Ichoréon. But something has not left him. He feels a weight against his chest. His hand searches, finds the chain. The pendant. The same one. But not identical. The one from the vision. Shining, new. Not the one Elisabeth had offered him before. That one does not vibrate. This one pulses. It pulls him. Not physically, but in the mind. Toward something. Someone.

  Anon straightens up. He remains there for a few moments, in the half-fog of the Ichoréon. Short of breath. Skin slick with sweat. Eyes damp without tears. He feels the world around him snap shut, like a jaw that missed its prey. “That wasn’t a memory. It was an offering. A trap woven from gentleness. But why?” He grips the pendant. Too tightly. Its edges bite into his palm. “She saw me empty… and she tried to fill that emptiness with her own memories. She doesn’t want me to be myself. She wants me to be someone for her.” And somewhere, he feels that she is still listening. Not here. But elsewhere. In the threads of the pendant. In the woven fibers of Ichor. Like an emotional harpoon. He wants to throw it away. He doesn’t. Not yet.

  He moves forward by feel through a narrower corridor. Each step seems misplaced, as if he were walking in the wrong world. Something has changed in the air. No smell. No vibration. An emptiness. And then… light. Not the light of the Ichoréon. Not that dirty yel- low pallor. A real light. White, cold, clinical. Anon blinks. He is in a classroom. Rows of desks. Walls covered with children’s drawings. Colored chalk resting on the edge of the blackboard. A large world map, its folds torn, hangs half-ripped from the wall. The clock does not move. Everything is silent. Too silent.

  He looks down. He is small. His legs do not reach the floor. He is sitting at a tiny desk, a red-and-gold spinning top in his hand. The wood is warm. The plastic rough. Everything is incredibly sharp. He knows this spinning top. But he does not know from where. He stands up. Walks across the room.

  At the back of the classroom, a boy sits alone, his back turned. He approaches, slowly. Places a hand on his shoulder. The boy does not move. Anon steps around him and stops in front of the desk.

  It is him. But not now. Younger. Seven or eight years old. Dark circles under his eyes. A cold stare. He whispers: — “You abandoned me.” Anon steps back. The spinning top slips from his hand, rolls across the floor, but does not stop. It keeps spinning. Again and again. He closes his eyes. When he opens them… The scene has changed. The classroom is in disarray. The windows are shattered. Gra- ting laughter echoes. A red balloon floats slowly up toward the ceiling. On the blackboard, written in a child’s hand: “LOOK WHAT YOU DID.” He turns around. Sally is there. Sitting on the teacher’s desk. Black dress, bare feet, hair pulled back. Her legs dangle in the air. She strokes a doll that no longer has a face. She stares at him. Her eyes are calm. Too calm.

  — “You still don’t remember, do you? That’s normal. I’m saving the good parts for later.” She laughs. The balloon drifts slowly down to her hand. She holds it out to him. — “Here. You’ve always had it. It knows you. Make it float. It’ll take you back to where you fell.” He takes it. It is light. Too light. And at the same time, he feels it drawing something out of him. An invisible bond forms. He has no time to resist. The classroom explodes in a silent breath. The walls collapse inward. The floor gives way. And Anon falls again. Again. But this time, the balloon follows him. The impact is softer this time. No fall. No shat- tering. Just a slowing. As if the world had stopped turning in order to set him down. Anon opens his eyes. He is in a ruined stairwell, half-collapsed. A landing with no exit. A bricked-up window. Dust settles gently around him, like lukewarm ash. He trembles. But not with fear. With clarity.

  Three objects. They are there. Not in his hands. On him. The surgical mask, rolled into the inner lining of his jacket. The pendant around his neck, slightly tight. And the red balloon, tied to his belt by a knotted string—it floats lightly, despite the absence of air. “They came with me. Not as memories. As… grafts.” He looks at them. One by one. They seem inert. But he feels something circulating. A ten- sion. A pulse of Ichor. It is not his. He understands then. “They are not gifts. They are chains.” Not placed. Sewn in. Not to help him. To keep him. Each object contains an emotional thread, a fragment of will: Bolton, Elisabeth, Sally. They did not offer him artifacts. They offered themselves, in pieces. Trapped pieces.

  He straightens slowly. The balloon shivers. The pendant pulses. The mask seems to make the air around him tremble. “I have to cut them. Otherwise, I will stop being myself… before I even know who I am.” Anon remains frozen. Short of breath. The three objects quiver around him. And then, wit- hout warning… something engages.

  The pendant pulses harder. An ivory glow emanates from it, trembling but stubborn. The fine links of its chain lengthen on their own, as if to tighten further around his throat. In response, the mask vibrates dully. A deep rumble rises from its lining. The Ichor stitching it together unfurls into nervous filaments that slide up to the surface of his jacket. The red balloon, meanwhile, lifts slightly. Its string snaps taut all at once, as if something were pulling on it from the other side of the world.

  And suddenly, chaos explodes in the space.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  The mask lunges forward, its seams stiffening, lashing the air, and striking the balloon. A sharp crack. The balloon recoils, spins, but does not give way. On the contrary—it opens slightly, releasing a thread of black smoke that twists like a tiny hand. The smoke attacks the pendant, coils around it, seeks to constrict its central stone.

  The jewel shines brighter, a white light, almost pure, that cleaves the haze. Anon steps back. The objects are not trying to destroy Anon. They are trying to destroy one another. Each seems convinced that the other two are responsible for Anon’s resis- tance.

  The mask beats like a foreign heart, its straps lashing the air to repel the balloon’s mist. The balloon, for its part, creaks, its stretched skin vibrating like the voice of an angry child. The pendant weeps light. Its glow becomes almost unbearable.

  Anon drops to his knees. He does not understand everything, but he feels it. “They’re fighting… They want to keep me. Each of them. For themselves. Not to save me. Not to free me.” And he sees. He sees the mask as Bolton’s mouth, whispering cold diagnoses. He sees the pendant as Elisabeth’s hand, outstretched, trembling, gentle and hungry. He sees the balloon as Sally’s single eye, enormous and ageless, staring straight into him from a tear in time. They tear at one another. But none gives way. They cannot kill one another. They are made of the same blood. Of the same Ichor.

  And then, suddenly… Silence.

  Each object returns to its place. The mask becomes inert again. The balloon floats. The pendant is cold. But something has changed. Anon looks at them differently. And they, too, now know it.

  Silence.

  Anon remains motionless, the three objects before him. Something still throbs in the air, like the aftertaste of conflict. But it is no longer violent. It is… dense. He breathes slowly. His breath becomes blurred, distant. And his gaze, without his com- manding it, narrows slightly. He squints. Not in suspicion. In concentration. A reflex. An instinct.

  And then… he sees.

  No aura. No mystical glow. Just threads. Fine, translucent lines embedded in the subs- tance of the three objects. Filaments of Ichor caught in the texture of the mask, in the links of the pendant, in the string of the balloon. They do not really shine. They pulse. Slowly. Lines that rise, that dive, that intertwine. Like the weave of a tapestry. A living weave, infi- nitesimal, invisible to anyone who does not look differently.

  Anon steps back. Blinks. And the weave disappears.

  He opens his eyes wide again. Nothing. But when he concentrates once more, it returns. Clearer. Richer. As if his sight were re-educating itself.

  He focuses his attention on the medallion resting on the floorboards. The edges, the inner motif, the design have completely changed. And the threads pulse at its heart with an am- ber glow.

  He understands that what he is seeing is not visual. It is a blend of sensation and atten- tion. Of directed inner perception. “I am not seeing Ichor. I am feeling it with my eyes.” He kneels. Tries a gesture. His hand moves through the air, gently. His fingers pass through the jewel. But the threads do not move. He tries again. Slower. With more will. More precision. Nothing.

  He exhales. Closes his eyes. Opens them again. The weave is still there. But it does not respond. He changes strategy. He does not brush against it. He tries to grasp. Not the matter. The thread. The flow.

  His hand approaches once more. And this time… something bends. One filament, infinite- simal, curves. He feels it on the pad of his index finger. Warm. Visceral. Reactive. He grips it. The filament vibrates. The pendant pulses in response, as if it had been touched at its core.

  Anon withdraws his hand. A remnant of thread clings to his skin, then is instantly reab- sorbed. And a word rises in his mind. Not a memory. A concept. “Link.” It is not an ability. It is a door. And he has only just cracked it open. He stays there, sitting against a gnawed wall, his fingers still warm from having brushed the weave of the world. His breathing is ragged. Not from fear. Not from pain. From overload. “I need to think. Or I’m going to lose my mind.” He closes his eyes. And he makes a list. Like taking inventory of a dream on the verge of forgetting. He knows that he is dead. Not injured. Not amnesiac. Dead. He is in a place called the Ichoréon. An underground, parallel world, outside of life. A territo- ry woven from Ichor, a substance that fuels, connects, consumes. He knows that Ichor is the flesh of this world. And that some know how to shape it.

  Bolton, the masked tyrant. Elisabeth, the weaver of memories. Sally, the ageless queen of cruel games. He knows they want him. That they tried to bind him to them, through objects, roles, falsified memories. He now knows that he can see Ichor. Not like them. But in his own way. And that this thing responds to him. But everything else… everything else is an abyss. “Who am I? How did I die? Why do those three want to attach themselves to me?” “Why me? Why do they say that the Ichor within me grows instead of being depleted? What does all of this mean? What is expected of me? Unless I am an anomaly… a mistake?” Silence answers him. But it is a loaded silence. And within that silence… the voice returns. Always the same. The one in his head. Sarcastic. Ancient. Amused.

  — “There you go. You finally know what you know… and what you don’t.” A muffled laugh.

  — “We call that… the birth of misfortune.”

  ***

  Lucie Tremblay pushes open the door to the long-term care ward with the ease of gestures repeated a thousand times. It is nine o’clock in the morning. The air smells of cold disinfec- tant and clean laundry. The corridors are painted in those soothing tones chosen by archi- tects but which, over time, she finds as tiring as overly familiar wallpaper. She holds her tablet against her chest. Five more patients before the break. She doesn’t complain. She knows that here, balance is fragile — and that everything hangs on the invisible thread of routine.

  She starts with room 212: Mrs. Bourassa, bipolar, morning smile. A kind word, blood pres- sure, quick notes. Then 214: Mr. Singh, stabilized schizophrenia, needs his wrist bandage changed. She moves on. Her voice is gentle but her mind is orderly. Faces pass by like slots in a schedule. And then, 216.

  She stops for a second before pushing the door open. Always that feeling of stepping into winter.

  Henri Deslauriers.

  Bedridden. Motionless.

  A body she hardly recognizes from one week to the next, so much does it waste away, as if the air itself were erasing him. He arrived eight months earlier. Recently widowed. Com- plete mutism since his wife’s death. The paramedics had found him on his balcony, unres- ponsive, emaciated, his gaze fixed on nothing. His family had insisted on having him ad- mitted here — “to protect him,” they had said, because he no longer ate, no longer spoke. A wasting syndrome, diagnosed without hesitation. But here, in a psychiatric hospital, not in a geriatric ward. A rare case. One that intrigues her.

  She pushes the door open slightly. The smell of soap, stronger. The room is bright, a large window opening onto a garden already covered in snow. Henri lies on his side, facing the wall. The sheets are smooth. His hands clasped, thin, without strength. His eyes are open, but without a gaze.

  She approaches. Gently places her hand on his forearm. Still nothing. That’s what she notes every morning, but in her mind it takes longer. She tells herself he is slipping away. That even lying there, he is already in the process of leaving. “Henri Deslauriers. Sixty-seven years old. Severe wasting syndrome. Complete mutism for eight months.” She recites the data like a mantra. She no longer knows whether it is for herself or for him. She knows that patients like this are usually not sent here. But his stubborn silence, his weight melting away, his blood pressure dropping…

  It’s as if he has already withdrawn from the world, yet still breathes. She studies his fea- tures. He looks like an empty shell. She speaks to him anyway, in a low voice. “Good morning, Mr. Deslauriers. Did you sleep well?” Not a word. She adjusts the blanket. Sets her stethoscope on the edge of the bed. Checks his vitals. Places a hand on his wrist. She barely feels a pulse. “Why are you clinging to this nothing?” she thinks. “What is still holding you here, or what has already taken you?” She has no answer. She only knows that this morning again, he is here. Breathing. Without being present. She makes a note on her tablet. Then quietly leaves the room.

  ***

  Anon remains alone in the collapsed stairwell. The light does not change. The silence is not complete. He hears… something. A buried murmur, like a memory in the stone. He straightens. Wipes his palms. Looks around. Walls. Rubble. Cracked plaster. An old medi- cal cart overturned against the railing.

  But he is not looking with his eyes. He narrows his eyelids again. He searches. He attunes himself.

  And little by little, the fibers appear. Not in the objects. In the place. In the floor. The walls. The metal. The wood. The dust. A weave. An immense web, crossed by filaments of Ichor, some thick, others as fine as hairs of light. “It’s made of this. The entire asylum… is a weave. A body. I can feel it.” He kneels near a wall. Places his fingers flat against the tiles. And gently, tries to penetrate the material. Nothing. He insists. Concentrates. The weave appears. Faint. Tangled. Com- plex. He reaches deeper—not physically, but the way one extends a will in a direction. At first, he brushes it. Then he grips. One thread. Then another. They are warm, resistant, as if stretched under an invisible force. He pulls. The wall groans. Not the sound of plaster giving way, but a muffled moan, like a contracting muscle. He pulls harder. The wall throbs. A thin crack opens, then closes immediately. Like an eyelid that refuses to see. “You locked me in. I will open you.” He runs his fingers through the weave. Searches for a pattern, a weak point, an interlaced tension. But the weave resists. Not mechanically. Willfully. The asylum refuses. So he changes strategy. He no longer forces it. He imitates. He slips into the pattern. He looks for a zone where the fiber is thinner, where memory is looser. There. In the corner of a blocked stairwell, between two layers of concrete. A knot of old threads, tired, forgotten. He pulls. And this time, something twists. The wall groans. A section of the surface lifts, cracks slightly, and reveals not an opening, but a thin tear.

  Anon steps back. Out of breath. But satisfied. “I’m not a guest here. I’m an intruder. But now, I know where to force my way in.” He sits for a moment. His palms tremble. He feels the fluid in his veins flowing slowly. He is not bleeding, but he is losing something. A shiver of Ichor, an inner vertigo. And suddenly… the fissure moves. Not from a draft. It closes. The edges of the tear draw together, slowly. Like a wound sealing itself. Like a wall healing. “No.” He straightens. Places his hand on the surface. Closes his eyes. And plunges back into the weave. This time, he does not pull. He spreads. His fingers sink in as if into a soft material, supple yet resistant. He feels the weave vibrate around him, as if he were tearing at a scab that is still alive. He pulls harder. And this time, he bleeds. Not a physical wound. But a heat in his chest. Something leaves his being. A thread of fluid, flowing out of him and into the matter. An involuntary gift.

  The fissure widens. It grinds, resists, then tears a little more. A breath of unknown air es- capes from it.

  And then, in his head, the voice returns. The same as always.

  — “Ah! The little one is starting to pay out of his own pocket.” A muffled snicker.

  — “Careful, you’ll end up with a mystical burnout, my boy!” Anon clenches his teeth. But he does not let go. He is on his knees, one hand pressed against the tear he has just opened. But already, it is trying to close. The fibers of the Icho- réon—alive, aggressive—are weaving themselves again like a wound that refuses to be reopened.

  He inhales. Places both hands against the wall. “Not yet.” And he plunges in. His fingers penetrate the matter. Slow. Resistant. Like flesh defending itself. He pulls, spreads, grips the threads of the weave. But they scream without sound, as if the asylum itself were begging to be left intact. A dull pain rises within him. A deep vertigo. His Ichor leaks away, faster this time. He feels it. He is giving too much. — “You’re going to exhaust yourself.” The mocking voice bursts out without warning.

  — “What do you want? Dig a tunnel? An soul chimney? Did you think we were living inside a hollow wall?” Anon clenches his teeth. He keeps going. Every thread he twists burns. Every link he shifts saturates his flesh.

  — “So what are you trying to do?” The tone changes. The mockery slows, becoming almost… curious.

  He does not answer. He pushes harder. His arms tremble. His vision blurs. Black spots dance before his eyes.

  And suddenly… his hand goes through. Completely. Beyond the wall.

  He holds his breath.

  The mist disappears. On the other side, it is dry. Warm. Silent. His palm brushes against something. Fabric. A sheet. Then…

  Skin. Warm. Human. A forearm. A touch. Alive.

  Anon’s eyes widen. His hand throbs, as if it had crossed the entire universe. But the effort is too great. A brutal wave of exhaustion rises in his throat. He yanks his hand back sharply. He collapses onto his side, gasping, drained.

  — “What… was that?” — “Who… did I touch?” The voice does not answer. Not right away. For the first time, it falls silent. And then, almost reluctantly: — “…that was the other side of the veil.” A pause.

  — “That was… the world of the living.”

  ***

  Lucie closes the door to room 218 with a silent sigh. Only three patients remain before the end of her morning round. She walks down the corridor without hurrying. The light is white, cold, almost clean. In the distance, the television from a common room murmurs, a medical beep sounds, a nursing aide softly calls a name to which no one answers. Her thoughts drift. She thinks about her dog, Charlie, an old golden retriever she’ll have to take out tonight, in the rain, again. She thinks about her son, Maxime, in Vancou- ver, who has just lost his job at a start-up. He didn’t say it clearly, but she understood. She thinks about that new novel by Anne Legault she saw in a shop window, a red cover with a silhouette under an umbrella. She wants to buy it. Tonight, maybe.

  She enters room 220. A routine check: blood pressure and glucose, a dose of anxiolytic. But as she puts the test strips back into her cart, she realizes… “Where did my stethoscope go?” She frowns. Retraces her steps in her mind. “216. Deslauriers’ room.” Of course. She finishes what she’s doing, adjusts the curtains, smiles out of habit, and leaves the room.

  The corridor feels quieter than before. Maybe because she’s concentrating. Or because she’s still thinking about the rain. Or Charlie. Or Maxime.

  She gently pushes open the door to room 216. The old man is there. As always. Lying on his side, back turned, arms crossed, skeletal hands clasped over his stomach. Eyes open. But absent. She knows him like this. She expects nothing. She scans the room with her eyes. Spots her stethoscope, resting beside the bed. She takes a step. And then—something cracks.

  A damp, deep sound, like skin stretched too tight finally tearing.

  She turns her head. And the wall, just to the right of Mr. Deslauriers’ bed, opens. Not an explosion. Not a collapse. A fissure. Thin. Black. Alive.

  And from that fissure… a hand emerges.

  Lucie remains frozen.

  Her throat tightens. Her arms tense. She wants to scream, but no sound comes. The hand is thin, bare, human. But trembling, exhausted, alien. Strange, faintly luminous fila- ments hang between the fingers.

  She gropes the sheet. Moves upward. Touches. And then—brushes against Henri Des- lauriers’ arm.

  A shiver passes through the air. The fluorescent lights crackle.

  And for the first time in eight months, Henri turns his head.

  He looks at her.

  His eyes are full. Present.

  His features come alive. A smile forms on his dry lips.

  Not wide.

  Not joyful.

  A real smile.

  Lucie staggers.

  Her heart pounds in her temples. The world loses its edges.

  She collapses.

  ***

  Word spreads quickly through the ward: a nursing aide has found Lucie Tremblay col- lapsed on the floor of room 216.

  The cart overturned.

  The stethoscope at the foot of the bed.

  The on-call physicians are summoned.

  Dr. Elijah Carter is the first to arrive. He pushes the door open, followed by his colleague, Catherine Holloway, still fastening her badge to the collar of her coat. Lucie is lying on a gurney, unconscious, her face pale.

  Henri Deslauriers, meanwhile, is motionless on his bed, his eyes once again closed. Elijah immediately kneels. “— She’s breathing. Slow pulse. No visible trauma.” He glances at the floor. The atmosphere in the room is strange. Not dark, no. Charged. He has felt it before. Once. He doesn’t like thinking about it.

  — “I’m going to get something to start an IV.” Catherine, meanwhile, remains standing. She analyzes every detail.

  — “She’s resilient. It’s not like her to faint. No history. No medication. And…” She stops. Something bothers her. She couldn’t say what.

  — “Henri Deslauriers hasn’t moved at all?” she asks the aide.

  — “Not a single movement. Like usual.” But Elijah saw the man’s gaze as he came in.

  Just for an instant. He could have sworn the man closed his eyes when he heard them arrive. He comes back, gently places a tourniquet on Lucie’s arm, then looks at Catherine. — “Did you feel the tension in the air?” — “What are you talking about?” she replies sharply.

  — “I don’t know. It reminds me of a palliative care room, two years ago. A woman in an advanced coma. She smiled at her husband the day before she died. He said she held his hand. We treated him like he was crazy.” She looks at him, incredulous.

  — “Elijah, seriously? We’re talking about Lucie here. She probably stood up too fast or didn’t eat enough.” — “Maybe.” He doesn’t argue. But his gaze drifts, despite himself, toward the wall to the right of the bed. A faint crack. No wider than a thread. He had never noticed it before.

  ***

  Lucie has been settled into a rest room. Her heart rate is stable.

  The official diagnosis remains unclear: vasovagal episode? Orthostatic hypotension? Acute fatigue? Elijah can’t stop thinking about it in the staff cafeteria. His colleague sits across the table from him, two coffees between them, untouched.

  Catherine is half-reading her medical monitoring screen. Elijah, for his part, stares into space.

  — “She had no history, no signs of weakness. She doesn’t even take beta-blockers.” — “You think it was an attack… of what? Electromagnetic? Spiritual?” — “I think something happened. Not necessarily esoteric. But… something.” — “You’re saying that because she was in Deslauriers’ room.” — “Yes.” — “And you think that this mute sixty-seven-year-old man triggered a psychological col- lapse in a nurse with thirty years of experience?” — “No. I think something happened between them. A contact. Something invisible.” Catherine looks up. She frowns slightly.

  — “You’re not going to start again with your stories about patients who ‘feel’ the presence of the dead or white light…” — “I never said I believed in it. I said I didn’t know.” — “I do know. And that’s precisely why I sleep at night.” A silence.

  Elijah sighs. He looks at his cup, then raises his eyes.

  — “Did you look at the wall? In his room?” — “The wall?” — “The one near the bed. On the right. Just behind Lucie.” — “No. Why?” — “There was a crack. A thin, vertical one. Don’t you find it strange that we never noticed it before?” — “We’re in a century-old building that was renovated in the sixties. If there were only one crack…” She turns back to her screen. Elijah doesn’t answer.

  But in his mind, he sees again Deslauriers’ smile, that brief fragment of light in his gaze. And the feeling that something—even infinitesimal—has crossed this world.

  ***

  Barely has Anon pulled his hand from the wall when pain engulfs him. Not an injury. A rejection. The Ichoréon repudiates what he has done. His legs give way. His stomach contracts. A metallic taste rises in his throat. Lines of fire race beneath his skin. Not red. Black. As if the Ichor within him were boiling, out of control. He drops to his knees. Breathes in ragged gasps. The floor throbs. The surface twists, the fibers of the wall slowly closing with a wet groan.

  — “Well played, champ. You just jumped rope with the boundary between worlds.” The familiar grating voice snickers in his head, close as a bite to the ear. — “And now, the world is making you pay the bill.” Anon groans. His fingers tremble. He tries to rise, but his muscles no longer respond. And suddenly—an image. Brief. Sharp. A snow-covered balcony, on the other side. An old man in a bathrobe, motionless beneath the gray light. The world seems frozen around him. Anon did not ask to see. But it enters him without his being able to push the vision away. A second image. A framed photograph. A woman with gray hair, gentle eyes. The old man looks at her. His hands tremble. A third. A coffin. A rosary. An inner voice, weary, whispers: — “Take her back. Take me too.” He has never heard that voice before, but instinctively he knows it is the old man’s. Henri Deslauriers. He does not know how, but he knows that is the old man’s name. Anon chokes. The images pass through him. Like shards of memory injected raw. “Oh no…” The grating voice in his head now sounds almost irritated. “This isn’t a connection, it’s an infection! You touched a living man, and now he’s sticking to you!” And then, a final vision. Henri, lying in his bed. The sheets are rumpled where Anon touched him. The old man slowly turns his head toward someone off-frame and says, in a low, hoarse voice, but full of light: — “He touched me… He came…” — “It was… Jesus.” The link breaks.

  Anon opens his eyes again. His body is icy. His Ichor has calmed, but he is exhausted. He looks at his hand. In the hollow of his palm, where he passed through the wall: a thin spiral scar. “A believer, huh…” murmurs the grating voice. “Congratulations, you’ve just been promoted Messiah of the dying!” Anon remains seated for a long while, his back against a cold wall, eyelids heavy. His mus- cles have no strength left. His Ichor has settled, but he feels an emptiness inside, as if so- mething had been torn away. He looks at his palm. The spiral scar is still there. He touches it with the tips of his fingers. It doesn’t hurt. But it pulses, like an echo of something else. Of elsewhere.

  — “What was that link?” — “Who is that man?” — “Why him… and why me?” He does not expect an answer.

  And yet, no mockery from the grating voice this time. Only a dense silence, as if it too were trying to understand. Anon straightens. His legs buckle beneath him. He leans against the wall, slides along the corridor. He looks for shelter. A recess. An empty room. Somewhere he could withdraw, think, perhaps collapse. But the asylum never gives. It keeps its rooms the way it keeps its secrets.

  And suddenly… in the thick silence… footsteps.

  Distant at first. Then clearer. Slow. Steady. Without hesitation. Each step resonates softly, as if the corridor itself were listening. Anon freezes.

  His legs falter. He has nothing left to fight with. Nothing left to resist. His Ichor is no longer enough.

  — “Not now.” He turns on his heel. Flees. Not fast. Not far. But out of that corridor. The footsteps conti- nue. Always steady. Always calm. They are not chasing him.

  Not yet.

  And he disappears into the darkness.

  ***

  A white ceiling. A light too bright. Voices buzzing. Lucie slowly emerges from her torpor. The smell of disinfectant tightens her throat. She blinks. Elijah and Catherine are there, leaning over her. A blood-pressure cuff on her arm. An IV already running. — “You gave us quite a scare, Lucie.” Elijah’s voice is gentle, slightly ironic.

  — “Do you remember what happened?” Lucie hesitates. The images return: the stethoscope on the floor, the wall tearing open, the hand.

  No. She can’t say that.

  — “I think I fainted,” she says simply. “I was tired.” Catherine speaks up, clinical tone.

  — “You hadn’t eaten anything this morning, right? Likely hypoglycemia. You had a drop in blood pressure. Nothing alarming.” Lucie nods without looking at her. She keeps her eyes on the sheet, gripping the blanket between her fingers. Elijah crouches beside her.

  — “You’re sure that’s all? You didn’t… see anything? Hear anything?” He hesitates over the word.

  Lucie lifts her head. She meets his gaze. He’s waiting for an honest answer. — “No. Nothing at all. Just… blackness.” She lies without thinking. She’s too afraid of what the truth would imply. She tugs at the IV with a sharp gesture.

  — “I just want to go home, Elijah. I need to sleep. And take my dog out before it rains.” Catherine watches her, arms crossed.

  — “You should stay under observation at least one night.” — “No. I’m fine. I promise.” She smiles. It’s a fa?ade of a smile, but it’s enough. The two doctors exchange a look. Elijah nods, resigned.

  — “Very well. Get some rest, but if you feel the slightest dizziness, you come back. All right?” — “All right. Thank you.” Lucie leaves the examination room. Her footsteps echo in the deserted corridor. She heads toward the locker rooms, passes through the ward. Her badge clicks against the collar of her blouse.

  She feels empty, numbed. Everything is too calm.

  She passes room 216. And stops.

  A sound. Faint.

  A voice? A breath? She couldn’t say. She listens. Nothing.

  She’s about to leave… then hears it again. A murmur.

  — “Henri?” she whispers.

  Silence. She hesitates. Her heart beats too fast. And finally, she opens the door. Henri is sleeping deeply. Calm breathing. Peaceful features. She stands there for a moment, watching him. Nothing has changed. No reason to be afraid. “You’re going crazy, girl,” she thinks. “You need rest.” She turns on her heel, but her gaze catches on the wall. That one. To the right of the bed. She steps closer. And sees it.

  The crack. Wide now. Several centimeters. A dark slit, almost organic. A discreet breath es- capes from it, like a held respiration. Lucie holds her breath. She could swear she heard… footsteps. Slow. Deep. Echoing on the other side.

  And then a whisper, indistinct, childlike.

  Her hands tremble. She kneels. Moves closer. Looks into the crack.

  At first, nothing. Just darkness.

  And then…

  An eye. Immense. Pale.

  That of a little girl.

  Lucie doesn’t have time to pull back.

  A child’s laughter, crystalline, rings out just behind the wall.

  Author’s note:

  Thank you for reading. Chapter III is already in progress.