TBOTSG-Chapter 22

When I opened my eyes, I was back in Sela’s laboratories. There was only one person present, who seemed busying themselves at the tables from the far end of the room. From my position, I could see everything, but the frosted window of the room was slightly darker, designed to keep light away from me, which bothered me. As I fully came to my senses, the window also became completely transparent. It didn’t help, though. The person there seemed like the most boring creature in the world. They sat motionless for minutes on end in their chair, facing the wall, occasionally shifting to the right to check a device. There was nothing of interest to me there, so I closed my eyes and let myself drift into the palace of my mind. I was now beside the Tree of Life. Where, with pleasure, I remembered meeting Alter for the first time.

‘How shy you were back then,’ I said, knowing he was watching me from somewhere.

He didn’t say anything, but in his snake form, he approached me and then climbed onto my shoulders. This time, he was a very beautiful snake, with all his features well-defined. I held his head in my hand and then gave him a little kiss. I cherished him. And he cherished me too: I could feel his affection coming from everywhere.

‘It was a very good strategy,’ he said. ‘We won by defying all odds.’

‘We won because they didn’t expect us to,’ I said, and a shiver ran down my spine. ‘But maybe it would have been better if we lost. Now I realise Sela was right. We complicated things by winning.’

‘But Sela wanted you to win,’ he said. ‘She told us before the match. That was her plan.’

‘How so? Just minutes before, she told me it would be best to let you lose honourably… Now that I think about it, I don’t even know why I intervened. Fear was so powerful, instinct took over, and no other thought or strategy crossed my mind. I just felt it was what I had to do.’

If Alter had a human body, he might have shrugged. Instead, he remained silent.

The surroundings caught my attention. Something seemed different. I began to walk around the Tree and admire the paths leading from it and their ornaments. I felt good, like a someone realising they’ve become so much more. I smiled at this thought, especially at the fact that I kept this completely hidden from Alter. Occasionally, I would stroke him under the chin, as if he were a cat, though I think I liked him more as a snake. He probably could have transformed into whatever I wanted in a fraction of a second, but I respected his identity. If he saw himself as a snake, who was I to ask for a different form?

To our left, the Tree of Life was vibrating. It seemed to pulse in a rhythm slightly out of phase with mine. How is this possible? I wondered. On the ground, the grass was green and soft, almost elastic under my steps. I felt like touching it. Then I looked to the right at the yawning path beside us. There were fairies, dragons with teeth like swords, giant flowers, all made of jade who melded into a gate inviting me to enter. I was curious, indeed, but I continued walking. We then reached a canopy of onyx, and half-flower nymphs. Further along was a path with a simple entrance, too simple, made of a kind of green jade as well, its design reminding me of home. I stared for a long time until I recognised the door to my parents’ house. I knew that if I had gone that way, I would have ended up back in the palace of memories. I would have met my Fox there. And it surprised me that I was curious about how the latest events were represented. I imagined the creature with eight immobile legs would be huge, filling the vault, going higher, into another plane, with its spider legs firmly embedded in the floor, forcing me to pass between them. A shiver ran down my spine, and Alter looked at me with wonder. Nothing, I said with my eyes, and then moved on. We reached a road that hadn’t been there before. We both stopped and looked at each other. What could it mean? A road we didn’t recognise, but which made both of us turn our heads towards the Tree. It seemed they communicated, vibrating in the same rhythm, made of the same material: clouds, and from those clouds branches that seemed to belong to the Tree of Life pierced through. And the road itself seemed made of light. For a second, I wondered if what lay ahead of us wasn’t the gate to heaven itself.

Alter’s presence, who was settling more comfortably on my shoulders, seemed to signal that he was there with me, which was reassuring. We headed towards the new road. As we approached and my heart began to calm down, I started to wonder why this entrance looked the way it did.

‘Maybe it’s a symbol of religion. Perhaps that’s what we’ll find beyond,’ Alter ventured.

‘Perhaps. I can’t help but be amused by this image… should I expect cherubs too? A cappella singing notes?’

‘That would be interesting,’ Alter said, clearly without a trace of sarcasm.

As we entered the corridor, I felt like a hot rod pierced through my gut: I recognised the place. Could this be the very passageway through which Fox and I crossed over? As we moved forward, the velvet-textured veins intertwined not only with clouds now resembling cotton candy but also with other things, other materials that protruded from the wall’s surface like hands ready to touch us. It wasn’t exactly the same corridor, in fact. But it was the same connection. It was made of time and timeless essence. Of divinity. When I finished this thought, everything seemed to light up suddenly, and we had to squint our imaginary eyes for a few seconds until we got used to the light again. We had reached the end of the tunnel.

In front of us was a star. I couldn’t describe it any other way.

I stepped towards it, and Alter coiled tighter around me, telling me not to go. I looked at him in surprise; it wasn’t like him to say illogical things. And my logic told me that place was already a part of me. I approached as close as I could and tried to touch the sphere of light. Obviously, I couldn’t because it wasn’t made of matter. We both then entered the sphere of light entirely, and nothing happened. We looked at each other. We felt a bit disappointed, as if we didn’t know what to expect, but certainly not this. What had changed was the sensation we both felt inside the sphere: that we were more, much more. This was the seed of divinity, which was about to sprout somewhere in the distant past from which we came and make me into a new being. The palace of my mind had created a goddess and we stood in the middle of where a sort of Big Bang was about to happen.

And to our surprise, a huge explosion occurred right then and there. It violently pulled us out of our inner world and brought us back to reality. The glass of the hyperbaric chamber was only lightly cracked, but outside there was chaos. Masked men, armed to the teeth, had entered through where the door had been. We realised that was where the explosion had been. Screams echoed in the distance, but after a brief analysis, Alter concluded that none of them belonged to Sela or to Tha. Somehow this reassured me, even though I knew it made no sense.

One of the masked men opened the hyperbaric chamber and got a surprise: a powerful punch to the throat that killed him instantly. We had to escape at all costs, so I grabbed him with my other hand and held him as a shield against the gunfire from the others. They were shooting indiscriminately. Hundreds of shots fired in our direction, hoping one would hit. A few ricocheted off my leg, left hand, and ribs. But they were superficial wounds. We needed to do something. And quickly, because they were closing in. We were cornered, and I felt a strong panic. One that paralysed me. Not Alter, though. With my free hand, he tore off the hyperbaric chamber’s door. I felt three bullets pass through my exposed forearm, but it was worth it. Following Alter’s calculations, I hurled the door and struck three out of the four masked men. A fraction of a second later, I threw the one I was holding as a shield towards the fourth one. Then we leaped, positioning ourselves behind them. I wanted to run straight for the exit, but Alter intervened and first rendered all four unconscious.

Knowing now that none of the attackers were getting up, we focused on what was happening beyond the door. I hesitated when I saw the corpses, but Alter continued towards what seemed to be an exit leading into a corridor. Even though I didn’t want to look, my body perceived the entire room as a whole; I saw the woman who had been working in the lab earlier now sprawled amidst the rubble. Her left hand seemed to be farther away. Two other people were closer to the other exit. One had his head split in a bizarre manner, and the other had been shot in the chest. As we got out into the corridor, the sounds of attacks happening simultaneously became clearer. Alter stepped over two more corpses as if they were mere objects. He sensed my disgust, my judgment, but didn’t respond to them. He was focused on getting us to safety.

From the left, we heard some sounds, like bursts of energy, followed by a smell of burnt flesh. I felt nauseous—an imaginary nausea, as Alter quickly pointed out—while he tried to keep us hidden from the eyes of those in the adjacent laboratory where the smell was coming from. After passing by without being noticed, we arrived at a room whose entrance had been blown up just like ours. Apparently, the attackers knew well where the strong points were and acted accordingly. When we entered, I realised there was no one alive. I could recognise most of them. Sela’s parents were there too amidst the rubble, lifeless.

In the room behind us, gunfire could be heard. Alter began to retreat, but I took control. In a few steps, I was at the doorway. Sela was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with one of the masked attackers, who appeared injured but fought fiercely. He had his forearm around Sela’s neck, grunting through clenched teeth with each blow Sela landed directly into his bleeding ribs, but he refused to give up. In a split second, Alter took over because he sensed my panic. He pulled the attacker off Sela with one hand and delivered a precise blow to his jaw, knocking him out cold. Sela tried to say something, but Alter took her hand, and we quickly exited the room the same way we entered.

Back in the corridor, another group of attackers awaited us. Alter signalled us to stay quiet and hide behind a wall. He picked up three stones from the ground. They were relatively small, and I wondered if they could penetrate all the armour they wore. Alter made a noise to attract their attention and then struck each one with a stone with incredible precision. They all fell like they were cut down, hit directly in the forehead.

When we turned to Sela, we saw that she was staring fixedly at her parents. She seemed shocked. I took her hand and pulled her away from there. It was something hard to bear, but we didn’t know how many more attackers might be coming. Then we received a message. A message that entered directly into our minds. Both Alter and I were surprised, shocked, even disgusted, but we didn’t have time to dwell on it. It was a map showing us the way to a meeting point. The message was from Tha.

We followed the indicated route, but encountered resistance, so Alter, who had the maps fully configured, redirected us through a detour. We cleared out of the attack area and proceeded safely until we reached the rendezvous point. There, Tha was waiting for us in a drone. We both got on quickly, and within seconds, we were flying above the laboratories. There was someone else in the drone. Someone with familiar features but whom I couldn’t place. Then I saw the tattoo on his neck. It was the Three Eared Rabbit. I couldn’t believe it.

A loud whistle sounded from the right, and Tha executed a maneouver that would have thrown us all off if the drone hadn’t enveloped us in its protective veil the moment we boarded.

‘They’ve realised we’ve escaped and are trying to bring us down.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they know we have a transcendental with us, and they know we have him as well. And he’s the key…’

Tha paused and executed two more evasive manoeuvres. Two missiles, this time seeming programmed to loop back and track us.

‘Sela!’ Tha handed her a tablet, which Sela seemed unsure how to use. ‘Connect to the missiles,’ Tha said with urgency in his voice. ‘Take them down before they hit us.’

Sela took the tablet and started tapping on it slowly at first, as if unsure of what to do, then more confidently and quickly. Tha did several more evasive manoeuvers, and I thought the Three Eared Rabbit might get sick from the chaotic movements. He held on, and Sela finally managed to deactivate the missiles.

‘I think we’re safe now,’ Tha said, but didn’t dare switch to autopilot.