– CHAPTER FORTY –

  THE STONE OF SISYPHUS

  The bunker sky was snowing as if someone had decided Christmas needed a full-time backdrop.

  Artificial flakes fell in layers, spinning in the cold wind, glittering beneath the discreet lights coming from the Prince Equal One Zero Pyramid. The snow was not just snow, it was aesthetic. It was product. It was charm. It was THE-IMPERIUM trying to make winter look like a luxury, not a threat.

  Americ-Ana was up there, in the middle of all of it.

  Standing atop the GummyAir.

  Her feet firm on the living surface, her hands trying to steady her body while the wind pulled at her clothes like a flag. Americ-Ana’s face was red from the cold, but her eyes were lit, because there was a new feeling in her chest, a rare feeling in that place.

  Freedom.

  Poppandacorn was on her shoulders, clinging as if he were a desperate mountaineer and, at the same time, a king upon a throne. His Santa hat fluttered in the wind, and his LED eyes blinked with unrestrained joy.

  He was shouting.

  Shouting as if the whole sky needed to know he had a new friend.

  "Gummy! Gummy! Gummy!"

  The GummyAir answered in that animated voice, almost sung, as if it had been programmed to be happy.

  "Fly! Fly! Fly!"

  And then it would shoot forward.

  Americ-Ana let out a scream that was half panic, half laughter, and the two of them sliced through the snow like a blade, rising, dropping, bending the air into curves that looked like circus acrobatics. The GummyAir responded to her weight and her DNA as if it were an extension of her body, as if it had been made for that, as if the saliva and the twenty-four days of ritual had created a real bond.

  "Poppa!" Americ-Ana shouted, laughing and cursing at the same time. "You’re going to give me a heart attack!"

  "No, Mommy!" Poppandacorn answered, triumphant, his voice bursting with joy. "Poppa is going to make Mommy strong and brave!"

  He threw his little hands up in the air, forgetting for a second that he was clinging to her shoulders out of pure survival, and nearly fell.

  Americ-Ana grabbed his little legs on reflex.

  "If you fall, I’m grounding you until next year." she threatened.

  Poppandacorn made an indignant sound, but obeyed, sticking to her again, trembling with excitement.

  "Mommy!" he shouted in her ear, as if he needed to tell the universe an urgent secret. "Do the loop!"

  "I don’t know how to do a loop!" Americ-Ana answered, and the wind stole half the sentence.

  Poppandacorn refused to accept it.

  "Mommy knows!" he insisted, as if faith were technical instruction. "Mommy commands!"

  Americ-Ana took a deep breath, leaned her body forward, felt the GummyAir respond like an attentive animal, and tried. First a wide curve, then a quick climb, then a drop that turned her stomach upside down.

  She let out a scream.

  Poppandacorn let out an even louder scream.

  And the GummyAir, as if it adored the chaos, answered on its own, spinning with absurd precision, carving a perfect arc through the air.

  For one second, the world became snow and wind.

  For one second, Americ-Ana was not a scholarship student.

  She was not illegal.

  She was not Patron Uvo’s target.

  She was not the girl who had lost BAAL and had watched Nioh be taken away.

  She was only a body in the air, laughter in the cold, movement.

  When the spin ended, Americ-Ana gasped, her heart pounding so hard it seemed to want to leap out through her throat. She laughed, half disbelieving.

  "Okay," she said, her voice trembling with adrenaline. "That was... that was insane."

  Poppandacorn clapped on her shoulders, as if applauding his own Mommy.

  "Again!" he shouted. "Again! Again!"

  Americ-Ana looked down and saw the SAMKHYA CELL, small down there, like an illuminated refuge in the middle of the programmed snow. She saw the pyramid routes stretching out like clean lines, saw the distant glow of Crown Eden somewhere, saw the artificial sky of the ENIGMA GEMINI bunker like a gigantic dome pretending to be infinite.

  And she realized she had spent practically the whole day out there.

  Christmas had turned into flight.

  Into a test.

  Into an escape.

  Americ-Ana tilted her body to reduce speed, feeling the GummyAir obey with an almost affectionate docility, and began to descend, spiraling slowly, cutting through the snow in soft layers.

  Poppandacorn was still shouting, but now it was a shout of satisfaction, of mission accomplished.

  "Poppa loves the GummyAir!" he announced, as if he were signing a decree.

  Americ-Ana landed near the entrance to the SAMKHYA CELL, the GummyAir hovering a few centimeters above the ground as if proud of its own balance. The wind pulled at her hair, snowflakes gathered on the shoulders of her coat, and she stepped off the "skate" with trembling legs, laughing, breathless.

  Poppandacorn jumped down from her shoulders and fell into the soft snow, throwing up his little arms.

  "Mommy! Poppa wants to play more!"

  Americ-Ana looked at him, at the snow around them, at the artificial sky, at the illuminated house, and felt something rare growing in her chest.

  A Christmas that seemed, for a few seconds, to belong only to them.

  And it was at that exact moment, with Americ-Ana still catching her breath and Poppandacorn still hopping in the snow as if he owned the day, that movement appeared near the entrance, as if the SAMKHYA CELL itself were about to join the game.

  The five Moss Human appeared outside, one by one, as if they had decided that, on that day, protocol could become play. Americ-Ana looked at them, surprised, and before she could say anything, Poppandacorn had already decreed in a general’s voice:

  "Snowball fight!"

  The phrase was accepted with a strange naturalness. Within seconds, the field was split into two sides, and the teams formed in the most unlikely way possible. On one side: Americ-Ana, Antichrist, Sparsha Vayu, and Shabda Akasha. On the other: Poppandacorn, Rupa Tejas, Gandha Prithivi, and Rasa Apas.

  They began building the forts with haste and enthusiasm, as if it were truly a medieval campaign. Packed snow became walls, mounds became trenches, and snowballs began to be stacked like ammunition, all of them in almost perfect sizes. Antichrist ran in circles around them, sniffing and digging, as if choosing the best place to attack.

  Poppandacorn, on the opposite side, was already excited beyond all limits, talking about castle, defense, and victory as if he had been born for it. Americ-Ana only laughed and pulled her coat tighter around her body, feeling that rare kind of joy that asked for no explanation.

  When both forts were ready and the snow kept falling like an official backdrop, Americ-Ana faced the other side, steady and playful at the same time, and raised her hand as a signal.

  "Okay," she said. "Let it begin."

  The first snowball flew like a decree.

  No one could say who started it. Maybe it was Americ-Ana, maybe it was Poppandacorn. All anyone knew was that, in the next instant, the air was full of white projectiles, cutting through the wind with whistles and bursting against the walls in explosions of ice.

  The war began.

  The improvised fortresses made sense at once. Americ-Ana ducked behind her team’s wall, feeling the cold snow splash against her coat, and hurled a snowball hard, aiming high at the enemy fort. Sparsha Vayu was beside her, posture steady, calculating angles as if it were an exercise in discipline, and Shabda Akasha played with absurd elegance, every movement of his seeming part of a choreography, even when he hit someone.

  On the other side, Rupa Tejas and Gandha Prithivi worked like a war machine. Snowball after snowball, the perfect size, the perfect density, the perfect trajectory. And Rasa Apas... Rasa Apas wasted nothing. He did not throw to "play." He threw to "hit." Every snowball seemed to know exactly where to fall.

  Poppandacorn, however, was not merely playing.

  Poppandacorn was performing.

  At some point, no one understood how, he appeared in a tiny suit of armor, with a shield too small to be useful and a toy sword he brandished as if it were Excalibur. And, to complete the delirium, he mounted a little wooden horse and began to "ride" through the snow with an offensively serious expression, pulling imaginary reins and shouting orders to his own team.

  "Advance!" he bellowed. "Defend Poppa’s castle!"

  He burst out of the fort, mounted on the horse, throwing snowballs with his little paws as if they were arrows, and his Santa hat fluttered like a war banner. Americ-Ana saw that and laughed so hard she almost lost her balance.

  "Poppa!" she shouted, between laughs. "You look ridiculous!"

  "Poppa is a knight!" he answered, offended by the lack of reverence. "Poppa is a hero!"

  And that was when he made the classic mistake.

  Far too excited, he invaded the enemy team’s territory.

  He crossed the "front line" without noticing, still mounted on the little horse, still brandishing the sword, still throwing snowballs in every direction, as if he were conquering kingdoms.

  Americ-Ana saw it and, in that same instant, used the most efficient weapon in that war.

  "ANTICHRIST!" she shouted. "GO!"

  The little black fox answered as if he had been trained for that command all his life. Antichrist shot across the snow, low, fast, silent, eyes locked like a predator’s, and went straight toward Poppandacorn.

  Poppandacorn looked back and saw him.

  His world ended.

  "AAAAAA!" he screamed, his voice bursting with panic. "DRAGON!"

  Poppandacorn threw the snowballs into the air, abandoned the little wooden horse as if leaving a battle companion to die, dropped the shield, dropped the sword, and ran across the field, stumbling in the snow, screaming as if Antichrist were a mythological creature ready to devour plush.

  Antichrist ran after him.

  Americ-Ana nearly fell over from laughing so hard.

  Shabda Akasha let out a sound that seemed like restrained laughter, Sparsha Vayu lost that impeccable composure for a second, and even the enemy team burst into laughter.

  Poppandacorn ran past Americ-Ana’s fort and threw himself behind the wall as if seeking asylum.

  "Mommy!" he whimpered. "He wants to eat Poppa!"

  "He does not want to eat you," Americ-Ana answered, still laughing. "He wants you to stop invading enemy territory like a madman."

  Poppandacorn breathed hard, looked out at the field, saw the little wooden horse abandoned there in the middle, covered in snow, and grew indignant at his own defeat.

  But he had no time to recover.

  On the other side, Rasa Apas took advantage of the collective distraction and launched a perfect snowball.

  It struck Americ-Ana on the shoulder with a precise "pof," and snow exploded into the collar of her coat.

  Americ-Ana’s eyes widened.

  Her laughter turned into a challenge.

  "Oh, is that how it is?" she said, brushing the snow off her shoulder. "Okay."

  She grabbed a snowball, packed it quickly, and hurled it hard. The ball struck the enemy wall and burst near Gandha Prithivi, who stepped half a pace back, as if he had been "wounded" in battle, and then answered with two snowballs in a row.

  The field became organized chaos. Advances and retreats. Forts being attacked and defended. Snow flying. Antichrist running like a missile. Poppandacorn trying to return to his knight persona, but falling back every time Antichrist came near, shouting "dragon" as if the word were a magic shield.

  Until, at the height of the battle, when the snow itself seemed to have become a storm of ammunition, Shabda Akasha raised one hand with theatrical elegance, as if bringing an opera act to a close.

  "Truce," he declared, his clear voice cutting through the laughter and the wind.

  The snowballs slowed, one by one, until they stopped.

  And, for a few seconds, the two teams remained there, breathless, covered in snow, with their walls half-destroyed, the little wooden horse abandoned in the middle of the field, and Poppandacorn clinging to Americ-Ana’s leg as if he had survived a real war.

  Shabda Akasha opened the door of the SAMKHYA CELL with the same elegance as always, as if he were inviting a retinue into a royal hall, and the warm air from inside came like an embrace. Americ-Ana went in first, still laughing, still breathless, and the difference in temperature was so comforting that she almost closed her eyes just to feel it.

  The living room was already prepared as if it had been waiting for them. The fireplace lit, the biotech light pulsing softly, the thermal blankets on the sofas. And on the table, hot chocolate steaming in mugs that seemed too warm to exist, so perfect were they. Beside them, butter cookies neatly arranged, golden, carrying the smell of butter and sugar.

  Americ-Ana sat near the fireplace and wrapped her hands around the mug, feeling the heat rise through her fingers into her chest. She took a sip and closed her eyes for a second, because it tasted like rest.

  Poppandacorn settled beside her, still vibrating inside, with the energy of someone who wanted to retell every move of the war as if it were epic. Antichrist climbed onto the sofa with the natural ease of one who considers himself part of the furniture, and curled up closer to the warmth, looking at Americ-Ana as if satisfied with his own psychological victory over the "knight."

  The five Moss Human remained standing for a moment, as if the habit of serving were trying to take control, but Americ-Ana was already raising a hand, firm and gentle.

  "Stay," she said. "It’s Christmas. Sit here."

  They settled themselves as best they could, some seated, others simply nearby, and Americ-Ana bit into a butter cookie, letting the sweetness fill that good silence. No one else ate, because no one else needed to eat, but the moment was not about food. It was about presence.

  And then, with no formal announcement, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, the five Moss Human formed a small choir.

  It was not theatrical like Santa Claus. It was serene. Coordinated. Harmonic. Their voices, with that clean and precise quality, began to sing Christmas songs in layers, as if each one held one part of the sound so the others could rest. The whole room seemed to grow warmer, not only because of the fireplace, but because of the feeling that, for a few minutes, the entire bunker had forgotten what hierarchy was.

  Americ-Ana fell quiet, listening, the hot chocolate between her hands. Poppandacorn swayed softly, as if the music were a cradle motion, and Antichrist kept his eyes half closed, comfortable, as if peace were also part of the game.

  When the choir finished, there was a brief pause, almost reverent, and Americ-Ana let the air out slowly, feeling that Christmas morning had become something rare, a safe place.

  Poppandacorn was the first to break the silence, as always.

  "Mommy," he said, his voice solemn and urgent. "Now snowman."

  Americ-Ana laughed.

  "Now snowman," she agreed, already getting to her feet, feeling her body warmed again, ready to return to the cold.

  The artificial snow kept falling, and within minutes they were all crouched down, packing white mounds as if they were building small worlds. Poppandacorn insisted, with mission-level seriousness, that this would be "the most perfect snowman in the universe," while Americ-Ana laughed and helped stack the snowballs.

  Antichrist circled around as if he owned the ground, and at some point he decided to knock part of the snowman down. Poppandacorn shouted, indignant, called the little fox a "dragon," and Americ-Ana had to hold back her laughter while putting the piece back in place.

  The Moss Human, with their natural precision, made the snowmen too beautiful, almost like sculptures. Before long, there were three lined up near the entrance, like white and silent guards protecting the entrance to the CELL.

  When the artificial sky began to darken and Americ-Ana’s body finally demanded rest, they went inside. Poppandacorn still wanted to play more, but his energy had already turned into a need to recharge. The celebration outside was over, and the quiet of the night began to draw near.

  Later, while the snow outside kept falling, Americ-Ana was already in her room.

  The warmth of the bath had left her body light, as if it had washed away not only the cold from her skin, but also the agitation of the day. The room was in a comfortable half light, with the soft light of the artificial moon coming through the window and reflecting in the corners in a way that felt almost delicate, almost intimate. The world seemed quiet on purpose, as if it had decided to respect rest.

  Americ-Ana sat before the vanity, wrapped in softness, and began to comb her hair slowly, drawing the strands with care while watching her own face marked by the QR Codes in the mirror. There was a good kind of tiredness there, but there was also that silent emptiness that always appears after joy, as if happiness left a space for thought to invade.

  Poppandacorn was nearby, calmer now, still warmed by the fun. He settled in however he could, small, present, watching Americ-Ana with those LED eyes that, in that moment, seemed gentler than bright. He said nothing. He simply stayed. As if his company were an extra blanket.

  It was then that Americ-Ana’s eyes came to rest on an object on top of the vanity.

  A snow globe.

  It was there as if it had always been there, but that night it seemed to call to her. Americ-Ana stopped the comb halfway, reached out, and picked up the globe carefully, feeling the cold glass in her palm.

  She shook it.

  And suddenly, the world inside it woke up.

  Small white flakes rose, spiraling, mingling, falling slowly, creating the illusion of a perfect snowstorm trapped inside a universe of glass. Americ-Ana kept looking as if under hypnosis, and then her eyes fixed on the scene inside.

  There was a miniature couple, a man and a woman, seated on a bench, as if they were in a park. They leaned slightly forward, in an untroubled posture, and tossed food to a little duck in front of them. Everything was small and simple, but there was a strange tenderness in that scene, a tenderness that felt truer than anything THE-IMPERIUM could manufacture.

  Americ-Ana tightened her grip on the globe a little without realizing it.

  The snow kept falling inside.

  The couple remained motionless.

  The little duck kept waiting for food forever.

  And, from somewhere deep in her chest, a word slipped from her mouth as if pulled by a thread.

  "Grandpa..." she whispered.

  Her throat tightened.

  "Grandma..."

  Americ-Ana kept looking at the snow globe, but the miniature couple was no longer a miniature. The image opened inside her, drawing memory with a calm and cruel force. The park bench, the gesture of tossing food to the little duck, that small and simple tenderness, all of it became a bridge to something that was not there, and that even so weighed as if it occupied the entire room.

  Her chest tightened in a way different from fear and different from anger. It was another kind of pain, more intimate, because gratitude came with it.

  Americ-Ana remembered her grandparents as if her mind had kept their faces in a drawer that was never opened for lack of time. And then, suddenly, the drawer flew wide open. Their hands. Their house. The smell she associated with care. The way they made everything seem under control, even when it was not. The way they had been her ground before THE-IMPERIUM became an entire universe.

  And then the memory came with uncomfortable precision: on the day she was chosen, when everything was still absurd and unbelievable, the Chanceler dos Portais Velyra had said, with that authority that seemed too large to fit inside anyone, that every possible kind of help would be sent to Americ-Ana’s grandparents. That they would not be left behind. That the common world would be supported even if Americ-Ana were torn away from it.

  Americ-Ana had believed it.

  At the time, believing was the only way to breathe.

  But now, there, in the perfect Christmas of a bunker that manufactured snow so rich people could show off, she realized the detail that hurt: she had not confirmed anything. She had not heard their voices. She had not seen their faces. She did not know with her own eyes that that promise had become reality.

  And the guilt came like snow inside her.

  It was not the guilt of ingratitude, because Americ-Ana was not ungrateful. It was the guilt of involuntary forgetting, the kind of guilt born when life swallows you whole and, without noticing, you stop looking at what saved you first. She suddenly saw herself in that demonic cybernetic fairy tale, celebrating, laughing, flying... and not even knowing whether her grandparents were well.

  She tightened her grip on the globe a little more, the cold glass against her warm palm.

  "I..." Americ-Ana began, but the sentence did not find its shape.

  She took a deep breath and looked at her own reflection in the mirror, at the face marked by the QR Codes, and realized how everything had changed too fast. Before, she sent help. Before, she carried that responsibility as routine. Before, her world was small and heavy, but it was clear.

  After the bunker, after the games, after the race, after the purple, after everything, it was as if the excess of things had pushed the essential into a silent corner.

  And there, in that instant, Americ-Ana understood that she could no longer let that happen.

  Christmas was not only ornament. It was not only hot chocolate and manufactured snow. It was a mirror. A reminder. One of those days when life makes you ask, without permission: "What is it that you are really protecting?"

  She looked again at the globe, at the motionless couple, at the little duck waiting for food forever, and what came over her was not only longing.

  It was decision.

  She wanted certainty. She wanted to confirm. She wanted to support. She wanted, if possible, to bring closer what had sustained her before THE-IMPERIUM.

  Americ-Ana closed her eyes for a second, holding the snow globe carefully, as if it were something sacred and fragile.

  And when she opened them, there was something new in her expression.

  Not euphoria.

  Purpose.

  A quiet purpose, being born in the same place where guilt had tightened, as if guilt had turned into fuel.

  Because she knew, with uncomfortable clarity, that there were people in her world who had sacrificed themselves so she could be there.

  And she had no intention of pretending that did not matter.

  Americ-Ana kept holding the snow globe, but now it was no longer the couple that held her gaze.

  It was the little duck.

  So small. So simple. So out of place in that miniature. An almost childish detail before two adult figures, as if the world had placed there a reminder of fragility just so someone would see it.

  Americ-Ana fixed her eyes on it for longer than she needed to.

  And then the word slipped out, again in a whisper, as if the room were listening.

  "Nioh..."

  The name came with a bitter taste, because it was not only memory, it was weight.

  The image of the little duck blended with his real image. Too small for that school, for that pyramid, for that entire system. Barely taller than Poppandacorn, the fragile body, the persistent cough like a constant presence, the bottle of syrup he carried as if it were an amulet and survival at the same time. Americ-Ana saw herself again in the hallway, with the purple smoke still crawling along the floor, and Nioh there, painted, ridiculous and sincere, and then steady as a shield when no one had asked him to be.

  "This book is mine."

  He had said that. He had chosen that.

  And now, while Americ-Ana was there, warm, with the perfect Christmas manufactured outside, Nioh was imprisoned. Not imprisoned like in an ordinary prison, because THE-IMPERIUM had more elegant ways of punishing, but imprisoned all the same, condemned to exist under escort, inside a house cell, isolated, surrounded by Moss Human soldiers and drones, far from classes, far from company, far from the easy laughter he pretended to have when he wore that idolatry like a uniform.

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  Americ-Ana swallowed hard.

  She thought of his Christmas.

  She wondered if he had eaten anything, even without needing to, just out of habit, out of nerves, out of an attempt to feel normal. She thought of his cough echoing in an empty space. She thought of him looking out the window and seeing artificial snow fall in a world where there was nothing artificial about the punishment.

  And the guilt came back, only now in another form.

  Because it was not only longing for family.

  It was responsibility.

  She realized, with a hard clarity, that Nioh had been punished in her place. Even if he was rich, even if he had a surname and legal defense, even if the system was gentler with him than it would have been with a scholarship student, he had still paid a price. And he had paid for something that was not his.

  Americ-Ana tightened her grip on the snow globe once more, feeling the cold glass in her hand. The flakes inside had already settled, but inside her everything was in motion.

  She looked again at the miniature, the couple on the bench, the little duck waiting for food forever.

  And, without realizing it, she joined the images. Her grandparents and Nioh. Two different worlds, two different stories, but the same gesture beneath them, people who had reached out their hands to her when she needed it.

  Her grandparents, sustaining the path that had brought her there.

  Nioh, absorbing a judgment so she would not be crushed.

  Americ-Ana took a deep breath, and the decision that had begun to be born in her chest now took shape.

  It was not only desire.

  It was a debt of gratitude.

  And she was not going to let that become silence.

  It is not known whether it was the effect of Christmas, reverberating through every corner of THE-IMPERIUM, that kind of atmosphere that makes even hardened hearts remember that there are debts that cannot be paid with money.

  It is also not known whether that had always been kept inside Americ-Ana, quiet, waiting for the right hour to surface, like a flame sheltered from the wind. Maybe that was all it was, her old truth, finally finding space in the middle of excess.

  But of one thing, one could be absolutely certain.

  Americ-Ana would do whatever was possible, and perhaps even the impossible, to repay the love of her grandparents and Nioh’s care for her.

  When she finally set the snow globe down on the vanity, the room seemed even quieter. Poppandacorn remained nearby, small, present, and Americ-Ana said nothing more, because some decisions are born without needing a speech.

  She simply lay down.

  Her body yielded to the day’s exhaustion, to the warmth of the thick blankets, to the distant sound of artificial snow touching the world outside. Within a few minutes, her breathing grew deep, slow, and consciousness went dark.

  Americ-Ana was fast asleep when something pulled her out of sleep, abrupt, like a jolt that came from no dream at all.

  For an instant, she sat up in bed without understanding. Her heart was beating fast, her mind trying to piece together what that had been.

  The room was in half light, and the only illumination came from the bunker’s artificial moon, crossing the window and drawing soft shadows on the floor.

  She blinked, still dazed.

  That was when she saw it.

  A silhouette in a corner of the room.

  Crouched.

  Too small to be a threat, but trembling in a way that matched nothing natural. The movement was irregular, as if the whole body were fighting something inside itself. The sound was low, but it was there, a trembling noise that, in the silence of that room, seemed far too loud.

  Americ-Ana narrowed her eyes, trying to focus.

  "Poppa?" she called, her voice still rough with sleep.

  No answer.

  The trembling went on.

  Americ-Ana swallowed hard and called again, louder this time, already feeling her skin grow cold even beneath the blanket.

  "Poppa?"

  The silhouette moved a little, but did not turn. It did not answer. It stayed curled up in the corner, as if trying to become invisible.

  Americ-Ana threw the blanket aside and slid her feet to the floor. The cold of the tiles bit into her soles, but she did not even care. She took one step, then another, moving closer slowly, trying to keep her voice steady.

  "Poppa, what is it? Are you okay?"

  The answer came like a fright, trembling, rushed, as if ripped out by force.

  "Do not come closer, Mommy!" Poppandacorn said, and his voice was broken. "Do not come closer!"

  Americ-Ana stopped for a second, surprised, because that was not a tantrum. That was real fear.

  "Poppa..." she tried, softer. "What is happening?"

  Poppandacorn trembled even harder, as if speaking made whatever was happening worse. His voice came out low, desperate, pleading without the strength to plead.

  "Please, Mommy..." he sobbed. "Leave Poppa alone... go back to sleep..."

  Americ-Ana stood still for an instant, her heart tightening.

  And then, even with his plea echoing in the dark, she took another step, because the way he was trembling said sleep was not an option.

  Something was very wrong.

  Americ-Ana could not obey.

  The way Poppandacorn trembled was not a "quirk," not a "bug," not anything that could be ignored. She took a deep breath and went to him, slowly, trying not to frighten him more than he already was.

  "Poppa," she said, firm and low. "Look at me."

  Poppandacorn remained curled in the corner, his whole body shaking, as if each tremor were an attempt to hold in something that wanted to come out. He shook his head no, desperate.

  "No, Mommy... please..."

  Americ-Ana moved closer and reached out her hand. When she touched him, she felt the small body, ice-cold with tension. She gently pulled him, bringing him closer to the window, into the strip of artificial moonlight crossing the room.

  "Just let me see," she whispered.

  Poppandacorn resisted for a second, but gave in, as if he no longer had the strength to keep the secret. He came out of the corner, still trembling, and was drawn into the light.

  And then Americ-Ana saw.

  Her world stopped.

  An arm was missing.

  It was not an "arm tucked away," it was not a piece retracted as a joke, it was nothing that could be fitted into logic. It was real absence, ugly, brutal. Where the little plush-and-metal arm should have been, there was an open rupture, with wires and circuits exposed, as if something had torn it off in haste and violence.

  Americ-Ana felt her stomach drop.

  "Oh my God..." she said, and her voice came out broken. "Poppa!"

  She held Poppandacorn with both hands, trying to keep his body steady, trying to look without believing. The artificial moonlight reflected off the wires, the inner parts, in a sight that seemed far too wrong to exist in that room.

  "What happened?" Americ-Ana asked, already unable to control the panic. "Did you get hurt? Was it an accident? Did someone come in here? Did someone do this to you while I was sleeping?"

  Poppandacorn tried to answer, but his mouth trembled. His LED eyes began to project tears, and that was worse than blood. Because it was shame mixed with fear, and Americ-Ana recognized it at once.

  She raised her hand carefully and touched the place where his mutilated arm had been, as if she wanted to confirm it was real. The wires were there, exposed, like nerves. She pulled her hand back on reflex, as if the touch burned.

  "Poppa..." she said again, now almost pleading. "Tell me. Who did this?"

  Poppandacorn collapsed.

  He dropped to his knees on the floor with a loud sob, as if he had held it in for too long and his body had finally broken. LED tears poured down in a cascade, shining in the dark, and the trembling grew even stronger, as if the crying were a convulsion.

  Americ-Ana knelt beside him at once, pulling him close, stroking his head carefully, trying to protect and understand at the same time.

  "Poppa... please..." she said, her voice softer than fear. "Talk to me."

  Poppandacorn shook his head, crying uncontrollably, like a child expecting punishment before even confessing. He would not lift his face. He did not want her to see that part of him.

  And then his voice came out in pieces, between sobs, terrified of losing the only safe place he had.

  "Mommy..." he cried. "Do you promise you will not take Poppa to the Poopghene franchise store?"

  Americ-Ana blinked, confused by the question in the middle of the horror.

  "Poppa, your arm..." she tried.

  "Promise!" he interrupted, desperate, as if that promise were the only thing keeping the world in place. "Promise you will not replace Poppa... promise you will not throw Poppa away..."

  Americ-Ana’s throat tightened.

  She looked at the empty space where the arm should have been, looked at his face wet with light, and understood that before any answer, she would need to hold his fear with both hands.

  Because, in that moment, what he feared most was not the pain.

  It was being abandoned.

  Americ-Ana held Poppandacorn carefully, as if he were glass and a whole world at once.

  "I promise," she said, firm, without hesitation. "I will not take you to the Poopghene franchise store. I will not replace you with another model. I will not discard you."

  Poppandacorn sobbed as if the promise had loosened a knot inside him, but the crying did not stop. He remained curled up, trembling, and the shame seemed greater than the pain.

  "Now tell me," Americ-Ana continued, her voice low, but leaving no room for escape. "What happened, Poppa? Why are you missing an arm?"

  Poppandacorn shook his head, still crying, and spoke between sobs, spitting out sentences as if each word were a plea for forgiveness.

  "Mommy, Poppa did not want to..." he said, and hugged his own body, as if trying to hide inside himself. "Poppa did not want there to be trouble again... Poppa did not want Mommy to be in danger... Poppa did not want to be the cause of everything..."

  Americ-Ana felt her heart tighten as he began to list it all, as if reciting a sentence.

  "The lady from the Poopghene franchise..." Poppandacorn cried. "The lady at the store... she told Mommy to replace, discard Poppa... and Poppa does not want to be without Mommy..."

  He lifted his face only a little, and his LED eyes were flooded, trembling, as if not even the light inside them could hold steady.

  "Besides..." he continued, and his voice grew thinner. "Mommy lost BAAL’s seal because of Poppa... Mommy was humiliated before all THE-IMPERIUM because of Poppa... Mommy, Wwwyye, and Astyam lost days and days of training for nothing because of Poppa..."

  He squeezed the arm he still had, as if trying to crush himself.

  "All Poppa’s fault!"

  "Poppa," Americ-Ana cut in, gentle and firm. "No. That is already in the past. You are not going to keep repeating that as if it were a cursed prayer. Now tell me what happened today. What happened just now."

  Poppandacorn breathed hard, as if trying to obey. He wiped his tears with his little paw, and then, very slowly, like someone confessing a crime, opened the compartment in his belly.

  The sound of the mechanism was low, but Americ-Ana felt a chill.

  Poppandacorn slipped his little paw inside and pulled something out carefully.

  The little arm.

  The arm that had been "missing" was there, whole, hidden, and he lifted it as if it were evidence.

  Americ-Ana’s eyes went wide.

  "You..." she began, but stopped, because in that instant she understood. It was not someone else. It was not an accident. It was him.

  Poppandacorn sobbed again, and his voice came out rushed, trembling, as if he needed to justify himself before being hated.

  "The purple light came back, Mommy!" he said, desperate. "That cursed light... it appeared on its own... Poppa swears Poppa did not turn it on... it just... appeared!"

  Americ-Ana looked at the little arm in his hand, and then she saw it.

  At the tip of one little finger, there was a purple glow, strong and pulsing, lighting the room like a candle.

  Poppandacorn lifted the little arm, shaking it, and struck the piece against the floor once, as if he were fighting with it.

  "Poppa tries to turn it off... it will not turn off!" he cried. "And Poppa got scared... scared Mommy would be in danger again... scared of the purple... scared of everything!"

  He lifted his face and spoke with an urgency that almost broke her heart.

  "So Poppa ripped it off," he confessed, and hunched his shoulders as if expecting a slap. "Ripped the arm off... and hid it in here... because Poppa thought that way it would stop... thought that way it would disappear..."

  Americ-Ana closed her eyes for a second, took a deep breath, and when she opened them, her voice came out as calm as possible.

  "Poppa, look at me," she said.

  Poppandacorn obeyed, still sobbing.

  "You are never going to do that again," Americ-Ana said, firm. "Promise you will not mutilate yourself like that."

  Poppandacorn shook his head, crying, and the promise came like surrender.

  "Poppa promise," he repeated.

  "Then put your little arm back on," Americ-Ana asked, and the sentence was almost a survival command. "Now. Please."

  Poppandacorn hesitated for a few seconds, as if fear still wanted to command him. Then, carefully, he fitted the little arm back into place.

  Wires touched wires.

  Circuits met.

  A small internal click, and that was it.

  The arm became an arm again.

  The fracture vanished as if it had never existed.

  But the purple light remained there.

  Strong.

  Insistent.

  At the tip of the little finger.

  Americ-Ana stared at that glow, feeling her blood run cold. Poppandacorn looked too, trembling again, as if the light were an open eye that did not blink.

  And then, without warning, the purple intensified.

  The light stretched.

  Like a serpent.

  Like a living thread torn from the finger.

  It crossed the air of the room and traced a bright line, pulling direction, pointing, as if it had a will of its own.

  And the purple thread went straight to the door.

  Americ-Ana stood motionless for a second.

  Poppandacorn sobbed, defeated.

  "Mommy..." he cried. "That cursed light is acting on its own again..."

  Americ-Ana took a deep breath, because she understood at once that panic was exactly what that light seemed to want.

  "Calm down," she said, more to herself than to Poppandacorn. "We’re going to find out what this is."

  Poppandacorn whimpered, small, with his little finger still lit, as if that purple tip were a beacon of disaster.

  "Mommy... Poppa is scared..."

  "So am I," Americ-Ana answered, and her honesty was firm. "But I’m not going to let you deal with this alone."

  She picked Poppandacorn up carefully and held him in her arms first, following the bright trace that crossed the room. The purple light slid through the air like a living line, going to the door as if it already knew exactly where it wanted to arrive. Americ-Ana opened the bedroom door and stepped into the hallway.

  That purple line continued.

  She moved forward, following the thread, step by step, and the corridor of the SAMKHYA CELL seemed longer in that early hour, emptier, colder, as if Christmas had been only a dream and now the bunker remembered what it truly was.

  The purple thread led Americ-Ana to the entrance hall. There, it passed through the front door as if wood and metal meant nothing. Americ-Ana stopped before the door for a second, listening to the silence, the distant sound of artificial snow falling outside, and her own heart beating far too loud.

  She opened it.

  The cold came in like a blade.

  The wind carried snow into the hall, and Americ-Ana pulled her pajamas tighter around her body on instinct. Outside, the purple line stretched along the Route Cell, pressing forward, straight, insistent, as if pointing toward a destination that would accept no detour.

  Americ-Ana stared in that direction, still holding Poppandacorn in her arms, and made the decision in the same instant. Walking would be too slow. Following that thing on foot would be stupid.

  She turned her face inward and raised her voice, clear, like someone calling an ally.

  "Gummy, Gummy, Gummy."

  For one second, nothing.

  Then a quick movement echoed through the SAMKHYA CELL, as if something obedient had awakened. And, within moments, the GummyAir appeared, gliding with ease, vibrating in the air with the joy of a living machine.

  "Fly, Fly, Fly!" it replied, as if that were greeting and promise at once.

  Americ-Ana pulled a fur coat on over her pajamas, tightening the layers around her body without wasting time. The wind tried to tear her warmth away, but she had already made up her mind. She set Poppandacorn on her shoulders, feeling his small weight and his trembling, and held his little paws carefully so he would not fall.

  "Hold on tight," she said, and Poppandacorn obeyed, still sobbing.

  Americ-Ana climbed onto the GummyAir.

  The purple thread remained stretched out, pointing toward the road like a cruel and brilliant guide.

  She leaned her body forward.

  And the GummyAir shot out through the door.

  Snow struck Americ-Ana’s face, the wind yanked at her coat, and Poppandacorn’s fur bristled in the cold. His purple little finger was still glowing, and the line of light cut through the night like a trail.

  They flew through the Route Cell, following exactly the direction the light indicated, cutting through the artificial blizzard in haste, as if they were fleeing something invisible, or chasing it.

  And when the Route Cell began to open into the limits of Route Magnolia, the wind seemed to grow.

  Route Magnolia received Americ-Ana as if it were another world.

  The wind grew stronger, the snow struck sideways, and for an instant her fur coat seemed too small to hold back the cold. The GummyAir pushed forward as if it were nothing, but Americ-Ana had to press down with her feet and keep her body steady the entire time, while Poppandacorn curled in on her shoulders, clinging as if he were holding on to his own fate.

  The purple thread remained stretched out, glowing against the night, pulling direction without mercy.

  They flew over the lake, and the dark surface seemed to swallow the light of the artificial moon. Snow gathered in the air and on the water as if the bunker were manufacturing winter in anger. Americ-Ana narrowed her eyes, took a deep breath, and kept going.

  The purple line led straight to the Statue Garden.

  The GummyAir descended and began to fly low to the ground, gliding between colossal stone figures covered in snow, shadows too large for that hour of the night. The statues appeared and disappeared in the half light, motionless sentinels, and each one seemed to watch them pass with silent judgment.

  "Mommy..." Poppandacorn whispered, trembling. "Poppa is scared."

  "I know," Americ-Ana answered, without taking her eyes off the purple thread. "But we’ve already come too far."

  The purple thread crossed the rows of stone and ended in the same place with frightening precision.

  The Sisyphus Statue.

  The stone giant pushing the sphere, snow gathered on the shoulders, on the head, in the creases of the motionless face. The great sphere seemed heavier that night, older, and the purple glow struck exactly one point in the stone as if it were a target.

  The GummyAir stopped a few meters away, keeping Americ-Ana suspended in the air, close enough for her to see the ice crystals clinging to the surface.

  The purple line came out from Poppandacorn’s little finger and touched the stone sphere of the Sisyphus Statue.

  Americ-Ana reached out a hand, instinctively, wanting to touch it, wanting to get it over with.

  "Mommy, no!" Poppandacorn interrupted, his voice coming out rushed. "Let Poppa touch it first."

  Americ-Ana hesitated.

  The cold bit at her fingers.

  Logic screamed at her to do nothing.

  But the purple light had already led them that far, and Poppandacorn was right about one thing: if that light came from him, perhaps the stone would answer to him.

  "Okay," Americ-Ana said, her heart pounding. "Slowly."

  Poppandacorn lifted his little arm, the purple little finger glowing like an ember, and touched the stone at the exact point.

  The little hand went through.

  Without resistance.

  As if the sphere were smoke.

  Americ-Ana felt her stomach turn.

  She stared at the little paw vanished inside the stone and, in an impulse that felt like madness, touched it too.

  Her hand went through in the same way.

  The cold vanished from her skin for a second, as if the stone had swallowed the sensation along with the flesh.

  Americ-Ana took a deep breath.

  "Gummy..." she murmured, her voice tight. "Slowly."

  The GummyAir answered with a low "Fly," obedient, and moved forward.

  Americ-Ana leaned her body.

  And they passed through the stone sphere, going through it as if crossing an invisible membrane.

  For half a second, everything turned strange. Sound died. Wind died. Snow died.

  Then they came out on the other side.

  And the world ended.

  Americ-Ana felt an immense emptiness beneath her feet, as if there were no ground anywhere. The only reason she did not fall was because she was standing on the GummyAir. Even so, the sensation was of being miles and miles away from anything solid.

  The space around them had no wall.

  No ceiling.

  There was no edge.

  It was too vast, too silent, as if the "nothing" had been built.

  Americ-Ana swallowed hard and tightened her grip on Poppandacorn’s little paws, instinctively.

  "Gummy..." she whispered, in real fear now. "Please... don’t let me fall."

  "Fly," the GummyAir answered, simple, like a promise.

  The purple thread still existed.

  It still came from Poppandacorn’s little finger.

  It still pointed toward somewhere in that void.

  Americ-Ana followed the line with her eyes, straining her vision, until she noticed something in the distance.

  A concentration of colors.

  Thousands of tones gathered together, shining as if they were stained glass in motion.

  She narrowed her eyes.

  Her heart gave a leap.

  "I’ve seen this before..." Americ-Ana whispered, drawing in air as if the memory itself were dangerous. "It’s the tree of colored stained glass I saw on Route Axis Mundi..."

  She leaned her body forward.

  The GummyAir moved ahead, cutting through the void as if it were ordinary air.

  And, as they drew closer, the strangeness became even greater, because Americ-Ana perceived the scale with clarity.

  The tree was there.

  But small.

  About one meter tall, floating in the nothing, like an absurd replica of something that should have been colossal.

  The purple thread converged on one of the branches.

  Poppandacorn was trembling, but kept his little finger raised, as if he had no choice.

  They came close.

  The purple light touched the branch as if marking it.

  Poppandacorn reached out his little paw and touched the stained glass.

  And the universe blinked.

  Everything went dark for half a second, as if someone had switched reality off.

  Americ-Ana held her breath.

  For an instant, it seemed the universe itself held its breath with her. The light of the stained-glass tree went out as if someone had swept a hand over reality, and the silence came whole, heavy, absolute. The GummyAir still vibrated beneath Americ-Ana’s feet, but the sensation was of falling without falling, as if her body had been pulled from within, crossing through a place that had no name. Poppandacorn, on her shoulders, went rigid, and the purple little finger kept glowing, insistent, the only thing that seemed capable of surviving the transition.

  When the darkness opened, it did not open with light, but with weight. The air felt different, colder, denser, and Americ-Ana knew before she saw that there was ground there, because the GummyAir had to steady its own hover, as if it had recognized a new gravity. She blinked, feeling her heart beat in her throat, and what she saw was not form, but the absence of form. Everything was pitch black. A pitch blackness that did not feel like a lack of light, but a presence, as if the darkness were alive and had been placed in that place with intention.

  "Poppa... where are we?" she whispered, her voice low, not from delicacy, but from fear.

  Poppandacorn did not answer at once. He raised the purple little finger higher, turning his own curse into a makeshift lantern, and the purple light tried to push forward, but it seemed to be swallowed by the distance, as if the dark had teeth. His LED eyes projected graphs and scan lines in rapid rhythm, and his small body went tense, focused, like a tracking dog trying to identify an old scent.

  "Poppa’s sensors are... trying..." he said, and his voice came out tight, with courage trying to hold the trembling in place.

  Americ-Ana leaned forward on the GummyAir just a little, keeping them motionless in the air, as if any advance would be an irreversible mistake.

  "At least there’s ground," she said, trying to pull some comfort from logic, even knowing that logic there was only decoration.

  The purple light reflected beneath them, and that was when Americ-Ana saw what they were calling ground. It was not stone, it was not metal, it was not flooring. It was bones. Skulls, ribs, vertebrae, and fragments of skeletons, as if someone had built a road out of ancient deaths, compacted and silent.

  Her stomach turned in such a physical way that it hurt. The memory came like a punch, locking the place into recognition before reason itself would accept it. Americ-Ana tightened her grip on Poppandacorn’s little paws so he would not slip and spoke with a cracked voice, too frightened to pretend control.

  "Poppa... no. No, no, no. Look at me." She swallowed hard and pointed the light at the floor of bones again, as if she needed to be sure she was not delirious. "We’re in the vault beneath the altar. Poppa, we’re in the vault beneath the altar. How is this possible?"

  Poppandacorn went still for a second, and then the graphs in his eyes changed, as if some internal confirmation had closed the circuit.

  "Yes, Mommy," he said, low, and the word seemed to make the darkness listen. "The patterns, the structure, the composition... it is here. It is the vault beneath the altar."

  Americ-Ana felt the cold run the full length of her spine, because "here" was not only a place, it was a warning, it was trauma with an address, and with the name came the other certainty, the one that made her heart beat faster.

  "There is an Ophanim here," she said, and her voice came out like a wrong prayer. "If it appears..."

  "Calm, Mommy. Poppa protects Mommy," Poppandacorn answered, and even trembling, he raised his little arms high, as if his tiny body could become a shield against an entity that should not exist.

  Americ-Ana breathed again, shorter now, more urgent, and tilted her body slightly, making the GummyAir move forward slowly over the sea of bones.

  "Then we’re going to find a way out before anything finds us," she whispered. "No stupid rush, but fast enough. Stay alert, Poppa. Stay very alert."

  Americ-Ana kept her body angled only enough for the GummyAir to move forward, as if any sudden motion might wake the place. The "ground" of bones below seemed far too still, a silence that was not peace but containment, and the purple light from Poppandacorn’s little finger could barely pull reflections from it. Each time the light touched a skull, the dull, yellowed white seemed to return a dead gleam, and Americ-Ana felt her throat go dry, because the vault beneath the altar held a kind of darkness that did not belong to physical space, it belonged to punishment.

  They advanced a few meters, slowly, and then it happened. Something low, crawling, invisible in the blackness, struck Americ-Ana’s feet hard, like a deliberate sweep. The impact was enough to break her balance, and the GummyAir faltered, as if it had been shoved sideways. Americ-Ana tried to steady herself, but surprise won, and she fell hard from the GummyAir, going straight onto the floor of bones. The impact was sharp, painful, and the first sensation was horror: her face hit skulls and fragments, and the sound of the fall echoed through the place as if the entire vault had heard it and recorded it.

  Poppandacorn, who had been on her shoulders, was torn loose by the fall and went rolling, spinning in the dark like a toy thrown aside, until he stopped a few meters ahead. The purple light from his little finger traced a shaking arc as he rolled, and for one second Americ-Ana saw too much, too many bones, too much depth, and her consciousness screamed at her to get up. She rose quickly, her body protesting, her palm scraped, her knee throbbing, and pulled in air as if the air itself were heavy.

  "Poppa!" she called, her voice breaking at the end, because calling was the only way not to go insane. "Poppa, where are you?"

  "Mommy! Poppa is here!" Poppandacorn answered, and the sound of his voice came from far away, mixed with the echo, as if the place were repeating the word to itself.

  Poppandacorn ran back in a rush, his purple little finger raised like a lantern, lighting the way in shivering pulses, and Americ-Ana saw the bones beneath his feet move only by reflection, as if the ground had textures that should not exist. The GummyAir came closer too, slowly, vibrating low, almost cautious, like an animal that had realized the environment was hostile, and stayed near her without needing to be told.

  "What was that?" Americ-Ana asked, running a hand over her own forehead as if she wanted to tear from it the feeling of bone.

  Americ-Ana pulled Poppandacorn against her chest for a second, only to feel that he was whole, and then looked around again, facing the blackness as one faces a predator.

  "What knocked me down?"

  Poppandacorn’s LED eyes began to flash with intense readings, and a silent alert ran through his little body.

  "Mommy... Poppa’s sensors are detecting vibration," he said, and his voice went thinner, because he was trying to sound brave. "Extremely significant changes in the atmosphere of this place. As if something were... manifesting."

  Americ-Ana felt her stomach tighten, and the purple light on his little finger trembled a little more, as if reacting to fear.

  That was when she saw it.

  Floating in the air, right in front of them, a human skull hovered. It was not resting on anything, there was no wire, no support, no trick, it simply levitated in the dark as if the vault had decided to play with the concept of gravity. The purple light struck the bone and gave back a cold gleam, and Americ-Ana took a step back on reflex, pulling Poppandacorn with her.

  "Gummy, stay close," Americ-Ana whispered, and the GummyAir vibrated nearer, obedient.

  Poppandacorn took half a step forward and stretched out his little finger, trying to cast light beyond the skull, but the darkness kept swallowing it. He swallowed hard, and his LED eyes filled with warnings.

  "Mommy... this is not just a skull," he said, and the sentence came like an omen. "Poppa’s sensors detected that something capable of shaking the entire structure of this place is happening. Something much bigger than us."

  Poppandacorn’s warning was still vibrating in the air when Americ-Ana felt the first change in her own body, not from within, but from below. The floor of bones seemed to give way as if it had turned to rubber, as if that macabre surface had decided to imitate living flesh. She instinctively opened her arms to balance her weight, and the GummyAir tried to stabilize, vibrating in small adjustments, but the sensation was worse than instability, it was as if the vault were breathing. The floating skull in front of them gave a slight sway, as if pulled by an invisible tide, and Americ-Ana understood that it was not an isolated object, it was a symptom.

  Then the waves began.

  The bones moved in layers, first like a discreet ripple, then like a swell that grew and grew, until the sea of skulls became a silent tsunami, breaking without water, breaking dry, with creaks, with groans, with the snaps of an ancient structure. Americ-Ana tried to stay on her feet, but her body found no firmness anywhere, and Poppandacorn, on her shoulders, clung as best he could, the purple little finger trembling while the light leapt from one skull to another, revealing flashes of horror and then vanishing again into the black. The GummyAir was thrown sideways by a stronger wave, and Americ-Ana fell to her knees, feeling the bones roll under her hands, as if the ground were alive and determined to expel them.

  "Poppa!" Americ-Ana shouted, louder than she wanted. "What is this?"

  "Mommy, the place is... changing!" Poppandacorn answered, and his LED eyes began to flash in an emergency pattern, throwing rapid graphs and warnings that Americ-Ana could not even read.

  Americ-Ana tried to rise, but another wave came, lifting bones as if they were foam, and the two of them went down together. The floating skull spun in the air and drifted away, as if it too had been pushed by the same movement, and Americ-Ana felt that this was a mechanism, an awakening, a reaction from the vault to some signature that had returned to touch its walls.

  That was when the ground opened.

  It was not a simple hole, it was as if the bones had received an order and were moving apart in mass, cracking the surface and revealing a black abyss beneath, a void so dark it seemed darker than darkness itself.

  Americ-Ana felt the bones slipping, felt the support vanish, and for a second her body hung between falling and not falling. The purple light from Poppandacorn’s little finger lit the edge of the fissure and showed the cruelty of the place, an open cut in the world, waiting. Americ-Ana tried to grab onto anything, but caught only fragments that came apart beneath her fingers, and then gravity won.

  She fell.

  The air made no sound, but panic did. Americ-Ana screamed with all the strength in her chest, a scream that was command and desperation at once.

  "GUMMY! GUMMY! GUMMY!"

  For an instant, she saw only blackness and the purple glow pulling away, and the sensation of falling seemed never to end. Then the answer came like an engine of light in the dark.

  "FLY! FLY! FLY!"

  The GummyAir shot beneath her and caught her, firm, like an invisible hand holding a life by a thread. Americ-Ana felt the jolt of the catch, held her breath, and that was when she saw the smaller shape falling beside her, spinning, dropping.

  "Poppa!" she screamed again, her voice torn open.

  The purple glow of Poppandacorn’s little finger cut through the dark as he plummeted, and Americ-Ana leaned hard on the GummyAir, as if instinct itself were a rudder. The GummyAir answered the movement, obedient, and shot toward the small body in free fall. Americ-Ana stretched out her arm, felt the wind cut across her fingers, and when she reached Poppandacorn, she grabbed him by the waist with force, pulling him against her chest before he could be swallowed by the abyss. Poppandacorn was trembling all over, his little arms trying to cling to her, and the purple light remained lit, pulsing.

  "I caught you," Americ-Ana whispered, not as comfort, but as fact, as promise.

  Poppandacorn’s eyes were chaos. ALERTS flashed across the LEDs as if his body were a siren, and he turned his head too fast, trying to read the void around them.

  "Mommy... RED ALERT... DANGER..." he said, and his voice came out thin, broken.

  In that same instant, Americ-Ana felt a violent jolt in the air, as if something gigantic had passed very close, invisible, displacing the atmosphere of the vault with a single movement. The GummyAir faltered, corrected, and Americ-Ana pressed Poppandacorn against herself, because now she knew, with the cold clarity of terror, that they were not merely falling.

  They were being hunted.

  The jolt in the air came again, stronger, as if a colossal mass had scraped its very existence through the space around them. The GummyAir vibrated in a harsh correction, and Americ-Ana felt her chest tighten, because that sensation was not wind, it was presence. Poppandacorn clutched his little paws into the collar of her coat, his LED eyes in frenzy, and then he screamed in a high, urgent voice, like a survival protocol activating at the limit.

  "Launch flare!"

  The tip of the unicorn horn opened with a mechanical snap, and a flare shot upward, rising fast until it became a point of raw light high above, an artificial star in that abyss. For one second, Americ-Ana hated the brightness, because brightness meant revealing, and revealing meant inviting. But in the next instant she understood that she needed to see in order to believe it was real.

  The flare’s light fell over the void and, under that glare, the vault showed what it had been hiding.

  It was not an Ophanim, not yet, and somehow that was worse, because the creature emerging from the dark looked built from the world’s mortal refuse. A colossal whale, as wide as a building, too long to fit inside any human idea of space, floating in the air as if swimming in black water. Its body was made entirely of bones, ribs forming arches like bars, columns of vertebrae fitted in spirals, overlapping jaws as if it had devoured mouths and kept them all. Skulls were embedded at different points, some turned outward, others inward, as if the body itself were a moving cemetery. Its eyes were not eyes, they were black voids, holes so deep the flare could not fill them. And its mouth... its mouth was an abyss, darker than the dark, as if swallowing were not only killing, but erasing.

  Americ-Ana froze atop the GummyAir. Her body locked as if it had been switched off, and the cold that climbed her spine came from instinct recognizing a predator. Poppandacorn looked at the creature and whispered, as if saying the name were the only way to stop it from becoming myth.

  "Lacrimosa."

  The Lacrimosa moved through the air with offensive naturalness, slow and majestic, as if that had been its habitat since the beginning of the world. And then, like a decision, it opened its mouth. The movement was inevitable, organic, and the abyss inside it seemed to grow, calling everything around it, pulling in the air, pulling in the sound, pulling Americ-Ana’s very courage into itself.

  "Mommy!" Poppandacorn screamed, his sensors beeping at maximum level, but Americ-Ana did not answer, trapped in paralysis. "Mommy, move!"

  Poppandacorn detected in that same instant that she would not move in time. His little body went rigid, and his voice came fast, almost tearful, almost human.

  "Sorry, Mommy."

  Poppandacorn slapped Americ-Ana on the head.

  "Slap!"

  The slap was hard enough to break the trance. The shock tore her body out of the freeze, and reflex made Americ-Ana throw her weight forward on the GummyAir. The living cloud-skate responded at once, shooting sideways with a burst that nearly tore the air from her chest.

  The roar of the void behind them was not sound, it was suction. The Lacrimosa lunged, and the flare overhead lit everything in flashes. Americ-Ana saw the tail of bones move, a colossal strike, and the air shuddered when it cut through space, trying to crush the two of them as one swats an insect. The GummyAir dove downward by instinct and command, and Americ-Ana held on with everything she had, feeling her body nearly ripped from its own axis.

  Poppandacorn was in total RED ALERT. His LED eyes flashed with maps, vectors, and calculations that looked far too desperate to be just numbers. He raised the purple little finger, no longer as a lantern, but as a pointer, and his sensors did something strange, as if they had found a tiny pattern inside the chaos.

  "There!" he shouted, pointing with his little arm. "A fissure... a fissure in the air!"

  Americ-Ana could not see properly, because the flare made the scene oscillate between shadow and glare, but then she saw it, suspended ahead, a thin, irregular line, almost like a crack in invisible glass, a tiny exit, ridiculous, impossible, and even so it was the only thing that did not seem to want to kill them.

  Poppandacorn slapped Americ-Ana on the head again, this time as a command for direction. Her body leaned farther, and the GummyAir answered like a jet, shooting straight toward the fissure. The Lacrimosa was closing in, mouth open, the abyss pulling, and Americ-Ana felt the whole world trying to slip into that throat made of bones and abyss.

  "Gummy!" Poppandacorn sang out, his voice breaking between fear and command. "Gummy! Gummy! Gummy!"

  "Fly! Fly! Fly!" the GummyAir answered, accelerating even more.

  The flare was still high above, illuminating Lacrimosa, and for one second Americ-Ana saw the tail coming again, a strike that seemed certain, inevitable, the kind of movement that ends stories. She pressed Poppandacorn hard against her neck, as if she could anchor herself in an embrace.

  And then they hit the fissure.

  The impact was like crashing into a wall that did not exist. Reality gave a muffled crack. The air shuddered, sound died, and the universe blinked again.