#another world6
Everything had disappeared. Jean could not even distinguish his body. Just a sensation. The one he was still alive. It lasted an indefinable moment. Suddenly, a glimmer appeared in the darkness. He regained his confidence. Maybe he was going to find Iris and Love, that Aimé had not managed his transfer. He approached it as if nothing else could stop him. This little light in the distance seemed to come from another house, whose contours were slowly beginning to form.
Strangely this house seemed to float in the void of darkness, just like him. As he got closer to it, he could tell that it was not the one he had left. She was less beautiful, and certainly older than the last. More icy and less pleasant. He managed to distinguish the shapes of his body, and all his abilities had become normal again.
He found himself in the center of a room, where the lugubrious aspect of the place did not carry him to the hope of getting out of it. He felt the sensation of a vertiginous fall towards the confines of a universe that would send him only the image of his loneliness. Once again, he had been cut off from what was most expensive in the world. Could he not deserve to be left alone? Then he screamed with all his might, exploding his boundless anger. Let someone hear his plea and bring him back to better horizons!
No answer came to him. Not even an echo. The place absorbed everything. He collapsed on the ground, his head between his hands, emptying the buckets of tears that still remained to him. He closed his eyes. He did not want to open them anymore, never ...
When he had finished crying, and his despair was wiped from his resentment, he decided to get up. Somewhere, in the depths of his being, it seemed to him that he was facing a challenge. This place should lend itself to this kind of thing. He concentrated, to find out if he still had in him a bit of that power that had been given to him. Maybe he could rebuild what he had left. Nothing worked. He was left to himself, without knowing what he could do. A great lassitude seized him. Mechanically, he climbed the steps of a large staircase, and went to one of the bedrooms upstairs. He pushed the door. The walls were covered with drawings and inscriptions that he could not understand. In the center of the room, a large bed with majestic sculptures, was enthroned in front of a chimney surmounted by a huge mirror. The fire burning in the fireplace made the images on the wall come alive as if by magic. He approached to see them better. He did not understand the meaning of all the allegories that were represented. His open mind he tried to keep a memory intact.
Having walked around the room, he found himself in front of the mirror. While he was expecting to see his own image, it was that of another person who was fired. An image of an old man, his features chiseled by time, and which had nothing to do with him. Whereas in the past this situation alone would have frozen her with fright, it was not so. He did not even have the strength to be moved by what was happening. The only thing he wanted the most in the world was to sleep. Sleep to forget. Sleep to wake up from a long nightmare. Return to a world without surprises, where everything would be normal. Like an automaton, he went to the big bed. He lay down, and slipped into sleep.
The images of his dreams brought him back to what he had known from his last experience. But fortunately, they disappeared to let his mind rest. The restful sleep, the forgetfulness of what was the day before. Tomorrow will be a new day.
Everything seemed to be going well. His sleep was very calm. But suddenly, as he was fast asleep, he got up from the bed, and walked to the mirror ...
The image that it reflected was quite ghostly. Nearby, he opened his eyes sharply, and could see that the mirrored image was not turned up like the mirrors do. He saw himself surrounded by a green mist. He saw himself decomposing and metamorphosing into a being of unbearable ugliness. He was frozen with fear, and could not move. He would have given everything so that this fatal image would disappear. He thought, that this picture could not be his, but still a trick, but did not know who. He was fighting against himself. Do not let the benefit of this wisdom, which he had gained, move away from him. He decided to touch his face. Conjure the spell at all costs. His eyes distinguished, that his movements were well reproduced by the mirror. What was in front of him was him. But, to his surprise, when his fingers palpated his face, he could feel that nothing had changed. All this had to be a dream.
But in the mirror, his hands were those of an old man. The dream did not end. He still had to fight in front of an opponent he did not know. His old anxieties reappeared. He drew back with a movement of terror. It was not possible. None of this could be true. As he recoiled, the shape of the mirror began to move. She came out of the ice and passed from one world to another. Drops of cold sweat beaded on Jean's forehead. The form gave him a hideous grin. Monster of the underworld, out of a world of dreams that he wanted never to have known. She was walking towards him without anything being able to stop him. Jean stumbled and fell to the ground. He felt that his last hour had arrived. He lowered his head, as if waiting for the coup de grace. He did not notice that the form was changing.
Iris was back, and he felt his tender breath on his head. He could not believe it. But this feeling of comfort lasted no more than a second. Iris seemed to be angry. Jean felt lost. Do not lose it and I lost it, he thought.
He was about to surrender. Events had been right with all his being. Iris's arms closed on Jean with a force he had never suspected in a frail young woman. He was cold. She was chilling and her tender breath could no longer warm him. He tried to part with it. It was not Iris, he thought. But nothing seemed to be stronger than those arms. No longer able to fight, he only had to let himself be carried away. With a last burst of intelligence, he managed to develop a strategy. Since he could not fight outside, he had to struggle inside. The image of what he thought was Iris's wrapped him in his big white dress. She dragged him towards the mirror, which was gently undulating.
When they had crossed the thin film of the miror, a lightning flash crossed the space of the room. He was no longer of this world ...
Calm reigned in the room ... The fire had gone out ... The window was wide open, and a ray of sunshine came to rest on Jean's bed.
The sleeper had disappeared from the ship that had taken him to another world.
Nothing could have led to the belief that something had happened in this room. Nothing except the eight glass shards that formed a star, and which were on the floor in front of the extinct chimney. This star would be forever the key keeping a terrible secret.
Suddenly, while the silence was raging, making the atmosphere even more terrible, a little nightingale came to rest on the windowsill. He seemed to sing a hymn to this new sun that had just illuminated this universe of darkness. He intoned a most cheerful air, as if to celebrate a new advent ...