The voices had long since faded. A few drops of wine lingered on the table, nearly dry. Only the crickets and the distant rush of the sea filled the night. Above me stretched a sky of dark blue. Somewhere, a dog barked, short and harsh, as if warning of something unseen.
I lay on the garden bed, wrapped in blankets by Marit like a child, the letters pressed to my chest. The words of Matthes and Alina ran through me, deep as my scars. The body I lived in was weary. Sleep came in heavy waves.
I thought I heard footsteps. Light, shadowed. I lifted my head, but the garden was empty. “Alina?” I whispered. No answer. Only the wind, brushing hair from my face as tenderly as Matthes once had.
And suddenly he stood before me. Brother Fidelis. As clear as in those nights when he whispered letters to my daughter by candlelight. “I am tired,” I whispered. “I cannot go on.” A slow fever glowed beneath my skin, like heat seeping in unseen. Yet Fidelis said nothing. Behind him movement stirred. Two figures, slim, flowing, as if they belonged to another world.
I wanted to ask who they were, but my voice caught in my throat. A gentle pressure on my arm. Cold fingers. A hiss, then silence. I tried to call for Marit, but no breath came. Only darkness. Before the light drained from me completely, I heard a word, dull, muffled, as if spoken through water. A name, perhaps. Or a command. Then nothing.
A tingling crept through my fingertips. Cold. Metallic. I tried to lift my lids, but they clung shut as if sealed. Behind them, light flickered, red, then white, searing.
A sound reached me. Steady beeps, mechanical, relentless. Not the groan of wooden floorboards. Not the swallows at the eaves. No. This was not the world I knew, nor even the world I had just begun to learn.
With effort, I opened my eyes. The ceiling above me was smooth, matte gray, traced with fine lines. No sky. No beams. No star to bring me comfort. The air tasted false. My mouth was parched.
Something pressed at my chest. Not upon it, within it. Heavy, cold. It was not my heart, not my strength. It carried nothing of me, no memory, no life.
I blinked. Rectangles of light hummed above. To my left, a rhythm of flickering, steady, tireless, like a mute sentinel.
“Where am I?” My words were rough, fractured, barely sound at all.
No one answered. I turned my head slowly, as if my neck were carved from stone. A table. A chair. A wall of glass, beyond it only darkness.
Through the pane I thought I saw movement. A shadow, too flat to be human. The dress Marit had given me was gone. In its place, a thin white garment clung to my skin, alien and hostile. My arms were bound. Not cruelly, but without question.
A breath of fear stirred within me. And then the memory. The garden. The letters on my chest. “Alina?” Nothing.
The letters were gone. In their place, wires clung to my flesh. I closed my eyes, as if that might summon them back. The pages. The lines. The voices. Alina’s tilted hand, Matthes’ jagged strokes defying time. The warmth of their words, the echo of broken promises. My family, folded into two fragile letters, pressed near my heart. They were gone.
“Almost… united,” I murmured. Something inside me slipped, as if an unseen hand had loosed its grip and let me fall into soundless depth. I pressed my brow into the cool pillow, drew breath as a dying woman might take in light, and whispered: “They have torn us apart again.”
No one answered. Only the hum, the beeping. And somewhere deep within, something gave way, as though a fragment of my strength had been quietly taken.
I hear it again, a foreign sound, like hissing air. Someone enters the room. Footsteps, steady, precise. A metallic click, as if a board or plate had been set down.
The person does not speak. I do not look, yet I feel it. This is not Brother Fidelis. Not Matthes. Not Marit or Katja. It is someone else. There is no warmth in them, only the cold, detached interest of one who does not believe, only examines.
The footsteps fall silent, followed by a brief whirring. I turn my head.
A woman stands there. Her face is smooth, without lines, without expression. Her hair bound into a tight knot, not a strand loose, no hesitation in her stance. Her clothing is white, immaculate, like the room itself. At her breast gleams a blue stone.
She takes a small vessel and spreads a cold, slippery liquid across my belly. I flinch, but she does not react. She places something flat and hard on me, moving it slowly back and forth. Before her stands a black plate on which lights appear and vanish like tiny stars. Her eyes move between the glowing forms and my body, as if she could read in them what is hidden from me. She does not look at me. No question. No word.
“Where am I?” I whisper. No answer. She draws marks on her black tablet. “Where am I?” I repeat.
She wipes the cold liquid from me with paper, sets the black thing aside, and takes up a stack of documents. Her eyes pass over them, intent, as if they hold something important that I am not meant to see. I wait for a kind word, for something to reach me as Marit’s voice does when she says my name. Instead I hear only: “You are stable.” Whatever that may mean. Her voice is calm. No warmth. No scorn. No comfort.
“What is this place?”
“You are in a protected environment. Your vital signs are being observed. Further words will come in due time.”
“Am I ill?”
“You are holding on. But the serum will not last much longer.”
The word strikes me. Serum. Strange on my tongue, echoing in me without meaning.
“I want Marit,” I whisper. “I want Katja. I want… I want to go home.”
The woman looks at me for a moment. Perhaps there is some flicker in her eyes, a trace of movement, almost unseen, like a passing shadow. “It has been a very long time since you called this place home.”