The Wolf and the Snake (English version)

Chapter 37

A vertiginous fall!

No human being would survive such a fall.

So I'm dead.

Heaven is made of salt water, where I'm slowly sinking.

Would God be only an enormous fish with glassy eyes, with pretty twirling fins?

No doubt that a passage towards the skies exists on the sea bottom, among intertwined algae and amazing multicolored creatures of which one doesn't know if they're vegetables or animals. Kinds of purple and scarlet Gorgons brush against some weird filaments looking as if they were torn from the sun. Strange creatures move silently around me; they have monsters' faces or long sinuous bodies without the slightest scale.

Silence is part of death.

It breaks when the Pearly Gates opens.

Or when the Hellmouth opens!

Suddenly, I become aware that the pain hasn't disappeared. Instead, it's felt in my whole body, devouring me with voracity. I endure unbearable bursts and disordered movements. Something atrocious is happening to me, like a rapid dislocation.

Destruction?

Is this death?

I don't know how to resist, so it continues inexorably. I drift into shreds of bone and flesh that immediately reform as new pieces of the one I'm no longer.

A horrible fear invades me when I don't feel like I have legs and arms anymore.

Where are they?

Do I still have eyes to cry?

I remember the fall and an incredible force pulling me towards the sea.

The water!

The air too!

Something carried me to the water to keep me from falling on the rocks.

Is it possible that air or water has power over me, over my body?

It has already happened!

I died in the Nile; then I came back.

But this time, it's much more serious.

I suffer a fate worse than death.

I blame myself so much!

Reyn would have carried my corpse in his arms if I had breathed my last on dry land.

Would he have grieved?

Under the waters, the pain is finally gone.

Perhaps change is complete.

I remain cautiously motionless, then slowly open what could be my eyes.

All life around me has fled.

As if scared!

A fantastic sensation of power overwhelms me for a moment, annihilating the worst and most beautiful memories. Simon, Bernard de Congast, the count of Provence, the evil troubadour, a young girl who wanted to be a doctor and followed her knight to Egypt. 

Reyn!

Everything fades into the limbo of a new and unknown universe.

Suddenly, I experience my abilities rapturously and split waters with breathtaking speed.

Am I a goddess, ancient and forgotten?

Am I an abominable, repulsive monster?

What curse crashed my mind, buried the truth deep in the world?

Why don't I know anything about myself?

I go further and further, faster and faster. Around me, waters become tumultuous, rumble and roar, but I don't care.

I'm in an invincible armor of flesh and blood where nothing can reach me.

At least, that's what I think.

But a brutal shock makes me waver. So I respond with an instinctive and violent movement that immediately breaks the obstacle in my path.

A ship!

It's an awful carnage.

I smash without pity the shipwrecked bodies.

The savagery in me is boundless.

Waters, loaded with debris, are tinted with carmine red.

Unfortunately, I found the answer to my questions.

I'm just an abomination from the underworld!

I continue to advance, move away, and forget what I became despite myself.

The pain is back.

Waters are black now; I feel a dark and icy liquid flowing out of me.

I'm hurt.

I don't know how much, but it's enough to slow me down.

Waters are now raging, and I struggle to survive. But, then, an imperious order arises in the mind of this unknown creature who doesn't want to die:

Go to the shore! The time for fighting hasn't yet come.

Currents are stronger and stronger, so I desperately go back to the surface, and high waves drag me in their fury, rolling me in all directions.

I make final efforts, trying to reach any shore.

I see nothing.

Before sinking into the darkness, I remember the bloody tears shed by those who crashed hard to the ground, dying, finished without mercy.

Why have I forgotten?

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