Chronicles of Mystery

A wanderer from another world

David woke up in his bed in the morning. He stood up abruptly, as he had always done, in a gesture that had become a habit for him, as if he were trying to chase away layers of sand that no longer covered him, but which had remained forever present in his mind. He panted, trying to catch his breath, while his hand, placed on his chest, tried to contain his heart which seemed to want to split his ribcage into a thousand pieces. Where was he? He was back, he was back in the tomb of his nightmares! He was buried, buried deep under the sand, unable to breathe.

His hand tore at the fabric of his mattress, desperately clinging to the sheets, to remind himself that he was no longer in the desert, he was no longer there, he had left it! He took a deep breath, to make himself feel that he was capable of it. His throat, however, tightened as he remembered that, even though he had left the desert, it had never stopped pursuing him, burying everything he held dear beneath its golden masses.

He glanced around the dorm where they were all gathered, making sure no one had heard the frantic rhythm of his breathing. Then, once certain that they were all asleep, he seized the opportunity, in that gray and lonely hour, before sunrise, when the light still barely passes through the thick curtains and the silence of the night lingers a little longer, masking the trouble of souls in pain. He brought his knees together to his chest, placing his chin on them. He felt too big, too old, too different from who he was. He just wanted to be tiny, tiny in his bed, a little thing, a little being, as he felt at that moment. No longer David, no longer this person they all wanted to see. He missed what he had been when he thought he was still free and safe when he was still innocent. He also missed what he had been before before the comet devoured the world. He regretted them, he regretted him.

He just wanted to be that child again, that child he had lost, who had died along with all his family. He wanted to be small, he didn't want Liam to look at him as if he held all the secrets, he no longer wanted the brigades to all stare at him as if he were a hero, something strange and new. He always had to make a spectacle of himself. He smiled, smiled in that way that he had repeated and repeated, to retain it like a habit, until it became part of him until he no longer knew how to get rid of this stifling mask... Until he was no longer what he had been, only what we wanted him to be.

He wanted to be small, very small. He wanted to find his mother's reassuring arms again. He wanted to find the comfort of his family, of all his families, the smile of his brothers, his sisters, his own smile. He wanted to stop smiling. He wanted to cry.

But what was he saying? He had left them behind, all of them, and he no longer had the right to regret them, because he was no longer... he was David. He no longer had the right to cry, in this land which had forgotten all memories of its loved ones. They were nothing more than dust, dust carried by the breath of the desert.

They were there, they were there, all of them, those who had made his life. There were so many of them while he was so alone. So alone with the memory of them, the ones he thought about every morning, to make them come back to life for a few more moments. He brought them out of the shadows and then forced himself to forget them and put on this stifling mask, to be David again for all the others who didn't want the real him.

Yes, he thought of his own, and, beyond his own, he thought of his entire people, of these men, these women who had succeeded one another, who had been part of his world. He was nothing without family, without someone by his side, everyone, all his families, they had built him, he owed them everything. Without them, without them he was nothing.

Even today, he was trying to be something, someone by creating yet another family to protect.

When he woke up, he still had difficulty getting used to the place in which he found himself. He always remained lost for a few moments, surprised, unaware of where he was. Then, everything came back to his memory and he felt a wave of sadness rush towards his heart, an uncontrollable wave, that overwhelmed him, like a wall which hit him with all its force, reminding him of his place, his weakness, everything that he had lost. He remembered the faces of his comrades, he remembered that they were no longer there, that he had lost them so suddenly, and that he had returned to this world only to find it deserted of all those he had loved. Desert, especially of him. And yet, he was still there, waking up every morning, with this weight on his heart, this weight that he couldn't talk about. He woke up to feel, it seemed to him, only the weight of his own life, far too heavy, too heavy already, even though he was supposed to have barely reached adulthood.