THE ALGORITHM OF THE FORBIDDEN HEART

Chapitre 13

Carla hesitated, casting me a look charged with exhausted suspicion, but the need to obey hospital orders was stronger than her will to push me away. She was gone.

As soon as I heard the sound of footsteps fading down the hallway, I acted. No more hesitation. It was no longer curiosity; it was a visceral need to know the extent of the inner battlefield I had to protect.

I reached out and took her computer and the file "The Manuscript of Shadow" (Le Manuscrit de l'Ombre). Time was limited, but the truth was more important than protocol. I scrolled through the text to the epicenter of the nightmare: the captivity.

I read the description of her place of detention, every word sinking in like a splinter.

"The room was not a cellar, it was worse. It was a small room on the ground floor, with no visible window to the outside—it overlooked a brick wall or a dark inner courtyard..."

I had to stop. I couldn't breathe, assimilating the fact that she had been locked in an isolation cube. I paused, forcing myself to concentrate on the objective details to avoid sinking into emotion.

"... No furniture. Just a radiator that sometimes whistled and a single bare bulb on the ceiling, too yellow, always on. There was no shadow to hide in. The door was thick, with three locks that I never heard open or close. It was an isolation cube, with no visual or auditory escape."

My heart tightened. A prison without shadow, without rest.

I continued, the reading becoming increasingly painful.

"For the first two days, he talked. He called himself my 'Savior.' He brought me water and dry biscuits, claiming to free me from my parents. Then, the tone changed. If I didn't answer his questions, if I didn't eat, he hit the table next to the bed. Terror became a routine."

I bit my lip not to scream. The shift from false kindness to physical threat...

"The nights... He came after 11 p.m. There were no preliminaries, never a kind word after the first two days. It was a taking. A demonstration that my body now belonged to him, like property he came to check on. He used force."

I felt nausea rising. The objectification, the brutality devoid of all humanity.

"But the worst was not always the physical penetration. It was the obligation to remain immobile beneath him, not to scream, not to cry too loudly. He told me: 'If you move, I will hit you until you stop breathing. If you stay calm, we'll finish quickly.'"

I closed my eyes for a moment, the burning tears finally rising. He had threatened her with death to force her into silence.

"That's when I made my choice to survive. I preferred the silent pain to the suffocating blows. I gave myself to him, forcing my eyes to look at the yellow ceiling, mentally withdrawing from my own body. It was dissociation. I felt his hands—always rough, always too pressing—everywhere. He liked to squeeze my throat and my wrist at the same time, as if to mark his dual possession."

I had to take a deep breath, my breath caught. The throat and the wrist. Total control. The extent of the dissociation and the survival strategy was finally understood.

"The dominant feeling was not fear at that moment, but disgust: disgust for my body for being chosen, and disgust for my inaction. When he left, I remained motionless until the smell faded, before I could finally curl into a fetal position. Shame was the only guardian that remained."

Donatella had read enough. The level of detail was frightening, confirming that Carla had an eidetic memory of the trauma. Her strategy of submission was indeed the reason she resisted physical intimacy with me. She never wanted to choose submission again.