The Dojo remained silent. Outside, the wind barely brushed the leaves of the forest, and the moon, suspended above the courtyard, was an unblinking eye that watched without judgment. The stone beneath their feet retained the cold of the night, and in the air floated that kind of stillness that only exists when everything that had to break has already been broken.

Sebastián stood for a few moments in front of Selena before speaking. Their breaths mingled with the faint vapor rising from their skin due to the difference in the air. There was no urgency. Only the understanding that every word he spoke would carry the exact weight of what has never been told.

His voice, when it came, was low. He wasn't confessing—he was reconstructing.

—It all began with something that didn't seem like an ending. —His gaze drifted for a moment into the emptiness of the courtyard—. It was just an ordinary afternoon. One of those when the world still seems kind because it hasn't yet shown you its claws.

Selena didn't respond. She observed. Her body remained straight, posture perfect, gaze steady. There was no visible emotion in her, but her attention was absolute.

Sebastián continued.

—There were two of us. A mother and her son. She was everything I understood of the world. Her laughter, her way of looking at the sky, her hands… everything that made sense fit within that. Every Friday was our ritual. We needed nothing more. It was the routine that taught me that life could repeat itself without losing its shine.

The fire from the brazier, now only embers, cast a faint reflection across his face. His tone remained constant, unaltered.

—I remember her voice. Always soft, even when weariness weighed on her. She spoke to me of imaginary adventures, of ants marching like secret armies, of clouds that turned into dragons if you stared at them long enough. She was… —he paused briefly— the calm that didn't know it was calm.

Selena lowered her gaze slightly, without interrupting him.

—And then —he went on—, there was a sound. A simple crash. The world lost its edge. I didn't know when the afternoon ended or when the night began. I only remember the impact, the spin, the void. The rain. And then, silence.

There was no tremor in his voice, but there was a pause. The kind of silence that needs no explanation.

—I woke outside of everything. My body was small, fragile, and I didn't understand. There was blood, glass, and a smell that never leaves you. The smell of hot metal. —His gaze hardened—. I called her. Once, twice, ten times. She didn't answer.

The wind crossed the courtyard, lifting dry leaves that scraped across their feet.

—I approached the car —he said slowly—. The rain was falling, and her face was covered by her hair. I didn't understand why she wouldn't look at me. I hugged her. Her body was cold. Too still. And I… —he exhaled softly— sang.

For the first time, his eyes lowered.

—It was our song. I thought that if she heard it, she would wake up. But only the rain answered me.

Selena remained motionless, though her breathing became slower. She said nothing.

—Then —Sebastián continued—, the ground opened. I couldn't tell if it was real or something else. Darkness. Something tore me away from there. I fought. I held on to her hand, called her name until I lost my voice. But darkness doesn't negotiate. It only swallows.

The silence that followed was absolute.

—And when I woke —he said at last—, there was nothing left. No mother, no home, no rain. Only a strange land, red and dead. And the sky… the sky wasn't sky. It was a wound. That's where it all began. That's where I died the first time.

His voice stopped. There was no trace of emotion, no tears, no lament. Only facts. Each word sounded measured, carved, without excess.

Selena held his gaze for a few seconds. She wasn't seeking to console him; she was evaluating him.

—Then it was the turning point —she said in an analytical tone—. The rupture that defined your survival structure.

Sebastián barely nodded.

—Yes. From that moment on, I stopped understanding life as something that is preserved. I learned that it is only dragged.

—And yet you dragged it all the way here —she observed, without reproach.

He looked at her, the deep red slowly swirling in his eyes.

—There was no choice. The darkness didn't take me because it wanted to devour me. It did because it needed a vessel. And I was that. Since then, what I am is not a result. It's a consequence.

Selena stepped closer, with the calm of someone who measures every movement. The distance between them narrowed just enough for the moon to cast them under the same shadow.

—Understandable —she said—. Though not all who are consumed return with form.

Sebastián held her gaze in silence. There was neither pride nor defiance in his stance.

—I came back because she asked me to —he said finally—. Her last look wasn't one of fear. It was an order. Don't die.

The phrase resonated in the air like an ancient truth. Selena lowered her head slightly, not in compassion, but in recognition.

—I understand —she whispered—. It wasn't the loss that shaped you, but the promise.

—Exactly —he replied—. What hurts isn't what leaves. It's what remains.

The night continued its course. Neither added any more words. The wind extinguished the last embers of the brazier, and the moon reflected on the stone, split in two by the shadow of their bodies.

Sebastián remained still, breathing in the same rhythm as the earth.

Selena watched him for a few more seconds, then turned her gaze toward the forest.

—Then —she said, with the precision of someone evaluating a resolved variable—, let's begin there. At the point where the world decided you had to keep breathing.

He nodded.

The story wasn't over.

It had only opened the door.

When he spoke again, his tone didn't change. He didn't dramatize, didn't load his words with anything beyond what was strictly necessary.

—I told you I woke without a mother, without a home, without rain. Only a red sky and black earth —he murmured—. What I didn't say is how long it took that place to start remaking me.

The moon, high above the Dojo courtyard, reflected in Sebastián's red eyes, where dark tornadoes turned in a slow, constant motion. There was no emotional gleam, only depth.

Sebastián remembered that first breath in that new world, the way the nothingness pressed inside him before the pain did. It wasn't the body that protested first, but the absence. He saw himself again, small, on his knees upon a dry ground that cracked like old bone, his hands buried in soil that was neither alive nor dead—just exhausted. Above his head, a red, pulsating sky breathed like a wound that would never close. That sensation crossed once more the distance between the past and the Dojo courtyard like a disciplined echo.

—At first, it didn't hurt —he said calmly—. First came the void. I felt something tear away all I knew in an instant. My mother's laughter. The smell of home. The rain. They didn't fade slowly. They disappeared, as if someone had shut a book halfway through. And I was left on the page that didn't exist.

Selena listened without blinking. Her posture didn't relax even a millimeter. It was the listening of someone who classifies as they hear.

—I called out —he continued—. I still believed that if I shouted enough, my voice would cross that sky and return with an answer. It didn't happen. The only thing that answered was the silence. Not the silence of a peaceful night. It was another kind—heavy. As if the world were listening to me, but had decided not to reply.

The image of the child hugging himself in the middle of a horizonless plain took shape in the space between them. His fingers closed around a red bracelet, as insignificant as it was stubborn, glowing faintly in a universe that no longer had room for tenderness.

—There were no monsters at first —he explained—. Not the kind you can see. Only the feeling that everything was watching me. The earth, the sky, the air. As if I were a mistake someone had accidentally left there… and something was deciding what to do with me.

A faint wind crossed the courtyard. The damp fabric of Selena's denim shirt clung a little tighter to her body, but she didn't notice; all her attention was fixed on the weight of each sentence.

—Fear came later —Sebastián continued—. First was the void. Then the body remembered it existed. It began to hurt. The stomach folded in on itself. I realized I was hungry. It seemed like a small detail. It wasn't. Hunger, in a place like that, isn't just the absence of food. It's a way of dissolving memory.

He remembered how he had walked, dragging his feet over that cracked earth that sounded like crushed bones. How he had searched with his eyes for something familiar, any trace of a world that was no longer there. And he found nothing. Only twisted trees that looked like the corpses of trees, shadows without substance, silence without comfort.

—I looked for something edible —he said plainly—. I didn't find it. No fruits, no leaves, nothing that resembled the world before. Only deformed bodies of things I didn't know, dry remains, lumps that breathed the wrong way. One of them… —his gaze drifted briefly toward the extinguished brazier, as if there lay a mute reference— looked like a sack of flesh. It moved. It smelled of rotten blood. My body begged me to approach. Everything else begged me to stay away.

He didn't need to describe it as a frightened child. The scene spoke for itself: that pulsing sack among dead roots, that wet whisper that belonged neither to life nor to death.

—I stepped back —he said simply—. Not out of courage. Only because instinct decided it wasn't worth dying there.

A faint shadow crossed Selena's face. It wasn't empathy. It was assessment. That first step back told her more about Sebastián's mental structure than any tear could.

—Then came the chase —he continued—. A low growl, a body I didn't fully see, only out of the corner of my eye. I don't know what it was. I only know the world started to move against me. I ran. Not because I thought I could escape, but because I hadn't yet understood that running without learning only prolongs death, it doesn't avoid it.

He remembered the clumsy run, the roots digging into his legs, the dry branches scratching the skin of a body too small for that hell. The thick, hot air entering his lungs like a heavy liquid. He remembered throwing himself between two rocks, covering himself with dead leaves and dried blood, more out of desperation than strategy.

—I stayed still —he said—. While something passed just a few steps away. I smelled it. It was like breathing a living corpse. It didn't touch me. I don't know if it didn't see me or if it decided I wasn't worth the effort. I only know that day I understood that running wasn't enough. If you only run, you die tired. I had to learn.

His words fell with a dry weight, without added emphasis. The conclusion was stronger for how little it was adorned.

—The first night I didn't sleep —he added—. I hid inside a hollow trunk. The body begged for rest, but fear wouldn't allow it. I listened to the world. Bones breaking in the distance. Wind that sounded like something scraping the sky. I counted the beats in my chest—not to calm myself, but to know I was still there. And as I counted, something began to harden inside. I didn't know what it was yet. But it was already growing.

In the Dojo, Selena tilted her head slightly. In her mind, the pieces assembled with the logic of a report: extreme exposure, prolonged stress, accelerated adaptation.

—The hunger came back the next day —Sebastián said—. It was no longer a murmur. It was a knife. It bent me from within. Then I saw a small creature, a skinned rodent, drinking from a puddle. It wasn't water. It was blood. Mine churned. Part of me wanted to vomit before tasting it. Another part, quieter, had already decided.

He didn't need to say more for the scene to form: the child kneeling before a thick puddle, the metallic scent striking his face, the throat burning with the first swallow.

—I drank —he stated, without drama—. I felt myself tearing apart inside. I coughed. I thought I would die right there. But after the fire came something else. A spark. Energy. The body stopped screaming for a moment. And that was enough. I kept going. I drank until I could move again.

He didn't speak of disgust as emotion. He spoke of disgust as obstacle.

—I followed those deformed creatures —he continued—. I saw them eat larvae buried in rotting trunks, fungi growing over dead flesh, liquids oozing from diseased plants. I imitated them. I vomited the first time. But I didn't stop. Every bite killed something in me… and at the same time, ignited something else. The child who waited for bread began to fade. What remained was something with hunger, with fear… and with eyes that learned fast.

His words lingered for a few seconds before he continued.

—I looked for real shelter —he said—. A crack in a rock, barely big enough for my body. It wasn't a home. It was a trench. I filled it with branches, with rotten fabric, with stones. Not for comfort, only to have a place where I wouldn't be easy prey. That cave was the first thing I claimed.

He remembered how he had sat inside, motionless, with a bone knife in his hand while the world creaked outside. How he had slept in fragments, by will, not by sheer exhaustion.

—That night I no longer prayed, nor called for anyone —he added—. I only listened. I began comparing sounds. This crack meant danger before. This other one didn't. It was a language. If I wanted to live, I had to learn it.

Selena spoke for the first time since he had resumed the story.

—You stopped reacting and started interpreting —she noted, like someone stating an evident conclusion—. It's the exact point where the victim begins to disappear.

Sebastián nodded once.

—Not because I was strong —he replied—, but because I had no other choice.

The image of the small wounded creature appeared then, floating in his memory.

—I found a creature —he went on—. Small. Beautiful, even, if one forgot where we were. Scales that changed color with the light. A broken leg. Its body trembling. It was dying. It looked at me. Not with fear. With resignation. It was something I already understood, even if I couldn't name it.

His voice remained flat.

—I walked away. I couldn't help it. I couldn't even help myself. Later, hunger forced me to return. It was no longer breathing. I had a bone shard. I used it. I skinned the body. I ate. I cried while doing it, but I didn't stop.

Selena showed no visible reaction. Inside, however, she noted each step: initial repulsion, necessary action, repetition.

—After that —Sebastián continued—, blood stopped being something that separated me from the world. It became part of the landscape. I began to drink it from puddles without thinking much. If I vomited, I tried again. There came a moment when its taste no longer mattered. The only thing that mattered was whether it kept me standing.

He lifted his gaze slightly toward the Dojo's sky—dark and clean, so different from that pulsating red that had once pursued him.

—The place wasn't just hostile —he said—. It was changing. It rained. Not water. Something that burned. The first drop fell near my hand and the rock hissed. One hit my ankle. It was as if my body opened from the inside. I ran to hide among stones, covering myself with whatever I could find. The skin swelled. The bandage I'd wrapped around a wound fused to it. Tearing it off was reopening it.

He paused briefly, not from emotion but to arrange his thoughts.

—I understood something simple —he added—. That world wasn't cruel by accident. It wasn't mistaken. It was made that way, by design. It owed nothing to anyone. If you didn't adapt, you disappeared.

The memory of that realization returned with the precision of a scar.

—The only thing I thought was this: "If this world wants to destroy me, it will have to earn the right." It wasn't a grand phrase. It was a reflex. But it made the difference.

Selena tilted her head slightly. Her voice, when it came, was low, without judgment.

—A declaration of structural resistance —she said—. Not against the world, but against the idea of being discarded.

—Exactly —Sebastián replied—. I couldn't stop it from trying to kill me. But I could make the job harder.

He recounted how, after the corrosive rain, he had observed the tracks of small creatures that had survived unharmed. How he had searched for their shelters, found tiny tunnels, almost invisible crevices, remains of intact leaves in certain holes. He copied their strategies, claimed every trick as his own.

—I started counting the days without sun —he said—. One: when I could barely move. Two: when I ate what I shouldn't have. Three: when I hunted for the first time something that breathed. Four: when I faced a creature too big and survived, leaving part of myself on the ground. Five: when I understood what a territory was.

The word didn't sound grand in his mouth—only precise.

—I marked the entrance to my shelter —he explained—. Stacked stones. Dried blood on the bark. I didn't know if it served any purpose. But I had watched small spined animals circle their trunks, growl if something came too close, tell the world through gestures that the place already had an owner. I did the same. Not because I believed the world would respect it, but because I needed to believe there was a contour where my presence mattered.

Selena drew in a barely perceptible breath. It wasn't sentimentality; it was boundary tracing under extreme pressure.

—One day —he continued—, a creature crossed that border. It wasn't one of the large ones. But it wasn't small either. Tough hide, bone plates, short tentacles on its back searching for vibrations in the air. I already had a bone weapon, sharpened against rock until it bled. I could've hidden and let it pass. I didn't. Something inside me ignited. It was fear, yes. But mixed with something else.

He remembered the leap. The stake sinking between the plates, the corrosive blood burning his skin, the claw tearing his side open. He remembered the mud, the stones, the broken breath.

—I attacked —he said, without glorifying it—. Not because I wanted to kill. Because I understood that if I didn't learn to respond, there was no future. I didn't win. Not completely. I ended up crawling through roots, my body split open. I improvised a bandage with dark, sticky lichen. It burned as if my skin were being ripped from the inside. I tied it with what was left of my clothes. Every knot was a fight against my own hands. But the bleeding stopped just enough for me to keep breathing.

The moon seemed to lower a little, as if drawing closer to the scene.

—While I curled beneath the rocks —he added—, I heard the sky split again, and that rain fell once more, devouring everything. Plants, insects, even corpses dissolved around me. The landscape wasn't stable. Every day, the board changed. I understood that it wasn't enough to learn the rules. I also had to accept they could be rewritten at any moment.

He drew in a slow breath.

—Despite that, something solidified —he said—. That refuge, that crack between rocks where I bled, where I endured the rain, became mine. Not by right. By erosion. By insistence. By having survived there more than once. I knew that if it was taken from me, I'd have to build another. But until then, that space was proof that I existed.

His eyes fixed for a moment on the floor of the Dojo, as if he could see superimposed the black earth, the bones, the puddles of dried blood.

—It wasn't just hiding —he went on—. I started watching how others hunted. I saw a blind creature, the size of a boar, guided only by smell and the vapor it expelled through the cavities where its eyes should have been. I knew that if I approached it wrong, I wouldn't stand a chance. So I used something else: sound. I threw a stone far away. When it charged toward it, I leapt onto its back.

He recounted without emotion how the sharpened stone had pierced between the neck plates, how his nails and teeth did the rest when the weapon broke. How the beast fell and stopped moving, and how he remained still, not out of mercy but out of respect for the strength he had just extinguished.

—I didn't celebrate —he said—. I only dragged what I could. Meat, fangs, useful bones. I lit a small fire with what I had learned to ignite. I ate. That night, fear was still there, but it no longer ruled. It was background noise. And above that noise, another voice appeared. It wasn't hatred. It wasn't resentment. It was a clear instruction: "It's not enough to not die. I have to learn to live here. With its rules… or break them."

Selena held that phrase in silence for a few seconds. The internal repetition of that idea fit with the man before her: not someone who settled for enduring, but someone who had decided to structure his existence around inevitability.

—That was the place —Sebastián concluded— where what others would later call "monster" began to germinate. It didn't appear suddenly. It wasn't a scream. It was the sum of small decisions: drinking what disgusts you, eating what hurts, attacking when running no longer works, marking a piece of the world with your own blood. Each of those choices erased something… and left something else in its place. I didn't become cruel. I became functional.

His red eyes, with their dark whirlwinds turning silently, met Selena's.

—The monstrous —he said, at last— wasn't what I did. It was what I had to stop being in order to do it without breaking.

Selena held his gaze, not softening, not turning away. The moonlight slid down her cold face, along the still slightly damp denim shirt, along the disciplined outline of a body accustomed to precision. When she spoke, she did so like someone finishing a line in an internal report.

—Then your monster wasn't born from whim or gratuitous violence —she stated—. It was born from adaptation. From discipline. From the gradual renunciation of everything that no longer served the purpose of breathing.

Sebastián inclined his head slightly.

—Yes —he confirmed—. That place didn't teach me to kill. It taught me not to disappear. The rest was consequence.

There was a brief silence. Not uncomfortable—dense. The courtyard of the Dojo, with its clean stone and cold air, seemed an impossible world compared to the plain of bones and red puddles he had just described. And yet, at the center of that contrast, there was a shared line: the way Sebastián now stood before everything, as if that child with the red bracelet still looked up at a sky that wanted to devour him… and refused to bow his head.

Selena turned her face slightly toward the forest, then back to him. Her eyes, sharp, showed neither comfort nor compassion. They showed calculation. Precision. And, in a very deep layer, recognition.

—I understand —she said—. You didn't just grow in strength. You grew in structure. In method. In the will to remain standing even when the environment was designed to erase you.

A faint current moved through the air between them. It was the same sensation that occurs when two predators recognize each other as such, yet decide not to bite.

—That was my first teacher —Sebastián concluded—. A world that didn't know my name… but made it clear that if I wanted to keep existing, I had to become something worth carrying.

He added nothing more. He didn't need to. The story, like the wound that had birthed it, was closed—but not healed.

The moon lingered a few seconds longer above them before beginning its slow descent. The Dojo remained silent, honoring the conversation as if it were an ancient rite. On the stone, the shadows of Sebastián and Selena stretched just enough to touch at the edges. They didn't merge. But neither did they withdraw.

The story of the red plain and the strange flesh ended there—for now. Not as an anecdote, but as the map of how a child stopped being one without forgetting he once was.

And before him, listening with the sharpened mind of one who had forged her own pact with solitude and discipline, stood Selena: not as a judge, not as a witness, but as an equal—someone who recognized another's origin without offering comfort or absolution. Only understanding.

On that invisible line, in that unadorned recognition, the monster that had germinated in another world and the woman who had emptied herself to sustain her own path met for the first time at the same point: that of those who have paid for their existence with everything they were… and decided it wasn't enough to break them.

Sebastián stayed silent a few seconds more before Selena, as if making sure what he had opened wouldn't suddenly close. Then he released the air slowly.

—After that first boar —he said—, I stopped worrying about cleaning the blood. It dried on me like another skin. It wasn't neglect. It was… useful. It separated me from the child who had arrived crying on that plain. And sometimes, the other creatures hesitated when they smelled the death of something else on me.

He didn't look at her as he spoke. His eyes remained fixed on some point on the courtyard floor, but the real distance was much farther away, beneath a red sky Selena couldn't see. The faint glow of the Dojo's embers barely traced his scars; the rest was drawn by his voice.

—I didn't sleep that night. My body was exhausted, but my head kept replaying every movement. Where I had failed, where I had succeeded. I didn't live it as trauma… but as a pattern. If I forgot even one of those details, next time I'd die.

Selena tilted her head slightly.

—Optimization through repetition —she noted—. Reinforcement through survival. Natural.

He nodded, unsurprised.

—Natural, but filthy. —He drew a deep breath—. The next morning, I no longer walked out of hunger, but for something else. I patrolled. As if that piece of land were mine and I had to make sure it was still there. I followed tracks, learned to tell small hooves from fresh steps. I saw creatures devouring corpses and didn't attack. I just watched. I let them eat, and when they left, I took what remained. Hunger went from complaint to command. I ate because if I stopped, I wouldn't reach the night.

His hands, relaxed at his sides, closed for a moment and then opened again.

—When the body finally gave in and let me sleep, I dreamed. Not of my mother, not of home. I dreamed of a silhouette among ruins. Faceless, shapeless. Only a presence that entered and left the edge of my sight. I didn't know if it was a man, a woman… or something else. But when I woke, I felt like something had touched me from the inside.

He paused briefly.

—And then I heard her.

For the first time, Selena turned her gaze away from the trees of the courtyard and fixed it on him.

—The voice?

—Yes. —He didn't hesitate—. It wasn't a whisper in the ear. It was a vibration in the spine. It sounded like me… but quieter, steadier. It only said one phrase: "It's still not enough." I wasn't afraid. I didn't have the energy for that. I let it stay. It was the only thing in that place that seemed to be on my side, even if it demanded more of me.

The night wind brushed over the stones of the courtyard. Inside the Dojo, someone shifted in their sleep; neither of them turned their attention away.

—With time —he continued—, silence stopped being an enemy. I filled it with routine. I rose when the red sky changed tone, checked my shelter, marked paths that didn't smell of recent death. I looked for blood, not water. Water didn't exist. Only thick, dark puddles where the creatures drank. I began taking it as I would air—without thought. I heated it with stones, stored it in hollow bones. I learned to use it as food… and as ink.

He brought two fingers to his forearm, where his Qi now pulsed dense.

—I used it to mark. Stones, roots, bark. I left clumsy lines, signs without language. But every stroke said the same: "I passed through here. I still exist." Other marks were more arrogant: "I hunt here." It was the only thing I had to not disappear completely on the Plain.

Selena watched him, inscrutable.

—Territory. Minimal identity —she said—. If no one else can name you, you write yourself onto the world.

Sebastián let out a brief exhalation that never became a laugh.

—Something like that. Sometimes I painted my face, my chest, my arms. It wasn't a game. It was armor. A ritual without a temple. It made me less… "food" in my own eyes. And every time I did it, the voice was there. Not always with words. Sometimes it was just a push in my hands, a quick image in my head. It taught me which bone to cut, which tendon served to tie, which bark didn't rot so fast.

He fell silent for an instant, as if measuring how far to go into detail.

—One day I saw something small. A hunched creature, almost childlike. A rounded body, long arms dragging claws along the ground, a single huge wet eye taking up half its face. It looked like a deformed plush someone had thrown into a dumpster of diseased gods. It whimpered like a sleeping child. It was grotesque… and at the same time, vulnerable.

Selena showed neither rejection nor compassion.

—Did you kill it?

She didn't ask: she affirmed it. Sebastián nodded.

—I killed it. I leapt onto its back, drove a stone into the base of its neck, endured its spasms until the eye burst. It scratched my side, drenched me in its blood. I didn't stop. Then I ate part of it. Without faith, without guilt. Just obeying that command that had lodged under my skin: "Survive."

For the first time he glanced at the Dojo's black sky, as if for a second he sought that impossible red.

—The problem is that on the Plain you are never alone with your prey. Hardly had I covered the corpse with stones than the ground opened and something else came out. Something like a snake with thick legs and a ring of teeth. It went straight to claim what I had killed. I was a nuisance. It tore my leg in the first leap. I crawled, sunk a stone into its eye and killed it with blows, with screams, with pure fear decomposed into motion.

He clenched his jaw at the memory.

—I dragged myself with my leg open to the shelter. And there the voice spoke clearly again: "Look at what remains. Look at what you can be." It made me look at the flesh, the bones, the scales of the thing that almost tore my life away. And it taught me to disassemble it.

His eyes grew colder, not more distant.

—I learned to cut without breaking the skin, to extract whole tendons, to use scales as plates, bones as knives, fibers as thread. Fever on top, a suppurating leg, trembling hands… but I didn't stop. I covered myself with what was left of them. A cloak, a breastplate, crude blades. I ceased to be just a naked body running away. I became something disguised as a monster, living inside another monster.

Selena tilted her head barely, analyzing him like a report.

—Assisted adaptation. The environment designs you in its image. And you accept it.

—There was no alternative. —His voice sounded dry—. But the environment did not settle. The first monster that opened my belly did not forget me. It returned. I smelled it before I saw it. The same bony plates, the same multiple legs, the same short tentacles on its back. It emerged from the rot looking for something easy. What it found was me… worse than the first time, but more stubbornly alive.

The memory tightened in his shoulders.

—I waited for it with a bone spear that broke on the first impact. It charged me. It tore open the side opposite the old scar. Bad leg, battered shoulder, breath shattered. I had nothing. So I did the only thing left: I threw myself on top of it with my bare hands.

There was no dramatization in his tone, only record.

—I climbed it among thorns, spread my legs wider, my arms, my face. I used remnants of the broken spear, stones, my own fingers. I broke joints, tore tentacles out with my teeth. There was no technique. Only a refusal to let go. In the end it fell. I did too. When I finished skinning it there was nothing clean left in me… but I was still breathing.

Selena looked at him in silence a second longer than usual.

—You were a child —she said at last, without softening or loading the word with emotion—. And yet, you chose to keep killing with your hands instead of dying with some "dignity." That explains many things.

Sebastián raised his gaze a little toward her, serious.

—The Plain offered no dignity. Only two options: serve as food or learn to use even your shame as a tool. When I tried to rely on weapons, they broke. When I was left only with my body, I discovered it was the only thing I could truly harden.

He pointed to his chest, his side.

—The voice made it clear. "Weapons break. Your body, if you do it right, does not." So I began to treat it like what one day I would call… a path. I forced it. I let myself be bitten, clawed, knocked down, whenever there was a chance to learn something from the blow. I chewed roots until my stomach tied in knots, I scraped myself against rocks to know how far pain reached before the body truly shut down.

The high moon silvered their profiles for a moment.

—One day I found a different pool —he continued—. It didn't smell of rot, but not of life either. A thick blood, almost black, warm, still. The voice spoke: "This doesn't cleanse. This repairs you." I didn't ask what it was. I went in. The wounds didn't vanish, but they stopped reopening. The body became less fragile. Not stronger… just more stubborn. Like wood that has spent too long in the fire and no longer breaks easily.

Selena lowered her gaze for a moment to her hands, as if measuring something.

—Then your body stopped being just flesh. It began to turn into method.

—Exactly. —Sebastián nodded—. I climbed hills of bones, let myself be struck by larger creatures just to understand how they moved. A tall beast, long neck, legs thin as stakes… I broke it by using my own weight around its neck, not because I was stronger than it, but because my body no longer trembled at the edge of breaking. I drank its blood, another blood thicker than any before. It wasn't nourishment. It was… propulsion. It didn't make me feel powerful. It made me feel inevitable.

He fell silent for a moment, weighing the next phrase.

—There came a moment when the voice stopped treating me as something that merely had to survive. It called me "seed."

Selena's eyes narrowed slightly.

—Seed of what?

—Back then I didn't know. —Sebastián fixed his gaze on the ground—. I only knew that "seed" meant there was nothing left to protect… except to grow. There. That rotting "here" was the only soil available.

He drew a deep breath.

—I screamed at it. Demanded it define itself. I got no answers. So I did something that… marked the point of no return. I took a stone, opened my own arm from the inside, let the blood run down to my wrist. The red bracelet my mother had given me was still there—intact, clean. It was the only thing that didn't belong to that world. I soaked it in my blood until it stopped being a memory and became flesh tied to flesh. It ceased to be "before" and became part of "now."

The inner fire of the Dojo had gone out completely; only the moon remained.

—The Plain didn't end quickly —he said, his voice lower now, but steady—. It wasn't a hell of days. It was years of repetition. Hunting things that had no name. Breaking their necks with my own body, letting them infect me, healing myself with mud, ash, and that thick blood. Losing hearing in one ear from the screams of a swarm, learning to walk again with half my back torn off. I didn't count sunrises. I counted wounds. The old ones, the new ones, the ones that hurt differently.

Selena listened without blinking more than necessary, as if every detail were being filed into a specific place within her mind.

—One day —Sebastián continued—, the landscape changed. The red sky began to filter through something dark, like black leaves. The ground stopped being dry; it became damp, full of roots that exhaled. The air carried a murmur that didn't belong to beasts or bones. And the voice, this time, gave a number: "Six years. It's time."

He stayed still for a second.

—There were no mirrors. But I didn't need them. I knew that what had reached that point was no longer the child who crawled out of the car. It was something else. Tool, residue, seed… the name didn't matter. What mattered was that the Plain of Bones had wrung me out until only what couldn't break remained.

He raised his head toward Selena. His eyes, the silent red whirlwinds turning within them, sought her without evasion.

—The next thing I heard was a different name. "Forest of Shadows." I didn't feel relief. I didn't feel fear. I only knew the next stretch wouldn't be an exit. It would be… the logical continuation of what I had already become there.

Selena held his gaze, serious, unshaken, but with a different shade deep within her eyes.

—Six years of total disappearance in a hostile ecosystem —she summarized—. No external data, no structure, no witnesses. Only pain, adaptation, and a voice speaking to you from the depths of your own existence.

—Yes.

—And you came out of there as something that is not a child, not a man, and not merely a monster. —She studied him for another moment—. "Seed," then, is an accurate term.

Sebastián lowered his eyes again to the stones of the courtyard, as if once more stepping on that black earth that no longer existed beneath his feet, yet still lived in his memory.

—Seed of inevitability —he said at last, without adornment—. Though back then, I couldn't yet call it that.

The silence that followed wasn't a pause; it was a shared breath between two beings who understood the price of endurance. Selena stood before him, unblinking, with the same calm a predator shows when it has learned to wait. The moon seemed to watch from the edge of the Dojo's roof, an impartial witness to what was being told. Sebastián lowered his gaze to the stone—to that unmoving surface that served as a bridge between what had been and what remained.

—Then came the forest —he murmured, without lifting his gaze—. Not a forest like those that breathe life, but one that thought for you.

His words were slow, measured, as if every syllable weighed twice as much for the memory it carried.

—The ground smelled of old rot. The roots moved on their own, as if they remembered the bodies they had devoured. It wasn't a place. It was a mind. And I was inside it.

Selena didn't interrupt. Her breathing was barely visible.

—The forest didn't welcome me —he continued—. It digested me. I walked for days, or maybe years. The scars opened and closed on their own. There was no pain—only erosion. The body didn't complain; it adapted. Hunger had become part of me, like the earth on my skin.

He lifted his eyes for just an instant.

—I fell asleep against a hollow trunk. Not because I wanted to, but because the body stopped obeying. I dreamed. I dreamed of home. Of her. Of a table, warm bread, the smell of clean ground… and when she turned around, she had no face. It was me.

The Dojo's breathing seemed to halt.

—I woke into another dream —he said—. One inside the other. My friends were there. They played, laughed. But they didn't look at me. When one held out a hand to me, he dissolved. Like wet clay. The bones hit the ground without sound.

He paused briefly, almost imperceptibly.

—The forest learned what you feared and used it. It didn't show monsters. It showed memory. It showed rotten love. Each dream made me forget a name. Each awakening tore away another piece.

His red eyes reflected the moon without shine.

—And then it told me something —he added—. "You are not you." That phrase slid through my ears, through my skin. It began to germinate. As if a root were growing inside my skull. It didn't hurt. It just confused. One day I woke up and no longer remembered who I was. I didn't know if I was breathing or only imitating the act.

Selena tilted her head slightly.

—The forest erased your identity to replace it with function —she said, without raising her voice.

—Exactly —Sebastián replied—. And I functioned.

The phrase fell like a stone into still water.

—The roots spoke to me without words. They taught me to move without sound, to kill without leaving a shadow, to exist without taking up space. My body became a tool. My eyes stopped seeking light. My skin stopped smelling human. The forest made me invisible—even to myself.

The memories surfaced without emotion, like records.

—Climbing was living. Falling meant vanishing. It forced me to do it until I stopped fearing height, until I understood that fear was a way of still being someone. I no longer was. Then, it taught me not to breathe. To absorb the air, to let my skin drink for me. I learned to hunt inside the fog.

The tone of his voice didn't change, but the air around him seemed heavier.

—The forest didn't punish with pain —he continued—. It punished with forgetting. If you failed, it didn't hurt; it simply erased you. That's why I couldn't make mistakes. Every error meant disappearing a little more.

His gaze drifted for a second to the wood of the floor.

—I spent so long without thinking that the body began to do it on its own. I walked, breathed, hunted. I didn't know if I was still me. And then… something fell in front of me.

The pause was minimal. Selena didn't move a muscle.

—A bracelet —he said, in a low voice—. Red. Small. Broken. It was mine. I didn't remember why, but when I saw it, my chest burned. Not with pain… with memory.

A heavy silence followed.

—I touched it. The forest stopped. I felt something I wasn't supposed to feel: doubt. The forest didn't understand doubt. Neither did I. But for a moment… I was human.

Selena slowly closed her eyelids, listening to every word.

—The forest roared —Sebastián continued—. Not with sound. With internal fury. It blinded me. Trapped me inside my own head. Tried to rip out my memory, to punish hesitation. It showed me my mother turning her back on me, my friends melting away. It forced me to forget every name I had ever loved.

His breathing became slower, controlled.

—But then… —a shadow crossed his face— …another voice spoke. It wasn't from the forest. It was the one that had been with me from the beginning. The one that hadn't let me die the first time.

—The same that said "don't die," —Selena deduced.

—Yes —he confirmed—. It said, "remember it." And the forest, for the first time, hesitated. Only for an instant. But it was enough.

The light from the brazier reflected in Sebastián's eyes like a red wound.

—I opened my eyes. I had two silences inside me —he said—. The forest's… and my own.

He fell silent for a few seconds.

—Mine was deeper.

Selena didn't speak. The air had become so thick that any word would have been a profanation.

—I didn't complete the mission —he continued—. The forest punished me. It pressed me until my body became another root. It forced me to forget what I had felt. But the punishment left something. A crack.

His hands, still on his knees, slowly closed.

—Every time I thought about the bracelet, the forest twisted. As if that simple string of thread could shatter its order. It didn't. But it unsettled it. And that was enough.

He lifted his gaze toward her.

—The forest wanted an instrument. And it had one. But it also had an error. The seed it planted… wasn't its own. It was mine.

Selena held his gaze. There was no judgment, no empathy—only calculation.

—The forest thought it was molding you —she said—. But what it really did was give you structure.

—Exactly —Sebastián nodded—. It taught me to be inevitable. Even to it.

The phrase hung in the air without echo. The moon moved slowly, drawing shadows that crossed both their faces.

—After that —he added—, the forest fell silent. It never spoke again. It only left me its silence. I walked for what could have been centuries. It no longer hurt. I no longer feared. But inside me, that spark… remained. Not light. Fire. And that fire wasn't its own.

Selena lowered her gaze slightly, and her voice, when it came, was precise.

—Then the forest was your teacher, but not your master.

—It was my reflection —he corrected—. It showed me what happens when strength forgets its purpose. It taught me that even the void can have will.

A long silence followed. The wind slipped through a crack and extinguished what little fire remained.

—And that made you what you are —Selena murmured.

Sebastián didn't answer. The Dojo's shadow covered him up to the neck. Only his red eyes remained lit.

—No —he said at last—. It showed me what I am not yet.

The air vibrated with those words. It wasn't pride, nor threat. It was certainty.

Selena gave a faint nod.

—Then the seed is still alive.

—Yes —Sebastián replied, with the calm of one who no longer needs hope—. And it will keep growing. Even if I have to tear myself out by the root to make sure it doesn't stop.

The silence that followed wasn't empty. It was acceptance. Outside, the real forest—the one surrounding the Dojo—seemed to lean ever so slightly, as if listening to its own story told by another.

And for an instant, the moon seemed to waver between light and shadow.

Sebastián kept his gaze lowered for a long while. The brazier's embers had lost their glow, but the heat was still trapped within the stone. At his side, Selena remained motionless, watching without interrupting, as if the very air depended on his next breath.

—After that —he said, in a voice that didn't tremble, yet no longer entirely belonged to this world—, the forest stopped being a prison. It became flesh. I moved because it wanted. I breathed when it needed. I was its extension. And yet, the crack kept beating.

His tone was flat, without drama, but every word carried the weight of the irreparable.

—The forest thought it owned me —he went on—. But inside, something moved differently. It wasn't rebellion. It was noise. A laugh. Soft. Childlike. And the forest had no laughter.

The memory hung sharp in the air.

—That laugh was the first error that wasn't mine. The sound broke my stride. A branch cracked. The forest felt it. It punished the doubt. Tried to smother it inside my thoughts. It wanted to erase the name that had survived its hunger.

—And did it? —Selena asked, without softness.

Sebastián shook his head slowly.

—No. Because the punishment only made the crack deeper. That was when I saw her.

There was no emotion in his voice, but the air tightened around the words.

—She was different. Red. Fissured. With bones jutting from her back and a chest that beat out of rhythm with the forest. She moved on four limbs but rose upright when she wished. She wasn't prey or threat. She was a question.

His red eyes narrowed slightly, remembering.

—The forest gave the order: eliminate. But my hands didn't obey. They couldn't. Because she wasn't part of it. She was like me.

Selena observed him in silence.

—When I saw her —he continued—, I felt something I hadn't known since before the forest. Recognition. Not of face, not of form—of essence. As if something that had died inside me began to beat again.

The air grew denser.

—She came closer. Didn't speak. Didn't roar. She only looked at me. And in that silence I knew we were the same: conscious errors in a world that does not forgive cracks.

His words moved forward without pause, without unnecessary breath, as if the story belonged to him as much as the scar on his chest.

—The forest reacted. It tried to erase the connection. It sent commands. It screamed inside my bones. But it no longer owned my body. When the shadows attacked, I didn't fight out of obedience. I fought for something else.

The glow in his eyes wasn't fire—it was pure memory.

—She moved with me —he said—. We hadn't trained. We hadn't agreed. But the battle was a dance. The creatures of the forest were rotted reflections of what once was human. They surrounded us, trying to seal the crack. But every strike was rhythm. Every death, breath. We didn't kill to survive. We killed to affirm that we existed outside control.

Selena listened without blinking. Her face remained serene, but the faint movement of her throat betrayed the tension of one who understood the magnitude of what she was hearing.

—The forest broke —Sebastián said, his tone unchanged—. It didn't scream. It didn't roar. It sank. The creature was dragged by the fissure it opened. I tried to reach her, but the earth swallowed her. And I was left alone.

There was silence—heavier than the night.

—That solitude wasn't punishment —he added—. It was method. The forest tried to replace her. It showed me her copy. It gave her back to me empty, obedient. And for the first time, I felt fear. Not for her. For me. Because I understood the forest couldn't create—it could only imitate.

His breathing deepened.

—Then the voice returned. The one that wasn't of the forest. The one that had spoken between dreams. "It's not her," it said. And as it spoke, everything collapsed. The copy dissolved into black ash. And she came back. Not from below. Not from outside. She simply… was again.

The pause was minimal, but within it the echo of centuries could be felt.

—From that day —he went on— the forest stopped punishing. It watched us. Studied us. Every movement was recorded. Every silence, measured. We ate quietly. Slept apart. Later, closer. Not out of love. Out of recognition.

The brazier's embers crackled, small sparks like replies to the story.

—We built a refuge —he said—. Not a home. A protected crack. We learned to survive within the forest without belonging to it. The creature hunted; I buried what we didn't eat. She roared to calm it, and I slept when I could. No pacts. No promises. Only presence.

Selena maintained her posture. There was no surprise on her face, only restrained understanding.

—One night —Sebastián continued—, the forest brought something new. My reflection. Not a shadow. Me. But without a crack. Without doubt. Perfect in obedience.

His voice came out lower.

—It looked at me. Didn't speak. Didn't need to. I understood. It wasn't punishment. It was coronation. The forest no longer wanted to destroy the error. It wanted to replace it.

Sebastián's fingers tightened against the stone floor, unnoticed.

—I fought it —he said—. My body was fury. His, precision. Rage crashed against logic. I fell. I rose. Every strike was a mirror. Every fall, a lesson. And the forest spoke in my mind: "see how you fail, see how you endure."

His voice turned into a rough murmur.

—And I endured. Not because I believed I could win. Because I needed it to bleed.

A spark crossed his eyes.

—I tore open his chest —he said, almost in a breath—. I saw his heart. Perfect. Without cracks. I ripped it out. And I devoured it. Not out of hunger. Out of justice.

The silence of the Dojo thickened. Selena did not judge him. She made no gesture.

—Afterward, I found my own —he continued—. It was still beating. Wrapped in thorns. I pressed it against the one I had taken. They fused. The pain was everything. The roots pierced through me. And when I woke… I was no longer myself. Neither human. Nor instrument. Something in between.

The tone of his voice shifted, as if each word reopened old scars.

—She found me. Smelled me. Heard my new heartbeat. And understood it. She didn't fear me. Because the forest no longer had power over either of us.

His eyes lifted. The fire's shadow turned them into two glowing embers.

—I left the forest —he said—. Not because I wanted freedom. Because there were no more chains left to cut. Only the path. The mountains awaited. And in my chest… a heart of black thorns.

Selena watched him a moment longer. Her breath barely perceptible.

—Then the forest lost —she murmured.

Sebastián shook his head.

—The forest doesn't lose. It transforms. It made me its reflection and ended up revealing me. Everything it wanted to erase still beats within me.

Silence surrounded them. The cold air slid through the Dojo like a reminder that outside, the world still existed.

—The voice spoke to me before I left —he said at last—. It said I was turning seven.

—Seven —Selena repeated, almost to herself—. The cycle from birth to judgment.

Sebastián nodded.

—I told it that it no longer mattered. That the child was dead. It asked who I was now. And I answered with the only truth that remained.

—What did you say? —she asked, though she already knew.

—That there were scars. And fire.

The echo of his words lingered in the air as if they didn't belong to any language.

—Then she appeared —he added calmly—. The figure. Draila. The forest itself with a human face. She spoke to me of the mountains. Told me that there, the body screams what the mind denies. That there the child ends. And what knows how to devour begins.

Moonlight traced lines across the stone.

—I went —he said—. Without looking back. Without fear. Because there was nothing left that could stop me.

Selena didn't respond. There was nothing to add. Her precise gaze held him for a few seconds longer before lowering to the ground, where the brazier's shadows stretched like dead roots.

—And now —she finally said—, what are you?

Sebastián looked at her. There was no doubt in his eyes.

—I am what the forest feared to sow —he answered—. I am the crack that learned to beat.

The silence did not end with Sebastián's words; it remained suspended between them like a breath no one dared to release. The brazier's fire cast shadows that seemed to study each other, swaying with the slowness of thought. Selena didn't speak. There was no urgency to. The story had just left a mark that still weighed in the air, and any sound that dared to break it would have been an impertinence. Sebastián kept his gaze low, eyes fixed on the stone floor, as if he still saw the forest within its cracks. His breathing was constant, precise, almost measured. There was no tremor, no trace of pain. Only the calm of one who no longer carries, but remembers.

Selena watched. It was her way of listening when silence revealed more than voice. She didn't analyze Sebastián's words as a story; she dissected them as structure. Every phrase, every pause, every name—the creature, the forest, the crack, the heart—formed a logical sequence, a process she tried to understand beyond emotion. She didn't see a man who had survived; she saw the result of an equation that had transcended its own limits.

Selena's mind worked like a blade: reviewing details, classifying symptoms, tracing correspondences between the human and the impossible. She didn't wonder what Sebastián had felt inside the forest. She wondered what had kept him alive.

When she finally spoke, her voice was low, almost an articulated thought.

—You mentioned a bracelet —she said, unadorned—. The one you wore as a child. Where is it now?

Sebastián slowly lifted his gaze. He didn't seem surprised by the question. His hand moved with the natural precision of a learned gesture. The red ring on his finger—the one that rarely shone—glimmered with a faint pulse, barely perceptible. From within it, a thread of scarlet light expanded and vanished instantly, leaving upon his palm a small object: an old bracelet, worn, stained with dried blood. The threads were twisted, some nearly undone, yet the shape remained.

—I've always kept it here —he said quietly—. In every battle, in every journey. I couldn't let it break, so I stored it where time can't reach.

Selena didn't move. She only watched him.

—So you still keep it.

—Yes —he replied—. Not out of attachment. It doesn't bind me anymore. But it's a memory. And memories, even when they're ash, still have form.

The brazier crackled with a hollow sound. The fire's reflection slid over the bracelet, making the dark stains that once were living blood gleam for an instant. Sebastián put it back into the ring with the same exact gesture, like someone returning a part of himself to its place.

—You'll understand —he said without looking at her—. When you hear what comes next.

Selena held the silence a few seconds longer. Her mind didn't stop. If the bracelet still existed, it meant the child who once wore it still had presence, even as residue. And if that residue survived, then the forest hadn't fully consumed his origin. The logic was clear: the crack hadn't destroyed his identity—it had rewritten it.

—And the forest? —she asked finally, her voice low—. Is it still inside you?

Sebastián shook his head slowly. —No. It's not inside anymore. Only I remain.

The words fell with a contained weight, without dramatization, as if stating a physical fact. Selena analyzed the response with the precision of someone assessing a healed fracture. "Only I remain." It didn't mean emptiness. It meant absorption. What had been the forest was now part of his nature. It didn't coexist. He had devoured it—or integrated it—and that was far more dangerous.

—And the heart of thorns? —she added, in a tone almost clinical—. What does it feel like to carry it?

Sebastián didn't hesitate. —It doesn't. It became so natural I forgot it was there. It doesn't beat differently. It simply is.

Selena tilted her head slightly—not a human gesture, but one of mental calibration. What she had just heard was crucial. The absence of sensation meant total adaptation. No rejection, no pain, no duality. Sebastián was no longer a bearer; he was the living form of what once dominated him.

And yet, the presence of the bracelet signified that something of his original identity persisted, even if it no longer held emotional purpose. It was a paradox: the endurance of a symbol in a being who had already transcended all need for symbols.

Selena didn't say it. But she thought that paradox was what kept him human.

The air inside the Dojo began to move again. Outside, the wind struck the hanging lanterns, and the flame in the brazier flickered as if it had heard something it wasn't meant to. Sebastián wasn't looking at her; his eyes were fixed on the darkness beyond the doorway, as though he could still hear the echoes of that forest.

Selena, on the other hand, studied the man before her and understood that the story wasn't over. What he had told her was only the root. What would come next would be the growth of what the forest had failed to erase.

She leaned forward slightly, without losing the rigidity of her posture.

—Then continue —she said, with that calm that could be mistaken for coldness—. I want to understand what you did after leaving that forest behind.

Sebastián didn't answer right away. He opened and closed his hand slowly, as if he could still feel the pulse of roots beneath his skin. The faint glow of the ring had vanished completely.

—You'll understand —he repeated, in a low voice—. But not with the mind.

Selena kept her gaze fixed, unblinking. She didn't believe in revelations—only in logic. Yet for the first time, something inside her shifted. A different kind of curiosity, deeper, less rational. Not because she wanted to know, but because she wanted to verify.

The Dojo breathed with them. And silence sealed itself again—like an unspoken promise.

END OF CHAPTER 48

The path continues…

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