The echo of the voices vanished, leaving Haruto immersed in an even deeper silence. The last phrase resonated in his mind, an unanswered question that seemed to vibrate the fiber of his being: "¿Were you waiting?". "¿Who was expecting me?" And why did the sensation of that dark world feel so familiar, like a common or even longed-for place?
Haruto stood up, his body moving with a precise mechanics, each articulation executing its function with a cold efficiency and calculation. There was no tremor in his hands, no acceleration in his pulse. Fear, anxiety, confusion… mere mental constructions, data that processed without real feeling. His objective was clear: to reach the source of the intense light that stood out in the blackness of the planet.
The "light," as he had discovered, was not a celestial body, but a radiance emanating from a component structure. As he approached, the strangeness of the planet intensified. They were metallic trees that rose like twisted centipedes, their root-cables snaking across the ground, and their rough barks shone with veins of an unknown mineral. It was a world that defied all logic, where the organic and the mechanical intertwined in forms that his mind struggled to classify.
The structure stood before him, an impossible geometric tower, with surfaces that seemed to change color and symbols engraved on them that pulsed with an unsettling energy. There were no visible openings, no windows, only a smooth and impenetrable surface that reflected the pale light of the alien sky.
Haruto stopped a few meters away, analyzing the structure with his mental calculator. There was no fear in his mind, or so a nascent sensation of… recognition. The symbols engraved on the surface were strangely familiar, echoes of the fragmented words that had tormented him since his infancy. It was as if he were deciphering an unknown language inscribed in his own mind.
He extended his hand and touched the smooth surface. Instantly, the symbols illuminated, and a wave of energy ran through his body. He felt no pain, no heat, only a strange resonance, as if something within him vibrated in harmony with the structure, awakening a long-forgotten lethargy.
A section of the wall vanished without warning, revealing a dark entrance. No light shone inside, only a blackness that seemed to swallow any trace of it. A voice resonated in his mind, but not as a sound, but as an intrusive, clear, and distinct thought.
—We were waiting for you.
The lack of caress and emotion, but a sensation of certainty, of inevitability, as if the encounter was predestined.
Haruto took a step forward and crossed the threshold. As he did so, the light of his suit activated automatically, projecting a white and brilliant glow that scraped away the darkness. What extended before him was not a simple corridor, but an architectural anomaly, a labyrinth of impossible angles and surfaces that defied gravity.
The smooth walls pulsed, as if they were alive, and the symbols engraved on their surface shone and faded in random sequences, creating a metallic and humid spectacle that nauseated the senses. Haruto smelled an oily odor in the background, and a dull, rumbling sound vibrated in the depths, like the heartbeat of a colossal heart.
Haruto advanced methodically, his mind registering every detail, searching for patterns, trying to find order in the chaos. However, logic seemed to fail within the structure. Distances warped, sounds multiplied and reverberated, and his perception of time became erratic, with seconds stretching into eternity and minutes disappearing in the blink of an eye.
The voice resonated anew in his mind, more urgent and firm this time.
—Closer, Haruto. Come to me.
Haruto felt a subtle pressure in his mind, a force that impelled him to move forward, to delve deeper into the labyrinth. At the same time, a sensation of unease grew within him, a silent alarm that warned of danger.
The walls of the narrow corridor vibrated slightly beneath his steps. Haruto advanced, alert, registering every anomaly. The ground was not flat. It was composed of overlapping metallic plates, with oxidized edges, as well as soft bulges that exhaled a warm and pungent vapor. As he stepped on them, they hissed, as if complaining about his weight.
The deep, rumbling sound oscillated, emitting low-frequency waves and acute sounds that caused a slight pressure in his ears. Haruto maintained his steady rhythm, but something had changed. The environment no longer seemed simply a structure. It was an organism, and he… an intruder within it.
Then he felt it.
A change in the vibration of the air. An almost imperceptible fluctuation.
Haruto stopped. His frontal light swept the corridor, revealing impossible geometries that overlapped with a dull sheen. There was no movement. Only living architecture.
But as he turned… a fleeting shadow grazed the edge of his vision. Then another. And another.
There were no optical illusions. There was something else in this labyrinth. Something that moved without being seen.
He began to walk faster.
His pulse remained constant, but his breathing became more shallow. The shadows dragged themselves along the walls like liquid stains, following a pattern that defied logic.
A sharp, metallic sound resonated in the distance, like knives scratching steel.
Haruto quickened his pace.
With every meter he advanced, the corridor subtly changed its form, closing in, deforming itself. The plates on the floor scraped. The lights on his suit flickered with each step. Behind him, something began to strike the ground with a growing rhythm. It was like a hundred scuttling legs and sharp edges touching the surface in perfect synchronicity.
He didn't dare to look back.
But he knew they were following him.
The corridor bifurcated. Haruto turned left without hesitating, now running. His breathing hit the interior of the suit, the sound amplified by the oppressive silence of the surroundings.
A figure materialized briefly at the end of the corridor. Tall. Irregular. It walked as if floating, but each step produced a dry impact against the floor.
Haruto stopped short.
The figure had no face. Its body seemed woven from dense shadows, like an amalgam of solid smoke. It didn't attack. It only observed him. Then, it vanished.
But he was not alone.
The shadows multiplied. Some slid across the ceiling. Others along the walls. Their light did not frighten him. It seemed sentient. To recognize him. To surround him.
Haruto calculated his surroundings. He had no weapons. He had no clear exit.
The humming grew in intensity.
A growing pressure began to form in his mind, like a silent migraine.
Haruto ran.
The passage trembled with the vibration of the creatures moving behind him. A shadow descended from the ceiling, touched his shoulder briefly, tearing his suit superficially. He looked back. He lost it.
He didn't know it, but they were watching him. Evaluating him.
Every step he took, every reaction, was part of something bigger.
Everything was about to begin.
His steps resonated with more force, muffled by the growing hum of the passage. The shadows had stopped following him, or perhaps they simply hid in the new, waiting darkness.
The pressure in his mind changed shape. It was no longer just a threat. It was a direction.
A coordinated order imprinted in his thought.
—"Come here."
The voice was not human, nor did it possess any artificial timbre. It had no gender. It was a vector. A direct instruction incrusted in his nervous impulses.
Haruto followed it.
He didn't trust it, nor did he have any certainty. He followed it because his body knew no other thing to do. Because his mind, programmed to ignore useless emotions, now faced something that he didn't understand at all.
A knot in his chest. A stiffness in the muscles of his neck. A constant electricity in the skin of his arms.
He stopped for an instant, analyzing those sensations.
—No… —he murmured, but his voice was muffled by the helmet.
It was a known pattern. He had read about it. He had studied it in simulations of human behavior.
Mild tachycardia. Increased muscle tension. Irregular breathing.
Everything pointed to the same thing.
Fear.
But he didn't understand it as such. For Haruto, it was a new set of variables that he couldn't classify. His internal database had no emotional label that he could apply without doubting. He only knew that he had to keep walking.
And so he did.
Corridor after corridor, the architecture transformed. The angles were tighter, the symbols on the walls shone with a tenuous light, as if observing him. Some surfaces opened and closed in response to his step, breathing slowly.
Haruto quickened his pace. No rush. No danger. By impulse. By an internal signal that intensified with each meter traveled.
—"You are close."
The voice returned, this time lower. More intimate. It was as if it no longer spoke to him from outside, but from within.
Haruto closed his eyes for an instant.
And he saw it.
An image that was not there: a circular room, a light source in the center, something suspended… palpitating.
He opened his eyes.
Nothing.
He was still in the corridor, but the memory of the false vision impelled him to move. Not running logically, but out of instinct. For the first time in his life, he didn't want to remain still.
He didn't want them to catch him.
He didn't want them to reach him.
And knowing it, Haruto —he who could not name his emotions— was feeling something profoundly human.
And the planet knew it.
Haruto stopped abruptly as he saw how a shadow once again lunged towards him.
The impact never came.
Instead, the creature slid in front of him, scraping the metallic floor with violence. The blades of its extremities tore sparks and left deep marks centimeters from his feet.
Another shadow fell behind him, cutting off his retreat.
A third blocked his side.
He was surrounded.
They didn't move as before. They were no longer ethereal or silent. Now they were abrupt, unstable, almost rabid. Their trembling extremities. Their shapes distorted with each step, as if they were made of flesh and smoke in equivocal proportions.
Haruto stepped back. Another.
Then he heard it.
Not a voice. Many. Too many.
As if the planet spoke to him from every corner at once, hundreds, thousands of echoes without form whispered with clumsiness:
—"No…"
—"Stop…"
—"Back…"
—"Behind…"
—"No crossing…"
—"Danger…"
—"Error…"
They were chaotic, unstable, like a broken system trying to emit a coherent signal but only generating emotional distortion. The words were not clear. The frenetic intention, impeding.
But above all that… the other voice.
Alone. Serene. Perfectly focused.
—"Ven."
Haruto felt the internal pull.
That was the true direction.
The creatures reacted instantly. One lunged at him, its blade descending not towards his body, but towards the ground, to block his path.
He didn't think about it.
He ran.
The shadows lunged from behind, screeching at frequencies that tore at his inner ear. The corridor trembled. Walls deformed, structures collapsed behind him.
And then, the room.
A circular opening. A dark threshold. Haruto crossed it without hesitation.
The doors closed.
With a blow.
With a rough metallic sound.
The blows began from the other side immediately. The creatures, furious, trying to enter. Their cries were not sounds: they were collapsing feelings. Confusion. Panic. Warning.
But it was too late.
Haruto was inside.
The doors closed behind him with a dry, mechanical thud.
The guttural cries beat against the inside from the other side. The metal vibrated, the air trembled with each impact.
It was not the planet that saved him.
It was the room.
Or rather… something inside it.
Haruto remained still. Analyzing.
There was no exit. The structure was closed, oppressive, as if it had been designed to seal itself completely once he was inside. But it was not a trap.
It was an encounter.
And then, he saw it.
In the center.
Suspended by a red network of cables and biomechanical structures that throbbed like living veins, floated a black body, viscous, shapeless, with pulses of blue and red light on its surface. Its surface contracted slowly, as if breathing. It had no eyes, no face, no defined form… but it was alive.
And Haruto felt it.
A wave of emotional energy struck him, without words, without sounds. Pure intention.
—"I have been waiting for you for centuries."
The mass trembled. The entire environment seemed to lean towards it. It was not just a presence. It was a will.
Haruto gave a step. The humming of his suit intensified. His sensors began to fail.
Another emotional discharge pierced his chest:
urgency, exhaustion, desire, obsession.
—"It will not remain closed for long."
The being did not completely control the room. He had only managed, by instinct or force, to seal it upon Haruto's arrival.
The blows from outside intensified.
The creatures wanted to enter.
And the being… wanted to leave.
—"Who are you?" —Haruto asked.
The substance stirred, vibrating as if its response were a shapeless whisper.
—"I am your destiny."
—"Your arrival is the culmination of everything."
—"Without you, I remain incomplete. Enclosed."
Haruto took a step back. The noise outside was deafening. The structure already showed fracture lines.
But deep down, a part of him wanted to understand it.
Not by emotion. By logic.
Why him?
Why now?
The creature responded without him asking:
—"Your genes are the key."
—"Your existence, my awakening."
—"What you forgot, I remember."
Haruto took a deep breath. His body trembled. He didn't know if it was from external pressure… or something moving inside him.
—"What do you want from me?"
—"That you free me."
The voice had no weight… but it left a crack floating in his mind.
Haruto lowered his gaze. The nucleus continued floating, throbbing slowly, as if breathing inside its translucent prison. The substance within stirred subtly, expectant, like a being containing centuries on the verge of a sigh.
—"I cannot do it. I don't know who you are."
—"You know it. No words. But you know it."
—"I cannot leave… without your permission."
Haruto felt his pulse accelerate. Not from fear—at least not one he could identify—, but from the certainty that what he had before him was not a simple enclosed entity, but something alive. Ancient. Linked to him in a way that defied all logic.
—"I am here because you allowed it."
—"But I am still trapped… because you doubt."
The nucleus pulsed once more. Upon doing so, a wave of soft energy swept through the room, and for an instant, Haruto felt as if the air trembled. There was no threat. Only waiting.
—"And if I free you… what will happen to me?"
Silence.
Then, the voice returned, lower. More intimate.
—"Nothing… that has not already begun."
—"The key never ceases to be the key… to open the door."
Haruto closed his eyes. And for the first time, he saw no symbols, no visions, no borrowed memories.
He saw his reflection.
Alone. Different.
More complete.
More empty.
He didn't understand what he felt. He didn't know if it was his own will or a inherited echo of someone who had been him. The only clear thing was that word, that invitation that did not cease to repeat itself in his interior:
Free me.
He took a step forward. Then another.
His hand rose. Not by decision… but by impulse.
The surface of the nucleus shone upon feeling him near. It offered no resistance. It only waited.
Haruto rested his fingers on the surface with gentleness.
And he spoke.
—"I allow you to leave."
The sphere did not explode.
It only dissolved… as if it had never been there.
A dark mist emerged. It rose before him.
He did not touch it.
He only observed it.
And then, a last word crossed his mind. Brief. Warm.
—Gracias.
And it was enough.
The being shot towards his face like a living wave. In thousandths of a second, the filaments struck the visor of his helmet… right where before there had been a barely visible fissure. A forgotten scar in the crystal.
The pressure was not violent. It was precise.
The helmet resisted.
It cracked with a muffled crunch, like a badly contained sigh. The glass splintered from within, and a jet of liquid mist slid through the opening as if it already knew the way.
But he did not fall.
His body shuddered as if something inside ignited. The lights of his suit flickered erratically, his breathing became erratic. Then… deeper. More alien.
His pupils dilated. His gaze was lost.
And in the silence that followed, the fragments of the visor fell to the biomechanical floor.
One by one.
And then, without warning… his eyes opened.
But they were not completely his own.