**POV: Nael**
She looked at me, silent, waiting for a reaction. She said nothing, but her eyes, a little weary, searched for something in me. It seemed like she was looking for a response, perhaps a reaction of anger, fear, or despair. I could see the tremor in her fingers, trying to hold on, but the anxiety was visible, almost palpable. It was impossible not to notice the nervousness that had taken over her, but it did not affect me.
I had been deceived. All of this seemed like a mixture of hatred and love, a whirlwind of emotions that she tried to hide. I could no longer feel anything. It was as if, over time, I had learned to control and hide all my feelings, as if they were toys I could manipulate. As a child, I couldn't feel what she felt. Love, hatred, sadness, joy… They all seemed like distant things, and I no longer knew how to connect with those emotions.
She spoke, now more nervous: "Say something." With each second I remained silent, her anxiety grew. It was as if she expected an explosion of feelings, but I wasn't there to give that to her. I didn't hate her, but I also no longer felt love. I felt nothing. I had learned to control my emotions so well that it became difficult to even understand what was real.
"You can scream, ask me why I left. You can say whatever you want, but I don't know what you expect to hear. I just… don't care."
She looked at me, visibly hurt. For a moment, I almost felt pity, but that feeling quickly disappeared. I was a killer; I couldn't let that influence me. When she spoke, I realized something. I wasn't the only one who had suffered from our separation. She had too. But that changed nothing. It didn't give me the right to abandon myself that night, in that alley. It didn't give me the right to give up.
I could analyze everything around me, but I couldn't feel. Reading the emotions of others had become a skill that allowed me to understand everything, except myself. Emotions were chemical reactions. I knew that when someone smiled or got nervous, it had to do with dopamine, with physical reactions that couldn't be feigned. I could pretend, but I could never simulate what she felt at that moment.
"I can't forgive what you did. But…" I took a deep breath, trying to understand what I truly felt. "But that doesn't mean I don't miss what we had."
She seemed confused. "Why?" she asked, her eyes sad.
I didn't know what she expected from me. I looked at her without blinking, without changing my expression. I didn't like to give explanations, much less repeat words. She tried to calm herself, seeking an answer. I remained silent, looking at her.
"Please," she said, trying to compose herself. "Stay calm. Let me explain. Just give me a moment."
She took a chair and sat beside me, grabbing a glass of water. I drank slowly as she began to speak, her words blending with her own feelings.
---
**POV: Celestia**
He was there, sleeping, and I watched him with a pain I never imagined I could feel. Elyon. My son. I searched for him so much when he was a child, but he never searched for me. He knew he was being watched, so he distanced himself, but now he was there, before me, older, stronger, yet with the same eyes. Those eyes… they still reflected something I couldn't understand. An abyss of colors, like a northern light, but denser, darker. He was no longer the pure child I once knew, and I knew that. But still, he was my son. The only son I could never forget.
But there was so much behind that, so much suffering, so much pain. I didn't want to just look at him now and see the man he had become. I wanted to go back to the time when he was that curious boy, the perfection of innocence, where the world hadn't destroyed him yet. Where he loved me, where there was only the two of us. But destiny was never kind to me.
I lived in solitude for so long. When I was a fragile woman, trying to find myself in this immense and cruel world, destiny made me face something I could never forget. When I was just 18, I was brutally raped by someone from an American mafia. They took me and destroyed me, and it was at that moment that my world turned upside down. I no longer knew who I was; I only knew I wanted to survive. I was just a girl, a teenager with dreams, forced to become a woman amid a filthy war. I was alone. Alone with the pain and fear.
It was then that I discovered something even more terrible: my father. One of the advisors of the American mafia. That man, whom I didn't know, that man who betrayed me in a way I couldn't comprehend. He was killed, decapitated, and his family destroyed. I almost died that day, but something inside me made me survive. I was pregnant, and that child inside me, against my will, became my salvation. The child of a mafia advisor, and I, the daughter of a treacherous man. I already knew my life would never be the same again.
I didn't want the child, didn't want the burden, but something inside me wouldn't let her go. I didn't want to follow that path, but something deep down told me I had no other choice. The mafia's child would be my destiny. And so Nayara was born. A child that no one wanted, a child that was not planned, but was mine. She seemed so pure, but the world around her was never kind. Nayara's father, the mafia man, left me alone, like a ghost. He had a wife and a son, but destiny brought me to him, and I was left alone, with a daughter I didn't know how to protect. He never cared about her.
But I survived. I built my company, alone, out of pain, rage, and fear. I moved forward. I developed technology, created an empire. The pain of my life shaped me into someone stronger, something that no one could destroy. But still, the weight of the past was always with me, always following me, crushing me. I created the largest information collection organization in the world, my second source of power. I did what I could to survive, to protect myself and Nayara. But never, at any moment, could I escape what I had lost.
What happened to Nayara haunts me to this day. When she was 2 years old, the mafia father threatened her, and I had no choice but to give in. They wanted me to launder the family's money, to make me part of that filthy system, and worst of all: they threatened to take my daughter away if I didn't comply. They knew that my weakness was her. So, in a desperate act, I sought out an assassin organization to protect her. They promised they would take care of her, and I financed them. But in doing so, I lost her. I left my daughter with them. I let Nayara be trained to protect herself because I didn't know what else to do. When she turned 12, she would return to me. But I never saw my daughter again. Never.
And yet, the weight of guilt never left me. When she disappeared, I was lost. I was forced to create a facade of coldness, of indifference. I was forced to fight, to protect myself, to create more and more lies. And then, Elyon was born. He was different from everything I expected. Dark chocolate skin, with hair as white as snow, a mixture of contrasts that made him unique, but at the same time… unacceptable. He didn't fit in. But I loved him. He was my redemption, my only link with what was left of me. And as I watched him grow, I saw perfection, that insatiable curiosity for life, for truth, for the world. I taught him, and he learned everything quickly. It was as if time was in his favor, but nothing was. Nothing was. Because deep down, he too was a victim of my past, a victim of the cruel fate I had accepted.
The day the organization found out about him was the worst day of my life. When they learned of his existence, I knew I could no longer hide the truth. Elyon was the last part of me that was still alive, but I knew he could never be free. They took him from me. He was ripped from my life, and the pain was like a sharp blade, cutting through me from the inside. And now, before him, he was there, so distant, so indifferent. I prepared so much for this moment, but he didn't look at me with anger, didn't look at me with hatred. He looked at me as if I were nothing. As if I were just a shadow, a distant memory that meant nothing.
"SPEAK," he demanded, and I realized how much I had failed. He was empty, and so was I. And that indifference, that lack of emotion, destroyed me more than any scream, more than any tear. He didn't hate me, but he didn't love me either. He felt nothing. And that was the end of me.
**POV: Nael**
I watched her, lost in her thoughts, completely immersed in the memories that consumed her. There was something that didn't need to be known; I didn't want to know what tormented her. What mattered at that moment was what she was willing to say, what she still had to offer. I was there not because I wanted to be, but because life had placed me in this reflective spot, this crossroad between who I was and what I could still be.
She broke the silence with a desperate plea, words rushing from her lips:
"Speak, son... You know, I never left that house. I never left that time. I've always been there; not physically, but everything of mine, everything right, I lived in that house until now. You know, if I could choose, I would go back in time and change the future. I wouldn't change anything. I know that at that time, I didn't have the strength to keep you safe. I don't expect you to forgive me or to understand me. I just hope you let me be a part of your life again. Let me fix everything I ruined. Let me be the mother you should have had all this time. All I ask is to be a part of your life again."
She said this with an intensity that almost overflowed, nervous and hopeless, as if her words were the last attempt to repair what she believed she had lost.
I took a deep breath, my cold eyes, without expression, staring at her. Then I asked her, just to see her reaction:
"And if I don't want to?" The question seemed simple, but the tension in the air thickened. I wanted to see what she would do with this denial.
She responded with a fixed gaze, without hesitation, more serious than ever. "Even if you deny it, no one will separate me from myself. Not you, not me. Even if you hate me, I will never let you go again. This is serious, Nael. I found you a bit cute, you know? It's good to see that there are still people who, when they watch others for a long time, end up becoming something that others fear. But for you, there's still something. I would go through hell for you."
I didn't respond immediately. "Okay," I said, just to move on. The silence between us weighed heavily, but she seemed so desperate to try to recover something I had already lost long ago.
"Will you say something?" she asked, visibly nervous.
I stared at her, a thread of coldness in my voice: "I can't move my legs. Does that mean I'll be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life? I need someone to serve as my legs now," I said, as if that loss were irreversible, as if she were just part of a weight I couldn't carry alone.
I was aware of my fragility, but at the same time, I wouldn't let that distract me from my focus. I was willing to move on, even if it meant a greater sacrifice. As for my sister, I didn't hate her. I held no grudge. I knew she was just doing what she had been trained to do, that she was neither better nor worse than me. She was still a shadow of what I could have been, but that didn't change the fact that she was there, still connected to me in some way. Something deep that, deep down, I knew would never disappear. She felt, in some way, a bond of blood. Perhaps that was what she never wanted to admit.
The surprise in her eyes was evident when she exclaimed. I didn't want any more drama, didn't want any more confusion. I just accepted things as they were.
We spent a few days together until we went to another house. In fact, this place felt more like a fortress than an ordinary home. There, I met other people: the girls and Eric. He and I, perhaps simply because we were both men, got along quickly, without much fuss. Jenny was the one who caught my attention the most. I recognized her as the woman who had taught me when I was a child. She looked at me as if I were her son, which, for some reason, irritated me. I don't know how, but she managed to make me feel something I didn't want. No matter how hard I tried to hide it, she could perceive even the slightest change in my behavior.
Finally, there was Mary. She was a biologist and chemist, with one of the most advanced laboratories in the world. When she started talking about evolution, I realized what might be the only way for my redemption. And if it were possible for me to transform, if I could restore my mobility? I asked her to take me to her lab, and although she hesitated, she eventually gave in. In the first few days, I began to see that my mother possessed technology far superior. She had traveled to outer space and back, which was absolutely incredible. Furthermore, she had collected some meteorites with metals that didn't exist on Earth. I began to investigate, looking for ways to restore my mobility. My high IQ helped me a lot in this process, and in less than two weeks, I found the solution.
I needed to increase my regeneration. I searched for beings that regenerate, and after much research, I created a formula that accelerated this process. However, something still wasn't right. I knew that ten times wasn't enough. I worked for another three months until I created a formula that could increase the regeneration of a human being by a hundred times. But I didn't want animal DNA in my body. I remembered a strange substance I had found on one of my missions. This substance had the ability to replicate liquids, but without the properties that identified them.
I knew I was on the right track. I conducted all the experiments in the dark, without my mother knowing. She came to visit me from time to time, but I never communicated with her. Don't get me wrong; I hadn't forgotten, but I preferred to work alone, without distractions. When I finally managed to create the formula, I asked Mary to help me obtain the substance I needed. She brought it without questioning, but I knew she had no idea what it really was. She tried to ask me, but I never answered. She thought it was just another one of those days when I shut myself in silence.
That night, with the substance in hand, I prepared everything for the injection. I knew it would be my last chance. After injecting the liquid, at first, nothing happened, but soon the pain began to grow. I knew the transformation would come, but I never imagined it would be so intense. Every muscle of mine, every nerve, felt as if it were being torn apart, but somehow, I knew something was changing. I began to move my feet. The pain intensified until I passed out.