A child's fist

I had a single dream for an indeterminate, cyclical length of time; as soon as it was over, the same dream began again, and with each iteration the same fatigue weighed on my shoulders, the same terror gripped my chest, but the same injunction yet kept me on my feet: not to trust this mysterious being who had come to me. During my dream, he took on a thousand forms – my father, my mother, an animal, a demon, a monster – but I felt it was always him, because his aura and his gaze were always the ones of the Stranger. He tried to deceive me, sometimes to reassure me, sometimes to frighten me, sometimes to amuse me, but only fear and mistrust ruled my heart; I cowered, I lowered my head between my knees, I refused to look at him and answer him, and his anger, his frustration finally unleashed on me, I took blows, thousands of blows, insults, but I gritted my teeth, I held on. The first few times I was afraid I was going to die, so I screamed and called my parents until my throat was ripped open; then, after several attempts, I realized that for some reason he couldn't kill me. I just had to hold on, and wait for my parents who couldn't leave me alone indefinitely; I was certain of it, I was even filled with this certainty, it inhabited me, my parents were going to arrive, they always ended up arriving, taking me in their arms, consoling me, always, maybe they were even already there...

"No need for pleasantries, Londan, I've come for a quick update."

I'd never heard such a benevolent voice. It had chased the Stranger away with the first intonation. That voice was a miracle.

"Has he been restless this week?

— Yes, constant nightmares it seems. He's tried to scream but the sounds are stuck in his throat, I don't know why.

— Any other violence?

— When we try to hold him, yes. And he still shows the same physical strength."

Were they talking about me? Or about this Stranger who was tormenting me?

"I see. Has the glow returned?

— Yes, in his acute seizures. All the related symptoms appear in concert. It's frightening. If you, O great Prophet, could not cleanse him of this evil, what are we to do with him?"

The glow? Related symptoms? What to do with me? My heart froze. Why did my eyes refuse to open? I felt so weak...

Silence. A solemn one.

"We're going to raise him into the Light. We'll have to preserve him, take care of him. When his body is in communion with the Light, then we'll be able to definitely purify him and no longer fear that glow that awakens when pain or anger are unbearable for him. Hmmmmmm." Silence. "He's waking up. About his family, tell the truth straight out. Take care of yourself, then. My entire guard and I remain behind the door, ready to intervene."

My eyes wouldn't open. My body wouldn't move.

The Prophet's presence disappeared. At least that was the name Londan had given him.

He was busying himself around me, touching me, obviously preparing for my awakening.

A huge sigh finally came from me, the sigh of a whole body waking up after a very long sleep. My eyes opened and my chest straightened.

I saw him. The poor thing.

The doctor was prostrate by the half-open door, clad all over in heavy armor. The door was massive, a good meter thick; he was ready to leap out and close the door on me; the whole room, or rather cell, was nothing but armored steel walls.

He made a huge effort on himself and spouted at full speed: "Your parents are dead and so are most of our people, we had to flee Draenor, we're in the Exodar a ship in search of another planet, but don't worry life is very well organized inside, we'll take care of you."

He watched for my reaction, eyes wide open.

I mentally repeated the information one after the other. I think I fainted, anyway the nightmare began again, and this time I knew it was a nightmare, which made the blows less stinging and my enemy's rage less terrifying; but it was still worse, much worse. I knew now that my parents weren't coming. I cried and cried and cried, and the sobs that shook my body caused me far more pain than the Stranger's violence.

At last I woke up again, remained dazed for a few moments, unable to utter the slightest coherent thought. Then, in painful bursts, past and recent memories returned. I hiccupped in panic, calmed down, cried – for a long time. I was closed to any attempt at communication from my visitors. I was inhabited by a new feeling, a feeling of despair, but also of emptiness, of boredom, of total lack of interest in things and people, a feeling I didn't know how to define at the time, and which today I can name: the desire to let myself die.

Londan had tamed his fear and cared for me with tenderness and respect, surrounding me with magic crystals and healing prayers; I do believe that his smiles and gentle, cautious gestures resulted in my consenting to feed myself; and that after several days, I can't say how many, a timid impulse of life found its way into my darkness, and I felt like communicating. The doctor placed in my hands a notebook and pen which, in fact, had been lying on my bedside table all along. I straightened up, and got stunned - this simple gesture involved putting back into function many parts of my mind and body that had begun to wither away.

Then he deciphered my clumsy handwriting, and answered my question. "Well, that draenei you heard is called Velen, he's the Master of us all, the guide of our people. And yes, you'll certainly see him again.

— He seemed nice, I commented stupidly on my paper.

— Follow me, Stropovitch," said Londan, smiling. We'll take care of you.

I stood up, and got another dizzy spell.

I realize it now: without my parents I didn't want to live; because of the draenei who took over, because of their love, I went on. When I think of them, I feel gratitude – and remorse. As a matter of fact, years after saving me, Londan died because of me. He's dead, and wherever his soul is now, I imagine he doesn't blame me, and is proud to have been a good doctor. I'm haunted by my victims. You gave me back my life, Londan, but my life means death for those who love me.

I was sent to school, in a group of children my age, under the guidance of Master Annïa, a venerable draenei with a beautiful gaze filled with Light.

Annïa had obviously been told a few words about this "peculiarity" of mine – of which I ultimately knew nothing. She spoke to me with the utmost gentleness and regularly came to talk to me after class – even though she had to wait for a painstakingly written answer to every question. What saddened me was that I felt this affection was forced. There is a form of gentle torture, which consists in surrounding you with care and gentleness, when in truth you are feared, suspected, watched, and above all, completely alone.

I was never physically alone. Ondraïev, my "tutor", affably accompanied me everywhere, put me to bed, got me up, brought me my meals, told me everything and anything, sometimes snippets of the history of my people, sometimes amusing adventures from his own life, sometimes grandiloquent personal opinions on questions of social organization, sometimes meaningless nonsense. He gesticulated a lot, with his fake smile plastered endlessly on his face. But I was lonely all the same, especially as I was separated from the other children who, at least the orphans, slept together.

This special status also aroused fear and jealousy among my classmates (I wondered what they envied me for). They sometimes whispered to each other as they watched me from afar, rarely or never approached me, and for various apostrophes that had no follow-up – they didn't have the patience or even the ability to follow a written conversation. I was often asked why I was silent. I lowered my head without answering. Something inside me refused to relive the memory of the warlock and the horrible scream that had torn me apart from the inside. So the children invented their own answers. Eventually, they all agreed that I'd been corrupted in some way by evil magic – and imagined that I'd rot from the inside, suddenly turn into a demon one day and devour them all.

A hypothesis that didn't encourage anyone to get very close to me.

However, this rumor didn't seem unfounded at all, and my isolation wasn't the only cause of my sadness: anguish gave me no rest.

One evening, sweet Annïa noticed my melancholy and approached me with a worried expression.

"What's the matter, Stropovitch?

— Tell me," I wrote, "am I going to turn into a demon?"

The question petrified her. She hesitated.

"No, of course, who told you those stories," she replied in the least convincing tone in the world.

My heart sank. I knew.

I would drag myself down here alone, feared, mute and unhappy to an end worse than death, dispossessed of myself, disowned by my own people, even slaughtered by them.

"The Light... whispered Annïa. The Light always conquers, Stropovitch. It will guide you.

— The Light...", I repeated inwardly, like an echo.

Master Annïa glanced into the room where Chief Physician Londan and his team were working among thirty or so patients lying in diapers. An explosion in an alchemy laboratory had left many of them injured.

She stepped towards him. "Excuse me..."

She said a few words. He shook his head, pointing to the wounded; she insisted. He turned to me, who had remained at the entrance, and approached doubtfully. "Come," he said as he passed me. I turned and followed him into his office. He closed the door, sat down and sighed, "What is it, Stropovitch?"

I handed him a notebook page where I'd written:

"What are these symptoms you were talking about with Prophet Velen and to which I'll see that I'm turning into a demon?"

He fidgeted. "I don't know what you're talking about, and I don't have time today."

He stood up. I stared at him, handing him another sheet, which he grabbed, sighing again. "I knew you'd say that, but I want to know." I hadn't written in front of him: he understood that I really had written that second sheet in advance.

"Wait for me here", he dropped under his breath as he left the room. One of his assistants came to keep me company. Wondering, I waited for long minutes. Today, I think he had gone to consult Velen not far away. After all, the Prophet had probably been preoccupied with that rumored alchemical explosion.

When the doctor returned, he was less hesitant, though still troubled. He forced himself to smile, sat back down and said in an unsure voice:

"Stropovitch... It's been a year now and you've shown nothing. Maybe we shouldn't try to hide things from you anymore. Perhaps there's no longer any risk. But as a precaution, we must continue to protect you from negative emotions. And you know, it's really hard for adults to know how to protect you from them. Up until now, we've kept everything from you, but apparently that doesn't work any more, because you ask yourself too many questions, and that creates fear, misunderstanding... everything we need to avoid. So I've got to tell you the truth, but it'll probably scare you too. I'll tell you the truth, okay? Then I'll reassure you, okay too?"

I already had tears in my eyes, but he was so kind, I nodded with a sad smile. Londan made himself comfortable, settling back in his seat. He was gathering his thoughts.

"Know that you have been marked in your flesh by the fire of a warlock. It's a form of corruption we don't master; Velen himself is capable of purifying from the grip of Darkness a being anyone would deem irredeemably doomed; but this isn't Shadow. Fire usually burns, consumes and disappears when there's no more material. But you, by some incomprehensible prodigy, maintain this Fire in your heart."

I lowered my head in disbelief.

"You were completely burned when you were brought to me, in Zangarra. Your body was nothing but an ugly, raw, horrible wound. I didn't think for a second that you could be saved. We laid you down, we wept for you, that's all."

I felt the shock.

"While you were unconscious, your burns mysteriously healed without a trace. And when you had nightmares, you... you showed abnormal strength. You threw me around like a bundle of straw, repeatedly."

I shuddered. I dreaded what would happen next.

"In those moments, your eyes burned. The stronger the crisis, the bigger the flames that came out. In the strongest seizures observed, your body temperature would rise to 50-60 ℃ – which is supposed to be lethal – your veins would appear all over your skin, black, bubbling..."

Every word imprinted itself on my brain. The surprise and fear were intense.

"Your breath inflamed your sheets without exhaling fire. As for your strength... follow me."

I followed his lead.

"Do you remember the room you woke up in? We transferred you there after that."

We walked down a few corridors, then Londan opened a door. I peered fearfully inside.

One of the metal walls had taken on the shape of a crater, a half-sphere. In the center, at the point of impact, the wall had receded by about two meters, twisting the whole partition and tilting the ceiling.

"Admittedly, the wall here was not very thick. But you can easily guess the abnormal strength it takes to do that."

A shiver ran down my spine and shook my upper body. Londan crouched down in front of me and put his hands on my shoulders.

"Now Stropovitch, listen. You don't look like you're going to show those symptoms again. For a year now, nothing has happened. Nothing, not even a little glimmer, nothing at all. What's more, Velen will teach you the way of the Light in due course, and it will purify you. Have faith." He smiles at me. "Come on, I've got to take care of my alchemists. Have a good day, and above all, don't brood. Even if it's writing, talk, don't hide anything, give us all your questions, we'll answer them. We want you to be happy, Stropovitch."

My happiness, he said... With this threat hanging over me...

I stood before the crater, bewildered. In the center, the imprint of my little child's fist was clearly visible.