It wasn't waking up.
It was more like a slow withdrawal from a darkness without bottom, into a wakefulness without a body.
Simon opened his eyes… or so he imagined. Sight didn't come from eyes, but from a silent awareness of what surrounded him.
He was seated on an old leather couch, its gray hue bleached with time, the surface cracked in random fissures—as if it had existed here long before time itself began. There was nothing beneath his feet—no ground—only a thin blue mist stretching into oblivion.
Strangely, the couch was the only tangible thing in this void, as if carefully chosen for him. Yet it was incomplete… its details distorted—buttons scattered, stitching threads fraying into the air.
The silence was oppressive.
Not even the usual background hum.
All he could hear was the distinct buzz of electricity.
He tried to move his fingers… and succeeded. But they weren't *his* fingers. There was no real body… just a consciousness perched on a couch of dead leather.
Then, a few steps away—though there was no "ground" to measure distance—a faint shadow shifted.
His shadow.
Except it moved *before* he did.
The shadow smiled. Or so it seemed.
Then came the first sound:
Slow. Unearthly. Like reversed speech, yet barely intelligible:
"…You're late…"
The voice didn't come from a mouth, but from the void itself. Strange, because it didn't break the silence—it was *part* of it, a sound you could hear yet one that felt… silent.
Simon stared into the emptiness ahead. There… now… a man.
He hadn't been there a moment ago.
Seated on another leather couch—this one in better condition, glossy black, polished unnaturally, as if someone had just cleaned it, yet it reeked of age. Everything about it was orderly… unlike the other.
The man wore a dark gray suit that might as well have been black, though it didn't quite fit—too tight, sleeves slightly short, as if tailored for someone else. And yet, somehow… it suited him.
But the most striking thing was his hair:
Crimson red, like a muted flame swaying in a wind no one else could feel.
He looked at Simon as if he'd known him forever—eyes devoid of warmth, devoid of malice… just dormant knowledge.
The man offered a small, lopsided smile and spoke in a soft, mellifluous voice, closer to a whisper:
"You know… the funny thing… the tree was always waiting for the knife."
He laughed quietly, as if sharing a joke only he understood.
"But someone—"* He raised a finger, as if making a grand point, *"gave it a wristwatch instead."
He kept staring at Simon. Waiting for a response.
Simon tried to open his mouth.
No strings. No restraints.
But his mouth didn't *know* how to open. The very idea seemed impossible. He wanted to speak. To scream. To make any sound at all.
The silence sat heavy in his throat, heavier than the entire void.
The man, smiling wider now:
"See? Even here… the doors don't work as they should."
Then he turned slowly, gazing at something that wasn't there at a blind spot in the story, a place he wasn't supposed to reach.
His eyes were fixed. Not a single degree of deviation—staring with a disquieting smile.
He was looking at ME.
The man spoke again:
"Hello… you… and you all."
"Pleasure meeting you too," I replied.
Though I wasn't sure if anyone had heard me.
The man raised his hand slowly, as if trying to pluck an idea from his own mind.
There was nothing to push aside… and yet, the white smoke shifted.
The mist retreated.
And in the distance… something took form.
The outline of a human body—feminine—but incomplete, as if the painter had left the details unfinished on purpose.
She stood there. Far and near at once. Her hair moved as though caught in a private wind, hers alone.
For a moment, the man said nothing. He only looked at her the way a child looks at a familiar nightmare.
Then, without turning to Simon, he muttered:
"You know what's strange?... We always think forgetting is what guards us."
He laughed softly—not because it was funny.
Then he added:
"But the things we buy… they don't forget us."
He tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and his fingers danced in the shapeless air, as if conducting Beethoven… music only he could hear.
When he opened his eyes again, his gaze was half-dazed, half-waking from a dream that hadn't ended.
"Knives… don't kill trees, Simon."
He pointed a finger toward the woman without looking at her.
"But roots… they eat you from below."
Then he smiled innocently, as if all he'd said were just a passing thought about forests.
As if he were merely noise trapped in someone else's dream.
Then, in a whisper, like a man confessing a secret to himself:
"O FIRE…"
Here, something shifted.
The electric hum began to rise faint… then louder.
Louder.
Louder.
And—
Fire appeared.
It was not fire that spread. Not fire that burned.
It was fire that Happened.
Merely an event.
A pure, fiery existence—without beginning or end, without height or breadth. It did not grow… nor was it still.
It was simply there.
In a moment I couldn't tell if it had happened… or was happening… or would happen…
But in that uncanny instant, it manifested.
I couldn't say it expanded… nor could I say it didn't.
It was only occurring—until—
It blinded vision.
Blinded ME .
"...TAKE ME WITH YOU"
—THE FIRE MAN