– CHAPTER FORTY-TWO –

  HAMSTER AND COCKATIEL

  The blink of the Universe did not bring back light.

  It brought back sound.

  It was like being punched in both ears at the same time, a deafening sound, brutal, violent, the kind that does not ask permission to exist. Guitars like saws, drums like hammers, a voice like iron being torn apart. Heavy rock at the limit, a metal that seemed to bite the air.

  Americ-Ana clapped her hands over her ears on reflex, hunched over the GummyAir so she would not fall, feeling her whole body vibrate under the sonic blow.

  Around them, nothing. Complete blackness, the kind that seemed like matter.

  "Great... even darker..." she thought, and could not even finish the sentence properly, because the pain of the sound swallowed thought.

  Poppandacorn, on her shoulders, clung hard, his little body tense, as if the noise could tear them out of the air.

  Poppandacorn reacted faster than fear.

  His little paws came down and, with a snap of living technology, turned into soft, firm earmuffs, sealing Americ-Ana's ears like shells that do not let sound in. The sound outside was still a massacre, but in there it became a distant, tolerable roar, as if someone had shut a heavy door between her and the chaos.

  Poppandacorn's voice came from inside the earmuffs, clear despite the hell all around.

  "Mommy, Poppa protects your ears. Are you okay?"

  Americ-Ana pulled in a shaky breath, keeping her weight on the GummyAir so she would not lose her balance in the dark.

  "I am... I am. Thank you." Americ-Ana swallowed hard, and the urgency came back at once. "Poppa, where are we? What place is this?"

  Poppandacorn's LED eyes began to run in reading patterns, as if they were trying to decipher the air itself.

  "Mommy..." he said, and his voice turned a little more serious, more focused. "By all indications, we are in a place similar to a house."

  Americ-Ana tightened her fingers on the earmuffs, still feeling her body vibrate with the sound from outside.

  "A house? In here, in all this darkness?"

  "Yes, Mommy." Poppandacorn paused briefly, as if confirming data. "And Poppa's sensors have also identified that outside there is heavy security, highly armed."

  Americ-Ana felt a coldness cut through her stomach, colder than any darkness.

  "Then we are... surrounded."

  Poppandacorn tilted his head, as if making a decision.

  "Mommy, Poppa will activate flashlight mode so you can see better where we are."

  Poppandacorn's eyes displayed a quick icon, like an internal warning.

  And then they lit up.

  Two clean white beams came out of his gaze and cut through the darkness in front of Americ-Ana. The light did not overcome the entire place, but it opened a corridor of reality, and that was enough for her panic to change shape.

  Because in her peripheral vision, on the ground far below, there was movement.

  A lot of things moving.

  Americ-Ana flinched on reflex, her heart giving a brutal leap, and pressed her feet against the GummyAir as if the cloud were the only solid thing in the universe.

  "Poppa... there is something on the ground."

  "Easy, Mommy." His voice came through the earmuffs, steady. "Poppa's sensors have already detected them. They are harmless creatures."

  He angled his flashlight gaze downward.

  The light revealed something so absurd it seemed impossible: hundreds and hundreds of hamsters crossing the ground in every direction, bumping into one another, moving in lines, disappearing and reappearing between structures and shadows, like a tiny metropolis in full operation.

  Americ-Ana froze for a second, not knowing whether to laugh from nerves or scream again.

  Poppandacorn slowly lifted the focus of the lights, like someone turning a key in the dark.

  The light rose from the ground and reached the air.

  And that was when Americ-Ana understood that the movement was not only below.

  Hundreds of cockatiels flew in every direction, crossing through one another in quick arcs, landing and taking off as if that place were a private sky. Some beat their wings so close that the light caught the yellow on their chests and threw back an uneasy gleam, others passed in shadow, too fast for the eye to properly follow.

  Americ-Ana held her breath, stunned.

  The light kept sweeping, and the scene assembled itself piece by piece.

  Meters and meters of little houses, transparent tubes, and colored pipes spread through the space, connecting walls and corners, with hamsters going in and out as if they were following the routes of an underground city. There were water dispensers lined up, bowls of food, wheels, little bridges, stacked shelters, everything designed to make that chaos work.

  Above, natural and artificial plants mixed together, nests, hanging water dispensers, toys, and rings fixed to the ceiling where the cockatiels swung, sang, fought for space, and then made peace two seconds later, as if they owned the place.

  Americ-Ana blinked, trying to process it, still feeling the weight of the muffled sound in her ears.

  "Poppa..." she whispered, not knowing whether that was relief or threat. "Is this a... hamster and cockatiel paradise?"

  "Yes, Mommy." His voice came calm, almost proud of the diagnosis. "And it still seems to be a house."

  Poppandacorn stayed silent for a few seconds, as if doing calculations inside his own head.

  "Mommy, Poppa is going to release Poppa's paws." His voice came through the earmuffs, firm and careful. "But do not worry. Poppa will leave Poppa's own little hands here to protect Mommy's hearing from this loud sound."

  "But Poppa... wait."

  Too late.

  With a small snap, almost elegant, the little paws that had been sealing Americ-Ana's ears detached from his little body and remained there, fitted onto her like living headphones, soft and obedient, keeping the sound of the world outside.

  Americ-Ana blinked, startled by the feeling of being "held" by two ownerless little hands, and at the same time relieved because the noise remained under control, as if someone had locked the chaos inside a box.

  In the place of the hands he had left behind, others appeared for him, new ones, quick, like pieces assembling themselves.

  Poppandacorn then slipped free from her shoulders and went down, heading toward the ground.

  "Poppa... no, come back here. Where are you going?"

  His voice still came through the headphones, clear, as if he were speaking from inside her head.

  "Mommy, just look..."

  And Americ-Ana felt her stomach tighten again, because now he was already down there, too small in the middle of that hamster city, and she still hovered on the GummyAir, helpless in the lit darkness.

  The ground looked like a living avenue.

  Poppandacorn dropped to his knees in the middle of all that movement as if he had found a secret amusement park. The lanterns in his eyes swept across the place while he spun his body, enchanted, and the hamsters did not run, they only swerved, kept coming and going, as if he were just one more strange object in the landscape.

  His voice came through the headphones, vibrating with joy.

  "Mommy, look how cute."

  Poppandacorn picked up a hamster with his two new little hands, squeezed it against his face with exaggerated affection, and the hamster stayed there, accepting the tribute as if it were perfectly normal. Then he picked up another. And another. And another.

  "Poppa." Americ-Ana said, trying to sound firm. The GummyAir remained hovering, obedient, keeping her above the ground, because it was the only sensible thing in that place. "We do not know where we are. We do not know whose little animals these are."

  "There is no danger, Mommy." Poppandacorn replied, completely ignoring the concept of danger. He threw himself onto his back on the ground and started moving his arms and legs as if he were in the snow.

  Only it was not snow.

  Hamsters.

  "Look, Mommy." His voice came out laughing. "Hamster angel."

  Americ-Ana's eyes went wide. The little creatures climbed over him in swarms, went in and out through the gears, through the gaps, scaled his little body as if he were a toy mountain.

  "It tickles..." Poppandacorn said, laughing.

  "Poppa, stop that." Americ-Ana clenched her teeth, trying to stay calm. "Put them on the ground. Now."

  He raised his hands in the air like a proud presenter, with about five hamsters piled into his little palms.

  "Here, Mommy, take one."

  "No." Americ-Ana replied, flatly. "Put. Them. On. The. Ground."

  Before Americ-Ana could finish the scolding, the air above Poppandacorn began to fill with small shadows.

  The cockatiels, curious, came down in a flock.

  One landed on his shoulder. Another on his head. Another on his unicorn horn as if it were an official perch. In seconds, Poppandacorn had an entire "choir" perched on him, singing and beating their wings, and the flashlight glow reflected off yellow and gray feathers as if that place wanted to pretend it was joyful.

  "Mommy, listen!" he said, excited.

  And then he began to whistle along with them.

  It was not a beautiful whistle. It was theatrical, exaggerated, full of intention, as if he were trying to become a cockatiel conductor in the middle of a sonic apocalypse. The birds answered, varying their song, and for a second the chaos of extreme metal seemed to become only a distant backdrop, muffled by the headphones.

  Americ-Ana clenched her hands in the air, frustrated.

  "Poppa... please. Stop. Now."

  "But Mommy, they like Poppa."

  "I know." She took a deep breath, controlling her tone. "And I like you alive and in one piece. We do not know where we are, we do not know who is outside, we do not know what this house is. So get out of that show. No playing around."

  Poppandacorn still whistled one more note, as if it were the final "signature" of the performance, and then made a dramatic pout.

  "Okay, Mommy..."

  Americ-Ana barely had time to let out her breath.

  A larger shadow cut across the flashlight beams.

  It was not a hamster. It was not a cockatiel.

  It was a heavy leap, too fast for her brain to accept.

  "Poppa!" Americ-Ana screamed, and her voice came out like a blade, even muffled by the chaos of sound around them.

  Something fell on top of him.

  A spider.

  Giant.

  Bigger than Poppandacorn himself, with legs too long, angles too wrong, a dark body that looked as if it had been designed for one purpose only, to terrify. It landed on him with cruel precision and, before he could truly get up, it was already working.

  Working like a predator.

  The spider shot thick, gleaming threads, weaving at indecent speed, spinning Poppandacorn as if he were light, as if he were exactly what it wanted, a little fly.

  The hamsters exploded into flight in every direction, turning into waves of tiny panic, diving into tubes, vanishing into holes, knocking over little bowls along the way.

  Above, the cockatiels beat their wings in desperation, and the entire ceiling turned into a storm of feathers.

  Poppandacorn struggled, trying to make space with his new little hands, but every movement he made was immediately answered with more web, tighter, faster.

  "Mommy!" he screamed, and his voice, even coming through the headphones, came sharp, urgent. "Mommy, there is a spider!"

  The web was already running across his chest, his arms, his legs, pinning everything. In seconds, his body became a bright white cocoon, trembling inside.

  Americ-Ana froze above on the GummyAir, feeling her stomach twist into a knot, because now the playfulness was over.

  And the place had shown its teeth.

  The cocoon tightened one more turn.

  Poppandacorn could still move his head, a little, enough to look up in Americ-Ana's direction, and even in panic he tried to make his voice come out steady, as if it were a protection protocol.

  "Mommy... move away." He struggled, but the web answered, pulling, locking him in place. "Take the GummyAir far away. Poppa will be okay, but get out of here."

  "No." Americ-Ana said on impulse, the word coming out without thought, without a plan.

  She rose higher on the GummyAir, almost brushing the ceiling where the cockatiels were still flying in nervous circles. The flashlight beams in Poppandacorn's eyes trembled with the movement of his trapped body, and that made shadows dance on the walls as if the house were laughing.

  Americ-Ana wanted to go down, wanted to rip that thing off him, wanted to kick the world, but all she had was air and darkness. All she could do was watch.

  The spider finished the job with one last pull, like someone tying a ribbon on a gift.

  Poppandacorn was completely wrapped, a whole cocoon, trembling inside like a trapped heart.

  "Poppa..." Americ-Ana whispered, and her throat burned.

  The rock kept hammering through the place, indifferent, and the house felt too large for anyone to hear a cry for help.

  Americ-Ana turned her head quickly, sweeping the house with the only light that existed there, the flashlight beams from Poppandacorn's eyes trembling while he struggled inside the cocoon.

  And that was when she saw it.

  Hallways.

  Doors.

  A structure far too ordinary to be carrying that chaos, as if someone had shoved a normal house inside a sonic nightmare.

  A figure passed at the end of a hallway.

  It was not a hamster. It was not a cockatiel.

  It was tall, fast, purposeful, and vanished behind a door as if it knew exactly where to go.

  The door slammed.

  The dry sound almost vanished in the deafening rock, but the vibration traveled through the house and reached her like a warning.

  Americ-Ana held her breath.

  The flashlight beams dropped instinctively, following the line of the door.

  And then she saw something seeping out from underneath it.

  A dark liquid, slow, spreading across the ground like a tongue searching for space.

  Americ-Ana felt her stomach drop.

  "My God..." she whispered, more to keep herself from losing her mind than to be heard. "That is..."

  She did not finish.

  Because the word had already formed on its own in her head, heavy and absurd.

  Blood?

  The door remained open for a second, only a crack.

  And then it opened all the way.

  The flashlight beams from Poppandacorn's eyes struck the gap and caught a small figure emerging from inside, coughing as if the air itself were hurting him.

  Nioh Nemmesis.

  He came staggering out, one hand braced against the doorframe, his chest rising and falling in short spasms, another cough tearing through his throat before he could say anything at all.

  Americ-Ana went still on the GummyAir, as if her brain had locked itself inside the impossible.

  "Nioh?" she said, incredulous, almost voiceless.

  Nioh raised his hand and clapped.

  Once.

  And the house lit up.

  The light was immediate, raw, revealing the floor, the hallway, Poppandacorn's cocoon, the fleeing hamsters, the cockatiels panicking above. Everything became too real all at once.

  Nioh pointed at her, then made a short gesture, calling her over, as if to say "come," but still without opening his mouth, because the coughing stole the place of speech again.

  Nioh drew a deep breath, as if trying to tame his own body, and took two more steps toward her.

  Between one coughing fit and the next, he shoved a hand into his pocket and pulled out a pair of large headphones, sound-dampening, with a built-in microphone, the kind that look made for war and for a studio at the same time. He held them out to Americ-Ana in a hurry, insisting with the gesture, as if that mattered more than any explanation.

  Americ-Ana looked at the headphones, then at Poppandacorn's cocoon, then at Nioh's face, and the whole world seemed to be screaming at her to choose fast.

  She moved closer slowly on the GummyAir and took the headphones from Nioh's hands.

  Carefully, Americ-Ana removed Poppandacorn's little hand-headphones from her own ears. The rock detonated in her head again like an attack.

  She almost lost her balance.

  In the same motion, she put on Nioh's headphones, sealing the sound out with a firm pressure.

  The metal turned into a distant, muffled threat, as if the house had been left behind a thick pane of glass.

  Americ-Ana let the air out in a tremor and stared at Nioh, still unable to believe it.

  "Nioh... what is happening?"

  Nioh swallowed hard and tried to speak, but a cough came first, harsh, dry, as if it were tearing sound out of him.

  He reached into his pocket again, pulled out a small bottle of syrup, took a long drink, breathed deeply, and only then managed to begin.

  "Sorry." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his eyes a little red. "The music is loud on purpose. If I keep it low, the guards and the drones outside hear what I do in here."

  Americ-Ana stared down the hallway, the whole house vibrating to the beat of the metal, even muffled by the headphones.

  "They really are out there?"

  Nioh nodded, another cough trying to steal the sentence, but he held it back.

  "They are. And I had to mess this place up to survive. The hamsters..." He pointed to the floor, where the "city" was still reorganizing itself after the panic. "They are to confuse sensors. Too much movement, too much heat, too much noise. They do not know where I am, or even which room I am in."

  Americ-Ana looked up, toward the living ceiling of wings.

  "And the cockatiels?"

  "Same thing, only in the air." Nioh said, his voice coming out steadier now, as if explaining were the only way to keep control. "Drones read patterns. I give them a hell of a pattern storm."

  Americ-Ana swallowed hard and pointed with her chin toward the door he had come out of.

  "And that stuff leaking across the floor... I thought it was..."

  Nioh coughed again, short, and made an embarrassed face.

  "It is not blood." He took another swallow of syrup, as if apologizing to his own lungs. "You scared me when you appeared out of nowhere. I ran, knocked the bottle over, it broke. That was my syrup."

  He let out a tired breath, like someone admitting a ridiculous detail in the middle of the apocalypse.

  "I know it looks horrible," Nioh added, in a tone almost dry, almost defensive. "But it is not blood."

  Nioh turned his face toward the center of the chaos, and his eyes found Poppandacorn's cocoon as if it were an alarm still going off.

  He moved quickly, still coughing, and approached the giant spider with a strange familiarity, like someone recognizing a tool and not a monster.

  "Spyder." The word came out short, dry, a command.

  The spider stopped that very instant.

  Its legs froze in midair, and its body made a minimal, mechanical adjustment, as if someone had pulled an invisible brake. Under the house lights, the terror gained detail: precise joints, fitted plates, discreet micro LEDs in the hinges, a cold gleam that did not belong to any living creature. That thing did not breathe. That thing processed.

  Americ-Ana felt a different kind of chill, the kind that comes when fear changes masks.

  "She..." Americ-Ana began, but the sentence got stuck.

  "She is mine." Nioh said, between one cough and the next, and reached toward the spider, touching one of its plates with care, like someone calming a trained animal. "A robotic Spyder."

  He made a quick sequence of gestures and low commands, almost like a password. The spider answered with short clicks, the web strands vibrating, and some layers of the cocoon loosened.

  Poppandacorn moved inside, an indignant tremor.

  Nioh bent down, focused, and pulled at a section of the web with precision, trying not to tear anything on Poppandacorn's body.

  "Sorry." He coughed, and his eyes narrowed with irritation at himself. "The Spyder thought he was a threat."

  Americ-Ana tightened her fingers on the GummyAir, the words scraping her throat.

  "He is my Poppa, Nioh."

  "I know." Nioh replied, swallowing hard, and went back to work with quick hands. "But she does not know who is a friend when someone appears out of nowhere in here."

  One more command, one more click, and the cocoon gave a little, as if opening space for air to get in.

  Nioh breathed with difficulty and murmured to the spider, like an order and a scolding at the same time.

  "Release him. Slowly."

  The Spyder obeyed.

  The cocoon gave a crack.

  The layers of web began to open in irregular fissures, shedding strands that stuck to one another as if they did not want to let go of the prey. Nioh kept his hand steady, pulling carefully, and the Spyder obeyed in tiny adjustments, like a machine that knows exactly how much it can yield.

  Inside, Poppandacorn moved.

  First it was a small tremor, almost a spasm.

  Americ-Ana took a step forward on top of the GummyAir, her heart rising into her throat.

  "Poppa?"

  The cocoon moved again, harder this time, and for a second Americ-Ana felt the old fear, that fear of seeing Poppandacorn break, lock up, shut down.

  But then the movement changed.

  It became... performance.

  Poppandacorn began to writhe in a way that was far too exaggerated, far too dramatic, as if he were rehearsing a metamorphosis for an invisible audience. He spun around inside like a caterpillar that had just discovered it was in a documentary, pushing against the web from within, making the cocoon sway as if it were a stage.

  His voice came out muffled, whiny and theatrical, leaking through a slit.

  "Mommy... Poppa is being reborn..."

  Americ-Ana closed her eyes for half a second, as if she needed to gather patience in capsules.

  "This cannot be..." She looked at Nioh, then at the cocoon. "Poppa... stop that. This is not the time for games."

  The cocoon moved again in reply, even more performative, as if he had heard the scolding and decided to raise the stakes.

  With one last shove from the inside out, the cocoon split fully open.

  Poppandacorn emerged as if he were stepping out of a show, not a capture.

  First the head, then the little body, and then, with a sudden glow, two enormous multicolored LED wings burst out from him, fanned wide, pulsing in vivid patterns like stained glass in motion. He beat his wings once, twice, and began to hover low, spinning through the air with the theatrical delicacy of a butterfly newly born.

  "Ta-da!" he sang out, proud.

  Nioh Nemmesis's eyes widened for a second, and then he started laughing, coughing in the middle of it, as if his lungs were trying to stop happiness. Even so, he applauded, clapping in short bursts, encouraging him.

  "That..." Nioh said between one cough and the next, "that was... incredible."

  Poppandacorn spun once more, making the wings glow in waves, as if he wanted to be seen even by the guards outside.

  "Poppa could not let that opportunity pass."

  Americ-Ana stood still, watching the scene with a hard expression, like someone two seconds away from exploding from sheer nerves.

  "Poppa." Her voice came out low, dangerous. "Not now."

  The wings kept beating, one extra beat, like a provocation.

  "Sorry, Mommy..." Poppandacorn said, but his smile was far too wide to look repentant.

  Americ-Ana got down from the GummyAir carefully, as if the floor of that house had hidden traps even in its silence. The metal still hammered at the walls, but now it had become a distant noise, compressed by the headphones, like a monster trapped behind thick glass.

  Poppandacorn was still hovering there, his LED wings spread, far too pleased with himself, and Americ-Ana did not even have time to scold him. Her focus locked onto Nioh.

  She moved closer and, for an instant, the light revealed small things that hurt more than the whole scene: the way Nioh held his own body, the cough trying to tear his speech apart, the exhaustion piled up on the face of someone who had been living shut inside a "house" that had no outside.

  "Nioh... are you okay?" Americ-Ana asked, without makeup, without theater.

  Nioh tried to answer on impulse, but the cough came first, dry, hard. He turned his face aside, pulled in air as if hauling on a rope, and shoved a hand into his pocket. He pulled out the little bottle of syrup, took a long swallow, and forced it down.

  "I am." The word came out short, but it came out.

  Americ-Ana looked around, at the tubes, at the little houses, at the hamster city, at the cockatiel sky, at the spider standing still like a machine on pause. She swallowed hard.

  "I... I know why you are here." Her voice dropped another shade. "I know what you did in the hallway because of me."

  Nioh held her gaze for a second, and there was no team jersey there anymore, no pennant, no pride. There was only a silent agreement: yes, I did.

  Americ-Ana pointed with her chin toward the organized chaos he had built.

  "So this..." She opened her hand, indicating everything. "This loud music, the hamsters, the cockatiels... is it to confuse the guards out there?"

  Nioh nodded and coughed again, as if his body wanted to prevent any long conversation. He took another swallow of syrup and drew a deep breath.

  "It is."

  Americ-Ana felt a knot tighten in her chest, because that "it is" there meant "I survive however I can."

  "And the Spyder..." she said, looking at the spider. "It is yours."

  "It is mine. You already know her." Nioh replied, and the sentence came on a thread, but steady. "Protection."

  Americ-Ana bit the inside of her cheek, holding back the urge to cry in that second. She did not have that luxury there. She needed to be fast, but she needed to be human.

  "Nioh..." she took one step closer, and her voice dropped to almost a whisper. "How long is this protocol going to last? What are they doing to you in here? Are you being watched all the time?"

  Nioh was about to answer, but the cough came back like a hammer, and he had to brace himself against his own breathing before he could speak. He turned his face away, coughed hard, and took another swallow of syrup, like someone buying a few seconds of breath in order to exist.

  "Watched all the time." His voice came out low, without theater, as if it were only protocol being recited. "Moss Human on fixed post. Drones in the air. Drones on the ground. They measure sound, vibration, frequency."

  He pointed with a short gesture toward the speakers, toward the hamsters, toward the cockatiels, toward the living chaos.

  "That is why the music. That is why the animals." Nioh swallowed hard, another cough trying to cut through the sentence, but he held it back. "If I do not scramble things, they read me."

  Americ-Ana felt her stomach tighten. That was not a "house." It was an intelligent prison.

  Nioh fell silent for a moment, as if he had said enough about his own prison and did not have the energy to say more. He tightened his grip on the little bottle of syrup and lifted his eyes to Americ-Ana with a different focus, urgent, almost irritated, not at her, but at the absurdity.

  "Now tell me something." His voice came out firmer, even fragile. "How did you end up here?"

  Americ-Ana froze for half a second.

  Not from surprise, but because the answer was an entire road made of guilt, and she knew that if she opened that door, there would be no closing it again.

  She clenched her hands, feeling her fingers tremble, and looked at Poppandacorn, who was still hovering there, LED wings lit, trying to seem light in a place that was far too heavy.

  Then she looked back at Nioh.

  "I am going to be honest with you," Americ-Ana said, and the sentence came out like a decision, not a pretty promise. "Because you did not deserve to be here. And even so, you are."

  Nioh stood still, listening, one hand still holding the syrup as if it were an anchor.

  Americ-Ana drew a slow breath, like someone preparing to cross a bridge without knowing what exists on the other side.

  "It is a long story." She swallowed hard. "And it begins with something ridiculous, only... it became the worst kind of ridiculous."

  She closed her eyes for an instant, and when she opened them, she faced Nioh head-on.

  "It all started when..."

  Americ-Ana swallowed hard, as if she were about to tell a confession and not a story.

  "It all started during the veterans' Paintball game. Poppa and I were under the glass platform, beneath the altar, when a purple light appeared at the tip of Poppandacorn's finger and activated the Jump Chronos Satiton that exists down there. Then, still in the Solomon Coliseum." Her voice came out low, firm on the outside and trembling underneath. "We were... in the game. And then the most idiotic thing in the world happened."

  She pointed with her chin toward Poppandacorn, and just remembering it made her face turn into a mix of anger and embarrassment.

  "Poppa..." Americ-Ana began, but stalled for a second, because the word "Poppa" and the word "ridiculous" touched inside her like a spark. "He let out a purple fart."

  Poppandacorn froze in midair.

  His LED wings vanished instantly.

  "Mommy..." he whispered, and his voice came out tight, begging for mercy.

  Americ-Ana did not stop. She could not stop. She needed to tell it the right way so Nioh would understand why the world had turned into this.

  "That fart... made us lose." She bit the inside of her cheek and spoke faster, as if rushing would hurt less. "The purple light came out of him, out of his body, and it was as if the universe had decided to laugh in our faces. We fell into the worst kind of consequence. Inside the Seractcube, the seven parts of Ronove's seal, the demon of our opponent Parys Bloodpure, had all been stored inside Poppandacorn's compartment, inside his belly, because we thought it was a safe place. But then, near the finish line, he let out the purple fart, and along with the fart came all seven parts of Ronove's seal. So we lost."

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Poppandacorn brought his little paws to his face, as if he wanted to hide inside himself. The shame in him was almost physical. He began to tremble and, suddenly, stumbled on purpose among the hamsters, as if searching for a place to disappear.

  "I did not mean to, Mommy..." he said, his voice small, broken.

  Americ-Ana took a deep breath, holding back anger and tenderness at the same time. "I know."

  But Poppandacorn did not know how to hold himself back.

  He grabbed a hamster as if it were a living handkerchief and pressed it to his face, making a full tragedy out of it. The hamster tried to get away, but Poppandacorn had already gone into tragedy mode.

  "I am a disaster!" he whimpered, and his tears glowed in LED, running down in pixels. He used another hamster to blow his nose, as if that were the most normal thing in the world.

  Nioh looked at the scene in silent shock, and then his mouth pulled into an involuntary smile that immediately turned into a cough. He turned his face away, coughed hard, took another swallow of syrup, and looked back at Americ-Ana like someone trying to stay serious and failing.

  Americ-Ana saw the cough, saw his body protesting, and her guilt grew heavier.

  "And it did not stop there." she said, and her tone dropped, growing more grave. "After that... the purple light kept going. And it got worse."

  Americ-Ana held her breath for an instant, as if the next part were harder to say than the whole defeat.

  "And the worst part is... actually... what I have been hiding did not begin in the Coliseum." She spoke slowly, choosing each word as if it were glass. "The purple light is not all that happened."

  Nioh lifted his chin a little, attentive, and his hand tightened around the little bottle of syrup. He seemed to be trying to keep his body still so he could listen.

  Americ-Ana looked at Poppandacorn, and the anger gave way to a bitter exhaustion.

  "Poppa found a book."

  Poppandacorn stopped wiping his LED tears with the hamsters and froze, as if someone had spoken his forbidden name.

  "Mommy..." he murmured, small.

  "It was in the Cryptakashic." Americ-Ana went on, and her tone grew tighter. "Between the daisies. He found it... and hid it."

  Nioh frowned, and the cough came as a reflex. One short cough, then another. He turned his face away, took a swallow of syrup, and even then his throat still seemed to protest.

  "A book?" Nioh managed to say. "What book? The same forbidden book?"

  Americ-Ana swallowed hard.

  "Yes. The book full of indecipherable codes. Symbols. Lines... that did not look... human." She took a deep breath, and the next word came out heavy. "Terrorism."

  Nioh's coughing came back harder, as if the word itself had pulled a trigger inside him. He brought a hand to his chest, coughed again, and took another swallow of syrup, quicker this time.

  Americ-Ana saw it and clenched her hands, instinctively guilty even for his coughing.

  "I was afraid." She spoke fast, as if confessing were a form of escape. "Afraid someone would see it and think I was a terrorist. Afraid they would think I was acting on Rabbi Worse Devil's orders. I did not tell anyone, Nioh. I hid it."

  Poppandacorn lowered his head, still shrunken into himself.

  "Poppa... thought it was just a pretty book..." he tried, almost in a whisper.

  Americ-Ana looked at him with a tired hardness.

  "I know. But it became this."

  Nioh drew a deep breath, and the cough tried to rise again, but he held it back, as if forcing his own body not to interrupt. Even so, he took another swallow of syrup and said, his voice lower:

  "And then that book... showed up in that hallway."

  Americ-Ana closed her eyes for half a second, as if the hallway came back whole inside her.

  "It did." she confirmed. "In the worst possible way."

  Americ-Ana drew in a slow breath, as if aligning her own courage with something invisible.

  "After the hallway... the purple light did not stop." she said, and her gaze went distant, caught in images that still hurt. "It became a kind of... guide. An alignment. An arrow that did not ask permission."

  Nioh stayed quiet, but his throat tightened. His hand went to the syrup before the cough could win. One short swallow, then another, and he made a minimal gesture, as if telling her to keep going.

  "We followed it." Americ-Ana continued. "Through the night, through the cold, all the way to the Statue of Sisyphus."

  The word hit Nioh as if it were a real stone. The cough came hard, squeezed out, and he had to turn his face away, bend his torso slightly, hold his chest. He took more syrup, breathed through his nose, and only then managed to look at her again, his eye lit with interest despite his body's protest.

  "That statue..." Americ-Ana said, and her voice dropped lower. "We went through the stone. Literally."

  Poppandacorn made a small sound, as if remembering an old fright.

  "Poppa... hates the purple light, Mommy."

  Americ-Ana nodded, as if that were a gentle detail inside a cruel sequence.

  "On the other side, there was something that looked like a miniature version of Route Axis Mundi." she said, and the sentence came with a strange weight, as if naming it were lighting a map inside the air. "And there... there was a small tree of colored stained glass. Stained glass as if it were thousands of eyes. Thousands of tones. A glow that seemed alive."

  Nioh swallowed hard, and the cough tried to come back, but he held it down hard. Even so, he took another swallow of syrup, as if he were paying a toll to listen.

  "Poppa's purple thread pointed to one specific branch." Americ-Ana continued. "And when Poppa touched it with his little finger still glowing with the purple light... the universe blinked. We ended up somewhere else."

  She ran a hand over her own arm, as if remembering the cold passing through her skin.

  "Until we fell into the vault beneath the altar." Her voice grew tense. "Everything dark, heavy, bones on the floor. And there... there was something guarding it. Lacrimosa."

  Nioh's expression turned into something half understanding, half dread. The cough came back in two short blows. He drank syrup again, his fingers trembling a little when he put the bottle away.

  "We ran from her. There was fissure, there was a fall, there was a flare, there was... the kind of fear no word can hold." Americ-Ana drew a deep breath. "But in the end... we entered the place she was guarding. The Temple."

  Nioh coughed as if the word had thorns. He coughed hard, turned red for a second, and had to take a longer swallow of syrup to get his breath back.

  "Solomon's Temple." Americ-Ana confirmed, looking at no place in particular, because she was seeing it from the inside. "And the king... he was there. Imprisoned. Kept there as if he were a laboratory specimen."

  Nioh tried to say something, but the cough cut in again. He raised a hand, asking for a moment, took a deep breath, and when he managed, he said only one word, hoarse.

  "Why?"

  Americ-Ana looked at him, and there was no suspense there. There was outrage.

  "Because THE-IMPERIUM wants the Glory." she said. "It wants to repeat the impossible. To build another Temple. To draw the Glory of God again, as if it were a reproducible technology. As if it were an engine."

  She paused briefly, because the next part was bigger than she was.

  "King Solomon said this is to force the emergence of a new original KING MatNat sphere," Americ-Ana said, and the name seemed to fill the room. "So they will not have to keep depending on chasing what is still missing."

  Nioh went still. The cough came, but he swallowed it down with everything else, as if he did not want to lose the sentence.

  "And what is missing..." Americ-Ana continued, and her voice dropped, almost reverent and almost furious at the same time. "Is a seal. One of the seventy-two. A stolen seal."

  Nioh's cough came back like a hammer, harder this time, as if his body had understood the gravity before his mind did. He took syrup, breathed, and his eyes stayed fixed on her, waiting for the name.

  "Astaroth's seal," Americ-Ana said. "Without it, they say they cannot complete the seventy-two. They cannot... reach what they want to reach."

  She hesitated for a split second before saying the last word, as if it were forbidden even inside that house.

  "Lucifer."

  Americ-Ana remained silent for a few seconds after saying "Lucifer," as if the word had physical weight and had fallen onto the floor of the room.

  The music was still hammering, the hamsters were still running like a living city, the cockatiels were still cutting through the air in nervous circles, but, inside her, the world had stopped.

  She swallowed hard and tried to continue.

  "And then..." her voice failed at the start, and she had to breathe again. "And then he appeared."

  Nioh, who was leaning against the table, lifted his gaze slowly, attentive. The cough came right after, inevitable, and he took a swallow of syrup before he could speak.

  "Who?" he asked, in a thread-thin voice.

  Americ-Ana clenched her hands hard, as if she were trying to keep her chest from breaking open.

  "Patron Uvo."

  The name crossed the room as if it had pulled the temperature down.

  Nioh drew in a quick breath, and the cough tried to explode, but he held it back for a second, swallowing air the way someone swallows shock. Even so, his throat betrayed him. He coughed hard, turned his face away, took more syrup, and when he looked at her again, his gaze was hard, too alert.

  Americ-Ana tried to say the next sentence, but her face changed before her voice could come out. What was coming was not only memory, it was old fear with a human shape.

  "He... he appeared in the Temple as if he owned it," Americ-Ana said, and her voice began to break. "As if everything there belonged to him."

  She blinked quickly, but it did not help. The tears came anyway, thick, hot, out of control, as if her body had held on for as long as it could and had now decided to collapse.

  "I tried... I tried to make sense of it, Nioh." She raised a hand to her face, trying to wipe them away, and failed. "I was seeing King Solomon, hearing all of that, and all I could think was that none of this should exist, that none of this should be happening, and then he appeared and..."

  The sentence died in the middle.

  Nioh took a short step toward her, hesitant, as if his own body did not know whether it could endure it. The cough came again, two dry blows, and he had to take another swallow of syrup before he could say anything.

  "Easy," he said, low, not like an order, but like an attempt to hold her in the world. "Breathe. Tell me slowly."

  Poppandacorn, who had gone quiet by some rare miracle, moved closer, his little paws pressed together as if he were trying to be truly serious.

  "Mommy..." his voice came out thin, trembling. "If Mommy cries... Poppa cries."

  Americ-Ana let out a sound that was neither crying nor a sob, only her body trying not to break apart. She wiped her tears with the palm of her hand and took a deep breath, once, twice, as if obeying herself.

  "Sorry," she whispered, not asking forgiveness, only trying to continue. "It is just that... when I say his name, I remember the hallway. The book. The way he looks."

  Nioh closed his hand around the syrup bottle. He stayed silent for a few seconds, and when he spoke, his voice came even lower.

  "And in the Temple..." he coughed once, short, and swallowed right after. "What did he do?"

  Americ-Ana tried to answer.

  Her mouth opened, but the sound did not come out at once. Her chest rose in a trapped sob, and the tears returned to the corners of her eyes as if the memory had claws.

  Poppandacorn raised his little paws, ready to go into full dramatic wailing mode.

  "Mommy, Poppa is going to..." he choked on the words. "Going to cry a lot."

  "No, Poppa." Americ-Ana said, trying to remain standing on the inside. Her voice came out steady for one second, only one second. "Not now."

  She looked at Nioh, and her gaze came heavy, old, as if it had crossed a place that should not exist.

  "And that was when everything got worse. I heard it. I listened." Americ-Ana said, and her voice finally broke for real. "I heard Patron Uvo kill King Solomon."

  The silence inside her became so absolute that even the music seemed far away.

  Poppandacorn let out a muffled sound, like a sob trapped inside a plush chest. He brought his little paws to his face and shook his head, denying it, denying it hard.

  "No..." he murmured. "No, no, no..."

  Nioh tried to say something, but the cough came again, more violent. He turned red, his eyes watered, and for an instant it looked as if the air had been ripped out of him. He took another swallow of syrup, his hand trembling, and his breathing came back in pieces.

  Americ-Ana stood there with her heart racing, torn between running to him and finishing the sentence that was burning inside her.

  "He killed him, and it was as if... as if the entire Temple had understood there was no king there anymore," Americ-Ana said, each word heavier than the one before. "And I understood one thing, Nioh."

  Nioh lifted his gaze, still short of breath, trying to keep his body in place.

  Americ-Ana pressed a hand to her own chest, as if the guilt were written on her skin.

  "I was there. I saw it. And I could not stop it."

  Americ-Ana drew a deep breath, trying to find some ground inside her own memory.

  "So... Patron Uvo did what he did..." she said, and her voice came out as if it were passing through glass. "We had nowhere to run. And there were demons... screaming. Hunting."

  Nioh tightened his grip on the little syrup bottle, as if that could hold his body together in place. The cough came in two dry blows. He swallowed, took a quick drink, and made a short gesture, asking her to continue.

  Americ-Ana nodded, but her throat locked for half a second before releasing the next part.

  "We hid," she said. "In a place... inside the vault, a little before the Temple."

  Poppandacorn lifted his face. His LED eyes flickered, tense, as if the system remembered before the heart did.

  "Mommy..." he whispered.

  Americ-Ana looked at Nioh as if asking forgiveness in advance just for saying the name.

  "In the Bronze Sea."

  The reaction was instant and physical.

  Nioh drew in breath, but the air did not go in right. The cough exploded all at once, hard, long, as if it were tearing him apart from the inside. He doubled forward, one hand going to his chest, the other clutching his stomach.

  Americ-Ana stopped at once.

  "Nioh..."

  He tried to raise a hand to say "keep going," but he could not. He coughed again, and this time his face flushed a dangerous red. He choked on his own breathing, his eyes watered, and the syrup went to his mouth too fast, like a reflex.

  "Nioh, are you okay?" Americ-Ana took a step instinctively and knelt beside him, not knowing where to touch him without making it worse.

  Poppandacorn's body turned steady, focused, almost clinical.

  "Mommy, Poppa detects oxygen drop." His voice came out fast, clean. "Heart rate rising. Alert."

  Nioh tried to say something, but the cough came down like a hammer. And then, for a second, his body lost its center, as if his legs had forgotten how to do it.

  Americ-Ana grabbed his arm at once.

  "Breathe with me, Nioh... please..."

  But the episode escalated.

  Nioh had a violent spasm, his stomach contracting, and he vomited right there, suddenly, without being able to control it. The sound mixed with the loud rock as if the world were mocking the moment, and Americ-Ana froze for a second, horrified, then came back to him with practical desperation.

  "My God... Nioh..."

  His body was shaking. Truly shaking. The coughing had turned into a kind of convulsion that climbed through his torso and took his arms with it. He fell onto his side, his shoulder striking the floor, his eyes half-open, lost somewhere between lack of air and shock.

  Americ-Ana went pale.

  "No, no, no..."

  Poppandacorn opened the compartment in his own belly with a snap. From inside, as if it were a mini ICU hidden inside a toy, came instruments too small to be real and too real to be a toy. He moved toward Nioh with precision, already in protocol.

  "Mommy, give Poppa space." Poppandacorn said, firm. "Poppa is going to take care of him."

  Americ-Ana pulled back half a step, but she could not truly move away. Her hands were shaking. Her eyes kept darting from Nioh's face to his mouth, searching for air the way someone searches for light in the dark.

  Poppandacorn placed one little paw near Nioh's face, monitoring his breathing, and the other went straight to the first-aid kit, pulling something out, small and fast, as if every second were a rare coin.

  "Nioh, listen to Poppa." He spoke, and his voice was calm in a way that was almost frightening. "Poppa is going to stabilize you. Stay with Poppa."

  Americ-Ana swallowed the panic and whispered, broken:

  "Please... don't die because of me... don't die now..."

  Nioh was still shaking on the floor, trying to pull in air through the loud rock, his throat at war.

  Poppandacorn was already in first-aid mode, the compartment in his belly open, ready to make contact and stabilize him.

  "No." Nioh forced the word out, hoarse. He raised a trembling hand and pushed Poppandacorn's little paw away. "Don't touch me..."

  Americ-Ana froze, frightened.

  "Nioh..."

  "Spyder." Nioh said, swallowing the cough. "Let Spyder take care of me."

  The robotic spider moved in, fast, obedient, like protocol.

  Nioh grabbed the little bottle of syrup, drank in a hurry, and breathed in fragments, recovering the bare minimum of control.

  He lifted his eyes to Americ-Ana, red, weak, but insistent.

  "Keep going," Nioh said. "Keep telling it... please."

  Americ-Ana swallowed hard, trembling.

  "Okay," she whispered, frightened, but obeying.

  Americ-Ana drew a deep breath, as if pulling courage from the same place the guilt came from.

  "After the Temple... the vault turned into hell." She spoke low, fast, because the memory came in blocks. "There were demons. They realized we were in there and started screaming, 'INTRUDERS,' like a living siren. We ran, and all I could think about was not letting Poppa be torn away from me."

  Nioh tightened his hand around the syrup, his chest rising and falling as if trying to keep up with the story without collapsing. The cough threatened, he held it back, swallowed hard, and made a short gesture for her to continue.

  "We managed to escape," Americ-Ana continued, and her eyes went far away. "And we went back to the tree. The stained-glass tree."

  Poppandacorn, who until then had been far too quiet to be himself, slowly lifted his little head.

  "The small one." Americ-Ana corrected, and her voice turned strange. "Because I saw that small version again, floating in the void. And I thought it was the way out, Nioh. I swear I did."

  She bit the inside of her cheek.

  "But then... I heard it."

  Nioh lifted his head a little, attentive, but his throat was already tightening. He held the little syrup bottle as if it were a buoy.

  "A voice." Americ-Ana continued. "Calling. Asking for help. Saying, 'I'm trapped on Step Thirty.'"

  Poppandacorn shrank a little, as if that sentence had scraped his circuits from the inside.

  Americ-Ana ran a hand over her own arm, as if trying to brush away a chill.

  "I stopped. I went back slowly. I got close to the tree and started looking for where it was coming from." She breathed more shallowly. "And then I saw a reflection in the stained glass. A blonde girl, platinum blonde, long hair, almost white."

  The sentence came out like astonishment, hers alone.

  "'Helena?'" Americ-Ana whispered, and her heart started pounding harder. "'Helena Blavatsky? Is that you?'"

  Nioh tried to pull in air to say something, but the cough came first, short and sharp. He turned his face away and took a swallow of syrup, trying to hold himself together.

  Americ-Ana kept going, unable to stop.

  "I reached out my hand. I touched the branch that reflected her."

  A dry pause.

  "Nothing happened."

  She frowned, disappointed and confused at the same time, as if she had felt the magnet of the story and it had failed.

  "I said, 'Nothing...'" Americ-Ana finished, more to herself than to Nioh. "Poppa raised his little arm, insistent. 'Mommy... let Poppa try.' And then his little paw touched the branch. And the Universe blinked again."

  The word "blinked" seemed to pull something out of Nioh's chest. The cough exploded, too strong, a sequence with no room to breathe. He turned red, his eyes watered, and for an instant it looked as if he might break apart right there.

  Americ-Ana stopped at once.

  "Nioh..."

  But the cough won. His body lost its balance, and he collapsed to the side, passing out on the floor, the bottle slipping from his hand.

  Poppandacorn's LED eyes went wide, urgent.

  "Mommy. Nioh passed out."

  Poppandacorn did not hesitate.

  His little body turned serious in a way that always frightened Americ-Ana, because that was when he stopped being a toy and became protocol.

  "Poppa will take care of him," he said, firm, and he had already opened the compartment in his belly with a snap.

  Inside, mini drawers, instruments, capsules, cables, like a miniature ICU hidden inside all that cuteness.

  Americ-Ana knelt beside Nioh, her heart pounding in her throat.

  "Nioh... please..."

  Poppandacorn placed his little paws on Nioh's chest over his clothes, measuring, reading, calculating. His LED eyes shifted into monitor displays, numbers and alerts scrolling across them.

  "Weak breathing," Poppandacorn said, quickly. "Mommy, give Poppa space. Poppa is going to stabilize him."

  The Spyder, in the corner, moved as if it were about to advance, but stayed where it was, obedient to its unconscious owner.

  Poppandacorn pulled out a miniature oxygen mask, too small to be real, and fitted it over Nioh's face with care. A mechanical airflow began, discreet, efficient.

  Nioh did not react right away.

  Americ-Ana felt an ice-cold drop in her stomach.

  "Poppa... he..."

  "Calm." Poppandacorn said, and his voice tried to sound light, but the LEDs gave away the tension. "Poppa is here."

  He pulled out a mini defibrillator, two pads the size of coins, and placed them against Nioh's chest with precision, without spectacle, without drama, as if it were just another ordinary day.

  "Poppa, no." Americ-Ana whispered, terrified.

  "It is only a small pulse, Mommy." he replied.

  A snap.

  Nioh's body gave a tiny jolt, almost imperceptible, but his chest pulled in air again, as if life had remembered its own address.

  Poppandacorn kept monitoring him, without blinking.

  Seconds that felt like minutes.

  The color in Nioh's face slowly returned, from suffocated red to a living pale. The cough had not come back yet, but breathing existed again.

  Americ-Ana brought a hand to her mouth, trembling.

  "He... he came back..."

  Poppandacorn closed part of the compartment, keeping only the essentials open.

  "Now we wait," he said, low. "Minutes."

  Americ-Ana stayed there, still, holding back her own crying, looking at Nioh as if looking were a kind of prayer.

  The rock was still going on outside, absurdly loud.

  The hamsters kept running.

  The cockatiels kept flying.

  And in the middle of the chaos, Nioh Nemmesis breathed again.

  After a few minutes, his eyes trembled and opened slowly, like someone returning from a place far too dark.

  Americ-Ana leaned in at once.

  "Nioh?" she called, almost voiceless. "Nioh, are you with me?"

  Nioh blinked once, confused, and then the cough came, small, weak, but it came, proving he was back.

  Poppandacorn let out a breath he did not even have lungs to hold.

  "See, Mommy?" he said, trying to smile. "Poppa is almost a hospital."

  Americ-Ana did not wait for Nioh to sit up properly.

  She moved closer, kneeling, her voice coming out low, urgent, as if apologizing were the only thing keeping the whole world in place.

  "Nioh... I almost died of worry. Are you okay?"

  Nioh blinked slowly, still groggy. The cough came weak, and he brought the syrup to his mouth with a trembling hand, took a short swallow, and nodded, trying to look normal.

  "I am," he said, hoarse. "I just... just need... a minute."

  Americ-Ana nodded too, but her face was already falling apart. The guilt was spilling out before the tears.

  "I should not have told it like that," she said, swallowing hard. "I should not have... put you in this situation... in any situation."

  Nioh tried to answer, but another cough rose, more insistent. He turned his face away, coughed, breathed, took more syrup, and only then managed to speak.

  "Americ-Ana..."

  But she did not stop. It was as if, after almost losing him right there, her heart had decided to spill everything.

  "You are spending Christmas here," Americ-Ana said, and her voice broke on that specific word, Christmas, as if she had bitten into glass. "Alone. Locked in. Because of me."

  Poppandacorn went quiet for a second, which in Poppandacorn meant total seriousness. He sat down beside them, little paws in his lap, as if trying to be a well-behaved child.

  Americ-Ana drew a deep breath, and her eyes filled again.

  "I found that stupid book," she blurted out all at once, and the sentence came with anger and shame mixed together. "Actually... Poppa found it. Between the daisies, inside the Cryptakashic, on the day I went to take possession of the things Helena Blavatsky left behind. I kept it. I left it in his compartment. I swear, Nioh, I swear I did not know those symbols were... terrorism here."

  She ran a trembling hand over her face.

  "Later... when I understood... I got scared," Americ-Ana continued. "Afraid to tell anyone and have them think I was a terrorist. Afraid they would think I was... I do not know... acting on Rabbi Worse Devil's orders. Afraid of everything. I froze. I hid it. I made the worst kind of choice, which is choosing nothing."

  Her voice collapsed and became full crying at last.

  "I did not want you to pay for this," Americ-Ana said through tears. "I did not want anyone to pay. But you did. You paid because... because you tried to protect me in the hallway, that day. And I am here, with you coughing until you pass out, and I... I do not know how to fix this."

  Nioh kept looking at her in silence, and his gaze changed in a way that did not fit a house full of hamsters and loud rock. It became far too human.

  He coughed lightly, only once, and then dragged himself closer, slowly, as if his body were fragile but his intention were firm.

  "I never imagined..." Nioh began, and his voice came out low, faltering a little. He took another swallow of syrup, breathed, and continued. "...that someone would worry about me like this. For real."

  Americ-Ana tried to say something, but only cried harder, because his words hurt in a different way.

  Nioh hesitated for a second, and then opened his arms.

  Americ-Ana did not think. She leaned in and accepted.

  The embrace was awkward because of the difference in size, because of his fragility, because her body was trembling, but it was a real embrace. An embrace that said: you are here, I am here, and the world can scream outside.

  Poppandacorn, obviously, could not bear to stay out of it.

  "Mommy..." he said, his voice already catching. "Poppa... Poppa is sad too."

  "Quiet, Poppa." Americ-Ana tried, but the sentence came out without strength, because now her face was buried in Nioh's shoulder.

  Nioh closed his eyes for an instant, as if that were the first time someone had touched him without interest, without calculation, without hierarchy.

  And when he spoke again, his voice came with a bitter sincerity.

  "People in THE-IMPERIUM are fake," Nioh said, and coughed weakly at the end. "They smile to your face and calculate behind your back. That is why I trust machines... and animals... more than people."

  Americ-Ana lifted her face slowly, eyes red, her breathing still trembling.

  Poppandacorn wiped an LED tear with the tip of his little paw, trying to keep his dignity and failing.

  And, for a few seconds, in the middle of the rock, the hamsters, and the cockatiels, it felt as if there were a small bubble of truth inside that place.

  Nioh was still holding Americ-Ana in the embrace for one second longer than normal, as if he were trying to memorize the weight of someone caring about him.

  He coughed softly, cleared his throat, took another swallow of syrup, and when he lifted his face, there was a decision in his eyes. A sudden spark, dangerous, almost pure in how sincere it was.

  "Listen..." Nioh said, and his voice came out hoarse, but firm. "Why don't you run away with me?"

  Americ-Ana blinked, as if she had not heard him properly.

  "Run away... what do you mean?" she asked, her breathing still trembling. "To where?"

  Nioh moved his hand a little closer to hers. He touched her lightly, as if asking permission.

  "To anywhere in the world you want," he said, and coughed at the end, recovering quickly with the syrup. "I know you're a scholarship student. I know how they look at you here. So I promise... I'll support you. I'll never let you lack anything."

  Americ-Ana went still, her brain trying to process it in the middle of the chaos. She looked at the floor, then at him, and a nervous laugh almost came out, but died before it was born.

  "But Nioh..." she began, and her tone came with fear, not of feeling, but of consequence. "I can't put you in a worse situation than this. If we run away, then they really will say you're a terrorist for real. And your family? And the Equal One Zero Academy? You worked so hard..."

  Nioh shook his head, as if those things were wet paper.

  "I don't care," he said, and the sentence came simple, frightening. "I don't care about them. I've always liked you."

  Americ-Ana froze again.

  Nioh went on, and his gaze turned direct, without a mask.

  "Since the first time I saw you in the water cube test." He coughed, quick, and held the line. "I wanted to help you in Mulafossur. I wanted to help you with the book... with everything... because I like you. Since the first time. You... you didn't notice?"

  Americ-Ana was left speechless. Her mouth opened a little, but no sound came out.

  And that was exactly when Poppandacorn went into romance mode. The compartment in his belly gave a discreet click, and he pulled out a mini violin, tiny and gleaming. He lifted it as if he were on a stage and started playing a little romantic tune, with theatrical vibrato, looking at the two of them as if he were the conductor of destiny.

  Americ-Ana turned her face away at once, mortified.

  "Poppa... stop that right now."

  Poppandacorn kept playing for two seconds, then stopped, offended, and hugged the violin as if he were the victim.

  "Okay, Mommy..." he whispered, but could not help adding, "But if you two run away... Poppa is going too."

  Americ-Ana closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and looked back at Nioh, not knowing where to put her hands, her face hot, her heart racing for reasons she had not planned for.

  "Nioh... I..." she tried.

  Nioh gave her hand a light squeeze, and his voice came lower, almost like a secret.

  "You do not have to say anything now." He coughed, took another swallow of syrup, and went on. "Just think about it. The moment you say, 'Nioh, let's run away'... I will go with you. Anywhere."

  Nioh tried to hold her gaze for one more second, but his throat betrayed him first.

  The cough came suddenly, hard, fast, as if his own body were reminding him that romance was not the clinical priority.

  He turned his face away, coughed in sequence, brought the syrup to his mouth, drank in a hurry, and his chest rose and fell in fragments.

  "I'm sorry..." Nioh said, hoarse, between one throat-clear and the next. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, visibly embarrassed. "I... need... a minute."

  Americ-Ana got to her feet on reflex, worried.

  "Nioh, are you okay? Do you want me to..."

  "No," he cut in. "It is just... the bathroom. I'll be back."

  He pointed with his chin toward an inner hallway of the house, as if he had done that a thousand times. The Spyder moved with him, following him like a mechanical shadow.

  Nioh took two steps, stopped, coughed again, breathed, took another swallow of syrup, and then kept going, small and stubborn, until he disappeared through the bathroom door.

  The door closed.

  There was only the loud rock, the hamsters running like a living city, the cockatiels cutting through the air, and that emotional silence right in the center of Americ-Ana.

  She stood there, not knowing what to do with her heart.

  Poppandacorn, who seconds earlier had been the violinist of embarrassment, was serious again now, looking at her as if trying to read her face from the inside.

  "Mommy..." he began, softly.

  "Don't start." Americ-Ana said, her face still hot, trying to recover her composure. She drew in a breath and pointed a finger. "Not one word, Poppa."

  Poppandacorn shut his little mouth, offended, and went to play with a hamster with utterly fake dignity.

  Americ-Ana took a deep breath and looked around.

  The house was simple, but crammed with strategy. Tubes, little houses, food, water, nests, hanging toys, everything looking cute until you remembered it was a war against sensors and drones.

  The GummyAir was still floating near her, obedient, quiet, as if it knew that moment was delicate.

  "Fly." it said softly, as if it were only being present.

  Americ-Ana ran a hand across her forehead and waited, listening to the sounds from the bathroom in the distance, muffled coughs, running water, and breathing trying to return to normal.

  She was not ready to decide anything.

  But she also could not pretend she had not heard him.

  Americ-Ana stood still for a few seconds, trying to reorganize her own chest, while the rock kept crushing the air and the cute chaos of the hamsters and cockatiels kept insisting on looking normal.

  When she realized Nioh was really going to take a while in the bathroom, she began to walk slowly through the house, unhurried, only too curious to remain still. The GummyAir floated after her, obedient. Poppandacorn stayed on the floor, pretending he was an exemplary citizen, playing with hamsters as if that were therapy.

  There was one room that felt different, quieter inside, almost as if the house had a place reserved for thought. A room with a table, a chair, stacked notebooks, open books, pages full of notes, and an air of forced routine. Americ-Ana understood at once. That was where Professor Fiat-Lux was supposed to appear, the only visit allowed, the only authorized contact, a supervised pedagogical Christmas, as if studying were anesthesia.

  She moved closer to the table. Her eyes ran over titles and scribbles until something caught her attention. A report card. An official sheet, with the face of bureaucratic truth, left there as if Nioh had forgotten to put it away.

  Americ-Ana read.

  In practical classes, Nioh was listed as failed.

  Reason: did not submit the "homunculus creation" assignment.

  Americ-Ana stared at that for a second longer than she should have, as if that single line explained a piece of what Nioh was becoming in there, trapped, coughing, studying, surviving, and even so failing at the only kind of task that demanded something beyond the mind.

  "You did not even learn what a homunculus is..." she whispered, more to herself, and the guilt began breathing with her again.

  Americ-Ana still had the report card in her head when she heard a sob behind her.

  A sob too loud to be discreet, too dramatic to be only pain.

  She turned at once.

  Poppandacorn appeared in the doorway, his LED eyes shining with sadness and one little hand clutching his own belly as if he were holding the world in place.

  "Mommy..." he said, and his voice came trembling. "Poppa... has a really bad stomachache."

  Americ-Ana dropped the thought of Nioh's failing report card.

  "Poppa, what is it? Did you get hurt? What happened?"

  Poppandacorn limped in, trembling.

  "Poppa was playing tag with Mr. Hamster..." he sniffled, pointing at a random hamster as if it were a witness. "And then... out of nowhere... a really strong pain came, Mommy."

  Americ-Ana took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. She knelt down.

  "Okay. Breathe with me," she said, firm. "Open the compartment in your belly and let me see."

  Poppandacorn nodded, whimpering, and opened the compartment with a snap.

  Inside, it was the usual organized chaos: mini drawers, labels, modules. Binary codes running in rows. Tiny tags.

  She leaned her face closer, examining everything carefully.

  "'Poopghene Foods and Beverages'..." she read, moving her finger through the air. "'User's personal items'... 'Automaton's personal items'..."

  Everything seemed to be in place. No glaring red light. No broken part. No obvious warning of a malfunction.

  Americ-Ana frowned, confused.

  "Poppa... I don't see anything strange in here."

  Poppandacorn clutched his belly tighter, crying again, and the sound of his crying seemed far too big for his small body.

  "But it hurts, Mommy..." he moaned, and his body gave a short tremor, as if something inside had pressed a button that should not have been pressed.

  Americ-Ana held her own anxiety in check, keeping one hand near the compartment.

  "Okay. Then we're going to observe it," she said softly, trying not to scare him. "You stay here with me. No playing around."

  Poppandacorn sniffled, trying to agree, but already with that look of someone who was about to fail the promise.

  The bathroom door opened with a discreet creak in the middle of the rock.

  Nioh reappeared, his face a little paler, the little syrup bottle in his hand, breathing like someone who had just won a short, ugly fight. The Spyder came behind him, silent.

  He took two steps and stopped the instant he saw Americ-Ana in there, bent over the table, with Poppandacorn's compartment open.

  Nioh's gaze narrowed, clearly uncomfortable.

  "Americ-Ana... what are you doing in here?" he asked, hoarse. He coughed once, dry, and added, pointing with his chin toward the room, "This is my classroom."

  Americ-Ana straightened up immediately, as if she had been caught breaking into a bank.

  "I'm sorry, Nioh," she said quickly, sincere. "I saw the door open and... I just came in out of curiosity. I didn't mean to invade anything."

  Nioh was about to answer, but before any sentence could close, Poppandacorn let out a loud groan, different from the others, and his little body lost its balance.

  He fell to the floor.

  The fall was not theatrical like usual.

  It was heavy.

  Americ-Ana dropped to her knees at once.

  "Poppa!"

  Nioh crouched too, the discomfort vanishing from his face as if someone had switched one mode off and another on.

  "Poppa, talk to me," Americ-Ana pleaded, her hand already reaching to hold him, terrified.

  Poppandacorn writhed on the floor, clutching his little belly hard, and the crying turned into real pain.

  "It hurts, Mommy..." he moaned, curled in a fetal position.

  Nioh looked at the open compartment, then at Poppandacorn's body twisting, and his voice came out short, worried.

  "What happened to him?"

  Poppandacorn writhed on the floor with desperate violence, as if his own little belly had become a battlefield.

  He curled into a fetal position, clutching his abdomen with both little paws, groaning loudly over the rock hammering the walls.

  "Poppa, look at me," Americ-Ana said, kneeling beside him, trying to hold his body without hurting him. "Stay with me. Poppa, please."

  Poppandacorn only trembled harder, his LED eyes blinking in an irregular rhythm, almost as if it were alert and crying at the same time.

  Nioh knelt on the other side, trying to stay calm, but his cough already wanted to come back. He swallowed hard, took a swallow of syrup, and brought his hands closer to Poppandacorn's mechanisms, searching for some access point, some latch, some logic.

  "I can... I can try to reboot some module," Nioh murmured, more to himself than to Americ-Ana, and began moving with quick, precise fingers.

  Poppandacorn screamed.

  "No, no, no!" he whimpered, clutching his belly even tighter. "Ow, Mommy, it hurts so much!"

  Americ-Ana looked at Nioh, desperate.

  "Nioh, can you shut this off? Can you make it stop?"

  Nioh tried another angle, another gear, another fitting. Nothing responded the right way. Poppandacorn's body kept contracting in waves.

  "It is not working," Nioh said, tense, and his voice failed for a second. He coughed shortly and steadied himself. "I cannot find what is triggering this."

  Poppandacorn curled in on himself even more, his chin trembling, as if the shame were arriving before the event.

  He turned his face toward Americ-Ana, and the sentence came out like confession and sentence, trembling and inevitable.

  "Mommy..." Poppandacorn moaned, his eyes shining in panic. "Forgive Poppa... but Poppa is going to poop."

  Poppandacorn's sentence had barely ended when his body gave a brutal jolt, as if something inside him had pulled a forbidden lever.

  The sound came first.

  A monstrous purple fart, loud, deep, offensive, louder than the rock blasting through Nioh's speakers.

  The impact was so violent that the speakers blew out, one by one, spitting sparks and silence, as if the music itself had been defeated.

  And then came the smoke.

  Purple.

  Dense.

  A heavy purple, almost physical, advancing like a war cloud inside that room.

  Mixed into it, an absurd volume of purple poop, in an impossible quantity, gushing out as if Poppandacorn's body had turned into an uncontrolled portal.

  Americ-Ana screamed and threw her arms up on reflex, but it did not help.

  She was hit.

  Nioh was hit.

  The two of them were covered from head to toe in that surreal purple poop, the smell of cotton candy and chocolate flooding everything, the heat of the purple explosion tearing through the air.

  The house could not take it.

  Glass vibrated and shattered.

  Windows blew out.

  Doors burst open.

  And part of the roof gave way with a crash, opening the house to the freezing night outside.

  The effect was immediate.

  The hamsters, in collective panic, began running en masse toward holes and cracks, and many simply escaped outside like a living flood.

  The cockatiels, terrified, shot through the hole in the roof, flying into the snowy sky, a whirlwind of wings and cries.

  Americ-Ana coughed in the middle of the purple smoke, trying to see.

  "Nioh!" she screamed, desperate, but her voice seemed small inside the chaos.

  Nioh stood still for a second, covered in purple poop, shocked, and then coughed hard, his face red, swallowing syrup in the fright as if it were water.

  Poppandacorn, still on the floor, opened his mouth to say something, but only managed a groan, exhausted, as if he had just committed a crime against the universe.

  And outside, with the cockatiels and hamsters escaping, with the roof torn open and the purple smoke rising like a flare, there was no secret anymore.

  Security was going to see.

  Security was already seeing.

  The response came from outside before anyone in there could think.

  A siren burst through the air, cutting the night and pouring into the broken house, and with it came the metallic voice of a loudspeaker, cold, official, without emotion.

  "Attention, Nioh Nemmesis. If you are attempting to escape, give up and do not resist. You are surrounded."

  Americ-Ana went still, covered in purple poop, her chest tightening in a way that felt crushing from the inside. She looked at the hole in the roof, at the cockatiels disappearing, at the hamsters escaping like living evidence.

  "They... they're going to come in," she whispered, her voice failing. "Nioh..."

  Nioh coughed hard, turned his face away, swallowed syrup on reflex, and wiped his mouth with his hand, trying to regain control of his own body and the situation at the same time.

  "Let me handle this," he said quickly, in a tone that allowed no argument.

  Americ-Ana shook her head, desperate.

  "This is going to make everything worse for you."

  Nioh took a step forward, looking toward the direction the siren was coming from, as if he were already putting on the mask he needed to wear.

  "I'll say it was an experiment out of control," he said, dry, practical. "I always make noise in here. I always do strange things in here. They'll believe that."

  The loudspeaker's voice came again, closer now, more threatening, as if the whole house were a target.

  "Attention, Nioh Nemmesis. Come out now and keep your hands visible."

  Nioh looked at Americ-Ana, and his gaze turned serious in a way that made the escape proposal feel like another life.

  "And you cannot be here when they come in," he said, firm. "If they see you, it's over for you in THE-IMPERIUM. Do you understand? Over."

  Americ-Ana opened her mouth, but could not speak. Her body was trembling between guilt and panic.

  Poppandacorn groaned softly on the floor, exhausted, still covered in purple poop, and the GummyAir floated there, too close, as if it already knew what the order of the world was.

  Nioh pointed with his chin, urgent, insisting with his voice.

  "Go now, Americ-Ana," he said, and coughed at the end, recovering with the syrup. "Don't argue. Go."

  Americ-Ana stood still for one second that felt like an entire life.

  The siren outside kept going, and the loudspeaker kept repeating Nioh's name like a hammer.

  She looked at him, covered in purple poop, trembling, her eyes full.

  "Nioh..."

  Nioh stepped closer and made a quick motion with his hand, almost a shove to make her move already.

  "Go," he said, firm, his voice hoarse. "Now."

  Americ-Ana swallowed hard, as if she were swallowing her own chest with it.

  She moved toward him on impulse, without thinking, and kissed Nioh's cheek, a quick, trembling kiss, more a plea for forgiveness than anything else.

  Nioh went still for an instant, his eyes widening, and then he drew a deep breath, as if that had been a good shock and a cruel one at the same time.

  "Go, Americ-Ana," he repeated softly. He coughed and brought the syrup to his mouth. "Go."

  Americ-Ana turned and ran to Poppandacorn.

  His little body was sprawled on the floor, limp, without strength, his LED eyes flickering on and off in glitches, until they went dark for good.

  "Poppa..." she whispered, desperate.

  She picked him up carefully, clutching him against her chest.

  The GummyAir floated lower, coming close as if offering its own body as an escape.

  "Gummy," Americ-Ana said, her voice split.

  "Fly," the GummyAir answered, simple, like a promise.

  Nioh moved fast, pulling a side shelf and shifting a panel that looked like nothing more than part of the wall. An opening appeared, narrow, improvised, hidden for someone small enough not to be seen easily.

  "Through here," Nioh said, and pointed. "Go out through that corridor and up. Don't look back."

  Americ-Ana climbed onto the GummyAir with Poppandacorn in her arms, kneeling to protect him, her breathing in pieces.

  She looked at Nioh one last time.

  "Nioh... thank you. I will come back," she said, and the sentence came out far too small for the size of what he was doing.

  Nioh nodded, firm, as if gratitude itself were dangerous in that moment.

  "Go," he repeated.

  Americ-Ana drew in breath, held Poppandacorn tighter, and leaned her body forward.

  "Gummy! Gummy! Gummy!"

  "Fly! Fly! Fly!" the GummyAir answered, and shot through the opening, vanishing from the broken house before the front door gave way for good.

  Outside, the night was still snowing, as if the bunker insisted on pretending peace.

  Americ-Ana cut through the air on top of the GummyAir, with an unconscious Poppandacorn in her arms, heavier than her heart could bear. The wind struck her face, the artificial snow clung to her hair, and her body was shaking from more than the cold.

  "Please, Poppa..." she whispered, breathless, clutching him against her chest. "Do not leave me... react..."

  The GummyAir trembled at its limit, but kept going, firm, obedient, as if that escape were the only law that mattered.

  Then the voice came, cutting through the snow like a blade.

  "Attention! We can see you! Stop now or you will be arrested!"

  Americ-Ana froze for half a second, only long enough to feel her spine turn to ice.

  Blue and red lights tore across the sky behind her, reflecting in the flakes, spinning like police eyes.

  She turned her face quickly and saw.

  Drones.

  Several.

  In formation, with spotlights and loudspeakers, closing in like metal predators.

  "Attention! Stop immediately!"

  Americ-Ana drew in breath as if she were about to dive.

  "No," she said, to no one, to the sky, to all of THE-IMPERIUM.

  She leaned forward with everything she had, as if her own courage were the engine.

  "Gummy! Gummy! Gummy!"

  The GummyAir answered at once, vibrating harder, accelerating until the air itself seemed to tear.

  "Fly! Fly! Fly!"

  The drones locked onto Americ-Ana as if they had a scent for her.

  Spotlights swept across the falling snow, and the blue and red lights painted the flakes with urgency. The sound of the rotors was a disciplined swarm, and the loudspeaker would not stop, repeating the same threat like a mantra.

  "Attention! Stop now!"

  Americ-Ana did not stop.

  She pressed Poppandacorn against her chest and kept his face protected, as if her body were the last possible shelter.

  "Gummy... hold on," she whispered, her teeth chattering, not from cold, but from concentrated panic.

  The GummyAir vibrated harder, at the limit, as if every burst of speed tore an invisible piece out of it. Even so, it answered with absurd fidelity.

  "Fly."

  A flash burst behind her.

  A shot.

  One of the drones opened fire, and the blast skimmed through the air, too hot, too close. Americ-Ana felt the wave of heat on her cheek, and instinct took over her whole body.

  She threw her torso to the left, hard, and the GummyAir obeyed like a blade, carving a tight turn that nearly ripped her stomach out of place. She shot between structures of the pyramid as if she were a line of stitching, dropping, climbing, cutting over a lit corridor, and then diving into a strip of shadow to break the spotlights' lock.

  Another shot.

  Sparks burst off the metal of some railing, sharp cracks in the air.

  Americ-Ana forced the GummyAir into a zigzag, short, fast maneuvers, using everything she knew about that place, every route, every bend, every stretch where the sky narrowed and the drones had to choose between following or crashing.

  She cut across the Crown Eden region like a streak, dropped toward Route Magnolia, and the scenery passed in flashes: snow, lights, signs, silhouettes of statues in the distance, the artificial glow trying to pretend it was a real world.

  The drones would not let go.

  Two came from above, one tried to cut her off from below, and another kept its distance to fire again.

  "Attention! You will be arrested!"

  Americ-Ana pulled in a breath with anger, with no time left to cry.

  "I know!" she shouted to no one, and leaned her body harder, demanding the impossible.

  The GummyAir vibrated as if it were about to crack, but it accelerated.

  "Fly! Fly! Fly!"

  She entered Route Cell like a jet, and there the path became more familiar, more intimate, almost like a map engraved into her nerves. She took a violent turn beside a structure, climbed over an arch, and dove again, always protecting Poppandacorn, always holding his body with desperate care.

  Another shot.

  A laser tore across the sky and burst in the snow-filled air, so close she felt the cold turn to vapor around it.

  And then Americ-Ana saw it ahead at last, like a concrete promise.

  The SAMKHYA CELL.

  The entrance was there, large, open like the mouth of a refuge.

  She adjusted her body, knelt on the GummyAir for better stability, tightened her hold on Poppandacorn, and spoke in a tone that was both plea and command.

  "Gummy... now. Just a little more."

  The GummyAir answered with one last ferocious burst, vibrating at maximum strain, and shot straight toward the entrance of the SAMKHYA CELL.

  The entrance to the SAMKHYA CELL rushed toward her too fast, as if the world itself were coming at her.

  Americ-Ana did not slow down.

  There was no time.

  She tore through the entrance arch like a jet, ripping through the wall of air, and the sound of the pursuit fell behind for half a second, as if the structure itself were trying to swallow the noise.

  But then it happened.

  She hit something.

  Not the ground.

  Not a wall.

  Something with a body.

  The impact was dry and violent, and the GummyAir jolted as if it had hit an invisible pole. Americ-Ana felt her stomach lurch, her arms tighten around Poppandacorn on reflex, and then everything became rotation and loss of control.

  She was thrown.

  She went rolling into the hall, scraping across the floor, her shoulder burning, her knee slamming hard, the world shaking.

  The GummyAir shot forward on instinct and then braked too late, vibrating in the air, disoriented.

  Poppandacorn slipped from Americ-Ana's arms and rolled away, small, dark, coming to a stop several meters ahead with the hollow sound of a body hitting the floor and going still.

  Americ-Ana stayed on the ground for a second, dazed, snow still clinging to her, her heart pounding like an internal siren.

  She blinked, trying to understand what she had hit.

  "Poppa..." she groaned, trying to get up, but her body still would not obey.

  And then she heard the sound of someone moving, getting up, breathing with anger.

  Someone she had run over.

  The first thing Americ-Ana heard was the curse, filthy and human, echoing through the hall like a slap.

  "What the hell is this?"

  Americ-Ana lifted her head slowly, still dazed, her body aching, her breathing unable to settle into order.

  Ahead of her, a figure was getting up from the floor with irritated movements, as if she had been pulled out of a quiet scene and thrown into a wartime accident.

  The hair was pink.

  Not a shy pink. A pink that looked chosen to defy the world.

  And in the middle of that pink, there was blood.

  Running down her forehead, mixing with the strands, trailing in a thin line, gleaming under the bunker’s artificial light.

  The pink top hat, which should have been impeccable, was ruined, crushed, crooked, as if it had been used as a brake.

  Americ-Ana's eyes widened.

  The name left her before reason did.

  "Wwwyye?"