A CONFESSION

A flash of white enveloped him and, in the blink of an eye, the roar of the coliseum faded away. The ground beneath his feet was no longer golden sand, but a broken red plain stretching as far as the eye could see. Sharp rocks rose like black fangs against a sky of rust.

A sepulchral silence hung over the place. No sign of other players. He was alone. And yet... he shouldn't be.

A powerful and strange wave of déjà vu hit him with the force of a punch. His soul screamed that this place, this very starting point, should be full of noise. He should hear the booming laughter of a fire warrior to his right and the serene, gravelly voice of a mentor behind him. The feeling that his team was gone, that he had been torn away from them, was so real and painful that it made him stumble. He put a hand to his head in confusion. What team? What was he talking about? He had always been alone.

It was that distraction, that internal war between a lonely reality and a phantom memory, that made him careless.

Three sharp whistles cleaved the space where his head had been an instant before. Lightning bolts of solid silver. The ambush. His hands, treacherous in their trembling, found the dagger. He blocked as best he could, but the impacts pushed him back, his arms screaming in agony. One of the arrow-flashes found a hole, and a piercing pain blossomed in his shoulder. Another stuck in his thigh. His life bar plummeted to a thin red line.

Pathetic. Defeated by an anonymous sniper.

Through the veil of sweat and dust, the silhouette of the archer emerged on a distant hill. The bow was raised. Paralysis possessed him. He closed his eyes, waiting for the final kiss of the shadows.

A different whisper. The brush of the air being torn by something massive and swift. He opened his eyes. A dark silhouette stood between him and death. — Stop it — a voice, cold and familiar, cut the tension.

It was Noelia.

With a wave of her hands, the ground in front of them convulsed, rising up in a wave of rock and dust that blocked the archer's line of sight. A strong arm grabbed him by the vest and dragged him through the chaos. 

When the dust settled, they were in a cave. He rolled on the ground, spitting dirt and the bitter taste of defeat. He looked up and there she was, silhouetted against the light, a statue of contradictions. Her face was a mask of frustration and exhaustion.

— Satisfied, Asimil? — Her voice was as sharp as his useless dagger. — Did you enjoy your walk on the edge of swooning? — 

— Nobody asked you to intervene. — he spat. — I could have handled it... or accepted defeat. Anything rather than... this. — The invisible debt he now owed her was a burden on him.

His own anger surprised him. In real life, the words were stuck in his throat. But here, in front of her, the floodgates had burst. A torrent of suspicion and resentment flowed unchecked.

— Get by? — she replied, her voice dripping with disdain. — With that life bar quivering in the red? The only thing you "fixed" was serving yourself up on a platter. It was pathetic. Worthy of a... — She interrupted herself, pursing her lips.

The humiliation burned him. — What do you care! After what you did! — he continued, his voice cracking with emotion. And as he screamed at her, an older, deeper fury joined his, the echo of a betrayal he couldn't name but felt in his bones, as if he'd already seen her smile like that at another man at the end of the world. — Do you think I'm an idiot, that I don't see your double-dealing with that hooded man? —

— Paranoia? I saw you at the coliseum entrance! He said something to you, you smiled at him... that cold smile! The same one you're about to wear now! —

He was right. His emerald eyes sparkled with something dangerous.

— You think you know something? — she whispered. — My business is my own. So are my smiles. And you have neither the strength nor the right to question them. —

— Then don't save me! — he claimed to her. — Let me rot here! I prefer that to your false charity! —

Before he could react, her arm shot out. A clean, swift blow to his stomach.

The air collapsed in his lungs. He fell to his knees, writhing, choking. He saw her crouch down, her eyes cold again, watching his suffering.

— Never mistake a favor for charity — she whispered, her voice icy. — I got you out of there because you owe me a favor. Not out of pity. Not out of... uncomfortable memories. With you... rawness is the only language that doesn't burn me. —

She turned and walked away. Just at the threshold of the shadows, her silhouette merging with the stone, came her last whisper. Rough, broken.

— ...Damn resemblance...I should have let you rot...but pretending with you, little lost brother, hurts more than the open wound... —

The words floated and faded away. He lay there, drowning in three layers of pain: the physical, the pain of debt, and above all, the pain of revelation. Was he... a surrogate? A ghost? The mirror of someone else's pain?

In the silence of the cave, a question echoed louder than any scream: who is he, when his first explosion of true rage he provokes in front of the one person who seems to awaken all the ghosts he didn't know he had?