Zaar memories #7
"THE ONE WHO DIDN'T HAVE TIME TO THINK"
First, there was a crack.
As if the very fabric of the world had torn. Not muffled, not loud. But like the snap of a dead man's spine.
And then — nothing.
And only a fraction of a second later — a roar, a crunch, screams.
A slope gave way.
Not a huge one. Not a universal catastrophe. But there, everything is close. Everything is real.
A minor incident in a metropolis is a headline at the bottom of a newsfeed.
But in there — it's a name, a smell, a breath, and dust in the lungs.
I didn't make it in time. No one did.
Everyone rushed over. Too late. Already…
— No, — he said.
Simply — "no."
He was a boy of about twenty. I'd seen him before; he fixed the stupa on the hill. Thin fingers. Eyes that seemed to move a little slower than everyone else's.
He always walked with a nameless dog.
Now — he stood at the very epicenter.
Alone.
It all happened in three seconds.
I counted them. I always count, even when I shouldn't.
On the second second — the rock was already falling. A big one. The one that broke from the cliff and was hurtling down — at the girl
Ani, I think her name was. She sold flatbread in the mornings. Covered in flour.
He didn't move.
But the world around him — changed.
I don't know exactly what happened.
Because my eyes refused to register it.
But I remember:
the air thickened, as if it were being poured into space, like oil into water.
The rock — was suddenly to the side, as if it hadn't fallen but had mistaken its direction.
And the boy's hand — like a lightning trail, was suddenly next to the girl's body, though physically he hadn't even budged.
Not in the sense that he "moved."
In the sense that the world bent so they could meet.
The plane of existence — it curved. All of it.
Like a film pressed by a finger.
She — on the ground. Whole. Just dirty.
He — nearby. Quiet.
The dust — settled.
The people — were silent.
A breath — collective, as if everyone had been holding it, and oxygen was just returned to them.
And he just looked at his palms.
As if something had stuck to them.
And turned away.
He didn't come out in the evening.
No one saw him at the fire.
The dogs whimpered. The children asked where he was.
I was sitting by the well.
I saw Them take him.
Not by force. Not by order.
Simply…
a Grey, one of the older ones, walked up, looked at him.
And the boy stood.
Like a soldier, but without a duty.
They walked beyond the edge of the field, to where even the grass doesn't grow.
And there — two were waiting.
Not Greys. Not ordinary people.
Blacks.
Like shadows from a fire, if it were burning at the bottom of a crater.
I don't know what will happen to him.
I don't know what he did.
I don't know what I felt.
But this I know:
— It was not a trick.
— It was not a bug in the matrix.
It was the world's response, triggered by someone who knows how not to interfere.
He didn't control it.
He agreed to it.