Falling for the old woman's trick or giving in to my curiosity I went home. Even if her story sounded like a fairy tale, the sphere was bewitchingly beautiful. Why not keep it?
Upon entering, I did as usual: I took off my shoes, lining them up on the mat. The house was silent, empty of any presence. My parents worked until late hours, and my brother, at university, might not return until night. I found myself alone, surrounded by white walls and cold tiles, in a living room furnished with anonymous correctness, where only the sounds of the street filtered through the windows.
Gnawed by boredom, I went upstairs to take a shower. The cold water streamed over my skin, washing away the day's lethargy. For a moment, under the spray, I felt alive again, almost invincible. Then, dried off and changed, I entered my room.
It was separated from the hallway by a narrow varnished wooden door. Inside, everything breathed ordinariness: a bed with anthracite gray sheets and a red blanket adorned with simple patterns; a nightstand cluttered with notebooks and books a few novels, mostly thick textbooks; a backpack abandoned on a light oak chair. I dropped onto the mattress, now dressed in a black sports t-shirt and navy blue sweatpants with stripes.
But my mind wouldn't leave the sphere. Its pull was inexplicable, like a magnet for my gaze, a gentle force that forbade me from looking away. I had placed it on the nightstand and couldn't stop observing it, torn between incomprehension and fascination.
Why? Why did this simple luminous ball occupy my thoughts so?
As I pondered, the day waned. An orange light, soft and weary, filtered through the barely drawn blind. And then, in the gathering dusk, the incredible happened.
The small sphere seemed to drink in the last rays of the sun. It captured all the natural light to transmute it into something unheard of. Then, it projected a star-studded veil into the room.
This was not a simple image. It was a cosmos in motion. Stars were born and died. Spiral galaxies swirled with majestic slowness. Nebulae diffused their colored clouds, and meteors streaked by in silence. Everything evolved, everything lived, as if the entire history of the universe was unfolding before my eyes, condensed into a few moments.
Stunned, I stepped back and lost my balance. My head hit the edge of the table, and in my fall, I almost dropped the sphere. I caught it just in time, my heart pounding wildly.
Too real. It was far too real. I examined it with feverish attention, looking for a mechanism, a seam, a light source. Nothing. Its surface was smooth, uniform, without the slightest hint of technology.
I had to go back to see the old woman.
I rushed down the stairs, hastily pulled on my sneakers, stuffed the sphere into my pocket, and dashed outside. Night was falling, tinting the sky indigo. I ran, eager to arrive before the shop closed.
But as I ran, an abnormal heaviness seized my eyelids. My legs buckled, my run became unsteady. I fought to stay awake, but an immense fatigue, coming from nowhere, was crushing me. After a few stumbles, I collapsed heavily on the sidewalk, barely managing to cushion the fall.
Even on the ground, sleep was claiming me, implacable. My eyes closed despite my will. Before sinking completely, I took the sphere from my pocket. In the darkness enveloping me, I barely distinguished a white light, bright and pure, shooting from my hand.
Then nothing. Absolute blackness.
I had fallen asleep or so I thought.