You've been taught that the world is inert. What if everything around you were alive... and listening?
At dawn, a crystalline light filtered through the leaves. The night had been calm: no drones, no alerts. Only the murmur of a stream disturbed the silence of the forest.
Aria and Sophie woke almost at the same time, surprisingly well-rested.
"Status," Jazz announced. "Zero alerts. Local wildlife active. Conclusion: you're still alive. Excellent start to the day."
Sophie smiled as she sat up. Her scratched ear barely hurt anymore and, since they had crossed the Fissure, something had changed. The forest soothed her in a way she still couldn't explain.
After an improvised breakfast with their last provisions, Aria barely ate. Her gaze kept returning to her phone.
She finally picked it up.
Her mother's files were there. The day before, she had managed to talk about her. Reading them was different.
She slowly inhaled and finally opened the one she had avoided until then.
The digitized pages appeared one after another. Even through the screen, Aria could almost picture the old leather cover with its worn corners.
Aurelia Reyes had left fragments of thought there: observations, intuitions, conversations gathered throughout her research.
And sometimes, sentences that sounded less like science than the echo of much older knowledge.
Aria scrolled through a few pages. This time, she didn't look away. Finally, she handed the phone to Sophie.
"Can you read it out loud?"
Sophie looked up.
Aria hesitated.
"When you're the one reading... it creates a little distance."
Her voice lowered.
"It hurts less."
Sophie didn't ask any questions. She simply took the phone.
Around them, the forest seemed to have grown quieter, as if it too were waiting for what came next.
Sophie began.
"Monday morning. For several weeks now, I've found a way to get to the other side. Obviously, Kaïssa must absolutely not know.
I keep going back again and again. It's like... a calling. I simply can't resist it.
Especially at dawn, it's the silence that greets me first. Then comes a light breeze that seems to make me feel lighter, followed by the smell of humus filling every cell in my body. I rediscover a connection I had forgotten, a bond so ancient that sometimes I feel as though I'm rediscovering my own body... differently."
Sophie slowed slightly.
Aurelia's words seemed strangely close to what she herself had felt since they had crossed the Wall.
She continued.
"When I close my eyes, something extraordinary happens. Everything becomes vibrant, alive, almost awake. I hear whispers, sounds, voices I've never heard anywhere else.
Then, when I open my eyes again, I feel as though I'm part of a current, even though everything around me remains calm and peaceful.
Tall, majestic trees line my path as if they were greeting me. They soften the light and reveal a faint bluish glow. I keep moving forward.
On the bark of certain trees, on moss-covered stones, I begin to make out shapes... almost faces."
Sophie briefly looked up at the trees surrounding them. Without really meaning to, Aria did the same.
Nothing moved.
Sophie continued.
"How is that possible? I had never noticed them before.
Suddenly, as if in a dream, a distant voice says my name. I don't understand what it's saying. I go deeper into the forest. A vine gently brushes my arm, cool and supple. Surprised, I turn around.
And there... right beside me... I think I catch sight of a dark shadow dissolving into the earth, as if the ground itself had just swallowed it.
What was that? There was no one there. Was it... my own shadow?
The voice returns.
Clearer this time.
It tells me that I already know it... but that I forgot it the very moment I forgot the spirits of nature."
Sophie stopped.
For a few seconds, neither of them spoke.
She placed her finger on the next line, but didn't continue right away.
"Aria... did you know your mother came to the forest this often too?"
Aria slowly shook her head.
"No... not really."
Her gaze remained fixed on the screen, but she seemed to be looking far beyond it.
"I mostly remember that she worked all the time. Sometimes she came home very late. My father and Ezra took care of me."
Her breathing shortened slightly.
"My father said Aurelia was obsessed with her research... that she was on the verge of discovering something important."
She lowered her eyes.
"But I didn't know she came here..."
Jazz approached without making a sound. One of his LEDs pulsed gently.
"Emotional stress detected. Light support mode activated."
He gently rested his small dome against Aria's leg.
She lowered her hand and softly patted his shell.
The gesture was enough to bring her back to the present moment.
"Keep going," she whispered.
Then, with a sad smile:
"When you read... I feel like I'm getting a little piece of her back."
Sophie nodded gently. She looked back at the screen.
Around them, the forest also seemed to be holding its breath.
Sophie scrolled down the screen.
"The next part... is the transcript of an old audio recording. A charismatic and wise man whose name Kaïssa erased after she came to power. Your mother writes that people traveled just to listen to him."
Aria leaned back against the tree.
"She said he could talk for hours... but that when you listened to him, you didn't notice the time passing."
Sophie slowly inhaled, then began.
"One of the goals of these gatherings is to awaken consciousness, first individually, then collectively. When consciousness awakens, it becomes possible to raise each person's vibrational level... and that of an entire group."
A light breeze moved through the branches.
Sophie frowned.
"Raise our vibrational level... Do you understand what he means?"
Aria thought about it.
"Maybe our way of being. What we give off... what we bring to those around us."
Jazz tilted his head slightly.
"Computer translation: optimization of internal frequency."
Sophie let out a laugh.
"Do you really translate everything into computer language?"
"It's my native language. Aria is entirely responsible for that."
This time, Aria laughed too.
For a few seconds, the seriousness of the notebook lightened.
Then Sophie continued.
"Why raise this vibrational level? To attain Wisdom. This requires an education... but also the study of the initiatory art of magic."
She stopped.
"Magic?"
The word seemed almost out of place after everything they had just read.
Aria, however, was no longer smiling.
"Keep going."
"And to attain Wisdom. First understand that Wisdom is a state of being, a mastery of life that goes beyond the ordinary human being. It is an Angel. Yes, a human being can attain this state and remain in it until becoming an angel-man. Only then can he truly master his life and bring happiness to those around him."
This time, even Jazz remained silent.
Sophie slowly looked up.
"Do you think he was really talking about Angels?"
Aria looked at the trees in front of her.
"I don't know."
She thought for a few seconds.
"But I feel like he was mainly talking about what a human being can become."
Sophie lowered her eyes again.
Beneath the transcript, Aurelia had added a note in the margin.
"The small group consisted of around thirty people of all ages and backgrounds. Some had been following this man for years. It was before the Great Earthquake."
Aria tried to imagine the scene.
Around thirty people gathered around a man. No drones, no screens to tell them what to look at.
Simply people listening.
Sophie continued.
"We do not walk alone. We follow those who came before us and, one day, others will follow in our footsteps. This is the Great Cosmic Tradition."
The tall ferns trembled in the wind.
"Let us relearn how to live with Nature, to respect this bond we have forgotten. It is time to find our way back to the Mother of the World."
Sophie stopped.
Her gaze moved from the screen to the moss covering the ground, the immense trunks, and the morning light between the leaves.
"It's strange..."
"What?"
"Here, these words don't seem... abstract."
Aria followed her gaze.
After everything they had felt since their arrival, she understood exactly what Sophie meant.
"No," she whispered. "Not here."
Sophie continued reading.
"What happens when we lose this connection? We lose our own nature. We create an artificial one... and that is where suffering begins."
This time, the words lingered between them for a moment.
The city was somewhere behind the Wall.
Here, they could no longer hear anything from it.
Sophie continued, more softly.
"Love is born from our connection with Nature. The Mother of the World whispered it to me, and I experienced it: everything is alive, around us as well as within us.
Let us become the animists of this technological world once again. Spirits, invisible intelligences, surround us. The world is far vaster than the one we were taught to see."
Sophie stopped.
This time, no one commented.
A leaf slowly detached from a branch and came to rest between them. Farther away, the stream continued its murmur.
Aria was still looking at the screen.
"Is there anything else?"
Sophie scrolled down the page.
"Yes."
Sophie looked up.
"Basically... When we're children, everything seems alive to us. Then we grow up and we're taught that what we felt was only our imagination."
"Do you realize? When we're little... we all talk to something."
Sophie remained silent for a few seconds, then looked at Aria.
Aria was about to answer, then stopped.
A memory had suddenly resurfaced.
"It's true..."
A slight smile appeared on her face.
"I used to talk to the stars."
Sophie smiled in turn.
"Me... to two lights and to the trees."
Their eyes met.
For a moment, what they had just read no longer seemed like an ancient theory preserved in Aurelia's notes. It felt like a memory.
Jazz slowly raised his head.
"Additional information: around the age of three, children naturally attribute consciousness to elements of nature."
The two young women burst out laughing.
"You always find a way to ruin emotional moments."
"It's one of my main functions."
The laughter slowly faded.
This time, no one felt the need to speak.
Around them, the forest seemed to breathe with a peaceful joy.
The Guardian Angel: Children sometimes perceive what adults have learned to no longer see. Then they grow up, forget, and call imagination what once seemed obvious to them. But some memories never truly disappear. They simply wait until one day… something awakens them.