Aron glanced into his son's room. A few centimeters of slit were enough to see the entire dark cell. His face paled even further in the milky glow of the emergency lights. He leaned back against the wall and lowered his head. He didn't want to breathe, didn't want to make a sound. He wanted to be close, unnoticed. It seemed he was about to cry, silently, breaking through all the walls of his shame. His eyes remained dry, and only the ghosts around him heard that terrible howl. It was so quiet that the humming of the electric lights grew more vivid with each passing moment. It reminded him that there was nowhere to escape, that the world where one could run to hold back tears no longer existed. Only the scattered octopuses of hundreds of thousands of bunkers across the planet carried fragments of life. Like the nervous system of a dead body, still transmitting electrical impulses in the moment of agony.
As if at that thought, Aron shrank inward. The ghosts, startled by their mad anger, scattered along the long, white corridor. Aron pushed himself off the wall with a single surge and headed toward the room. However, the anchor of fear chained him to something far behind him. Something he sensed and perceived as fear. A catalog of thoughts titled "what's about to happen" showed him unbearable images as if on cue. The ghosts, who were almost opening the door to the room, clung to the catalog, absorbing every image. Aron slowly reached out and opened the door. The wall of the doorway folded into the wall as lightly as if it weighed nothing.
Mika sat on the ground, his back to the door. A small, black-haired boy. His sleeves and the entire bottom of his shirt were soaked. Aron approached him from behind. He wanted to call his name, but the ghosts entered his mouth as soon as he opened it, sucking in every unspoken word. Mika sat on the ground, holding a silver serving tray in front of him. A glass almost half-filled with water sat on the ground beside him. Mika held his wet hand, fingers curled, over the tray, waiting for a drop of water running down his curled fingers to break off and land in a predetermined spot. Aron walked around his son, keeping an unnatural distance. He was afraid of what he would see. He was afraid of the tray full of sprayed water drops, of his son's face. He was afraid of the unknown. The last drop fell onto the silver surface and splattered a little. Mike moved to dip his fingers into the glass of water, taking another sip of liquid. He spotted his father.
They looked into each other's eyes, so deeply. Too deeply for a seven-year-old. Aron felt that this person before him was much more mature than himself. The spirits moved away from Aron, watching him intently.
"What are you doing... Mika..." Aron asked, almost inaudibly.
Mika, though he maintained an unnaturally calm expression, seemed to hesitate. His gaze was as still as a hand frozen in a glass. The moment dragged on.
"Miko... what are you doing..." he whispered again.
Silence again...
The diffused, glassy stains of water reflected the still light of the lamps.
Like warning signs. Like a molt. The remnant of something terrible, something alien. The spirits brought Aron back to his earlier thoughts. "If this happened to me, if I knew Miko was affected, I would kill and I wouldn't even hesitate. I know what's good, for us, for him, and for our species."
A transmission sent by the agency, repeated thousands of times, ad nauseam. Pathetic words. Instructions for survival for our species. Humans. Hundreds of examples. Orders and irrefutable arguments to help make a decision. Gruesome images of the deaths of those who hesitated. Equally horrific images of hundreds of small children frozen in hibernation. Locked in cells, with that erratic, frozen gaze. Images that speak volumes about who is affected better than a thousand words. Entire galaxies of water drops, sometimes blood, all over everything. Thousands of ideas and speculations from scientists, theorists, and military men.
Mental Touch.
Mental Touch.
Mental Touch.
Illness? Possession? Enchantment?... Touch.
Like a motto, in every conversation, every program, in millions of thoughts worldwide. For months, an integral part of our culture, our lives, our nightmares.
Mika removed his fingers from the glass, catching some of the dripping water in his hand. He poured it over the tray and dropped it onto the dry surface, staring intently at the splashed drop.
The spirits went wild, carrying axes, knives, injections, calls to agency employees, bare hands to strangle.
Another drop.
The spirits raised a banner of fear, screaming in Aron's ears, "Time to act, before it's too late!" They clung to a single image.
"Strangling hands!" "Strangling hands!!!" "Strangle!" "By the neck!" They pushed him harder and harder, while others grabbed his stomach, silent and silent, they resisted with all their strength, love in their eyes, and in it everything...
The emptiness and fullness of the moment. Curses, curses, remorse. Fear, so overwhelming. Sadness, resignation, helplessness, sarcasm.
It boiled over, hordes of spirits grabbed each other by the throats, scratched, bit, and guzzled energy, almost bursting with drink.
Aron helplessly sat down, or rather slumped down, next to his son. Tired of the fight, the spirits settled all around. Father and son watched as another drop fell.
"Mika, what are you looking at?
" "What do you see?
" "What do you see there?"
"What are you doing?"
"Mika...
" "Can you hear me?
" "Mika..."
Several ghosts were already on their feet, already raising their fists... A few burst into tears. Aron tried with all his might not to look or listen to them... He sat resigned, silent. He tried to simply be. Something told him that this was the only thing he could do now. He sat, calming his breathing, the pressure in his head. He sat there for a long, long time... Drop after drop fell onto the tray beside him. The sound was interrupted only by the touch of skin against glass, the swish of a sleeve against the tray.
Thoughts flowed through Aron's head...
He was definitely reading... He was listening to the Mentals' tales, seeing them in every drop. They were programming him. Encoding his brain. Hypnotizing him. Changing him. Sucking out his soul. Entering his body and taking control. Writing down instructions for him to follow.
Each drop fell differently, and was truly different.
And suddenly, an insight.
So sharp, almost like enlightenment.
We were staying together.
Neither lost in thought...
Neither hypnotized...
Meditating...
There are no ghosts.
There are no ghosts of mine...
There are no ghosts of His.
- You're wrong.
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