I left the stele.
Not with a heroic gesture. Not with strength or solemnity. Just… I detached myself. Like one gently removes a hand that has rested too long on a lukewarm ember. Like waking from a dream without meaning to, still entangled in its colors, its burn, its tenderness.
I had no more questions at that moment.
No more screams.
No more strength.
Only that slow, instinctive, almost unconscious movement. A withdrawal. A gentle flight. A resignation. I left the stele… but it did not leave me.
It was still vibrating within me.
Not like a memory. Not like those images one sees again when closing the eyes, blurry, distant, harmless.
No.
It vibrated like thermal residue.
An invisible, yet burning imprint.
Like a memory of warmth left on my skin after a contact too long, too intense, too real. It hadn't left. It had melted into me. Slid between the bones, into the hollow of the skull, along the spine, all the way into that rib cage still beating to its rhythm.
