KATIKA-Treason is never far away (Part.1)

Chapter 14 | You are under arrest

In the dark as in the night, sound consciences find a reason to exist here and now.

The young man's senses seemed to get lost in the void, with darkness completing the duality of his being, the one that opposed fulfillment to his inner discomfort.

A swirl of gray clouds carried him from one corner to another of this space. The limbo, perhaps? In the absence of a better term, it could only be retained by John's subconscious to name this place.

In these dark hours, he struggled in his coma to surface, unaware that terrible troubles were looming for him.

Numerous crimes had been committed in the pursuit, and all for what? To end up in a hospital bed, suspended in a world somewhere between life and death.

This world was emptiness and totality at the same time, yin and yang.

Violence had propelled him into the unknown; how could he leave it behind?

His forehead was beading, not with sweat, but with warm and abundant tears, which were not his own.

He received them and felt them, their gentleness penetrating his heart like a vital energy more powerful than any other.

An invisible thread pulled at him, his neck screaming with sensitivity as he returned to reality.

He was back in his world...

For John, there remained an incredibly painful task: to regain his senses, to open his eyes.

His eyelids seemed fused by an eternal bond, undeniably inseparable from his being, as if it had always been that way since his birth.

The effort he made seemed akin to lifting a mountain, the tiniest parts of his eyelashes tormenting him with an unbearable agony, the pain resembling the pricking of needles on the finest of skins.

What world could finally grant him respite? Happiness? Was he condemned to live eternally in hardship?

Everything had been a succession of roller coasters since he had embarked on his fleeting professional life, going from glory and power to marginality and rebellion, from human consciousness to debauchery, only to return to his previous stage, and finally from carnal love to mortal pain.

At the cost of one final effort, he once again entered communion with the daylight, dazzling as on the first day.

In the beginning, his mother had welcomed him and cried tears of joy, her maternal love overflowing and strong.

Coming out of the coma was a second birth: he was welcomed by another woman, weeping with sadness on her bare chest covered in electrodes, her unspoken love illuminating the room more than the sun itself.

Her tears. He had felt her warm tears in his coma, and this emotional power had brought him back to his world.

Even though Rebecca had refused to confess her love for him from the beginning of their relationship, choosing instead to wait for the fluctuations of time, this spiritual experience had bonded their beings because John knew that the young secretary had just saved his life with her grief.

Speaking of bonds... why couldn't he move his left wrist?

Turning his face, he realized with such a shock that he was surprised he hadn't been thrust back into a coma that he was handcuffed to the bed frame, and a police officer was in the room behind his sweetheart.

The same officer who had questioned him at the scene of the fire at his home.

Subjected to intense pain throughout his battered body, John emitted a mournful groan that had the result of alerting them to his return to life.

Filled with unimaginable relief, Rebecca let out an exclamation of joy.

"John! Thank God, you're alive!"

A nurse was standing by his side and quickly went to inform a doctor, who arrived promptly and ordered sedation.

The young secretary threw herself around his neck, almost suffocating him; all pain seemed to evaporate in their hearts and in John's body for a brief moment.