The author narrates.
Vikram was falling.
It wasn't a jump.
It wasn't a descent.
It was an endless fall, an abyss with no bottom.
The Executioner was left behind, motionless, as if he had never existed.
But the void still claimed him.
His heart pounded violently, each beat a thunderclap within his chest.
His eyes were closed, squeezed shut in despair, as if by refusing to see he could deny the death that awaited him below.
The air cut his skin, an icy breeze that came from nowhere, yet enveloped him like invisible fingers.
The pleasure that had consumed him before faded, reduced to a faint echo within his body.
He was no longer touching himself.
His hands were outstretched, open, as if searching for an anchor in the middle of nowhere.
But there was nothing.
Only darkness.
And yet, his skin glowed.
A light without origin outlined him, as if the void wanted to reveal him, to display him, even where there was neither ground nor sky.
Vikram didn't scream.
He couldn't.
The fear was so absolute that his soul contracted, as if it wanted to embrace itself before dying.
He awaited the impact.
He awaited the end.
But the ground never came.
Time became strange.
Every second was eternal.
Every instant was torture.
With effort, he opened his eyelids.
Slowly.
Cautiously.
Like someone who fears that looking will reveal the face of death.
But there was nothing.
Only darkness.
The Executioner had disappeared.
The field, the moon, the flowers… everything he had seen before had vanished.
His body spun in the air, slowly, like a leaf caught in an invisible wind.
He looked to the sides: nothing.
He looked down: nothing.
He looked up: nothing.
The darkness was infinite.
A bottomless pit.
A descent that never ended.
And then he understood:
He wasn't falling toward death.
He was falling toward eternity.
Minutes passed.
The initial fear had dissipated, becoming a faint murmur.
It was no longer terror, it was tedium.
Falling endlessly was driving him mad.
Vikram crossed his arms, head down, legs up, like a body tired of waiting.
A sigh escaped his lips, heavy, bored.
The darkness was a silent enemy, an emptiness that wore him down more than fear.
Then, the air changed.
An invisible blow grazed his skin, different, denser.
He opened his eyes and looked down.
There it was.
The ground.
Dry, bare earth, with nothing around.
A dead horizon awaited him.
His heart exploded in his chest, a violent gunshot that shook him to his core.
Fear returned like an animal awakening.
He held his breath, twisted his body in the air, and raised his forearms, as if he could soften the inevitable.
The impact came.
Brutal.
Dust rose in a thick cloud, covering everything.
The blow should have shattered him, broken bones, drawn blood.
But no.
When the dust settled, his body was intact.
Not a single wound.
Not a creak.
Only him, lying on the dry earth, as if the world had decided he didn't deserve to die yet.
Vikram kept his eyes closed, waiting to feel the pain that never came.
He only felt the hardness of the ground beneath his back, the small stones digging into his skin.
The silence was absolute.
With a trembling effort, he opened his eyelids.
Slowly.
Cautionately.
His vision reflected the same thing: dry, barren, lifeless earth.
An empty, artificial scene, as if it were all a soulless stage set.
Fear struck him again.
He got up clumsily, crawling a few meters, as if moving could bring him some security.
His breathing was ragged, his chest heaving violently, his heart pounding like hammers.
Sweat trickled down his forehead, mingled with dust.
His face was contorted, his lips pressed tightly together, his eyes wide open.
He thought:
"How am I still alive? What the hell is this? Why didn't it destroy me?"
Confusion enveloped him.
The fear wasn't just of the fall, but of having survived.
It was as if the world were telling him that his body didn't belong to him, that not even death was his.
There he lay, exposed in the middle of nowhere, his chest heaving, his muscles tense, and the certainty that what he had endured wasn't human. It wasn't real.
It was a trial.
Vikram lay for a few seconds, his heart pounding like a drum in his chest.
His breathing was ragged, broken by fear.
His whole body trembled, processing the impossible: he had fallen from an immense height… and was still alive.
With a slow, almost clumsy effort, he began to sit up.
His hands rested on the dry, rough earth that scraped his skin.
Dust still hung in the air, clinging to his sweat.
He checked himself desperately, feeling his arms, legs, torso, hoping to find a fracture, a wound, any sign that the fall had left a mark.
But there was nothing.
His body was clean.
Intact.
The fear was still there, but little by little his breathing calmed. His chest rose and fell with less force, though each breath was still heavy, heavy with tension.
Vikram was aware that this didn't belong to the real world.
Everything he saw was strange, artificial, like a stage set up for him.
And yet, his mind and body reacted as if it were real.
The trembling didn't stop.
He remained still for a few more seconds, exhausted by what he had endured.
Sweat trickled down his forehead, mixed with dust, and his lips were pressed into a hard line.
Although he tried to calm himself, he remained alert, expecting the surroundings to change at any moment.
"This feels like some of the things I used to dream about… a fall into darkness."
The thought pierced him like a knife. It seemed familiar, too familiar.
And that familiarity sent shivers down his spine.
He looked up.
Above, the darkness was infinite, like a ceiling without stars.
To the sides, the same: an endless void, without a horizon, without any signs of life.
Only the dry earth beneath his feet, stretching in every direction, barren, dead, as if the world had been stripped of everything but him.
He sighed, weary.
The air was harsh, as if it too were contaminated by the dryness of the ground.
He didn't want to stay there, motionless, waiting for death… or something worse than a nightmare.
He forced himself to walk.
Not because he expected to find anything, but because staying still was more unbearable than moving toward nothingness.
Each step raised a bit of dust, which quickly dissolved into the darkness.
The sound of his footsteps was the only thing that broke the silence, a brief echo that faded all too soon.
His face was contorted, his eyes wide open, searching for any sign in the void.
His lips barely moved, as if he wanted to speak, but couldn't find the words.
His body remained tense, his muscles rigid, as if still waiting for a blow that never came.
And so, Vikram walked through nothingness, his breathing heavy, his heart still racing, and the certainty that this place was no ordinary dream.
It was a trial disguised as emptiness.
A stage designed to break him from within.
—💤—;
Vikram kept walking without stopping.
His body showed no weariness, no thirst, no signs of the expected exhaustion from so many minutes of walking.
It was as if the darkness itself kept him moving, preventing him from feeling fatigue.
Suddenly, something broke the monotony. A bush appeared before him, emerging from nowhere on the dry earth.
The sight disconcerted him, but also gave him a strange relief: he was no longer completely alone in that emptiness.
He quickened his pace until he was standing in front of the plant.
He bent down, raised his hand, and brushed his fingers against the leaves.
The contact was real, tangible, with the rough, damp texture of life.
A slight, nervous smile appeared on his face.
He didn't understand what was happening, but for a moment he felt less alone.
He swallowed, uneasy, and kept walking.
The silence enveloped him, heavy, as if every step were watched by invisible eyes.
The Executioner still hadn't appeared, but the feeling of being watched remained, latent.
Minutes later, he stopped.
In the distance, something was beginning to materialize.
Small houses, first transparent, like ghosts, then solid, intact, rising from the dry earth.
The sky was still absolute darkness, but the ground was beginning to fill with familiar shapes.
The scene slowly expanded. The houses multiplied, lined up like in a poor neighborhood.
Trees sprouted from nowhere, with twisted branches and green leaves that seemed too alive for the lifeless surroundings.
Bushes grew in the corners, and old cars parked along the sidewalks, some rusted, others with peeling paint.
Yellow streetlights flickered on, though there was no electricity in sight.
A dog barked in the distance, and the echo faded into the darkness.
The air changed: no longer dry, it smelled of damp earth, wood smoke, and home-cooked food.
It was a town.
A small, humble Venezuelan town, full of details that Vikram knew all too well.
The walls were painted in faded colors.
The windows had rusty bars.
Bicycles were leaned against the walls.
A ball forgotten in the middle of the street.
The distant sound of children laughing, even though no one was there.
Vikram stood still, his chest heaving.
His heart pounded, not from fear, but from recognition.
This place wasn't a figment of his imagination.
It was a memory.
His memory.
His face tightened, his lips trembled slightly.
"This… this is my town…" he thought, a shiver running down his spine.
Nostalgia struck him, mingled with unease.
Because he knew he wasn't dreaming alone.
The Executioner was there, in his mind, probing his innermost depths, bringing to the surface what he never thought he'd see again.
The ball lay there, forgotten in the middle of the dusty village street.
At first it seemed inert, but soon it began to move, rolling from side to side, as if pushed by an invisible breeze.
Vikram watched it intently, frowning.
That detail broke the silence, compelling him to approach.
His footsteps echoed on the dry earth as he drew near.
The ball continued to move, with increasing force, until suddenly it stopped.
And then, the shadows revealed themselves.
Figures appeared around the ball.
Dark, with blurred outlines, eyes glowing like embers in the night.
They moved energetically, running, kicking, laughing. Voices filled the air, echoes of youth, laughter that seemed to come from another time.
The ball rolled between them, kicked by invisible feet, as if the game had never ended.
Vikram tensed.
He didn't recognize those silhouettes, not with that spectral form.
But the voices… the voices were different.
Familiar.
Close.
They were the voices of his adolescence.
The air vibrated with a clearer tone.
One voice rose above the others, strong, with a Venezuelan accent, with the spark of someone who wanted to be seen.
Vikram froze.
That voice was his. Not the one we have now, serious and marked by experience, but the one of a boy who still dreamed of fame and recognition.
The dust settled, and there he was:
Adolescent Vikram.
A young body, strong for his age, with the same defiant gaze, the same character that had never left him.
He was playing with his friends, running after the ball, laughing, pushing, raising his arms as if the whole world were watching him.
It was him, but younger, purer, more ambitious.
The adult Vikram stood apart, observing.
His chest rose and fell forcefully, not from exhaustion, but from the emotional impact.
His lips parted slightly, as if he wanted to speak, but no words came out.
Sweat trickled down his forehead, mixed with dust, while his eyes widened.
"That... is me."
The thought struck him violently.
It was a memory he had forgotten, buried under years of distance and ambition.
And now it was there, alive, playing right in front of him.
His friends kept running, kicking the ball, laughing with familiar accents, with jokes that echoed like childhood memories.
But none of them saw him.
To them, the adult Vikram didn't exist.
He was an invisible spectator, trapped in his own past.
Nostalgia pierced him like a knife.
The pride of seeing himself young, strong, full of dreams.
The pain of knowing that time would never return.
And the unease of understanding that it wasn't him who had chosen to remember.
It was the Executioner, digging into his mind, exposing what he never wanted to show.
Vikram took a step forward, trying to get closer to the vision of his adolescence.
But as soon as he did, the scene shattered like smoke dissipating in the wind.
The laughter, the ball, the friends… everything vanished.
Suddenly, he was no longer outside.
Now he was inside a house.
A small, humble room, lit by a yellow light hanging from the ceiling.
The echo of a clock filled the silence: tak… tak… tak…
Each tick of the second hand was a reminder that time kept moving forward, even though everything there seemed to stand still.
The large sofa, worn by the years, occupied a corner.
A small wooden table stood in front of him, marked with the stains of glasses and plates that had left permanent imprints.
And in the corner, an old television, one of those heavy, boxy ones, with a curved screen and hard buttons that almost no one remembered anymore.
Vikram approached the set, leaned in slightly, and looked at it with bewilderment.
It had been so long since he'd seen a model like that.
Nostalgia struck him, but along with it came a feeling of irritation, as if the very atmosphere were rejecting him.
The air was heavy, oppressive, as if the room were breathing with him.
Then, the voices appeared.
First a murmur, then clearer.
A soft, feminine voice, punctuated by nervous laughter.
And a deep, resonant voice, with a harsh, commanding tone.
They were kissing, touching each other; their silhouettes appeared in the middle of the room.
Dark shadows, with glowing eyes, like the spectral figures that had accompanied him before.
Vikram tensed.
His heart pounded in his chest, his breathing became heavy.
He didn't understand why he was seeing this, or why these figures seemed so real.
Suddenly, another presence emerged.
Adolescent Vikram appeared before the shadows, his eyebrows lowered, his face hardened.
His posture was firm, annoyed, as if he were facing something he shouldn't see.
The older figure's deep voice echoed in the room, harsh, with an authoritarian tone:
"Get out of here, can't you see I'm in the middle of a conversation with a young lady?"
The teenager pressed his lips together, his voice deep and heavy with suppressed rage:
Vikram (💤): And what about Mom? Don't you see she could come back any minute and find you with another woman?
Silence filled the room for a few seconds.
The clock continued ticking… tick… tick…
The larger figure stood still, then spoke in a more calculating, almost mocking tone:
If you don't say anything, I promise to give you any amount of money you want.
If you like, I can even introduce you to some friends.
The dark figure winked, a grotesque gesture on its unrecognizable face.
The teenage Vikram remained motionless, hesitating.
His breathing quickened, his eyes darted from side to side, as if caught between rage and temptation.
The silence hung heavy over him, and the clock continued its relentless ticking.
The adult Vikram, standing apart, observed everything.
His chest rose and fell sharply, his lips parted, unable to utter a word.
Sweat trickled down his forehead, and his eyes widened in disbelief.
The older figure's deep voice had struck him like thunder.
Because that voice was not unfamiliar.
It was his father's voice.
Hidden behind an unrecognizable, yet unmistakable, shadow.
The impact left him breathless.
The memory he had forgotten, buried, was now before him, alive, exposed, manipulated by sleep.
And the worst part was that he couldn't intervene. The teenager didn't see him.
The shadows didn't recognize him.
He was just an invisible spectator, condemned to witness what he never wanted to remember.
The silence in the room weighed like a ton of bricks.
The clock continued its relentless ticking: tak… tak… tak…
The shadows remained there, the female figure with her legs crossed, observing with a cold smile, while the male figure imposed his presence with a deep, harsh voice.
The teenager, his eyebrows lowered and his face hardened, hesitated.
Rage boiled in his chest, but temptation seeped in like poison. The shadow father looked at him with that crooked, calculating smile and spoke in a tone that mixed authority and complicity:
"If you keep quiet about what I'm doing, you can have all the girls you want, Vikram."
The wink was grotesque, a gesture that seemed to mock his son's innocence.
The teenager pressed his lips together, irritated, his breathing heavy.
The silence dragged on, and the clock continued to tick each second like a blow to his mind.
Finally, he lowered his gaze.
Doubt had overcome him.
The shadow father leaned forward, touched his chin firmly, and lifted it, forcing him to look into his bright eyes.
"It will be our little secret."
Around them, female silhouettes appeared, surrounding him.
Their laughter was soft, their movements suggestive, shadows approaching with seductive gestures.
The teenager smiled, barely, a gesture that revealed acceptance.
Rage transformed into complicity.
The handshake sealed the pact.
A brief but definitive gesture.
The teenager had agreed to remain silent.
The adult Vikram, standing apart, observed everything with heaving chests. His eyes wide, his jaw clenched, his lips trembling.
Sweat trickled down his forehead, and his breathing was a stifled gasp.
Rage consumed him because he didn't remember agreeing.
He didn't want to accept that this scene was real.
But it was.
The memory was there, vivid, undeniable.
"Did I... accept? No... it can't be..."
The thought struck him violently, like an echo he couldn't silence.
The truth disarmed him, irritated him, made him feel betrayed by himself.
The shadow father smiled, satisfied, while the female figure continued to observe, legs crossed, a silent witness to the pact.
The adolescent was surrounded by temptations, and the adult was trapped in the helplessness of watching his past condemn him.
The previous memory shattered like a broken mirror.
The air tore, and the adult Vikram's body fell back into darkness.
The void enveloped him, the invisible wind whipped against his skin, and he closed his eyes tightly, waiting for the impact once more.
When he opened them, he was no longer falling.
He was in a room.
His mother's room.
The place had a warm feel, illuminated by a yellow lamp on the ceiling.
The walls were simple, showing signs of age, but the atmosphere was permeated with a soft scent of makeup and smoke.
His mother sat on the bed, legs crossed, applying makeup in front of a small mirror.
Although she was 43, her face looked like that of a 27-year-old: delicate, serene, with a beauty that defied age.
Every movement of her hands was slow, elegant, as if time hadn't touched her.
In front of her, teenage Vikram smoked a cigarette.
The smoke filled the room with a light, diffuse haze that mingled with the scent of makeup.
His posture was relaxed, but his eyes held a serious gleam, heavy with something he was about to say.
The adult Vikram, standing apart, raised an eyebrow.
His heart pounded in his chest, because it had been so long since he'd seen his mother.
The memory was blurry, forgotten, and now she was there, alive, in front of him.
For a moment, his heart softened.
The teenager spoke in a calm, almost cold tone:
Vikram (💤): Dad is seeing other women.
The mother paused for a second, surprised by the calmness with which her son said it.
Then she smiled gently and reapplied her makeup, as if it were nothing new.
"I already knew… even before I married him."
The teenager opened his eyes in disbelief, leaned toward her, his voice heavy with reproach:
Vikram (💤): And doesn't it worry you? Doesn't it bother you what he does?
She made a slight gesture, a shrug, as if dismissing a trivial problem.
—As long as he supports me, I don't care.
The teenager angrily stubbed out his cigarette, tossed it aside, and sat down next to her.
His voice grew deeper, more intense:
Vikram (💤): You have to do something. You can't stay with that man who's seeing other women.
The mother looked at him calmly, her tone soft, almost maternal, but laden with an uncomfortable truth:
—There's no need to make an effort. I just have to play the same game he's playing.
Silence filled the room.
The teenager frowned, his breathing heavy, his lips pressed tightly together.
The idea irritated him, confused him.
The adult Vikram, watching, felt a chill run down his spine.
His heart sank, because that response was more devastating than any blow.
The mother finished her makeup, put her things away in a drawer, and stood up.
Her dress fell gracefully, and she walked toward the door.
The teenager stopped her, taking her arm, his voice heavy with desperation:
Vikram (💤): Where are you going?
She looked at him calmly, with a smile that masked irony.
"You mustn't say anything… just like you keep your father's secrets."
The teenager let go of her hand, stunned.
His face contorted, his eyes wide, unable to comprehend how she knew he had agreed to remain silent.
The mother took a few more steps, stopped in the doorway, and looked over her shoulder.
Her voice was soft, calm, but with a sharp edge like a knife:
"I'm going to sleep with some man."
And she left.
The teenager was left alone in the room.
Smoke still hung in the air, mingled with his mother's perfume.
He sat in silence, his gaze lost, thinking about what he had just heard.
Her words echoed in his mind, heavy, impossible to erase.
The adult Vikram, standing apart, watched with heaving chest, trembling lips, and a pounding heart.
The memory had disarmed him.
It wasn't just any dream.
It was a trial.
A punishment disguised as a memory.
And so, the scene slowly faded, leaving Vikram trapped by the weight of his past.
___________________________________
.░▒▓█ Episode Completed █▓▒░.
Reader, at least we now know why Vikram keeps his distance from his family.
Those who understand, understand!
We'll talk again soon, as soon as I have something in mind—an inspiration, an idea, or something else to create another chapter.
Would you give me your vote? It's the motivation I need to publish the next chapters of Vikram and the Executioners.
Thanks for continuing to read!
💤[-☘️-];